Audrey

The slave shook his head. "Juba forgot to look. He was away by a river

that he knew."

"We have passed from out the pines," said Haward. "These are oaks. But

what is that water, and how far we are out of our reckoning the Lord only

knows!"

As he spoke he pushed his horse through the tall reeds to the bank of the

stream. Here in the open, away from the shadow of the trees, the full moon

had changed the night-time into a wonderful, silver day. Narrow above and

belows the stream widened before him into a fairy basin, rimmed with

reeds, unruffled, crystal-clear, stiller than a dream. The trees that grew

upon the farther side were faint gray clouds in the moonlight, and the

gold of the fireflies was very pale. From over the water, out of the heart

of the moonlit wood, came the song of a mockingbird, a tumultuous ecstasy,

possessing the air and making elfin the night.

Haward backed his horse from the reeds to the oak beneath which waited the

negro. "'Tis plain that we have lost our way, Juba," he said, with a

laugh. "If you were an Indian, we should turn and straightway retrace our

steps to the blazed trees. Being what you are, you are more valuable in

the tobacco fields than in the forest. Perhaps this is the stream which

flows by the cabin in the valley. We'll follow it down, and so arrive, at

least, at a conclusion."

They dismounted, and, leading their horses, followed the stream for some

distance, to arrive at the conclusion that it was not the one beside which

they had dined that day. When they were certain of this, they turned and

made their way back to the line of reeds which they had broken to mark

their starting-point. By now the moon was high, and the mockingbird in the

wood across the water was singing madly. Turning from the still, moonlit

sheet, the silent reeds, the clear mimicker in the slumbrous wood, the two

wayfarers plunged into the darkness beneath the spreading branches of the

oak-trees. They could not have ridden far from the pines; in a very little

while they might reach and recognize the path which they should tread.

An hour later, the great trees, oak and chestnut, beech and poplar,

suddenly gave way to saplings, many, close-set, and overrun with

grapevines. So dense was the growth, so unyielding the curtain of vines,

that men and horses were brought to a halt as before a fortress wall.

Again they turned, and, skirting that stubborn network, came upon a swamp,

where leafless trees, white as leprosy, stood up like ghosts from the

water that gleamed between the lily-pads. Leaving the swamp they climbed a

hill, and at the summit found only the moon and the stars and a long

plateau of sighing grass. Behind them were the great mountains; before

them, lesser heights, wooded hills, narrow valleys, each like its fellow,

each indistinct and shadowy, with no sign of human tenant.