searching the fields and hedges in alarm, a mother's heart
was breaking for her missing child.

Hours passed, and then the little sleeper rose to his feet. The chill of
the evening was in his limbs, the fear of the gloom in his heart. But he
had rested, and he no longer wept. With some blind instinct which
impelled to action he struggled through the undergrowth about him and
came to a more open ground--on his right the brook, to the left a
gentle acclivity studded with infrequent trees; over all, the gathering
gloom of twilight. A thin, ghostly mist rose along the water. It
frightened and repelled him; instead of recrossing, in the direction
whence he had come, he turned his back upon it, and went forward toward
the dark inclosing wood. Suddenly he saw before him a strange moving
object which he took to be some large animal--a dog, a pig--he could not
name it; perhaps it was a bear. He had seen pictures of bears, but knew
of nothing to their discredit and had vaguely wished to meet one. But
something in form or movement of this object--something in the
awkwardness of its approach--told him that it was not a bear, and
curiosity was stayed by fear. He stood still and as it came slowly on
gained courage every moment, for he saw that at least it had not the
long, menacing ears of the rabbit. Possibly his impressionable mind was
half conscious of something familiar in its shambling, awkward gait.
Before it had approached near enough to resolve his doubts he saw that
it was followed by another and another. To right and to left were many
more; the whole open space about him was alive with them--all moving
toward the brook.

They were men. They crept upon their hands and knees. They used their
hands only, dragging their legs. They used their knees only, their arms
hanging idle at their sides. They strove to rise to their feet, but fell
prone in the attempt. They did nothing naturally, and nothing alike,
save only to advance foot by foot in the same direction. Singly, in
pairs and in little groups, they came on through the gloom, some halting
now and again while others crept slowly past them, then resuming their
movement. They came by dozens and by hundreds; as far on either hand as
one could see in the deepening gloom they extended and the black wood
behind them appeared to be inexhaustible. The very ground seemed in
motion toward the creek. Occasionally one who had paused did not again
go on, but lay motionless. He was dead.