s.

The white magic of her body became transfused with dark, throbbing
force, and as she strove to rise and act, Druga saw that she could not
move her limbs in any way!

Before his eyes her skin turned black as ebony, her eyes became stony
and fixed; even the sweet curling of her hair became hard and solid, her
whole body became changed to black, hated stone.

As suddenly as the horrible pulsing had come, it went away, leaving
Druga that least of all desirable women, one of virtuous stone.

So with one stroke Dionaea repaid Druga and Feronia; Druga by the loss
of his best beloved, and Feronia by the retention of her faculties in a
body of stone. That Feronia had to sit immovable and watch poor Druga in
his grief and loss was particularly excruciating.

Days of horror dragged by.

No matter what he proposed to do upon arising, mid-morning found him
reclining before the frozen statue-like body of his beloved, and night
would come down at last to hide the black stone of Feronia from his wet
eyes.

This existence became at last unbearable, and he resolved to go out into
the world and seek some means of making his days less horrible to him.
That Feronia was not dead, and that he might have obtained her release
by appealing to some greater power, did not occur to Druga in his grief.
Indeed he could never become accustomed to the ways of witches and their
overlords, nor to thinking in terms of magic at all. He was a logical
person, and no matter what wonders he blundered into and saw with his
own eyes, he never quite believed any of it.

It was with a heavy heart that Druga sealed up the doors of Feronia's
home and made his sad way to the stable, mounted and rode slowly away.

* * * * *

All night he rode, not choosing his way, but letting the horse do the
thinking, and in the warm sun of late morning lay down to sleep where
the horse had led him.

As the days passed in heedless wandering, the deep hurt of his loss
lessened, and he began to take note of the road that led ever on and on
to he knew not what, except that it beckoned, as paths and highways
alike have a way of doing to the traveler.

As his spirits became lighter, he began to take stock of the country
through which he passed, and to note all the strange and curious things
that hovered always just outside normal vision. They were not hidden
from Druga, who had more than ordinary vision, one of Feronia's witch
gifts to hi