"Was it? Was it? God only knows; I don't. Only I know the thought of murder was black in my heart. It was there for ever an' ever so long. How I fought against it! Then, just at that moment, everything seemed to come to a head. I don't know that I meant what I did, but I thought it."
"Come home, Jim, and forget it."
"When the rivers start to run up them mountain peaks I'll forget it. No, they won't let me forget it, them ghosts. They whisper to me all the time. Hist! don't you hear them? They're whispering to me now. 'You're a murderer, Jim, a murderer,' they say. 'The brand of Cain is on you, Jim, the brand of Cain.' Then the little leaves of the trees take up the whisper, an' the waters murmur it, an' the very stones cry out ag'in me, an' I can't shut out the sound. I can't, I can't."
"Hush, Jim!"
"No, no, the devil's a-hoein' out a place in the embers for me. I can't turn no more to the Lord. He's cast me out, an' the light of His countenance is darkened to me. Never again; oh, never again!"
"Oh come, Jim, for the sake of your old partners, come home."
"Well, boys, I'll come. But it's no good. I'm down an' out."
Wearily we gathered together his few belongings. He had been living on bread, and but little remained. Had we not reached him, he would have starved. He came like a child, but seemed a prey to acute melancholy.
It was indeed a sad party that trailed down that sad, dead valley. The trees were hung with a dreary drapery of grey, and the ashen moss muffled our footfalls. I think it was the deadest place I ever saw. The very air seemed dead and stale, as if it were eternally still, unstirred by any wind. Spiders and strange creeping things possessed the trees, and at every step, like white gauze, a mist of mosquitoes was thrown up. And the way seemed endless.
A great weariness weighed upon our spirits. Our feet flagged and our shoulders were bowed. As we looked into each other's faces we saw there a strange lassitude, a chill, grey despair. Our voices sounded hollow and queer, and we seldom spoke. It was as if the place was a vampire that was sucking the life and health from our veins.