CHAPTER X.


When men have visions the impression left upon their minds is that light
from the unseen world of light has in some way broken through into the
sphere of their cognizance. The race in its ages of reflection has upon
the whole come to the conclusion that that which actually takes place is
the gradual growth and the sudden breaking forth of light within the
mysterious depths of the man himself. A new explanation of a fact does
not do away with the fact.

Toyner was not dead, he was stunned; his head was badly injured. When
his consciousness returned, and through what process of inflammation and
fever his wounded head went in the struggle of nature toward recovery,
was never clearly known. His body, bound with the soft torn cloths to
the upright tree, sagged more and more until it found a rest upon the
inclined log. The fresh sweet air from pine woods, the cool vapours from
the water beneath him, were nurses of wise and delicate touch. The sun
arose and shone warmly, yet not hotly, through the air in which dry haze
was thickening. The dead trees stood in the calm water, keeping silence
as it were, a hundred stalwart guards with fingers at their lips, lest
any sound should disturb the life that, with beneficent patience, was
little by little restoring the wounded body from within. Even the little
vulgar puffing market-boat that twice a day passed the windings of the
old river channel--the only disturber of solitude--was kept at so great
a distance by this guard of silent trees that no perception of her