leaves and branches looked like painted scrolls upon its surface. In the thicket shapes were moving. They were only the tossing shadows from his fire, he knew, but they interested him and he watched them for a long time. It pleased him to think of them as the shadows of lost travelers. He could hear them whispering softly, too, in the intervals between the other sounds, and in the distance, farther even than the call of the whippoorwill, he could hear them singing:

À la claire fontaine

M’en allant promener

J’ai trouvé l’eau si belle

Que je m’y suis baigné

Il y a longtemps que le t’aime

Jamais je ne t’oublierai.

The sound of the rapids, too, or was it only the tinkle of the stream?

He raised his head and peered around him to right and left. As he did so a voice joined the lesser voices, its[27] suddenness breaking the stillness like the impact of a blow.

[27]

“Aren’t you asleep?” She lay as he had seen her before, with her cheek pillowed upon her hand, but the firelight danced in her wide-open eyes.

“No,” he said, straightening slowly. “I don’t seem to be sleepy.”

“Neither am I. Did you hear them—the voices?”

“Yes,” in surprise. “Did you? You’re not frightened at all, are you?”

“Not at the voices. Other things seem to bother me much more. The little sounds close at hand, I can understand, too. There was a four-legged thing out there where you threw the fish offal a while ago. But you didn’t see him——”

“I heard him—but he won’t bother us.”

“No. I’m not frightened—not at that.”

“At what, then?”

“I don’t—I don’t think I really know.”

 Prev. P 21/298 next