The doctor broke off suddenly.  The roar coming from the darkness around the swamp rose high on the gusty wind.  He and David were now riding fast, and the roaring grew rapidly more continuous and distinct.  The vast volume of inarticulate sound presently began to break into many human voices.  At last a single voice pierced all the rest.  Its shrill cry of spiritual anguish filled the dark forest with the wailing of a soul in extremity.

“And it’s a woman, too!” cried the doctor.

He spoke shortly, almost angrily, but something in his tone told David that he also was shivering, although the night was warm, and that his heart was full of pity.  They were now drawing near the camp-meeting, but they could not see it, nor even the light from it.  They had reentered the forest, which was here made darker and wilder by many fallen trees, blown down and tossed together by the fierce tempests which often rent the swamp.  The torn roots, the decaying trunks, and the shattered branches of the dead giants of the ancient wood, were dank with water-moss.  Rank poison vines writhed everywhere, and crept like vipers beyond the deadly borders of the great Cypress Swamp.  Through such dark and tangled density as this the smoky torches, burning dimly around the camp, could cast their light but a little way.  And thus it was by hearing and not by seeing, that they came at last upon the spot almost by accident.  They had scarcely got hurriedly down from their horses, and hastily tied them to a swinging bough when the scene burst upon them—­a wild vision revealed by the dim flickering torchlight.

[Illustration:  “A dark, confused ... writhing mass of humanity.”]

There was a long, low shed of vast extent.  It was covered with rough boards, and upheld by tree-trunks which still bore the bark.  There was no floor other than the bare earth, and there were no seats other than unhewn logs.  Here, under the deep shadows of this great shed, all darkly shut in by the black wilderness and dimly lit by a wide circle of smoking, flaring torches, there surged a dark, confused, convulsed, roaring, writhing mass of humanity.  And there were many hundreds in that shadowy multitude—­swaying, struggling, groaning, laughing, weeping, shouting, praying, dancing, leaping, and falling.

“It does not seem possible that there can be so many in all the wilderness,” said the doctor.  “But they come from long distances, from as far as fifty and sixty miles around.  And they have been coming for weeks—­day and night—­just like this.”

He spoke sadly, and with deep feeling.  He laid his firm, gentle hand on David’s shaking arm, knowing how the awful spectacle must affect the sensitive boy.  David instinctively drew nearer to his side feeling the support of his calm, sane, strong presence, and began gradually to see with clearer eyes, so that this awful vision became by degrees a more awful reality.

“Listen!” cried the doctor.  “They are beginning to sing!”