ng. I discovered then,
among other things, that these little people gathered into the great
houses after dark, and slept in droves. To enter upon them without a
light was to put them into a tumult of apprehension. I never found
one out of doors, or one sleeping alone within doors, after dark.
Yet I was still such a blockhead that I missed the lesson of that
fear, and in spite of Weena's distress I insisted upon sleeping away
from these slumbering multitudes.

'It troubled her greatly, but in the end her odd affection for me
triumphed, and for five of the nights of our acquaintance, including
the last night of all, she slept with her head pillowed on my arm.
But my story slips away from me as I speak of her. It must have been
the night before her rescue that I was awakened about dawn. I had
been restless, dreaming most disagreeably that I was drowned, and
that sea anemones were feeling over my face with their soft palps.
I woke with a start, and with an odd fancy that some greyish animal
had just rushed out of the chamber. I tried to get to sleep again,
but I felt restless and uncomfortable. It was that dim grey hour
when things are just creeping out of darkness, when everything is
colourless and clear cut, and yet unreal. I got up, and went down
into the great hall, and so out upon the flagstones in front of the
palace. I thought I would make a virtue of necessity, and see the
sunrise.

'The moon was setting, and the dying moonlight and the first pallor
of dawn were mingled in a ghastly half-light. The bushes were inky
black, the ground a sombre grey, the sky colourless and cheerless.
And up the hill I thought I could see ghosts. There several times,
as I scanned the slope, I saw white figures. Twice I fancied I saw
a solitary white, ape-like creature running rather quickly up the
hill, and once near the ruins I saw a leash of them carrying some
dark body. They moved hastily. I did not see what became of them.
It seemed that they vanished among the bushes. The dawn was still
indistinct, you must understand. I was feeling that chill,
uncertain, early-morning feeling you may have known. I doubted
my eyes.

'As the eastern sky grew brighter, and the light of the day came on
and its vivid colouring returned upon the world once more, I scanned
the view keenly. But I saw no vestige of my white figures. They were
mere creatures of the half light. "They must have been ghosts," I
said; "I wonder whence they dated." For a qu