The swamp was the home of oblivion. They moved through it as through a place set apart for those who are condemned to a death in life.
From time to time they shouted aloud. Having no weapons with them, they could make no other signal. They called to Sylv, with a hope that he might answer to them from the next bend in the stream, or from some adjoining depth of bough and bramble. Yet always the same dead silence swallowed up the sound of their voices, and no human response came back. The raw air, the shade, the moisture of the oozing current, gradually invaded them with a chill that seemed to run through their very bones; but it was with a more deadly chill that they gazed into one another's eyes, and thought, without saying it, that perhaps they were even then pushing their way over the liquid grave in which Sylv might have sought relief.
How long they urged that ghostly chase it would not be easy to say: they could form no judgment of the time. But at last Dennie caught sight of what appeared to be a ruddy flame on a low island in the muddy flood, some distance in advance. Neither of the paddlers was quite positive that it was a real flame, but they put new vigor into their strokes, and hallooed again. Once more, no answer.
Still, the flame grew more distinct. The canoe swept rapidly forward and rubbed against the roots and sediment of the tiny island. No other boat was moored there, but the fire flickered and spurted up more vividly. Beside it they beheld Sylv, haggard, inert, and seemingly unconscious of their approach.
"Sylv! Sylv!" cried Dennie.
"What are you doing here?" Lance demanded.
Sylv shrank back, then started to his feet; the flame-light—looking so garish in that gloomy place—thrown upward on to his wan checks in such wise as to make them seem more hollow than they were in fact.
"I came here to die," he answered, without emotion. "Why did you follow me? It would have been over before long."
They heard the booming of the storm-wind in the trees overhead, like the groan of some remote unknown multitude of sufferers; and it chimed in well with the lonely reverberation of his voice.
"It is over now!" Lance exclaimed. "Don't you see that we won't let you die? It was mad of you to think of such a thing, Sylv!"