could go by myself," she said.

"You know how to paddle, then?" Winthrop asked, shortly.

"No, that's it, I don't; at least I cannot paddle well. I should only
delay everything, it would be ridiculous." She seated herself, and a
moment later Rose appeared with the wraps and a great armful of torches.

Both of the old women were quivering with wild excitement; agitated by
gratitude at being spared the ordeal of the haunted swamp by night, they
were equally agitated by the thought of what their mistress would have
to encounter there; they shuffled their great shoes against each other,
they mumbled fragments of words; they seemed to have lost all control of
their mouths, for they grinned constantly, though their breath came
almost in sobs. As Winthrop pushed off, suddenly they broke out into a
loud hymn:

"Didn't my Lawd delibber Dan-yell, Dan-yell?
Didn't my Lawd delibber _Dan_-yell?"

For a long distance up the stream this protective invocation echoed
after the voyagers, and the two grotesque figures holding the lamps
remained brightly visible on the low shore.

"Turn in now, and coast along close to the land," said Margaret; "it's
so dark that even with that I am almost afraid I shall miss the mouth."

But she did not miss it. In ten minutes she said, "Here it is;" and she
directed him how to enter.

"I should never have found it myself; it's so narrow," Winthrop
commented, as he guided the canoe towards an almost imperceptible
opening in the near looming forest.

"That was what I couldn't guard you against."

But the mouth was the narrowest part; inside the stream widened out, and
was broad and deep. Winthrop sent the boat forward with strong strokes,
the pine torch which Margaret had fastened at the bow cast a short ray
in advance.

"I think we shall escape the storm," she said.

"It's holding off wonderfully. But don't be too sure."

They did not speak often. Winthrop was attending to the boat's course,
Margaret had turned and was sitting so that she could scan the water and
direct him a little. Her nervousness had disappeared; either she had
been able to repress it, or it had faded in the presence of the
responsibility she had assumed in undertaking to act as guide through
that strange water-land of the Monnlungs, whose winding channels she had
heretofore seen only in the light of day. Even in the light of day they
were mysterious; the enormous trees, thickly foliaged at the top, kept
the su