vancing nothing, and he began
to chafe her hands.

Then suddenly he rose, and, taking the paddle, sent the canoe flying
along between the high bushes. The air was visibly thick in the red
light of the torches, a miasma of scent. A branch of small blossoms with
the perfume of heliotrope softly brushed against his cheek, he struck it
aside with unnecessary violence. Exerting all his strength, he at last
got the canoe free from the beautiful baleful place.

When Margaret opened her eyes they were outside; she was lying
peacefully on the cloak, and he was still paddling vehemently.

"I am ashamed," she said, as she raised herself. "I suppose I fainted?
Perfumes have a great effect upon me always. I know that place well, I
thought of it before we entered the swamp; I thought it would make me
dizzy, but I had no idea that it would make me faint away. It has never
done so before, the scents must be stronger at night."

She still seemed weak; she put her hand to her head. Then a thought came
to her, she sat up and looked about, scanning the trees anxiously. "I
hope you haven't gone wrong? How far are we from the narrow place--the
place where I fainted?"

"I don't know how far. But we haven't been out of it more than five or
six minutes, and this is certainly the channel."

"Nothing is 'certainly' in the Monnlungs! And five minutes is quite
enough time to get lost in. I don't recognize anything here--we ought to
be in sight of a tree that has a profile, like a face."

"Perhaps you wouldn't know it at night."

"It's unmistakable. No, I am sure we are wrong. Please go back--go back
at once to the narrow place."

"Where is 'back?'" murmured Winthrop to himself, after he had surveyed
the water behind him.

And the question was a necessary one. What he had thought was "certainly
the channel" seemed to exist only in front; there was no channel behind,
there were only broad tree-filled water spaces, vague and dark. They
could see nothing of the thicker foliage of the "narrow place."

Margaret clasped her hands. "We're lost!"

"No, we're not lost; at least we were not seven minutes ago. It won't
take long to go over all the water that is seven minutes from here." He
took out one of the torches and inserted it among the roots of a
cypress, so that it could hold itself upright. "That's our guide; we can
always come back to that, and start again."

Margaret no longer tried to direct; she sat with her face towards him,
leavi