about in the
gossiping groups of Acredale. This was not the gay, the brilliant, the
fascinating _bon viveur_ who had been the life of society from
Warchester to Bucephalo, from Pentica to New York. Ah! what were the
mystic terrors of the night, what the oppressive surroundings of this
charnel-house of Nature, to the awful spectacle of this unmanned mind,
this delirious echo of past guilt, past cowardice, past shame?

To lessen the somber gloom, Dick had lighted many torches and set them
about the high mound where the sleeper lay in a huddle. Taking little
heed of where he set them, some of them, as the wind arose, flared out
until their flames licked the decayed branches of the fallen white oak.
As the boy crouched, pensive and distraught, he was suddenly aroused by
a vivacious cracking. He looked up. Lines of fire were darting thither
and yon, where dry wood, the _debris_ of years of decay, had been caught
in the thick clumps of underbrush and among the limbs of the trees. The
fire had pushed briskly, and the uncanny glade was now an amphitheatre
of crawling flames, stretching in many-colored banners in a vast circle
about the point of refuge. Dick gazed fascinated, with no thought of
danger. His spirits rose. It was something like life--this gorgeous
decoration of fire. How beautiful it was! How it brought out the shining
lines of the white oak, the glistening green of the cypress! Why hadn't
he thought of this before? Then, as the curling waves of fire pushed
farther and farther up the steins of the trees, and farther and farther
endlessly into the undergrowth, an unearthly outcry and stir began.
Birds, blinded by the light, whirred and fluttered into the open space
above the water, falling helplessly so near Dick that he could have
caught and killed a score to surprise Jack with a game breakfast, when
he returned. Then--ugh!--horror!--great, coiling masses detached
themselves from the tufts of sward, and splashed noisily into the putrid
water, wriggling and convulsed. The invalid still slept--but, dreadful
sight! the coiling monsters, upheaving themselves from the water,
glided, dull eyed and sluggish, upon the mossy island, about the
unconscious figure.

Dick, fascinated and inert, watched the snaky mass, squirming in hideous
folds almost on the recumbent body. Then, aroused to the horror of their
nearness, he seized a torch and made at the slimy heap. The fire
conquered them. They slid off the ground, with forke