face of the moon, and they could see nothing, so
they stood awhile idly waiting for it to pass.

As they rested thus, suddenly a moaning sound came to their ears, or
rather a sound which, beginning with a moan, ended in a long low wail.

"What is that?" asked Leonard, looking towards the shadows on the
further side of the ravine, whence the cry seemed to proceed.

"I do not know," answered Otter, "unless it be a ghost, or the voice of
one who mourns her dead."

"We are the only mourners here," said Leonard, and as he spoke once more
the low and piercing wail thrilled upon the air. Just then the cloud
passed, the moonlight shone out brilliantly, and they saw who it was
that cried aloud in this desolate place. For there, not twenty paces
from them, on the other side of the ravine, crouched upon a stone and
rocking herself to and fro as though in an agony of despair and grief,
sat a tall and withered woman.

With an exclamation of surprise Leonard started towards her, followed by
the dwarf. So absorbed was the woman in her sorrow that she neither saw
nor heard them. Even when they stood close to her she did not perceive
them, for her face was hidden in her bony hands. Leonard looked at her
curiously. She was past middle age, but he could see that once she had
been handsome, and, for a native, very light in colour. Her hair was
grizzled and crisp rather than woolly, and her hands and feet were
slender and finely shaped. At the moment he could discern no more of the
woman's personal appearance, for the face was covered, as has been said,
and her body wrapped in a tattered blanket.

"Mother," he said, speaking in the Sisutu dialect, "what ails you that
you weep here alone?"

The stranger let drop her hands and sprang up with a cry of fear. As it
chanced, her gaze fell first upon the dwarf Otter, who was standing in
front of her, and at the sight of him the cry died upon her lips, and
her sunken cheeks, clear-cut features, and sullen black eyes became as
those of one who is petrified with terror. So strange was her aspect
indeed that the dwarf and his master neither spoke nor moved; they stood
hushed and expectant. It was the woman who broke this silence, speaking
in a low voice of awe and adoration and, as she spoke, sinking to her
knees.

"And hast thou come to claim me at the last," she said, addressing
Otter, "O thou whose name is Darkness, to whom I was given in marriage,
and from whom I fled when I was young? D