Startled by the sudden tightening of the reins, or by the tearing of some
frightened thing through the canes that beset the low, miry bank, the
horse sprang aside; then stood trembling with pricked ears. The white man
stared at the stream; turned in his saddle and stared at the tree trunks,
the patches of moonlight, and the impenetrable shadow that closed each
vista. "The blazed trees!" he exclaimed at last. "How long since we saw
one?"

The slave shook his head. "Juba forgot to look. He was away by a river
that he knew."

"We have passed from out the pines," said Haward. "These are oaks. But
what is that water, and how far we are out of our reckoning the Lord only
knows!"

As he spoke he pushed his horse through the tall reeds to the bank of the
stream. Here in the open, away from the shadow of the trees, the full moon
had changed the night-time into a wonderful, silver day. Narrow above and
belows the stream widened before him into a fairy basin, rimmed with
reeds, unruffled, crystal-clear, stiller than a dream. The trees that grew
upon the farther side were faint gray clouds in the moonlight, and the
gold of the fireflies was very pale. From over the water, out of the heart
of the moonlit wood, came the song of a mockingbird, a tumultuous ecstasy,
possessing the air and making elfin the night.

Haward backed his horse from the reeds to the oak beneath which waited the
negro. "'Tis plain that we have lost our way, Juba," he said, with a
laugh. "If you were an Indian, we should turn and straightway retrace our
steps to the blazed trees. Being what you are, you are more valuable in
the tobacco fields than in the forest. Perhaps this is the stream which