"We won't try; we'll just take it to them and give them half, like the other tenants."
"But the swamp is mortal thick and hard to clear."
"We can do it."
Zora had sat still, listening; but now, suddenly, she leapt to her feet.
"Come," she said, "I'll take the clothes home, then we'll go"--she glanced at him--"down where the dreams are." And laughing, they hurried on.
Elspeth stood in the path that wound down to the cottage, and without a word Zora dropped the basket at her feet. She turned back; but Bles, struck by a thought, paused. The old woman was short, broad, black and wrinkled, with yellow fangs, red hanging lips, and wicked eyes. She leered at them; the boy shrank before it, but stood his ground.
"Aunt Elspeth," he began, "Zora and I are going to plant and tend some cotton to pay for her schooling--just the very best cotton we can find--and I heard"--he hesitated,--"I heard you had some wonderful seed."
"Yes," she mumbled, "I'se got the seed--I'se got it--wonder seed, sowed wid the three spells of Obi in the old land ten tousand moons ago. But you couldn't plant it," with a sudden shrillness, "it would kill you."
"But--" Bles tried to object, but she waved him away.
"Git the ground--git the ground; dig it--pet it, and we'll see what we'll see." And she disappeared.
Zora was not sure that it had been wise to tell their secret.
"I was going to steal the seed," she said. "I knows where it is, and I don't fear conjure."
"You mustn't steal, Zora," said Bles, gravely.
"Why?" Zora quickly asked.
But before he answered, they both forgot; for their faces were turned toward the wonder of the swamp. The golden sun was pouring floods of glory through the slim black trees, and the mystic sombre pools caught and tossed back the glow in darker, duller crimson. Long echoing cries leapt to and fro; silent footsteps crept hither and yonder; and the girl's eyes gleamed with a wild new joy.
"The dreams!" she cried. "The dreams!" And leaping ahead, she danced along the shadowed path. He hastened after her, but she flew fast and faster; he followed, laughing, calling, pleading. He saw her twinkling limbs a-dancing as once he saw them dance in a halo of firelight; but now the fire was the fire of the world. Her garments twined and flew in shadowy drapings about the perfect moulding of her young and dark half-naked figure. Her heavy hair had burst its fastenings and lay in stiffened, straggling masses, bending reluctantly to the breeze, like curled smoke; while all about, the mad, wild singing rose and fell and trembled, till his head whirled. He paused uncertainly at a parting of the paths, crying: "Zora! Zora!" as for some lost soul. "Zora! Zora!" echoed the cry, faintly.