Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/255

Rh manner of man must be her sire? I stuttered and I stammered.

“I—I didn’t understand I’d come to see your father.”

“He is the Great Joss.”

“The Great Joss?”

What on earth did she mean? What was a Joss, anyhow, great or little? I had heard of joss-sticks, though I only had a hazy notion what they were. But a real live Joss, who could be the father of such a daughter, was a new kind of creature altogether. She offered no explanation.

“He waits for you. I am here to bring you to him. Come.”

She fluttered off among the trees.

“Luke,” I whispered as we followed, “this is not at all the sort of thing I was prepared for.”

“She’s a fine piece, ain’t she?”

A “fine piece!” To apply his coarse Whitechapel slang to such a being! It was unendurable. I could have knocked him down. Only I thought that, just then, I had better not. I preserved silence instead.

It was like a page out of a fairy tale; we followed the enchanted princess through the wood of wonders. The gleaming of her snow-white robes was all we had to guide us. Shafts of light shot down upon her through the trees. When they struck her she shone like silver. She moved swiftly through the forest; out of the darkness into the light, then into the dark again. No sound marked her passing. She sped on noiseless feet. While Luke struggled clumsily after her.

She took us perhaps a quarter of a mile. Even as we went I wondered if Isaac Rudd upon the hill-top would hear us should we find ourselves in want of aid. How help would reach us if he did. One would need to be highly endowed with the instinct of locality to follow us by the way which we had come. A