Yet the day's torments were not over. As I skilfully struck my two flints to make a fire, a greater and more arresting fire was flaring in the west. Huge masses of cloud were heaped above the dark ranges, and to the east the bars and patches of snow were smoldering with a mellow rose-red. But their light was dim beside that of the clouds, which were luminously golden, as though great flames leapt and sparkled in their heart; and above the clouds the crimson of the sky was such as may overtop the towers of a burning city. Spellbound, I watched; and, as I watched, the crimson seemed gradually to take form; and the shape was at first vague and indistinguishable, but by degrees became more clearly pencilled; and then, perhaps owing to the downward drift of the clouds, and perhaps because my imagination endowed the scene with unreal qualities, I thought that I could make out a face, a red peering face as vast as a mountain! And that face had familiar outlines; and in amazement and horror and dismay I recognized the features--of Yulada! For one moment only, the hallucination endured; then the countenance became blurred and unrecognizable, and the crimson was drowned out by the gray, and the fierce blaze of sunset was quenched and subdued, and the twilight deepened, and the stars came out. But all that night, while the constellations gleamed above and I lay huddled close to my fire, I could not sleep but restlessly stirred from side to side, for I kept seeing over and over again that terrible vision of Yulada. CHAPTER XXI "_THE MOLEB_" When at last I saw the green leaves unfolding on the trees, the green grass springing up in every meadow and the orchards bursting into flower, my hopes and fears of the year before were revived. Daily I watched for the Ibandru's return; daily I was divided between expectation and dread. How be sure that they would come back at all? How be certain that, even if they did reappear, Yasma would be among them? But my fears were not to be realized. There came an April day when I rejoiced to see Karem and a fellow tribesman emerging from the southern woods; there came a day when I was reunited to one dearer to me than Karem. From the first men to return I had received vague tidings of Yasma, being told that she was well and would be back soon; but my anxiety did not cease until I had actually seen her.