ion;
at which the man shrugged his shoulders and changed the conversation,
as though the subject were too trivial to be worth much consideration.

This individual gave me the pleasure of his company until nearly
sundown, and finding I took an interest in things of the forest,
pointed out more curious plants and trees than I have space to mention.
Two of them, however, cling to my memory very tenaciously. One was a
very Circe amongst plants, the horrible charm of which can never be
forgotten. We were going down a glade when a most ravishing odour fell
upon my nostrils. It was heavenly sweet yet withal there lurked an
incredibly, unexpressibly tempting spice of wickedness in it. The
moment he caught that ambrosial invitation in the air my woodman spit
fiercely on the ground, and taking a plug of wool from his pouch
stuffed his nostrils up. Then he beckoned me to come away. But the
odour was too ravishing, I was bound to see whence it arose, and
finding me deaf to all warnings, the man reluctantly turned aside down
the enticing trail. We pushed about a hundred yards through bushes
until we came to a little arena full in sunshine where there were
neither birds nor butterflies, but a death-like hush upon everything.
Indeed, the place seemed shunned in spite of the sodden loveliness of
that scent which monopolised and mounted to my brain until I was
beginning to be drunk with the sheer pleasure of it. And there in the
centre of the space stood a plant not unlike a tree fern, about six
feet high, and crowned by one huge and lovely blossom. It resembled a
vast passion-flower of incredible splendour. There were four petals,
with points resting on the ground, each six feet long, ivory-white
inside, exquisitely patterned with glittering silver veins. From the
base of these rose upright a gauzy veil of azure filaments of the same
length as the petals, wirelike, yet soft as silk, and inside them again
rested a chalice of silver holding a tiny pool of limpid golden honey.
Circe, indeed! It was from that cup the scent arose, and my throat
grew dry with longing as I looked at it; my eyes strained through the
blue tendrils towards that liquid nectar, and my giddy senses felt they
must drink or die! I glanced at the woodman with a smile of drunken
happiness, then turned tottering legs towards the blossom. A stride up
the smooth causeway of white petals, a push through the azure haze, and
the wine of the wood enchantress would be