Before long they came in sight of the Erba Molle; it looked like a fair, peaceful pasture, with thousands of sword rushes golden upon its surface.  The light of the stars, which was now brilliant, shone upon its verdure; there were great flocks of water-birds at roost around it, and they rose with shrill cries and great noise of wings, with a roar as though a tide were rising.

Across it stretched a line of wooden piles which served as a rude causeway to those who had the courage and the steadiness to leap from one to another of them.  It was not three times in a season that any one dared to do so.  Adone did so sometimes; and he had taught Nerina how to make the passage.

“Pass you after me, and set your feet where I set mine,” said Nerina to the little soldier of the Abruzzo, and she put down her foot on the first pile, sunk almost invisible under the bright green slime, where thousands of frogs were croaking.

The soldier of the Abruzzo said to his superior, “She says we must set our feet where she sets hers.  We are quite near now to the tomb of the barbarian.”

Nerina, with the light leap of a kid, bounded from pile to pile.  They thought she went on solid ground; on meadow grass.  The sergeant and his men crowded on to what they thought was pasture.  In the uncertain shadows and scarce dawning light, they did not see the row of submerged timber.  They sank like stones in the thick ooze; they were sucked under to their knees, to their waists, to their shoulders, to their mouths; the yielding grasses, the clutching slime, the tangled weed, the bottomless mud, took hold of them; the water-birds shrieked and beat their wings; the hideous clamour of dying men answered them.

Nerina had reached the other side of the morass in safety, and her mocking laughter rang upon their ears.

“I have led you well!” she cried to them.  “I have led you well, oh servants of the king! —­ oh swine! —­ oh slaves! —­ oh spies!—­ oh hunters and butchers of men!”

And she danced on the edge of the field of death, and the light of the great planets shone upon her face.

Had she run onward at once the wood beyond she would have been saved.  That instant of triumph and mockery lost her.

The sergeant had put his revolver in his teeth; he knew now that he was a dead man; the slime was up to his chin, under his feet the grass and the mud quaked, yielded, yawned like a grave.

He drew his right arm out of the ooze, seized his revolver, and aimed at the dancing, mocking, triumphant figure beyond the border of golden sword rushes.  With a supreme effort he fired; then he sank under the mud and weed.

The child dropped dead on the edge of the morass.

One by one each soldier sank.  Not one escaped.

The water-birds came back from their upward flight and settled again on the swamp.

Underneath it all was still, save for the loud croaking of the frogs.