ll creature, probably, caught by a snake or alligator. It only
sounded strange because it is so still here, our nerves are affected, I
presume."

"You mean that mine are. I know they are, I will try to be more
sensible."

He pursued his tentative course. But the watery vistas seemed only to
grow wilder. They never had a desolate appearance; on the contrary there
was something indescribably luxuriant, riotously so, in the still lake
with its giant trees, its scented air, its masses of flowers. At length
something dark, that was not a tree trunk, nor a group of tree trunks,
loomed up on their right. Their torches outlined it more plainly; it was
square and low.

"It's a _house_" Margaret said, in the same repressed whisper. "Oh,
don't go near it!"

"Why--it's deserted, can't you see that? There's no living thing there,
unless you count ghosts--there may be the ghost of some fugitive slave.
The door, I suppose, is on the other side." And he paddled towards it.

The cabin--it was no more than a cabin--had been built upon the great
roots of four cypresses, which had happened to stand in a convenient
position for such a purpose; the planks of the floor had been nailed
down across these, and the sides formed of rough boards braced by small
beams which stretched back to the tree trunks; the roof was a network of
the large vines of the swamp, thickly thatched with the gray moss, now
black with age and decay. The door was gone; Winthrop brought the boat
up towards the dark entrance; the sill was but an inch or two above the
water.

They looked within, the light from their torches illuminating the
central portion. And as they looked, they saw a slight waving motion on
the floor. Were the planks oscillating a little, or was it dark water
flowing over the place?

At first they could not distinguish; then in another instant they could.
It was not water; it was the waving, squirming bodies of snakes.

Winthrop had given the canoe a quick swerve. But before they could have
counted one, the creatures, soundlessly, had all disappeared.

"Men are queer animals," he said; "I should have liked one more good
peep. But of course I won't go back."

"Yes--go."

"You are prepared to humor me in everything? Well, it won't take an
instant." They were but ten feet away; he gave a stroke with his paddle
and brought the canoe up to the entrance again.

Within there was now nothing, their torch-light shone on the bare
glistening boards