“A most villainous storm,” said Peregrine, “and it is well I have found cover from it. Here I must bide for a while at least. There is no re-crossing that morass.” Now he must think what to do. To sit quiet where he was, and watch the rain were dull and dismal work. For all that the forest was very dark it might be well to explore somewhat further. He turned down a winding path. In spite of the first sense of darkness he was now aware of a curious light glimmering through the place. This came, he saw, from some strange fungus on the trunks of the trees, which gave forth an uncanny illumination. It was faint truly, but sufficed to show the path before him. As he walked, the odour of the forest struck upon his nostrils, heavy, sickly-sweet. Passing to his brain it dulled his senses somewhat, like the odour of a powerful drug. He found himself pursuing his way after the manner of a man half-dreaming, heedless now of where his path might lead. Half drowsed though he was he noted now and again the orchids that grew among the trees, saw their spotted hue, their twisted reptile-like form. Despite his drowsiness he felt some slight repulsion at the sight of them, thought momentarily on sun-kissed flowers in open meadows. By contrast the orchids fared ill in his mind. But sleep clutching at his eyelids made thought an effort. He stumbled onward very heavily. How long he walked he knew not. It might have been an hour, two hours; yet, time perchance being as leaden-footed as he, it might have been a bare ten minutes. Suddenly, with no volition on his own part, his brain swung from dulness, roused itself to action; and strange action truly. It awakened, it would seem, from stupor to fantastic delirium. He felt himself vividly alive, and utterly alone. Alone he was verily in that forest devoid of living creatures. Yet the loneliness was of spirit rather than of body. In that moment his spirit was caught up into space. Knowing the earth beneath him, solid, material, around and above him were vast distances, deep silences. In the furthest distance, in the deepest silence, at so great an altitude that his brain seeing it reeled, gleamed a great star. Now here was the fuller fantasy. Within the depth of his own soul he was conscious of a like spot of light, a glowing star, yet very tiny. And he knew that between the star within him and the star above him was a strange attraction.