Yet he grew more and more restless. The devil danced in his veins and
burned in his forehead. His hands shook. He heard a rustle of departing
feet beneath his window, then a pause and a faint halloo.
"All right," he called, and in a moment went downstairs and out into
the night. As he closed the front door there seemed to come faintly up
from the swamp a low ululation, like the prolonged cry of some wild
bird, or the wail of one's mourning for his dead.
Within the cabin, Elspeth heard. Tremblingly, she swayed to her feet, a
haggard, awful sight. She motioned Zora away, and stretching her hands
palms upward to the sky, cried with dry and fear-struck gasp:
"I'se called! I'se called!"
On the bed the child smiled in its dreaming; the red flame of the
firelight set the gold to dancing in her hair. Zora shrank back into the
shadows and listened. Then it came. She heard the heavy footsteps
crashing through the underbrush--coming, coming, as from the end of the
world. She shrank still farther back, and a shadow swept the door.
He was a mighty man, black and white-haired, and his eyes were the eyes
of death. He bent to enter the door, and then uplifting himself and
stretching his great arms, his palms touched the blackened rafters.
Zora started forward. Thick memories of some forgotten past came piling
in upon her.
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