the range had gone out; the candle-flame, flaring above a
saucer of melted wax, sank lower and lower.

Suddenly, as though disturbed by something inside, the moths all left
the window-pane, darting off in the darkness.

"That's curious," I said.

"What's curious?" she asked, opening her eyes languidly. "Good
gracious! Was that a bat that beat on the window?"

"I saw nothing," I said, disturbed. "Listen!"

A soft sound against the glass, as though invisible fingers were
feeling the pane--a gentle rubbing--then a tap-tap, all but inaudible.

"Is it a bird? Can you see?" she whispered.

The candle-flame behind us flashed and expired. Moonlight flooded the
pane. The sounds continued, but there was nothing there.

We understood now what it was that so gently rubbed and patted the
glass outside. With one accord we noiselessly gathered up the pies and
carried them into my room.

Then she walked to the door of her room, turned, held out her hand,
and whispering, "Good-night! A demain, monsieur!" slipped into her
room and softly closed the door.

And all night long I lay in troubled slumber beside the pies, a rifle
resting on the blankets beside me, a revolver under my pillow. And I
dreamed of moths with brilliant eyes and vast silvery wings harnessed
to a balloon in which Miss Barrison and I sat, arms around each other,
eating slice after slice of apple-pie.

XVII

Dawn came--the dawn of a day that I am destined never to forget. Long,
rosy streamers of light broke through the forest, shaking, quivering,
like unstable beams from celestial search-lights. Mist floated upward
from marsh and lake; and through it the spectral palms loomed,
drooping fronds embroidered with dew.

For a while the ringing outburst of bird music dominated all; but it
soon ceased with dropping notes from the crimson cardinals repeated in
lengthening minor intervals; and then the spell of silence returned,
broken only by the faint splash of mullet, mocking the sun with
sinuous, silver flashes.

"Good-morning," said a low voice from the door as I stood encouraging
the camp-fire with splinter wood and dead palmetto fans.

Fresh and sweet from her toilet as a dew-drenched rose, Miss Barrison
stood there sniffing the morning air daintily, thoroughly.

"Too much perfume," she said--"too much like ylang-ylang in a
department-store. Central Park smells sweeter on an April morning."

"Are you criticising the wild jasmine?" I asked.

"