"What is the matter, Smith, you seem ill?" she said; and then, laying
her fresh palm on my forehead, added: "Your head burns like fire."

"No wonder," I returned. "I'm worrying my brains trying to remember all
about them. What were their names, and what did they do to those who
loved them--can't you tell me?"

"Oh, you are ill--you have a fever and may die!" she exclaimed, throwing
her arms about my neck and pressing her cheek to mine.

I felt a strange imbecility of mind, yet it seemed to anger me to be
told that I was ill. "I am not ill," I protested feebly. "I never felt
better in my life! But can't you answer me--who were they, and what did
they do? Tell me, or I shall go mad."

She started up, and taking the small metal whistle hanging at her side,
blew a shrill note that seemed to pierce my brain like a steel weapon. I
tried to get up from my seat on the trunk, but only slipped down to the
ground. A dull mist and gloom seemed to be settling down on everything;
daylight, and hope with it, was fast forsaking the world. But something
was coming to us--out of that universal mist and darkness closing around
us it came bounding swiftly through the wood--a huge gray wolf! No, not
a wolf--a wolf was nothing to it! A mighty, roaring lion crashing
through the forest; a monster ever increasing in size, vast and of
horrible aspect, surpassing all monsters of the imagination--all beasts,
gigantic and deformed, that had ever existed in past geologic ages; a
lion with teeth like elephants' tusks, its head clothed as with a black
thunder-cloud, through which its eyes glared like twin, blood-red suns!
And she--my love--with a cry on her lips, was springing forth to meet