Between the two lonely figures within, however, there pressed another shadow that was not a shadow from the night.  It was the Shadow cast by the strange Fear, never wholly exorcised, that had leaped suddenly upon Defago in the middle of his singing.  And Simpson, as he lay there, watching the darkness through the open flap of the tent, ready to plunge into the fragrant abyss of sleep, knew first that unique and profound stillness of a primeval forest when no wind stirs ... and when the night has weight and substance that enters into the soul to bind a veil about it....  Then sleep took him....

III

Thus, it seemed to him, at least.  Yet it was true that the lap of the water, just beyond the tent door, still beat time with his lessening pulses when he realized that he was lying with his eyes open and that another sound had recently introduced itself with cunning softness between the splash and murmur of the little waves.

And, long before he understood what this sound was, it had stirred in him the centers of pity and alarm.  He listened intently, though at first in vain, for the running blood beat all its drums too noisily in his ears.  Did it come, he wondered, from the lake, or from the woods?...

Then, suddenly, with a rush and a flutter of the heart, he knew that it was close beside him in the tent; and, when he turned over for a better hearing, it focused itself unmistakably not two feet away.  It was a sound of weeping; Defago upon his bed of branches was sobbing in the darkness as though his heart would break, the blankets evidently stuffed against his mouth to stifle it.

And his first feeling, before he could think or reflect, was the rush of a poignant and searching tenderness.  This intimate, human sound, heard amid the desolation about them, woke pity.  It was so incongruous, so pitifully incongruous—­and so vain!  Tears—­in this vast and cruel wilderness:  of what avail?  He thought of a little child crying in mid-Atlantic....  Then, of course, with fuller realization, and the memory of what had gone before, came the descent of the terror upon him, and his blood ran cold.

“Defago,” he whispered quickly, “what’s the matter?” He tried to make his voice very gentle.  “Are you in pain—­unhappy—?” There was no reply, but the sounds ceased abruptly.  He stretched his hand out and touched him.  The body did not stir.

“Are you awake?” for it occurred to him that the man was crying in his sleep.  “Are you cold?” He noticed that his feet, which were uncovered, projected beyond the mouth of the tent.  He spread an extra fold of his own blankets over them.  The guide had slipped down in his bed, and the branches seemed to have been dragged with him.  He was afraid to pull the body back again, for fear of waking him.

One or two tentative questions he ventured softly, but though he waited for several minutes there came no reply, nor any sign of movement.  Presently he heard his regular and quiet breathing, and putting his hand again gently on the breast, felt the steady rise and fall beneath.