The drooning round of my own thoughts revolved over and over, and the scuffing gait of the mules upon way interminable began to numb me. Lassitude seemed to be enfolding us both; I observed that she rode laxly, with hand upon the horn and a weary yielding to motion. Words might have stirred us, but no words came. Presently I caught myself dozing in the saddle, aroused only by the twitching of my wounded arm. Then again I dozed, and kept dozing, fairly dead for sleep, until speak she did, her voice drifting as from afar but fetching me awake and blinking. "Hadn't we better stop?" she repeated. That was a curious sensation. When I stared about, uncomprehending, my view was shut off by a whiteness veiling the moon above and the earth below except immediately underneath my mule's hoofs. She herself was a specter; the weeds that we brushed were spectral; every sound that we made was muffled, and in the intangible, opaquely lucent shroud which had enveloped us like the spirit of a sea there was no life nor movement. "What's the matter?" I propounded. "The fog. I don't know where we are." "Oh! I hadn't noticed." "No," she said calmly. "You've been asleep." "Haven't you?" "Not lately. But I don't think there's any use in riding on. We've lost our bearings." She was ahead; evidently had taken the lead while I slept. That realization straightened me, shamed, in my saddle. The fog, fleecy, not so wet as impenetrable--when had it engulfed us? "How long have we been in it?" I asked, thoroughly vexed. "An hour, maybe. We rode right into it. I thought we might leave it, but we don't. It's as thick as ever. We ought to stop." "I suppose we ought," said I. And at the moment we entered into a sudden clearing amidst the fog enclosure: a tract of a quarter of an acre, like a hollow center, with the white walls held apart and the stars and moon faintly glimmering down through the mist roof overhead. She drew rein and half turned in the saddle. I could see her face. It was dank and wan and heavy-eyed; her hair, somewhat robbed of its sheen, crowned with a pallid golden aureole. "Will this do? If we go on we'll only be riding into the fog again." I was conscious of the thin, apparently distant piping of frogs. "There seems to be a marsh beyond," she uttered. "Yes, we'd better stop where we are," I agreed. "Then in the morning we can take stock." "In the morning, surely. We may not be far astray." She swung off before I had awkwardly dismounted to help her. Her limbs failed--my own were clamped by stiffness--and she staggered and collapsed with a little laugh. "I'm tired," she confessed. "Wait just a moment." "You stay where you are," I ordered, staggering also as I hastily landed. "I'll make camp."