branch was straight, not one was free,
but all were interlaced and grew one about another; and just above
ground, where the cankered stems joined the protuberant roots, there were
forms that imitated the human shape, and faces and twining limbs that
amazed him. Green mosses were hair, and tresses were stark in grey
lichen; a twisted root swelled into a limb; in the hollows of the rotted
bark he saw the masks of men. His eyes were fixed and fascinated by the
simulacra of the wood, and could not see his hands, and so at last, and
suddenly, it seemed, he lay in the sunlight, beautiful with his olive
skin, dark haired, dark eyed, the gleaming bodily vision of a strayed
faun.

Quick flames now quivered in the substance of his nerves, hints of
mysteries, secrets of life passed trembling through his brain, unknown
desires stung him. As he gazed across the turf and into the thicket, the
sunshine seemed really to become green, and the contrast between the
bright glow poured on the lawn and the black shadow of the brake made an
odd flickering light, in which all the grotesque postures of stem and
root began to stir; the wood was alive. The turf beneath him heaved and
sank as with the deep swell of the sea. He fell asleep, and lay still on
the grass, in the midst of the thicket.

He found out afterwards that he must have slept for nearly an hour. The
shadows had changed when he awoke; his senses came to him with a sudden
shock, and he sat up and stared at his bare limbs in stupid amazement. He
huddled on his clothes and laced his boots, wondering what folly had
beset him. Then, while he stood indecisive, hesitating, his brain a whirl
of puzzled thought, his body trembling, his hands shaking; as with
electric heat, sudden remembrance possessed him. A flaming blush shone
red on his cheeks, and glowed and thrilled through his limbs. As he
awoke, a brief and slight breeze had stirred in a nook of the matted
boughs, and there was a glinting that might have been the flash of sudden
sunlight across shadow, and the branches rustled and murmured for a
moment, perhaps at the wind's passage.

He stretched out his hands, and cried to his visitant to return; he
entreated the dark eyes that had shone over him, and the scarlet lips
that had kissed him. And then panic fear rushed into his heart, and he
ran blindly, dashing through the wood. He climbed the _vallum_, and
looked out, crouching, lest anybody should see him. Only the shadows were