I ask you just to believe this much: that I for my part feel sure (except sometimes by daylight) that I was not more than half asleep when a footfall seemed to come in the path, and waked me entirely. It didn't sound,—only seemed to come. I believe, then, that I woke, roused up on my elbow, and stared over at the opening among the bamboos where the path came into the clearing. Some one moved down the bank, and drew slowly forward to the edge of the firelight. A strange, whispering, uncertain kind of voice said something,—something in Dutch.
I didn't catch the words, and it spoke again:—
"What night of the month is this night?"
If awake, I was just enough so to think this a natural question to be asked first off, out here in the wilds.
"It's the 6th," I answered in Dutch. "Come down to the fire, Mynheer."
You know how bleary and sightless your eyes are for a moment, waking, after the glare of these days. The figure seemed to come a little nearer, but I could only see that it was a man dressed in black. Even that didn't seem odd.
"Of what month?" the stranger said. The voice was what the French call "veiled."
"June," I answered.
"And what year?" he asked.
I told him—or It.