The play of the fitful quivering gleams through the firmament was a sublime spectacle. The motionless air had the peculiar odor that comes from an excess of ozone. Rat Hyatt was in the throes of mortal fright. The dog uttered a long howl, and just at that moment—like a yell of demonic mockery out of sulphurous caverns—the unearthly tones of Tipton Posey’s goose call resonated from the woods on Swallow Tail Point, and reverberated beyond the weirdly lighted waters. One or both of its builders had probably come to test the powers of the unholy device, and were unabashed by the drama that glorified the night skies. With blind instinct of self preservation, Rat rose to his knees and made a faltering attempt to grasp his paddle, but his hands refused the dictates of his palsied brain. He cowered as one in the presence of the Ultimate. To him, in this appalling display of supernatural power, and the evident impending end of all things, had come the agony of abject terror and despair, and before it his rude conception of life collapsed. His past flashed before his distorted vision like a hideous nightmare. His world suddenly lost reality. The human creatures in it changed to throngs of fleeting phantoms, impelled by unseen forces. They glared, grinned and gibbered at each other, as they hurried through the mist, and vanished into the oblivion from which they came. In the realm of fear there are ghastly solitudes. They pervade dim phosphorescent glows on ocean floors, and they brood in the desolation around the poles. They creep into awe stricken hearts when the filmy strands, that sustain the Ego on its frail human web are broken, and the denuded spirit stands in utter loneliness at the brink of Chaos. In the course of an hour the wonderful radiance, that had transfigured the heavens, and chilled the marrow bones of Rat Hyatt, ceased as suddenly as it had begun. The frightful unknown sounds from the woods were not repeated. Rat finally succeeded in getting on his feet. He pushed his canoe out into the channel and started up stream, but it was a changed man who swung the long paddle. His soul had been rarefied in chastening flames. He was as one who had met his Maker face to face, and his only hope now was that his life span might be mercifully extended until he could make amends for the past. He reached the house boat in the early morning, much exhausted, and threw himself on the rude bed, where his shattered nerves found partial repose. His sleep was much troubled. He awoke with a sudden start late in the afternoon, and, lashed by an avenging conscience, slid his canoe into the river and hurried up stream to find the Reverend Daniel Butters, a venerable preacher, who lived about six miles away. To him he would carry his heavy laden heart, and in the consolations of religion seek forgiveness and peace.