ith lions at night and that dark red solitude beyond. They say that
the hermit St. Securis, living there among trees, grew to love them like
companions; since, though great giants with many arms like Briareus,
they were the mildest and most blameless of the creatures; they did not
devour like the lions, but rather opened their arms to all the little
birds. And he prayed that they might be loosened from time to time to
walk like other things. And the trees were moved upon the prayers of
Securis, as they were at the songs of Orpheus. The men of the desert
were stricken from afar with fear, seeing the saint walking with a
walking grove, like a schoolmaster with his boys. For the trees were
thus freed under strict conditions of discipline. They were to return at
the sound of the hermit's bell, and, above all, to copy the wild beasts
in walking only to destroy and devour nothing. Well, it is said that one
of the trees heard a voice that was not the saint's; that in the warm
green twilight of one summer evening it became conscious of some thing
sitting and speaking in its branches in the guise of a great bird,
and it was that which once spoke from a tree in the guise of a great
serpent. As the voice grew louder among its murmuring leaves the tree
was torn with a great desire to stretch out and snatch at the birds that
flew harmlessly about their nests, and pluck them to pieces. Finally,
the tempter filled the tree-top with his own birds of pride, the starry
pageant of the peacocks. And the spirit of the brute overcame the spirit
of the tree, and it rent and consumed the blue-green birds till not a
plume was left, and returned to the quiet tribe of trees. But they say
that when spring came all the other trees put forth leaves, but this
put forth feathers of a strange hue and pattern. And by that monstrous
assimilation the saint knew of the sin, and he rooted that one tree to
the earth with a judgment, so that evil should fall on any who removed
it again. That, Squire, is the beginning in the deserts of the tale that
ended here, almost in this garden."

"And the end is about as reliable as the beginning, I should say," said
Vane. "Yours is a nice plain tale for a small tea-party; a quiet little
bit of still-life, that is."

"What a queer, horrible story," exclaimed Barbara. "It makes one feel
like a cannibal."

"Ex Africa," said the lawyer, smiling. "It comes from a cannibal
country. I think it's the touch of the tar-brush, t