s, exercised a
depressing influence upon the spirits of each, although differing
widely in degree, according to our several natures. Undoubtedly this
same sense of dreariness led De Noyan to sing, caused me such painful
restlessness under that same singing, and left Eloise saddened in her
lonely thoughts.

Every occurrence impressed me that night as unusual. Perchance this
was because both heart and head were sadly out of tune. Yet, at best,
it was a lonesome journey, and remains a grewsome memory, haunting with
many a spectre, as weird as the shadows of delirium. The few stars,
peeping shyly forth between scurrying black cloud masses, were so far
away they merely silvered the cloud edges, leaving them as though
carven from granite. The low shore, often within reach of our oar
blades, appeared gloomy and inhospitable, the spectral rushes creeping
far out upon the water like living things, seeming to grasp after us as
the wind swept them, and we glided past in phantom silence. Beyond,
like a great black wall, arose higher ground, occasionally jutting into
bare bluffs outlined against the lighter sky; again diversified by
gaunt dead trees, their fleshless limbs extended upward toward ghostly
pillars of vapor ever floating from off the river's surface.
Occasionally, jaggedly uneven, close-set trunks of forest growth would
appear, spectral in solemn ugliness, a veritable hedge, impenetrable
and grim.

If, with a shudder of disgust, I turned away from that lorn, dead line
of shore, my eyes swept a waste of waters slipping solemnly past, while
farther out, where sky and stream met and mingled in wild riot, the
surging river swirled and leaped, its white-capped waves evidencing
resistless volume. It was a sight to awe one, that immense mass
pouring forth from the upper darkness, flashing an instant beneath the
star-gleam, only to disappear, a restless, relentless flood, black,
unpitying, impenetrable, mysterious, a savage monster, beyond whose
outstretched claws we crept, yet who at any moment might clutch us
helpless in a horrible embrace. It was a sight to stun, that brutal
flood, gliding ever downward, while, far as eye could see, stretched
the same drear expanse of cruel waters.

From out that mystery would suddenly emerge, rolling toward us, as if
born of the shadows, some grim apparition, a wildly tossing figure,
with gaunt, uplifted arms beating the air, to startle for an instant,
then fade from our ken into