light, not yet compounded into day. Tussocks, innumerable clods and
crumbs of vivid green, speckled all the nearer water. On some of these
storks meditated,--sage, pondering heads and urbane bodies perched high
on the frailest penciling of legs. In the whole expanse, no movement
came but when a distant bird, leaving his philosophic pose, plunged
downward after a fish. Beyond them rose a shapeless mound or isle, like
some half-organic monster grounded in his native ooze.

"There!" said the woman, pointing. "Are you all excuses, like the
others? Or do you dare?"

"I am not afraid of anything--now," retorted Rudolph, and with truth,
after the dash of their twilight encounter. "Dare what?"

"Go see what's on that island," she answered. "I dared them all. Twice
I've seen natives land there and hurry away. Mr. Nesbit was too lazy to
try; Dr. Chantel wearing his best clothes. Maurice Heywood refused to
mire his horse for a whim. Whim? It's a mystery! Come, now. Do
you dare?"

In a rare flush of pride, Rudolph wheeled his stubborn mount and bullied
him down the bank. A poor horseman, he would have outstripped Curtius to
the gulf. But no sooner had his dancing pony consented to make the first
rebellious, sidelong plunge, than he had small joy of his boast.
Fore-legs sank floundering, were hoisted with a terrified wrench of the
shoulders, in the same moment that hind-legs went down as by suction.
The pony squirmed, heaved, wrestled in a frenzy, and churning the red
water about his master's thighs, went deeper and fared worse. With a
clangor of wings, the storks rose, a streaming rout against the sky,
trailed their tilted legs, filed away in straggling flight, like figures