night-lamp was burning calmly. And because of this I
take it that the wild pigs did not get us, that we
never fetched bottom; else I should not be here now, a
thousand centuries after, to remember the event.

And now put yourself in my place for a moment. Walk
with me a bit in my tender childhood, bed with me a
night and imagine yourself dreaming such
incomprehensible horrors. Remember I was an
inexperienced child. I had never seen a wild boar in
my life. For that matter I had never seen a
domesticated pig. The nearest approach to one that I
had seen was breakfast bacon sizzling in its fat. And
yet here, real as life, wild boars dashed through my
dreams, and I, with fantastic parents, swung through
the lofty tree-spaces.

Do you wonder that I was frightened and oppressed by my
nightmare-ridden nights? I was accursed. And, worst
of all, I was afraid to tell. I do not know why,
except that I had a feeling of guilt, though I knew no
better of what I was guilty. So it was, through long
years, that I suffered in silence, until I came to
man's estate and learned the why and wherefore of my
dreams.



CHAPTER IV