Page:Weird Tales volume 32 number 01.djvu/63

 own boathouse loft. The moon was up, and I jumped when leaves shimmered in its light—I remembered Jake's story about the amorphous lurkers in the thickets.

But nothing challenged us, and we went silently to bed, though I, at least, lay wakeful for hours.

finally I slept, it was to dream in strange, unrelated flashes. The clearest impression of all was that Sigrid and Judge Pursuivant came to lead me deep into the dark woods beyond the lodge. They seemed to know their way through pathless thickets, and finally beckoned me to follow into a deep, shadowed cleft between banks of earth. We descended for miles, I judged in my dream, until we came to a bare, hard floor at the bottom. Here was a wide, round hatchway of metal, like a very large sewer lid. Bidding me watch, Sigrid and the judge bent and tugged the lid up and away. Gazing down the exposed shaft, it was as if I saw the heavens beneath my feet—the fathomlessness of the night sky, like velvet all sprinkled with crumbs of star-fire. I did not know whether to be joyful or to fear; then I had awakened, and it was bright morning.

The air was warmer than it had been the day before, and I donned bathing-trunks and went downstairs, treading softly to let Jake snore blissfully on. Almost at the door of the boathouse I came face to face with Davidson, who smiled disarmingly and held out his hand. He urged me to forget the brief hostility that had come over us at rehearsal; he was quite unforced and cheerful about it, yet I surmised that Varduk had bade him make peace with me. However, I agreed that we had both been tired and upset, and we shook hands cordially.

Then I turned toward the water, and saw Sigrid lazily crawling out into the deep stretches with long, smooth strokes. I called her name, ran in waist-deep, and swam as swiftly as I could, soon catching up. She smiled in welcome and turned on her side to say good-morning. In her brief bathing-suit she did not look so gaunt and fragile. Her body was no more than healthily slim, and quite firm and strong-looking.

As we swam easily, I was impelled to speak of my dream, and she smiled again.

"I think that was rather beautiful, I mean about the heavens below your feet," she said. "Symbolism might have something to say about it. In a way the vision was prophetic—Judge Pursuivant has sent word that he will call on us."

"Perhaps the rest was prophetic, too," I ventured boldly. "You and I together, Sigrid—and heaven at our feet"

"I've been in long enough," she announced suddenly, "and breakfast must be ready. Come on, Gib, race me back to shore."

She was off like a trout, and I churned after her. We finished neck and neck, separated and went away to dress. At breakfast, which Davidson prepared simply but well of porridge, toast and eggs, I did not get to sit next to Sigrid; Davidson and Jake had found places at her left and right hands. I paid what attentions I could devise to Martha Vining, but if Sigrid was piqued by my courtliness in another direction, she gave no sign.

meal over, I returned to my room, secured my copy of Ruthven and carried it outdoors to study. I chose a sun-drenched spot near the lodge, set my back to a tree, and leafed through the play, underlining difficult passages here and there. I remembered Varduk's announcement that we would never speak the play's last line in rehearsal, lest bad