nd indolent Billings unknown to his companions. Overcome
at the dreadful prospect of walking home in that weather, this perfect
product of lethargic Sidon had artfully allowed Peters and Wingate to
precede him, and, cautiously unloosing the tethered animal, had safely
passed them in the darkness. When he gained his own inclosure he had
lazily dismounted, and, with a sharp cut on the mustang's haunches,
sent him galloping back to rejoin his master, with what result has been
already told by the unsuspecting Peters in the preceding chapter.

Yet no conception of this possibility entered 'Lige Curtis's alcoholized
consciousness, part of whose morbid phantasy it was to distort or
exaggerate all natural phenomena. He had a vague idea that he could not
go back to Harkutt's; already his visit seemed to have happened long,
long ago, and could not be repeated. He would walk on, enwrapped in
this uncompromising darkness which concealed everything, suggested
everything, and was responsible for everything.

It was very dark, for the wind, having lulled, no longer thinned the
veil of clouds above, nor dissipated a steaming mist that appeared to
rise from the sodden plain. Yet he moved easily through the darkness,
seeming to be upheld by it as something tangible, upon which he might
lean. At times he thought he heard voices,--not a particular voice he
was thinking of, but strange voices--of course unreal to his present
fancy. And then he heard one of these voices, unlike any voice in
Sidon, and very faint and far off, asking if it "was anywhere near
Sidon?"--evidently some one lost like himself. He answered in a voice
that seemed quite as unreal and as faint, and turned in the direction
from which it came. There was a light moving like a will-o'-the-wisp far
before him, yet below him as if coming out of the depths of the earth.
It must be fancy, but he would see--ah!

He had fallen violently forward, and at the same moment felt his
revolver leap from his breast pocket like a living thing, and an instant
after explode upon the rock where it struck, blindingly illuminating the
declivity down which he was plunging. The sulphurous sting of burning
powder was in his eyes and nose, yet in that swift revealing flash he
had time to clutch the stems of a trailing vine beside him, but not
to save his head from sharp contact with the same rocky ledge that had
caught his pistol. The pain and shock gave way to a sickening sense of
warmth at the