mockery. Then I looked upon them with great eyes of wonder, and then again began to dance and sing:
"A blackbird is my brother,
I see him in that tree,
A skylark is my lover,
But I prefer a bee."
While I was in the middle of this arrant nonsense, my good friend Flickers, who was paler than a ghost, hung on to his pistol with tenacity, for that piece of iron held all the little courage that he had. I could see the perspiration shining on his face, as he muttered in a voice that trembled like the ague:
"What you are I don't know. But if you're woman or if you're fiend, come a step nearer and I'll—I'll shoot you!"
He pointed the pistol, but the muzzle tottered so that he could not have hit a tree.
"Ha! ha! ha!" I laughed in my throat in a voice that was sepulchral, then danced before them once again and began to sing:
"Water cannot quench me,
And fire cannot burn;
Pray, how will you slay me?
That have I yet to learn."
The effect of this was to cause the pistol to drop on to the grass from his nerveless hand.
"Go—go 'way!" he stuttered; "go 'way, you—you witch!"
