only occasionally a wandering breeze searching the hidden places of the
swamp, or the call and song of night birds, jarred the stillness. Long
they sat, until the silence crept into Bles's flesh, and stretching out
his hand, he touched Zora's, clasping it.

After a time the old woman rose and hobbled to a big black chest. Out of
it she brought an old bag of cotton seed--not the white-green seed which
Bles had always known, but small, smooth black seeds, which she handled
carefully, dipping her hands deep down and letting them drop through her
gnarled fingers. And so again they sat and waited and waited, saying no
word.

Not until the stars of midnight had swung to the zenith did they start
down through the swamp. Bles sought to guide the old woman, but he found
she knew the way better than he did. Her shadowy figure darting in and
out among the trunks till they crossed the tree bridge, moved ever
noiselessly ahead.

She motioned the boy and girl away to the thicket at the edge, and
stood still and black in the midst of the cleared island. Bles slipped
his arm protectingly around Zora, glancing fearfully about in the
darkness. Slowly a great cry rose and swept the island. It struck madly
and sharply, and then died away to uneasy murmuring. From afar there
seemed to come the echo or the answer to the call. The form of Elspeth
blurred the night dimly far off, almost disappearing, and then growing
blacker and larger. They heard the whispering "_swish-swish_" of falling
seed; they felt the heavy tread of a great coming body. The form of the
old woman suddenly loomed black above them, hovering a moment formless
and vast then fading again away, and the "_swish-swish_" of the falling
seed alone rose in the silence of the night.