On he toiled in mad haste, struggling toward the road
and losing it until finally beneath the shadows of a mighty oak he sank
exhausted. There he lay a while trembling and at last drifted into
dreamless sleep.
It was morning when he awoke and threw a startled glance upward to the
twisted branches of the oak that bent above, sifting down sunshine on
his brown face and close curled hair. Slowly he remembered the
loneliness, the fear and wild running through the dark. He laughed in
the bold courage of day and stretched himself.
Then suddenly he bethought him again of that vision of the night--the
waving arms and flying limbs of the girl, and her great black eyes
looking into the night and calling him. He could hear her now, and hear
that wondrous savage music. Had it been real? Had he dreamed? Or had it
been some witch-vision of the night, come to tempt and lure him to his
undoing? Where was that black and flaming cabin? Where was the girl--the
soul that had called him? _She_ must have been real; she had to live and
dance and sing; he must again look into the mystery of her great eyes.
And he sat up in sudden determination, and, lo! gazed straight into the
very eyes of his dreaming.
She sat not four feet from him, leaning against the great tree, her
eyes now languorously abstracted, now alert and quizzical with mischief.
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