light awe at the near possibility of a
discovery. For I retreated to the door, unlocked it, and stood
irresolute; then returned again to the window, without strength to
come to a decision.

But while I pondered, a low, chuckling noise startled me, and Rachel
stood by my side, erect and with features full of energy, her dull
eyes blazing, and her short straight hair tossed about; in her hand
she brandished with exultation a carved rod hung with bright claws and
shells, with lappets of fur and hair; and at her and it I gazed with
speechless amazement. Had she too gone mad? She took a few steps, as
if in a rude dance, and shook the stick, and while her eyes glared
into mine she nodded her head to the time.

"Bad spirit!" she muttered. "I have known, I have heard. But this is
strong Wabeno."

As she shook the talisman, which clinked and rattled like the toy of a
devil, I snatched the medicine stick from her hand and motioned her to
the door. Thither she retreated, muttering words of an unknown tongue,
and when it closed upon her I flung the stick angrily on the floor.
But hope had come, and decision as well, although from a despised
quarter; I was resolved to finish the undertaking at all hazards.

The wild flames of the distant storm still lighted everything at
intervals with an intensity now greater and now less. When the sheet
lightning flashed strong, the square cage formed by the wire outside
the window-seat and the fish-net within stood out clear against the
northern sky. With dilated pupils I began to examine the inclosed cube
of air. During one particularly long and vivid flash,--there, in that
corner, was there not a heap, a translucent shape, indistinguishable
in quality or form? It was enough. Swiftly as wild beasts when they
spring, I raised the net, leaped into the window, and grasped toward
the corner where I thought I saw the mass.

II.

A thrill runs through the nerves of an entomologist when he puts his
hand on a specimen unknown, undescribed. The hunter trembles when he
espies in the thicket the royal hart whose existence has been called a
fable. My emotion was all of this, intensified; nearer, perhaps, to
the feeling of the elected mortal who has discovered a new continent.
For I had discovered a new world.

Had I not cause for exultation? I sat on the window-seat in the
alternate light and darkness, with one hand clenched, the other arm
curved in the air; my left held