BY ARTHUR MACHEN

A GHOST
BY GUY DE MAUPASSANT





The Willows

BY ALGERNON BLACKWOOD

From _The Listener_, by Algernon Blackwood. Published in America by
E.P. Dutton, and in England by Everleigh Nash, Ltd. By permission
of the publishers and Algernon Blackwood.


I

After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Buda-Pesth, the Danube
enters a region of singular loneliness and desolation, where its waters
spread away on all sides regardless of a main channel, and the country
becomes a swamp for miles upon miles, covered by a vast sea of low
willow-bushes. On the big maps this deserted area is painted in a fluffy
blue, growing fainter in color as it leaves the banks, and across it may
be seen in large straggling letters the word _Sümpfe_, meaning marshes.

In high flood this great acreage of sand, shingle-beds, and willow-grown
islands is almost topped by the water, but in normal seasons the bushes