moment it was dim and far-away, but that it would return, return as certainly as the days would grow frosty and the birds fly south once more! * * * * * I had been in Sobul more than a year when my worst forebodings seemed about to be fulfilled. The days were again on their decline; the unharvested fields once more lay ripe before the reaper; a chill began to creep into the air of evenings, and the landscape was occasionally blurred with mist; the wild fruits and nuts were falling in the forest, and the squirrels were laying up their winter supplies; the woods began to take on a ragged lining of brown and yellow and premature golden, and more than an occasional leaf was fluttering down in early deference to the fall. Then came October; and with October I grew aware, as a year before, of an undercurrent of excitement in the village. Once more the youths and maidens had seemingly lost interest in their noisy evening pastimes; once more the people were growing restless and uneasy; once more they bore the aspect of waiting, of waiting for some imminent and momentous event. Even Yasma did not escape the general anxiety. At times I observed a far-away look in her eyes, a melancholy that I could not quite fathom; and at such moments she would seek to avoid my presence. At other times she would burst without apparent cause into fits of weeping, and would cling to me, and beg me to forgive her if she could not do her duty and were not a good wife. But always it seemed futile to question her; for did I not surmise what the trouble was? Could I forget that the season of cold winds was at hand? Not until the first southward flight of the birds did my fears crystallize. It was as if this event, the occasion for wild rejoicing among the Ibandru, signalized the close of my idyllic life with Yasma. On a day of wind and gathering cloud, when the first triangle of living dots came soaring from across the mountains and out of sight beyond Yulada, it seemed as if the birds were speeding away with my hopes. Just as a year before, the entire village became tumultuously excited, and abandoned all other occupations to watch the winged travelers; and, as a year before, a great firelight celebration was held, in which all the tribe participated, and over which Abthar and Hamul-Kammesh presided. But although the ceremonies of a year ago were almost duplicated, I did not find this festival so interesting as the former. Rather, I found it terrifying, for it brought me visions of deserted cabins and snow-clad mountainsides, and seemed to impose a dismal gulf between Yasma and me. To reassure myself, I sought to stay at Yasma's side during the celebration. But somehow she slipped away, much as last year; and I could find no trace of her until late that night I discovered her in our cabin with moist face, and eyes that even by the flickering firelight seemed swollen and red. "Yasma!" I cried. "What is the matter?"