"And did you do so?"
"Yes, Loskiel. I said to her: 'Little sad rosy-throated pigeon of the woods, the vale Yndaia lies by a hidden river in the West. Some call it Catharines-town.'"
I shook my head, perplexed, and understanding nothing.
"Yndaia? Did you say Yndaia, Mayaro?"
Then, as he looked me steadily in the eye, my gaze became uneasy, shifted, fell by an accident upon the blood-red bear reared on his hind legs, pictured upon his breast. And through and through me passed a shock, like the dull thrill of some forgotten thing clutched suddenly by memory—yet clutched in vain.
Vain was the struggle, too, for the faint gleam passed from my mind as it had come; and if the name Yndaia had disturbed me, or seeing the scarlet ensign on his breast, or perhaps both coupled, had seemed to stir some distant memory, I did not know. Only it seemed as though, in mental darkness, I had felt the presence of some living and familiar thing—been conscious of its nearness for an instant ere it had vanished utterly.
The Sagamore's face had become a smooth, blank mask again.
"What has this maid, Lois, to do with Catharines-town?" I asked. "Devils live there in darkness."
"She did not say."
"You do not know?"