cross!"

"I believe you're right," the Swede said, shading his eyes with his hand
and watching the man out of sight. He seemed to be gone in a moment,
melting away down there into the sea of willows where the sun caught
them in the bend of the river and turned them into a great crimson wall
of beauty. Mist, too, had begun to rise, so that the air was hazy.

"But what in the world is he doing at nightfall on this flooded river?"
I said, half to myself. "Where is he going at such a time, and what did
he mean by his signs and shouting? D'you think he wished to warn us
about something?"

"He saw our smoke, and thought we were spirits probably," laughed my
companion. "These Hungarians believe in all sorts of rubbish: you
remember the shopwoman at Pressburg warning us that no one ever landed
here because it belonged to some sort of beings outside man's world! I
suppose they believe in fairies and elementals, possibly demons too.
That peasant in the boat saw people on the islands for the first time in
his life," he added, after a slight pause, "and it scared him, that's
all." The Swede's tone of voice was not convincing, and his manner
lacked something that was usually there. I noted the change instantly
while he talked, though without being able to label it precisely.

"If they had enough imagination," I laughed loudly--I remember trying to
make as much _noise_ as I could--"they might well people a place like
this with the old gods of antiquity. The Romans must have haunted all
this region more or less with their shrines and sacred groves and
elemental deities."