The sun was approaching his hour of setting; and the scene, lately so dreary and desolate, was now resplendent with colours which defy all description. It was not merely the purple and gold with which, in the weakness of language, we are forced to designate the hues, which neither pen nor pencil can bring before the mind, but it was the sparkling vividness, the transparent splendour of those colours--making them as spirit compared to mere matter--which spread an atmosphere-like enchantment over the scene, changing its rude features, brightening its dull heaviness, glorifying its gloom, and giving startling variety to its monotony. It was like the wonderful power of imagination, seizing upon the most incongruous materials, and harmonizing them in the life-like light that streams from itself. The mind, still subject, like the skin of the cameleon, to the aspect of things round it, took a brighter tone from the changes of the sky. Suddenly, however, I heard, as it seemed to me, at some little distance, a voice calling. At first, I was hardly certain whether it was not the cry of some wild bird; but presently I distinguished clearly the tones of a human voice; and, reining in my jaded horse, I turned round and looked in the direction from which it seemed to proceed. Running my eye over the ground, I could perceive nothing for a moment or two; but there were so many stumps and bushes and broken trees, that a hundred men might have been near me in that dim and scattered light without my perceiving their proximity. Still, however, the voice called, and I thought I could distinguish the word, "Mas'r." Cautiously I turned my horse amongst the bushes, and rode on towards the spot from which the sound seemed to come; and I soon began to discern the outline of a figure sitting at the foot of a tall, conical cypress-tree, almost assuming the form of one of the beautiful cypresses of Eastern Europe, and perched upon a little knoll, rising above the rest of the Swamp. It was not Bessy's figure; but, with no light satisfaction as I drew near to her and more near, I made out the heavy outline of good aunt Jenny. No words can express the good woman's joy and satisfaction when she saw me; and my own was little less, for I knew that I should now have a clue, and that some light, at least, would be thrown upon the mystery which had kept my mind for so many hours in a state of terror and anxiety.