“Look here,” said Jane, pulling her wrist away, “I don’t want to waste time like this, I want you to tell me more about yourself; I want you to tell me about that child Campanula. Why did you adopt her?”
“I found her on the road going to Nikko.”
“Where’s that?”
“It’s away up in Shimotsuke, beyond Tokyo. I and M’Gourley were on the tramp. We were sitting by the roadside resting, when a blind man came along. He was half mad, and talked wild. Said he was a juggler, and offered to fetch devils out of a wood near by, if we gave him gold.”
“Why didn’t you try him?” said Jane in an interested voice.
“I did try him,” said Leslie; “gave him some money. He made a circle in the dust, with signs round the rim of it, told us not to touch it or come near it, got into the middle of it, and fetched out a reed-pipe. Then he began to play a tune that would make you shiver to hear, and things croaked in the wood.”
“Go on,” said Jane shivering pleasantly.
“I took my walking-stick and made a mark in the dust just near his foot. I touched his heel by accident, and—whew!”
“Yes?”
“He went off like a rocket; bounded out of the circle, rushed this way and that, knocking against trees and striking right and left with his stick, as if dogs were about him. He got round the bend of the road and vanished. We were pretty much astonished, but that wasn’t the end of it. In front of us was a valley of the most beautiful crimson azaleas.”