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Page 10
"Oh! oh! My feet of fire! My burning feet of fire! Oh! oh! This height
and fiery speed!"
And then the distance quickly buried it, and the deep silence of very
early morning descended upon the forest as before.
It had all come about with such rapidity that, but for the evidence of
the empty bed beside him, Simpson could almost have believed it to have
been the memory of a nightmare carried over from sleep. He still felt
the warm pressure of that vanished body against his side; there lay the
twisted blankets in a heap; the very tent yet trembled with the
vehemence of the impetuous departure. The strange words rang in his
ears, as though he still heard them in the distance--wild language of a
suddenly stricken mind. Moreover, it was not only the senses of sight
and hearing that reported uncommon things to his brain, for even while
the man cried and ran, he had become aware that a strange perfume, faint
yet pungent, pervaded the interior of the tent. And it was at this
point, it seems, brought to himself by the consciousness that his
nostrils were taking this distressing odor down into his throat, that he
found his courage, sprang quickly to his feet--and went out.
The grey light of dawn that dropped, cold and glimmering, between the
trees revealed the scene tolerably well. There stood the tent behind
him, soaked with dew; the dark ashes of the fire, still warm; the lake,
white beneath a coating of mist, the islands rising darkly out of it
like objects packed in wool; and patches of snow beyond among the
clearer spaces of the Bush--everything cold, still, waiting for the sun.
But nowhere a sign of the vanished guide--still, doubtless, flying at
frantic speed through the frozen woods. There was not even the sound of
disappearing footsteps, nor the echoes of the dying voice. He had
gone--utterly.
There was nothing; nothing but the sense of his recent presence, so
strongly left behind about the camp; _and_--this penetrating,
all-pervading odor.
And even this was now rapidly disappearing in its turn. In spite of his
exceeding mental perturbation, Simpson struggled hard to detect its
nature, and define it, but the ascertaining of an elusive scent, not
recognized subconsciously and at once, is a very subtle operation of
the mind. And he failed. It was gone before he could properly seize or
name it. Approximate description, even, seems to have been difficult,
for it was unlike any smell he knew. Acrid rather, not unlike the odor
of a lion, he thinks, yet softer and not wholly unpleasing, with
something almost sweet in it that reminded him of the scent of decaying
garden leaves, earth, and the myriad, nameless perfumes that make up the
odor of a big forest. Yet the "odor of lions" is the phrase with which
he usually sums it all up.
Then--it was wholly gone, and he found himself standing by the ashes of
the fire in a state of amazement and stupid terror that left him the
helpless prey of anything that chose to happen. Had a muskrat poked its
pointed muzzle over a rock, or a squirrel scuttled in that instant down
the bark of a tree, he would most likely have collapsed without more ado
and fainted. For he felt about the whole affair the touch somewhere of a
great Outer Horror ... and his scattered powers had not as yet had time
to collect themselves into a definite attitude of fighting self-control.
Nothing did happen, however. A great kiss of wind ran softly through the
awakening forest, and a few maple leaves here and there rustled
tremblingly to earth. The sky seemed to grow suddenly much lighter.
Simpson felt the cool air upon his cheek and uncovered head; realized
that he was shivering with the cold; and, making a great effort,
realized next that he was alone in the Bush--_and_ that he was called
upon to take immediate steps to find and succor his vanished companion.
Make an effort, accordingly, he did, though an ill-calculated and futile
one. With that wilderness of trees about him, the sheet of water cutting
him off behind, and the horror of that wild cry in his blood, he did
what any other inexperienced man would have done in similar
bewilderment: he ran about, without any sense of direction, like a
frantic child, and called loudly without ceasing the name of the guide:
"D�fago! D�fago! D�fago!" he yelled, and the trees gave him back the
name as often as he shouted, only a little softened--"D�fago! D�fago!
D�fago!"
He followed the trail that lay a short distance across the patches of
snow, and then lost it again where the trees grew too thickly for snow
to lie. He shouted till he was hoarse, and till the sound of his own
voice in all that unanswering and listening world began to frighten him.
His confusion increased in direct ratio to the violence of his efforts.
His distress became formidably acute, till at length his exertions
defeated their own object, and from sheer exhaustion he headed back to
the camp again. It remains a wonder that he ever found his way. It was
with great difficulty, and only after numberless false clues, that he at
last saw the white tent between the trees, and so reached safety.
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