The first sentinel trees were very near, now; and Tressa was running across a ghostly tangle, where once had been an orange grove, and where aged and dying citrus stumps rose stark amid the riot of encroaching jungle.
“She’s circling to get the wind at our backs,” breathed Recklow, running forward beside Cleves. “That’s our only chance to kill the dirty rat—catch him with the wind at our backs!”
Once, traversing a dry hammock where streaks of moonlight alternated with velvet-black shadow a rattlesnake sprang his goblin alarm.
They could not locate the reptile. They shrank together and moved warily, chilled with fear.
Once, too, clear in the moonlight, the Grey Death reared up from bloated folds and stood swaying rhythmically in a horrible shadow dance before them. And Cleves threw one arm around his wife and crept past, giving death a wide berth there in the checkered moonlight.
Now, under foot, the dry hammock lay everywhere and the night wind blew on their backs.
Then Tressa turned and halted the two men with a gesture. And went to her husband where he stood in the palm forest, and laid her hands on his shoulders, looking him very wistfully in the eyes.
Under her searching gaze he seemed oddly to comprehend her appeal.
“You are going to use—to use your knowledge,” he said mechanically. “You are going to find the man in white.”
“Yes.”