She saw the grass of the Long Pasture burning. She saw the gray shed ablaze. She saw herself, running with others, to the stream, to fill buckets. She saw black, shadowy forms of circling horses, stampeding, galloping; even here, in the bunk upon Little Sister, she seemed to hear the soft earth-din of excited hoofs—to wonder whether Revel was among them.
But, no—no, Revel was here—a captive, too!
The last picture painted by daylight, growing daylight, possessed her; she made her first hoarse sound, after night-long silence—a cluck! She saw, did she see, herself tripping where the pasture was very dark, felt the bucket roll away from her—now her cold hands clutched at the sides of the bunk—roll away down a mound, while somebody shouted—shouted: “Shake it up there, Brigade!”
She saw a flurried girl picking up that runaway bucket, felt the handle sting her, sting fiercely, saw her rub her fingers across her lips, sucking them a little ... saw the fire become a red phantom, the meadow a white mist.
She knew that in the same bewildering mist, not unconscious, but numb, powerless to resist, she had been led by a firm arm to her horse and lifted upon it, while, as in a dream, the rush and noises of the fire went on.
And there had been a long ride up a mountain, while a hand held her on Revel—guiding the horse by a lead strap.
Only now was she remembering—thinking! Beginning to think!
“And—she says we must ride further—further—where they won’t—where they can’t find me. Gypsies—Encampment! Bald Mountain! And she’s mad—mad! Maybe, ’twas she who made those strange sounds in the wood.... Oh! I—I’ll go mad, too; I’m so-o frightened—”
The poor green wood of girlhood rolled over in the bunk, fairly hissing in the flame of that scorching presence still beside her—she felt it beside her.
She had a feeling that out of such a fire nothing could come alive. She couldn’t, anyway—if it was really She who lay here, at daybreak, in a lonely mountain-top cabin, with two gray bunks on either side—and a red fire-cheek upon the hearth.
But, no! The nightmare was too monstrous. The bunk held only a shell.
The real Una, the guarded girl, was away, far away, with her Camp Fire sisters. Why! she could hear them singing, singing their good-night hymn, before the first foot of the nightmare caught her—before smoke rushed up the sidehill and the glare burst forth in the Long Pasture: