mpt to follow the
ancient tales she told, which she had imbibed in childhood from other
white-headed grandmothers long, long turned to dust. My own brain was
busy thinking, thinking, thinking now of the woman I had once loved, far
away in Venezuela, waiting and weeping and sick with hope deferred;
now of Rima, wakeful and listening to the mysterious nightsounds of the
forest--listening, listening for my returning footsteps.

Next morning I began to waver in my resolution to remain absent from
Rima for some days; and before evening my passion, which I had now
ceased to struggle against, coupled with the thought that I had acted
unkindly in leaving her, that she would be a prey to anxiety, overcame
me, and I was ready to return. The old woman, who had been suspiciously
watching my movements, rushed out after me as I left the house, crying
out that a storm was brewing, that it was too late to go far, and
night would be full of danger. I waved my hand in good-bye, laughingly
reminding her that I was proof against all perils. Little she cared what
evil might befall me, I thought; but she loved not to be alone; even for
her, low down as she was intellectually, the solitary earthen pot had
no "mind stuff" in it, and could not be sent to sleep at night with the
legends of long ago.

By the time I reached the ridge, I had discovered that she had
prophesied truly, for now an ominous change had come over nature. A dull
grey vapour had overspread the entire western half of the heavens;
down, beyond the forest, the sky looked black as ink, and behind this
blackness the sun had vanished. It was too late to go back now; I had
been too long absent from Rima, and could only hope to reach Nuflo's
lodge, wet or dry, before night closed round me in the forest.

For some moments I stood still on the ridge, struck by the somewhat
weird aspect of the shadowed scene before me--the long strip of dull
uniform green, with here and there a slender palm lifting its feathery
crown above the other trees, standing motionless, in strange relief
against the advancing blackness. Then I set out once more at a run,
taking advantage of the downward slope to get well on my way before the
tempest should burst. As I approached the wood, there came a flash of
lightning, pale, but covering the whole visible sky, followed after a
long interval by a distant roll of thunder, which lasted several seconds
and ended with a succession of deep throbs. It was as if Nat