, and then when the cry was ended sank down again.
The wood enlarged; it lay upon the cold land now like a man's head; a
man with a cap. Spaces between the trees were eyes and it seemed that he
was lying behind the rim of the world and leaning his head upon the edge
of it and gazing. . . .

Bunker suddenly stopped and looked up at his master.

"Come on," Olva turned on to him sharply.

The dog looked at him, pleading. Then in Olva's dark stern face he
seemed to see that there was no relenting--that wood must be faced. He
moved forward again, but slowly, reluctantly. All this nonsense that
Lawrence had talked about Druids. We will soon see what to make of
that. And yet, in the wood, it did seem as though there were something
waiting. It was now no longer a man's head--only a dark, melancholy band
of trees, dead black now against the high white clouds.

There had risen in Olva the fighting spirit. Fear was still there,
ghastly fear, but also an anger, a rage. Why should he be thus
tormented? What had he done? Who was Carfax that the slaying of him
should be so unforgettable a sin? Moreover, had it been the mere vulgar
hauntings of remorse, terrors of a frightened conscience, he could
have turned upon himself the contempt that any Dune must deserve for so
ignoble a submission.

But here there were other things--some-thing that no human resolution
could combat. He seized then eagerly on the things that he could
conquer--the suspicions of Rupert Craven, the rivalry of Cardillac,
the confidences of Bunning, . . . the grave tenderness of Margaret
Craven . . . these things he would clutch and hold, let the Pursuing
Spirits do what they would.

As he entered the dark wood a few flakes of snow were falling. He
knew where the Druid Stones lay. He had once been shown them by some
undergraduate interested in such things. They lay a little to the right,
below the little crooked path and above the Hollow.

The wood was not dripping now--held in the iron hand of the frost the
very leaves on the ground seemed to be made of metal; the bare twisted
branches of the trees shone with frosty--the earth crackled beneath his
foot and in the wood's silence, when he broke a twig with his boot the
sound shot into the air and rang against the listening stillness.

He looked at the Hollow, Bunker close at his heels. He could see the
spot where he had first stood, talking to Carfax--there where the ferns
now glistened with silver. There was