Elsa shut her eyes. When she opened them again the woman was alone upon the little patch of red boarding, her body splayed out over it like that of a dead frog. So she lay a while till suddenly the cap of the Red Mill dipped slowly like a lady who makes a Court curtsey, and she vanished. It rose again and Meg was still there, moaning in her terror and water running from her dress. Then again it dipped, this time more deeply, and when the patch of rusty boarding slowly reappeared, it was empty. No, not quite, for clinging to it, yowling and spitting, was the half-wild black cat which Elsa had seen wandering about the mill. But of Black Meg there was no trace. It was dreadfully cold up there hanging to the sail-bar, for now that the rain had finished, it began to freeze. Indeed, had it not chanced that Elsa was dressed in her warm winter gown with fur upon it, and dry from her head to her feet, it is probable that she would have fallen off and perished in the water. As it was gradually her body became numb and her senses faded. She seemed to know that all this matter of her forced marriage, of the flood, and of the end of Simon and Meg, was nothing but a dream, a very evil nightmare from which she would awake presently to find herself snug and warm in her own bed in the Bree Straat. Of course it must be a nightmare, for look, there, on the bare patch of boarding beneath, the hideous struggle repeated itself. There lay Hague Simon gnawing at his wife’s foot, only his fat, white face was gone, and in place of it he wore the head of a cat, for she, the watcher, could see its glowing eyes fixed upon her. And Meg—look how her lean limbs gripped him round the body. Listen to the thudding noise as the great knife fell between his shoulders. And now, see—she was growing tall, she had become a giantess, her face shot across the gulf of water and swam upwards through the shadows till it was within a foot of her. Oh! she must fall, but first she would scream for help—surely the dead themselves could hear that cry. Better not have uttered it, it might bring Ramiro back; better go to join the dead. What did the voice say, Meg’s voice, but how changed? That she was not to be afraid? That the thudding was the sound of oars not of knife thrusts? This would be Ramiro’s boat coming to seize her. Of him and Adrian she could bear no more; she would throw herself into the water and trust to God. One, two, three—then utter darkness.