MISS SYBILLA SILVER

Meantime Sir Everard had aroused his valet and a brace of tall footmen,
and dispatched them to the aid of the wounded man in the wood. And
then he sought his own chamber, and, after an hour or two of aimless
tossing, dropped into an uneasy sleep.

And sleeping, Sir Everard had a singular dream. He was walking through
Brithlow Wood with Lady Louise on his arm, the moonlight sifting
through the tall trees as he had seen it last. Suddenly, with a rustle
and a hiss, a huge green serpent glided out, reared itself up, and
glared at them with eyes of deadly menace. And somehow, though he had
not yet seen the lad's face, he knew the hissing serpent and the
preserver of his life were one and the same. With horrible hisses the
monster encircled him. Its fetid breath was in his face, its deadly
fangs ready to strike his death-blow, and, with a suffocating cry, Sir
Everard a-woke from his nightmare and started up in bed.

"Good heavens! such a night of horrors, waking and sleeping! A most
ungrateful dream, truly! It is time I awoke my unknown preserver."

The mysterious youth lay fast asleep upon the bed, dressed as he had
left him, with the exception of the slouched hat and the red cotton
handkerchief. They lay on the carpet; and over the pillows, and over
the coarse velveteen jacket streamed such a wealth of blue-black hair
as the baronet in all his life never before beheld.

"Powers above!" Sir Everard gasped, in his utter amaze, "what can this
mean?"