No: there is not a single one, she avers; she has taken that path too often not to know:
—"Pa ni sèpent piess! Moin ni coutime passé là;—pa ni piess!"
... She leads the way.... Behind them the tremendous glow deepens;—before them the gloom. Enormous gnarled forms of ceiba, balata, acoma, stand dimly revealed as they pass; masses of viny drooping things take, by the failing light, a sanguine tone. For a little while Fafa can plainly discern the figure of the Woman before him;—then, as the path zigzags into shadow, he can descry only the white turban and the white foulard;—and then the boughs meet overhead: he can see her no more, and calls to her in alarm:—
—"Oti ou?—moin pa pè ouè arien!"
Forked pending ends of creepers trail cold across his face. Huge fire-flies sparkle by,—like atoms of kindled charcoal thudding, blown by a wind.
—"Içitt!—quimbé lanmain-moin!"...
How cold the hand that guides him!... She walks swiftly, surely, as one knowing the path by heart. It zigzags once more; and the incandescent color flames again between the trees;—the high vaulting of foliage fissures overhead, revealing the first stars. A cabritt-bois begins its chant. They reach the summit of the morne under the clear sky.
The wood is below their feet now; the path curves on eastward between a long swaying of ferns sable in the gloom,—as between a waving of prodigious black feathers. Through the further purpling, loftier altitudes dimly loom; and from some viewless depth, a dull vast rushing sound rises into the night.... Is it the speech of hurrying waters, or only some tempest of insect voices from those ravines in which the night begins?...
Her face is in the darkness as she stands;—Fafa's eyes are turned to the iron-crimson of the western sky. He still holds her hand, fondles it,—murmurs something to her in undertones.
—"Ess ou ainmein moin conm ça?" she asks, almost in a whisper.