at
was all perfume, and I saw the flowers all ghostly white under the moon.
And then, suddenly, I was watching the green candle sputter, and out of
the stillness came a cry--the sereno calling the hour of the night. How
my head throbbed! It was keeping time to some rhythm, I knew not what.
Yes, it was the song my father used to sing:--

"I've faught on land? I've faught at sea,
At hume I've faught my aunty, O!"

But New Orleans was hot, burning hot, and this could not be cold I felt.
Ah, I had it, the water was cold going to Vincennes, so cold!

A voice called me. No matter where I had gone, I think I would have come
back at the sound of it. I listened intently, that I might lose no word
of what it said. I knew the voice. Had it not called to me many times
in my life before? But now there was fear in it, and fear gave it a
vibrant sweetness, fear gave it a quality that made it mine--mine.

"You are shivering."

That was all it said, and it called from across the sea. And the sea was
cold,--cold and green under the gray light. If she who called to me
would only come with the warmth of her love! The sea faded, the light
fell, and I was in the eternal cold of space between the whirling worlds.
If she could but find me! Was not that her hand in mine? Did I not feel
her near me, touching me? I wondered that I should hear myself as I
answered her.

"I am not ill," I said. "Speak to me again."

She was pressing my hand now, I saw her bending over me, I felt her hair
as it brushed my face. She spoke again. There was a tremor in her
voice, and to that alone I listened. The words were decisive, of
command, and with them some sense as of a haven near came to me. Another
voice answered in a strange tongue, saying seemingly:--

"Oui, Madame--male couri--bon dje--male couri!"

I heard the doors close, and the sound of footsteps running and dying
along the banquette, and after that my shoulders were raised and
something wrapped about them. Then stillness again, the stillness that
comes between waking and sleeping, between pain and calm. And at times
when I felt her hand fall into mine or press against my brow, the pain
seemed more endurable. After that I recall being lifted, being borne
along. I opened my eyes once and saw, above a tile-crowned wall, the
moon all yellow and distorted in the sky. Then a gate clicked, dungeon
blackness, half-light again, ascent, oblivion.

CHAPTER XII

VISIONS, AND AN AW