"
"_What?_"
That single word broke from the Missioner like the sharp crack of a
whip.
"Of _what_ is he afraid?" he repeated. "Can you tell me? Can you guess
more than I have guessed? Is one a coward because he fears whispers that
tremble in the air and sees a face in the darkness of night that is
neither living nor dead? Is he?"
For a long time after he had gone to bed David lay wide awake in the
darkness, his mind working until it seemed to him that it was prisoned
in an iron chamber from which it was making futile efforts to escape. He
could hear the steady breathing of Father Roland and Mukoki, who were
asleep. His own eyes he could close only by forced efforts to bring upon
himself the unconsciousness of rest. Tavish filled his mind--Tavish and
the girl--and along with them the mysterious woman in the coach. He
struggled with himself. He told himself how absurd it all was, how
grotesquely his imagination was employing itself with him--how
incredible it was that Tavish and the girl in the picture should be
associated in that terrible way that had occurred to him. But he failed
to convince himself. He fell asleep at last, and his slumber was filled
with fleeting visions. When he awoke the cabin was filled with the glow
of the lantern.
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