ome one by one," he said to himself. "If there was
any concert of action among them, I couldn't hold the place a minute."

As the last hour began, the long hour before dawn, he felt the swamp
lethargy stealing into his own brain; he saw the trees and torches
doubled. He walked to and fro more quickly, and sang to keep himself
awake. He knew only a few old-fashioned songs, and the South Devil
heard that night, probably for the first time in its tropical life, the
ancient Northern strains of "Gayly the Troubadour touched his Guitar."
Deal was no troubadour, and he had no guitar. But he sang on bravely,
touching that stringed instrument, vocally at least, and bringing
himself "home from the war" over and over again, until at last faint
dawn penetrated from above down to the knoll where the four torches were
burning. They were the last torches, and Deal was going through his
sixtieth rehearsal of the "Troubadour"; but, instead of "Lady-love,
lady-lo-o-o-ve," whom he apostrophized, a large moccasin rose from the
pool, as if in answer. She might have been the queen of the moccasins,
and beautiful--to moccasin eyes; but to Deal she was simply the largest
and most hideous of all the snake-visions of the night. He gave her his
fifth ball, full in her mistaken brain; and, if she had admired him (or
the "Troubadour"), she paid for it with her life.

This was the last. Daylight appeared. The watchman put out his torches
and roused the sleeper. "Carl! Carl! It's daylight. Let us get out of
this confounded crawling hole, and have a breath of fresh air."

Carl stirred, and opened his eyes; they were heavy and dull. His brother
lifted him, told him to hold on tightly, and started with his burden
toward home. The snakes had disappeared, the gray spiders had vanished;
he could see his way now, and he followed his own trail, which he had
taken care to make distinct when he came in the night before. But,
loaded down as he was, and obliged to rest frequently, and also to go
around all the pools, hours passed before he reached the last cypresses
and came out on the old causeway across the sugar-waste.

It was Christmas morning; the thermometer stood at eighty-eight.

Carl slept off his enforced drunkenness in his hammock. Mark, having
bandaged his brother's strained ankles, threw himself upon his rude
couch, and fell into a heavy slumber also. He slept until sunset; then
he rose, plunged his head into a tub of the limpid, pure, but never