That night he embarked upon the sea of dreams. He seldom dreamed. But this night tall clouds loomed in his sleep and an ocean rolled away. His ship plunged on, always on, he at the helm.
Far upon the storm-wastes pitched a tiny craft under naked poles, hurled toward destruction. As he drove past her under thundering sail he saw—for the first time in any dream—the ghost of Eris lashed to the little helm, her death-white face fixed, her gaze intent upon the last fading star.
He awoke calling to her, the strain of nightmare an agony in his throat, and shaking all over. But now, awake, he couldn’t understand what had so terrified him in his dream, why he quivered so.
“I suppose I thought she couldn’t ride out the storm in that cockle-shell,” he muttered, gazing at the grey warning of dawn outside his windows.
The first sparrow chirped. Annan pulled the quilt over his ears, disgusted.
“I ought to look up that kid,” he thought.
It was his last conscious effort until he awoke for another day.
CHAPTER XIII
ANNAN, leaving the Province Club—one of the remaining threads attaching him to the conventional world—espied Coltfoot.
They had not met in weeks, and they shook hands affectionately.