ether."

Semitzin turned towards him, and her eyes were blazing.

"She shall not have you!" she cried. "I have won you--I have saved
you--you are mine! What is Miriam? Can she be to you what I could
be?--You shall never have him!" she continued, seeming to address some
presence invisible to all eyes but hers. "If I must go, you shall go
with me!" She fumbled in her belt, caught the handle of a knife there,
and drew it. She lifted it against her heart; but even then there was an
uncertainty in her movement, as if her mind were divided against itself,
or had failed fully to retain the thread of its purpose. But Freeman,
who had passed rapidly from one degree of bewilderment to another, was
actually relieved to see, at last, something that he could understand.
Miriam--for some reason best known to herself--was about to do herself
a mischief. He leaped forward, caught her in his arms, and snatched the
knife from her grasp.

For a few moments she struggled like a young tiger. And it was
marvellous and appalling to hear two voices come from her, in
alternation, or confusedly mingled. One said, "Let me kill her! I will
not go! Keep back, you pale-faced girl!" and then a lower, troubled
voice, "Do not let her come! Her face is terrible! What are those
strange creatures with her? Harvey, where are you?"

At last, with a fierce cry, that died away in a shuddering sigh, the
form of flesh and blood, so mysteriously possessed, ceased to struggle,
and sank back in Freeman's arms. His own strength was well-nigh at an
end. He laid her on the ground, and, sitting beside her, drew her head
on his knee. He had been in the land of spirits, contending with unknown
powers, and he was faint in mind and body.

Yet he was conscious of the approaching tread of horses' feet, and
recollected the hail that had come from the desert. Soon loomed up
the shadowy figures of mounted men, and they came so near that he was
constrained to call out, "Mind where you're going! You'll be over us!"

"Who are you?" said a voice, which sounded like that of General
Trednoke, as they reined up.

"There's Kamaiakan, who's dead; and Miriam Trednoke, who has been out of
her mind, but she's got over it now, I guess; and I,--Harvey Freeman."

"My daughter!" exclaimed General Trednoke.

"My boy!" cried Professor Meschines. "Well, thank God we've found you,
and that some of you are alive, at any rate!"

CHAPTER VIII.

As it was still some hours before dawn