The Quest of the Silver Fleece

Night fell. The red waters of the swamp grew sinister and sullen. The tall pines lost their slimness and stood in wide blurred blotches all across the way, and a great shadowy bird arose, wheeled and melted, murmuring, into the black-green sky.

The boy wearily dropped his heavy bundle and stood still, listening as the voice of crickets split the shadows and made the silence audible. A tear wandered down his brown cheek. They were at supper now, he whispered⁠—the father and old mother, away back yonder beyond the night. They were far away; they would never be as near as once they had been, for he had stepped into the world. And the cat and Old Billy⁠—ah, but the world was a lonely thing, so wide and tall and empty! And so bare, so bitter bare! Somehow he had never dreamed of the world as lonely before; he had fared forth to beckoning hands and luring, and to the eager hum of human voices, as of some great, swelling music.

Yet now he was alone; the empty night was closing all about him here in a strange land, and he was afraid. The bundle with his earthly treasure had hung heavy and heavier on his shoulder; his little horde of money was tightly wadded in his sock, and the school lay hidden somewhere far away in the shadows. He wondered how far it was; he looked and harkened, starting at his own heartbeats, and fearing more and more the long dark fingers of the night.

A little mocking smile came and sat upon her lips.

“What you run for?” she asked, with dancing mischief in her eyes.

“Because⁠—” he hesitated, and his cheeks grew hot.

“I knows,” she said, with impish glee, laughing low music.

“Why?” he challenged, sturdily.

“You was afeared.”

He bridled. “Well, I reckon you’d be afeared if you was caught out in the black dark all alone.”

“Pooh!” she scoffed and hugged her knees. “Pooh! I’ve stayed out all alone heaps o’ nights.”

He looked at her with a curious awe.

“I don’t believe you,” he asserted; but she tossed her head and her eyes grew scornful.

“Who’s afeared of the dark? I love night.” Her eyes grew soft.

He watched her silently, till, waking from her daydream, she abruptly asked:

“Where you from?”

“Georgia.”

“Where’s that?”

“Yon way’s nicest,” she said.

“Why, what’s there?”

“The swamp,” she said mysteriously.

“And what’s beyond the swamp?”

She crouched beside him and whispered in eager, tense tones: “Dreams!”

He looked at her, puzzled.

“Dreams?” vaguely⁠—“dreams? Why, dreams ain’t⁠—nothing.”

“Oh, yes they is!” she insisted, her eyes flaming in misty radiance as she sat staring beyond the shadows of the swamp. “Yes they is! There ain’t nothing but dreams⁠—that is, nothing much.

“And over yonder behind the swamps is great fields full of dreams, piled high and burning; and right amongst them the sun, when he’s tired o’ night, whispers and drops red things, ’cept when devils make ’em black.”

The boy stared at her; he knew not whether to jeer or wonder.

“How you know?” he asked at last, skeptically.

“Promise you won’t tell?”

“Yes,” he answered.

She cuddled into a little heap, nursing her knees, and answered slowly.

“I goes there sometimes. I creeps in ’mongst the dreams; they hangs there like big flowers, dripping dew and sugar and blood⁠—red, red blood. And there’s little fairies there that hop about and sing, and devils⁠—great, ugly devils that grabs at you and roasts and eats you if they gits you; but they don’t git me. Some devils is big and white, like ha’nts; some is long and shiny, like creepy, slippery snakes; and some is little and broad and black, and they yells⁠—”

The boy was listening in incredulous curiosity, half minded to laugh, half minded to edge away from the black-red radiance of yonder dusky swamp. He glanced furtively backward, and his heart gave a great bound.

“Why, we must turn back immediately. I thought⁠—” But Bles was already turning. They were approaching the main road again when there came a fluttering as of a great bird beating its wings amid the forest. Then a girl, lithe, dark brown, and tall, leaped lightly into the path with greetings on her lips for Bles. At the sight of the lady she drew suddenly back and stood motionless regarding Miss Taylor, searching her with wide black liquid eyes. Miss Taylor was a little startled.

“Good⁠—good evening,” she said, straightening herself.

The girl was still silent and the horse stopped. One tense moment pulsed through all the swamp. Then the girl, still motionless⁠—still looking Miss Taylor through and through⁠—said with slow deliberateness:

“I hates you.”

The teacher in Miss Taylor strove to rebuke this unconventional greeting but the woman in her spoke first and asked almost before she knew it⁠—

“Why?”

Out through the wood Bles and Zora had come to the broad red road; playfully he celebrated all her beauty unconscious of time and place.

“You are tall and bend like grasses on the swamp,” he said.

“And yet look up to you,” she murmured.

“Your eyes are darkness dressed in night.”

“To see you brighter, dear,” she said.

“Your little hands are much too frail for work.”

“They must grow larger, then, and soon.”

“Your feet are far too small to travel on.”

“They’ll travel on to you⁠—that’s far enough.”

“Your lips⁠—your full and purple lips⁠—were made alone for kissing, not for words.”

“They’ll do for both.”

He laughed in utter joy and touched her hair with light caressing hands.

“It does not fly with sunlight,” she said quickly, with an upward glance.

“No,” he answered. “It sits and listens to the night.”

But even as she nestled to him happily there came the harsh thunder of horses’ hoofs, beating on their ears. He drew her quickly to him in fear, and the coach lurched and turned, and left them facing four pairs of eyes. Miss Taylor reddened; Mrs. Grey looked surprised; Mrs. Vanderpool smiled; but Mr. Cresswell darkened with anger. The couple unclasped shamefacedly, and the young man, lifting his hat, started to stammer an apology; but Cresswell interrupted him: