m two
dissonant throats. He stood under a tall pine, listening, but no other
sound came. After a while he sat at the foot of the tree. Crickets
chirped and a bat circled through the night. The scent of the pine from
its day-long baking was sharp in his nostrils. His back tired against
the tree, and he eased himself to the cooled grass, face down, his hands
crossed under his chin. He could look up now and see the stile against
stars.

He waited. He had expected to wait. The little night sounds that
composed the night's silence, his own stillness, his intent watching,
put him back to nights when silence was ominous. Once he found he had
stopped breathing to listen to the breathing of the men on each side of
him. He was waiting for the word, and felt for a rifle. He had to rise
to shake off this oppression. On his feet he laughed softly, being again
in Newbern on a fool's mission. He lay down hands under his chin, but
again the silent watching beset him with the old oppression. He must be
still and strain his eyes ahead. Presently the word would come, or he
would feel the touch of a groping foe. He half dozed at last from the
memory of that other endless fatigue. He came to himself with a start
and raised his head to scan the stile. The darkness had thickened but
the two posts at the ends of the fence were still outlined. He watched
and waited.

After a long time the east began to lighten; a deepening glow rimmed
West Hill, picking out in silver the trees along its edge. If she meant
to come she must come soon, he thought, but the rising moon distinctly
showed the bare stile. She had written a long time ago. She was
notoriously a rattlepate. Of course she would have forgotten. Then for
a moment his straining eyes were puzzled. His gaze had not shifted even
for an instant, yet the post at the left of the stile had unaccountably
thickened. He considered it a trick of the advancing moonshine, and
looked more intently. It was motionless, like the other post, yet it had
thickened. Then he saw it was taller, but still it did not move. It
could be no one. Mildly curious, he crept forward to make the post seem
right in this confusing new glamour. But it broadened as he neared it,
and still was taller than its neighbour, its lines not so sharp.

He rose to his feet, with a dry laugh at his own credulity, taking some
slow steps forward, expecting each stride to resolve the post to its
true dimensions. He was within a dozen feet o