CHAPTER IV.
Hours passed. All at once, without any other motion or gesture, the boy's eyes opened wide with a strange, intense look.
"Father," he said slowly, and in a kind of dream, "when you hear a sweet horn blow at night, is it the Scarlet Hunter calling?"
"P'r'aps. Why, Dominique?" He made up his mind to humor the boy, though it gave him strange aching forebodings. He had seen grown men and women with these fancies—and they had died.
"I heard one blowing just now, and the sounds seemed to wave over my head. P'r'aps he's calling some one that's lost."
"Mebbe."
"And I heard a voice singing—it wasn't a bird to-night."
"There was no voice, Dominique."
"Yes, yes." There was something fine in the grave, courteous certainty of the lad. "I waked, and you were sitting there thinking, and I shut my eyes again, and I heard the voice. I remember the tune and the words."
"What were the words?" In spite of himself the hunter felt awed.