the railing, then seemed to change his mind
and began to pace the veranda, his footfalls resounding on the dry
boards with singular loudness. Little White drew a step backward, got
the figure between himself and the sky, and at once recognized the
short, broad-shouldered form of old Jean Poquelin.

He sat down upon a billet of wood, and, to escape the stings of a
whining cloud of mosquitoes, shrouded his face and neck in his
handkerchief, leaving his eyes uncovered.

He had sat there but a moment when he noticed a strange, sickening odor,
faint, as if coming from a distance, but loathsome and horrid.

Whence could it come? Not from the cabin; not from the marsh, for it was
as dry as powder. It was not in the air; it seemed to come from the
ground.

Rising up, he noticed, for the first time, a few steps before him a
narrow footpath leading toward the house. He glanced down it--ha! right
there was some one coming--ghostly white!

Quick as thought, and as noiselessly, he lay down at full length against
the cabin. It was bold strategy, and yet, there was no denying it,
little White felt that he was frightened. "It is not a ghost," he said
to himself. "I _know_ it cannot be a ghost;" but the perspiration burst
out at every pore, and the air seemed to thicken with heat. "It is a
living man," he said in his thoughts. "I hear his footstep, and I hear
old Poquelin's footsteps, too, separately, over on the veranda. I am not
discovered; the thing has passed; there is that odor again; what a smell
of death! Is it coming back? Yes. It stops at the door of the cabin. Is
it peering in at the sleeping mute? It moves away. It is in the path
again. Now it is gone." He shuddered. "Now, if I dare venture, the
mystery is solved." He rose cautiously, close against the cabin, and
peered along the path.

The figure of a man, a presence if not a body--but whether clad in some
white stuff or naked the darkness would not allow him to determine--had
turned, and now, with a seeming painful gait, moved slowly from him.
"Great Heaven! can it be that the dead do walk?" He withdrew again the
hands which had gone to his eyes. The dreadful object passed between two
pillars and under the house. He listened. There was a faint sound as of
feet upon a staircase; then all was still except the measured tread of
Jean Poquelin walking on the veranda, and the heavy respirations of the
mute slumbering in the cabin.

The little Secretary was about to retre