I was simply paralysed with fear. I could not have screamed or made a move had my life depended on it; the very presence of the man struck terror to my soul, for he seemed the personification of all the possibility of evil in his master. He it was, I well knew, who would carry out any violence which might be determined against me, and the fact of his remaining about the place when his master was supposed to have left, filled me with alarm. I was persuaded I was to be carried off, perhaps on the morrow, and the priest's warning came back to me with renewed insistence. My burden of fear so grew upon me that I dared not remain within the shadow of the wood, for every sound in its depths shook me with a new terror, and every moment I imagined I could feel the Indian stealing nearer me in the darkness. I dared not look behind me, I dared hardly move forward, but my dread of the wood was greater than that of the open beach, and I somehow managed to clamber down the cliff and took shelter behind a great bowlder, where I could hear the soothing ripple of the water and feel the soft wind against my face. It brought a sense of being removed from the land and men; I was more alone, but I felt safer. The chill of the night struck through me to the bone, and I was burdened with its length; it seemed as if time were standing still. But at last I was roused by the hoarse call of birds passing high overhead, and saw the sky was paling in the east. Slowly, slowly the gray dawn came, trees began to detach themselves and stand out against the sky, rocks took a vague form against the sands, the wicker lines of the fishery grew distinct in the receding waters, while white wreaths of mist rose smoke-like from the Little River. Slowly, slowly grew the glory in the east, and when at length the first beams of the sun struck strong and clear across the bay, making a shining pathway to my very feet, it seemed so actually a Heaven-sent way of escape that, trembling in every limb, I rose and staggered forward as if it were possible to tread it; and then, recovering my distracted senses, I fell to crying like a child.