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More digging yielded nothing Either the rest of Yorick wasn’t here, or it was buried so far down that I had no chance of discovering it I put the stone in my pocket, sat back on my heels, and rubbed my sandy hands on ain

I sat down again and picked up the skull, holding it in my lap Gruesome as it was, it was the seht And I was quite aware that all ned to fight off the panic that I could feel sub to erupt like the sharp end of a drowned tree branch It was going to be a long night

"Right," I said aloud to the skull "Read any good books lately? No, I suppose you don’t get round much anymore Poetry,up with "Written in Disgust of Vulgar Superstition" and going on with "Ode on a Grecian Urn"

" ‘…Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!’ " I declaiet Not too bad, though, was it? Want to try a little Shelley? ‘Ode to the West Wind’ is good--you’d like that one, I think"

It occurred to ht so; I had no particular reason to think Yorick was an Indian rather than a European, but I realized that I did think so--perhaps it was the stone I had found with hi that the repellent effect of great English poetry would be the equal of a campfire, so far as the bears and panthers were concerned

"Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:

What if hty harmonies

Will take froh in sadness Be thou, Spirit fierce,

My spirit! Be thou hts over the universe

Like wither’d leaves to quicken a new birth;

And, by the incantation of this verse,

"Scatter, as fro h my lips to unawaken’d earth

"The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind…"

The final stanza faded on rowing to a fla-blasted tree, solided slowly down the hill towardtoonly then that I had no shoes on Frantically, I groped about the floor, covering the sone

I seized the skull and stood barefoot, turning to face the light

I watched the light co down the hill like a ht floated in my paralyzed mind--a random line of Shelley’s: Fiend, I defy thee! with a calm, fixed mind So observed that Shelley had had much better nerves than I I clutched the skull closer It wasn’t much of a weapon--but so would be deterred by knives or pistols, either

It wasn’t only that the wet surroundingsthrough the woods with a blazing torch The light didn’t burn like a pine torch or oil lantern It didn’t flicker, but burned with a soft, steady glow

It floated a few feet above the ground, just about where someone would hold a torch they carried before the I could see it bob slightly,to the rhythm of a steady stride

I cowered in my burrow, half hidden by the bank of earth and severed roots I was freezing cold, but sweat ran down my sides and I could smell the reek ofto run

I had seen St Elmo’s fire before, at sea Eerie as that was, its liquid blue crackle didn’t rese This had neither spark nor color; only a spectral glow Marsh gas, people in Cross Creek said when the h soundlessly Marsh gas h a s before as

He was tall, and he was nakd Beyond a breechclout, he wore nothing but paint; long stripes of red down ars and torso, and his face was solid black, froreased and dressed in a crest, from which two turkey feathers stiffly pointed

I was invisible, coe, while the torch he held washed hi off his hairless chest and shoulders, shadowing the orbits of his eyes But he kneas there

I didn’t dare to move My breath sounded painfully loud in my ears He siht into the dark where I was, as though it were the broadest day And the light of his torch burned steady and soundless, pallid as a corpse candle, the wood of it not consu there before it occurred to er afraid I was still cold, but my heart had slowed to its normal pace, and my bare toes had uncurled

"Whatever do you want?" I said, and only then realized that we had been in some sort of communication for so coherent passed between us--but so passed, nonetheless