But we kept on calling just the same and a hideous echo from somewhere threw our words back at us in a broken, mocking answer. That was all. We were paralyzed with fear that Sahwah had wandered into the swamp or had fallen over the precipice in the dark into the lake. We turned the lights of the car on the swamp for a long distance, but saw nothing.
I shuddered until my teeth chattered at that lonely stretch of marsh. Given the choice between a graveyard at night and a swamp, I think I should take the graveyard. The nice friendly ghosts that sit on tombstones are so much more cheerful than the nameless and shapeless Things that flit over a swamp at night. The yellow circle thrown by the Glow-worm's lamps was the only thing that linked us to earth and reason. Within that circle the mysterious shadows melted and no spirits dared dance. Then without warning the yellow circle dimmed and vanished, and left us completely at the mercy of the Shapes. The lights had gone out on the Glow-worm.
"Probably short circuited," we heard Nyoda's voice say. "Where was Moses when the light went out?" I asked, trying to be cheerful.
Margery trembled and clung to Nyoda. The swamp now seemed a living thing that clutched at us with hands. And somewhere in that darkness that pressed around us Sahwah was wandering around lost, or perhaps lying helpless in the water. It is not my intention to dwell on the unpleasant features of our trip any more than I have to. But somehow that night stands out more clearly in my memory than any of the other events. Nyoda says it is because I am gifted, or rather cursed, with a constructive imagination, and see and hear things that aren't there. I suppose it is true, because I can see whole armies marching in the sky, and boats and horses and dragons, when the other girls only see clouds. But I know I heard sounds in that swamp that night that weren't earthly; voices that sang tunes and children that cried, and things that fiddled and shrieked and sobbed and laughed and whispered and gurgled and moaned.
Our hunt for Sahwah had to be given up because without lights we dared not venture forth on the road for fear of running into the swamp.
"Sit up in front, Migwan, and be the headlight; you're bright enough," said Nyoda, cheerfully.
"I'm having an eclipse to-night," I replied.
So we sat still in the Glow-worm not far from the gate which had been the fountain and origin of all the trouble and wished fervently, not for Blucher or night, but for Sahwah or morning. And the reader knows which one of them came.
The rain stopped about dawn and the east began to redden and then we knew there was going to be a sunrise. I have been glad to see many things in my life; but I never was so glad to see anything, as I was, when the sun began to rise that morning after the night of water. Viewed in the magic light of morning, the road was not so bad, while the lake, rippling in the wind, was a thing of beauty, and the swamp was merely a swamp. The gate was right at the corner of a fence which enclosed a very large farm. We could just barely see the house and barn in the distance, set up on a sort of hill. The property ended on this end at the gate, and just beyond it began the descent to the lake. How we had gotten inside that fence the night before we never found out. We must have crossed that entire farm in the darkness on a private road which we mistook for the main road.
In the broad light of day we descended the steep way down to the lake and examined every foot of ground around it. It was all soft mud and if Sahwah had been down there she must have left traces of some kind. But the surface was unbroken save for a few tracks of birds. Clearly, she had not fallen over the edge. Where, then, had she gone. The mud around the gate was such soup that no footprints could be seen. Oh, if the gate could only speak!