In one long, smooth, unbroken slide, down they swept, from summit to base of that tremendous steep. Well it was for Sprigg that the little arms which held him on were so firm and strong, else must he inevitably have slipped from the bear's back and found his way to the world below by his own natural gravity, instead of by somebody else's super-natural power.
The descent accomplished, the bear changed ends, that his nose might take the lead. With a slightly waving motion, as were he swimming in the air, now was he gliding swiftly onward at a speed which soon brought him and his riders to the edge of a wide swamp, where the forest foliage became so thick as wholly to exclude the moonlight. Here he paused, and in a loud voice called out:
"Will-o'-the-Wisp! Will-o'-the-Wisp!" A voice so tremendously loud that it must have been heard through all the wilds around; yet never an echo it left to tell it had sounded.
Had an echo awakened, it could hardly have fallen asleep again before the boy espied approaching them swiftly through the gloom a large ball of light, which shown with a phosphorescent gleam, so dead and dim, that the luminous circle it made in the pitch-black darkness of the swamp seemed scarcely to exceed its own circumference. Without any preliminary abatement of motion, the glimmering ball, as were it a lantern borne by an unseen hand, came suddenly to a pause in the air directly before them. Then followed an odd sort of a dialogue, made up of questions on one side, with motions for answers on the other, the wisp-light moving up and down for "yes," from side to side for "no," and for "I don't know," 'round and 'round.
Bear. "Will-o'-the-Wisp, have you lighted the robber's feet to the pit-fall?"
Wisp. Up and down.
B. "Did he swear?"
W. From side to side.
B. "Did he pray?"
W. Up and down.