Silence had fallen, as if the source of light were also source of sound. There was wind in the upper atmosphere, but no breath stirred the leaves. Twilight had sunk upon the cove before he turned off into a road leading up a wooded hill. In the dusk, sundry equine figures loomed up. The head of a horse was clearly defined against a patch of the pale sky, and a shrill neigh jarred the quiet. There were wagons, too, under the trees, empty, the teams unharnessed, and the poles lying on the ground. A dim light, deeply yellow, shone among the boles of the trees further on, a little misty, because already large drops were falling. All unmindful of the rain, a row of young men and half-grown boys perched on a rail fence in crouching attitudes, not unlike gigantic roosting fowls. Now and then a subdued, drawling voice sounded from among them, and a smothered laugh was attestation of callow humanity. They were not devoid of interest in the proceedings of the camp-meeting, but it was in the impersonal quality of spectator, and they held aloof from the tabernacle as if they had no souls to be saved. They turned to look down at Rood as he dismounted and hitched his horse, and he heard his own name passed along the row, it being a self-constituted register of all who came and went. The little gate dragged and creaked on its hinges, and resisted as if it grudged the spiritual opportunities to which it gave access, and desired to point the fact that salvation was not easy to come by. As it yielded and Rood entered the inclosure there were more yellow lights showing with misty halos in the olive-green dusk. They came from the doors of a row of shanties, floorless and windowless, which served as quarters for the crowd at night. There was a great flaring flame in the rear of each cabin, with leaping red tongues, surrounded by busy, hovering figures that cast huge distorted shadows against the encompassing foliage, as if some uncanny phenomenal beings were stalking a solemn round among the trees. These fires had uncomfortable spiritual suggestions. But they issued merely from the kitchens, the most cheerful things at camp, and here saint and sinner were equally heartily represented. Supper was over, however. The hymn rising even now from the tabernacle was far from cheerful: one of the long-drawn, melancholy songs, with wild, thrilling swells and sudden falls and monotonous recitative passages, sometimes breaking into a strange, ecstatic chant. The serried vertical lines of rain seemed to vibrate with it like the strings of a harp. Far away the thunder rolled in its pauses. More than once the sudden lightning illumined the grounds with a ghastly gleam, and the rhythmic solemn song went on like a part of the storm. It was a grave assemblage under the great roof of the rude structure, shown in the dim light of six or eight kerosene lamps fixed against the posts. At one end was a platform with a bench, on which sat some five or six of the preachers participating