BESIDE the minister and myself, nothing human moved in the crimson woods.

Blue haze was there, and the steady drift of colored leaves, and the sunshine freely falling through bared limbs, but no man or woman.
The fallen leaves rustled as the deer passed, the squirrels chattered and the foxes barked, but we heard no sweet laughter or ringing song.
We found a bank of moss, and lying upon it a chaplet of red-brown oak leaves; further on, the mint beside a crystal streamlet had been trodden underfoot; then, flung down upon the brown earth beneath some pines, we came upon a long trailer of scarlet vine.

Beyond was a fairy hollow, a cuplike depression, curtained from the world by the red vines that hung from the trees upon its brim, and carpeted with the gold of a great maple; and here Fear became a giant with whom it was vain to wrestle.
There had been a struggle in the hollow.

The curtain of vines was torn, the boughs of a sumach bent and broken, the fallen leaves groun underfoot.

In one place there was blood upon the leaves.
The forest seemed suddenly very quiet,--quite soundless save for the beating of our hearts.