but when I had progressed about thirty yards, again the sweet
voice sounded just behind me, and turning quickly, I stood still
and waited. The same voice, but not the same song--not the same
phrase; the notes were different, more varied and rapidly
enunciated, as if the singer had been more excited. The blood
rushed to my heart as I listened; my nerves tingled with a
strange new delight, the rapture produced by such music
heightened by a sense of mystery. Before many moments I heard it
again, not rapid now, but a soft warbling, lower than at first,
infinitely sweet and tender, sinking to lisping sounds that soon
ceased to be audible; the whole having lasted as long as it would
take me to repeat a sentence of a dozen words. This seemed the
singer's farewell to me, for I waited and listened in vain to
hear it repeated; and after getting back to the starting-point I
sat for upwards of an hour, still hoping to hear it once more!

The weltering sun at length compelled me to quit the wood, but
not before I had resolved to return the next morning and seek for
the spot where I had met with so enchanting an experience. After
crossing the sterile belt I have mentioned within the wood, and
just before I came to the open outer edge where the stunted trees
and bushes die away on the border of the savannah, what was my
delight and astonishment at hearing the mysterious melody once
more! It seemed to issue from a clump of bushes close by; but by
this time I had come to the conclusion that there was a
ventriloquism in this woodland voice which made it impossible for
me to determine its exact direction. Of one thing I was,
however, now quite convinced, and that was that the singer had
been following me all the time. Again and again as I stood there
listening it sounded, now so faint and apparently far off as to