from behind and with an agile movement mounted it astride. The man sank
upon his breast, recovered, flung the small boy fiercely to the ground
as an unbroken colt might have done, then turned upon him a face that
lacked a lower jaw--from the upper teeth to the throat was a great red
gap fringed with hanging shreds of flesh and splinters of bone. The
unnatural prominence of nose, the absence of chin, the fierce eyes, gave
this man the appearance of a great bird of prey crimsoned in throat and
breast by the blood of its quarry. The man rose to his knees, the child
to his feet. The man shook his fist at the child; the child, terrified
at last, ran to a tree near by, got upon the farther side of it and took
a more serious view of the situation. And so the clumsy multitude
dragged itself slowly and painfully along in hideous pantomime--moved
forward down the slope like a swarm of great black beetles, with never a
sound of going--in silence profound, absolute.

Instead of darkening, the haunted landscape began to brighten. Through
the belt of trees beyond the brook shone a strange red light, the trunks
and branches of the trees making a black lacework against it. It struck
the creeping figures and gave them monstrous shadows, which caricatured
their movements on the lit grass. It fell upon their faces, touching
their whiteness with a ruddy tinge, accentuating the stains with which
so many of them were freaked and maculated. It sparkled on buttons and
bits of metal in their clothing. Instinctively the child turned toward
the growing splendor and moved down the slope with his horrible
companions; in a few moments had passed the foremost of the throng--not
much of a feat, considering his advantages. He placed himself in the
lead, his wooden sword still in hand, and solemnly directed the march,
conforming his pace to theirs and occasionally turning as if to see that
his forces did not straggle. Surely such a leader never before had such
a following.