56 SYLVAN SECRETS. 



silver, and the fog had arranged itself in 

 beautiful lace- work patterns falling like filmy- 

 curtains before the dark masses of the jun- 

 gle. Although I could not notice any air 

 current, this beautiful drapery was swung 

 gently so that it undulated and was folded 

 upon itself in the most delicate ways imagin- 

 able. 



The opposite side of the little lake now ap- 

 peared immeasurably distant, and the out- 

 lines of the tree-masses were so softened that 

 they looked like vague mountains rising out 

 of a calm, dreamy sea, or like those floating 

 scenes in a mirage on our Western plains. 



Meantime the silence and the solitude had 

 been intensified, so to say, until the effect 

 was almost unbearable. 



By one of those cerebral tricks for which 

 there is no explanation, the impulse came 

 upon me to break all that infinite, solemn 

 silence by firing my gun. No sooner thought 

 than acted. Eight and left, boom, boom, I 

 let go the two heavy charges, and the sounds 

 seemed to shake the earth and jar the .firma- 

 ment above. They leaped away into the re- 

 motest distance and then came rattling and 

 tumbling back upon my ears in a thou- 

 sand echoes of every kind. 



What followed was quite common and nat- 

 ural, but it appalled me for a moment, I do 

 not know why. With a great clash of wings 

 an enormous raft of ducks rushed into the 

 air out of the water at the edge of the saw- 

 grass and went away with a stormy roar into 

 the convolutions of the fog. 



After this the silence fell again, deeper, 

 broader, more oppressive than ever. There 

 was something awfully threatening, even 

 menacing in it. I hurriedly reloaded my gun, 



