e. In the dark was a lone figure clinging to the spars of a
wreck. "The victor," shrieked the wind. Then the waves washed over the
cast-away, leaving naught but the screaming gale and the pounding seas
and the eternal dark.

Or it was M. Picot, fencing in mid-room. Of a sudden, foils turn to
swords, M. Picot to a masked man, and Boston to the northland forest. I
fall, and when I awaken M. Picot is standing, candle in hand, tincturing
my wounds.

Or the dark is filled with a multitude--men and beasts; and the beasts
wear a crown of victory and the men are drunk with the blood of the slain.

Or stealthy, crouching, wolfish forms steal through the frost mist,
closer and closer till there comes a shout--a groan--a rip as of
teeth--then I am up, struggling with Le Borgne, the one-eyed, who pushes
me back to a couch in the dark.

Like the faces that hover above battle in soldiers' dreams was a white
face framed in curls with lustrous eyes full of lights. Always when the
darkness thickened and I began slipping--slipping into the folds of
bottomless deeps--always the face came from the gloom, like a star of
hope; and the hope drew me back.

"There is nothing--nothing--nothing at all to fear," says the face.

And I laugh at the absurdity of the dream.

"To think of dreaming that Hortense would be here--would be in the
northland--Hortense, the little queen, who never would let me tell
her----"

"Tell her what?" asks the face.

"Hah! What a question! There is only one thing in all this world to
tell her!"

And I laughed again till I thought there must be some elf scrambling
among the rafters of that smothery ceiling. It seemed so absurd to be
thrilled with love of Hortense with the breath of the wolves yet hot in
one's face!

"The wolves got Godefroy," I would reason, "how didn't they get me? How
did I get away? What was that smell of fur--"

Then some one was throwing fur robes from the couch. The phantom
Hortense kneeled at the pillow.

"There are no wolves--it was only the robe," she says.

"And I suppose you will be telling me there are no Indians up there among
the rafters?"

"Give me the candle. Go away, Le Borgne! Leave me alone with him," says
the face in the gloom. "Look," says the shadow, "I am Hortense!"

A torch was in her hand and the light fell on her face. I was as certain
that she knelt beside me as I was that I lay helpless to rise. But the
trouble was, I was equally certain t