"Thank goodness," Rhodes said, "we'll soon have it again!"
And we soon did—the strong, mystic, and yet strangely misty, light pervading the mysterious and dreadful wood, the flickerings and flashes overhead soon opalescent and beautiful as ever.
We at once (Narkus and Thumbra having drawn their arrows from the body of the cat) left that spot, to make our way deeper and deeper into that weird forest, which harbored enemies so terrible and so treacherous.
"Why," I queried, "didn't we camp up there on the rocks, where it would have been impossible (save in darkness) for anything to approach us unseen? We had made a day's good journey; and here we have gone and left a place of safety to camp somewhere in this horrible wood."
"What," returned Rhodes, "would that have been but postponing the inevitable? For into these trees we should have had to go, sooner or later, and the thing would have been watching for us just the same. As you say, we had made a good journey for the day; well, aren't we making it better?"
"It isn't ended yet."
"This place, after all, Bill, may not be so bad as it seems."
"Well, there is one consolation," I remarked: "there is no danger of our starving to death in this lovely Dante's Inferno. Look at all the fruit and nuts and things."
"Yes. From that point of view, the place is a veritable Garden of the Hesperides."
At length we reached the stream,
considerably larger than I had
expected to find it. At this point
where we struck it, the water was
deep, the current a gentle one. The
rich forest growth hung out over the
surface for some distance. There
was a soft rustling of leaves, for some
of the branches dipped into the water
and were swaying to and fro. This
and the faint, melancholy whisper of
the gliding element were all that
broke the heavy deathlike stillness.
It was a placid, lovely scene.
The attainment of this their objective seemed to give our Dromans much pleasure; but, save for the fact that there was now no danger of our perishing of thirst, I could not see that we were any better off than we had been.
I thought that this would be the end of our march, now a long one indeed. But the Dromans merely paused, then started down the stream; and, of course, along with them went Rhodes and myself. At times we had literally to force our way through the dense and tangled undergrowth; then we would be moving through lovely aisles—
"And many a walk traversed
Of stateliest covert, cedar, pine, or palm."
We pushed on for perhaps two miles, never moving far from the stream, and then made camp in a beautiful open spot, over which, however, the great branches formed an unbroken canopy of leaves.
A guard was arranged for the night. Rhodes had the first watch.
It was during my vigil that it came—a sudden, fierce, frightful scream, which awoke every member of our little party. It came from somewhere down the river and was replete with terror and agony, a sound that made the very air quiver and throb. It seemed human, and yet I told myself that it simply could not be. And then it ceased, as suddenly as it had come, and all was still again, save for the gentle, sad whispering of the water.
"What," I exclaimed, my voice, however, low and guarded, "was it?
