"I have provided against that. See, on this stone are matches, and beside it wood for a fire.''
"Jean!" I exclaimed, a great light breaking about me. I extended my arms toward her; I would have rushed to her, but she evaded me in the darkness.
"Suppose you try the experiment, Frank," she said. "Let us see if there is anything in dreams."
I found the stone with the matches; I struck one; its light glowed genially in my face. I found the little pile of dry wood which she had gathered together; I knelt and set my match to it. I think in that moment I felt somewhat like a god before an altar; a whiff of fragrant willow smoke filled my nostrils like incense. Then I stood up and looked around for Jean. She was gone.
My little fire crackled and burned up merrily, sending its shaft of pale blue smoke heavenward in the night. The distant clouds still heliographed each other across the sky; their flashlights blinked on the surface of our pond from time to time.
Then I sat down and tried to recall what Jean had said. "A beautiful maiden shall come up . . . Take her. . . . She is yours—forever—if you obey the law."
"I will—I will obey!" I breathed.
Out on the dark water glowed a phosphorescent point. It drew steadily, straight toward me. It was the ripple of white water as a silent graceful figure cleft the tide in two. Onward she came, steadily, stroke by stroke. A flash of distant lightning lit her face cameo-like against the depths behind. She had touched the sand; she drew up from the water; she stood before me. I took her in my arms.
"Dreams do come true, if they're properly staged," she said when she could speak.