I
was one of them and I was filled with sharp agonising terror.
Sometimes in my dream I drank to give myself courage and the glass
clattered against my lips. Sometimes I talked with one of the company;
the room was very dark and I could see no faces. Then we would start
trooping out into the bitterly cold morning air. There would be many
horses and dogs. We would lead off into the forest and soon (it always
happened) I would find myself alone--alone with the dripping trees
high around me and the light that seemed to grow no lighter and the
intense cold. Then suddenly it would be that I was the hunted, not the
hunter. It was Death whom we were hunting--Death, for me my uncle--and
I would fancy him waiting in the darkness, watching me, smiling,
hearing his hunters draw off the scent, knowing that they would not
find him, but that _he_ had found _me_. Then my knees would fail me, I
would sink down in a sweat of terror, and--wake!... Brrr!... I can see
it now!"
He shook himself, turning round to me as though he were suddenly
ashamed of himself, with a laugh half-shy, half-retrospective.
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