MYSTERY
Arthur’s first inclination was to call. But something within him warned
him not to do that. Something just as imperative advised him to another
course of action. He waited a moment or two to let Silva get far enough
ahead, so that she could not possibly hear his footsteps. Then he
followed her.
She walked with an extraordinary swiftness--so swiftly indeed that
Arthur was put to it to keep up with her. However she had the advantage
over him in that she knew the trail perfectly. Her feet stumbled over
no obstacles; her arms hit no protruding branches; her face brushed
against no scratchy twigs. She moved indeed as though it were day.
Arthur was in a difficult situation. He must walk quickly to keep up
with her; but if he walked too quickly she would certainly hear him.
Presently she came to the place in the trail where it turned at right
angles on itself. Arthur, anticipating this, stopped in the shadow of
a tree in the far side of the path. Silva turned swiftly. It happened
that she did glance indifferently backwards over the way in which she
had come. But she could not have seen Arthur; for she went on at the
same composed high pace. But Arthur saw that she was carrying under her
arm a bottle of milk.
Arthur quickened his cautious footsteps; came in his turn to the fork
in the trail. There was Silva ahead, her white skirt fluttering on
both sides of her vigorous walking, much as the white foam of the sea
flutters away from the prow of the ship. She kept straight on and
Arthur kept straight on. The moon dipped behind clouds and dove out of
them; flashed her great blaze on the earth and shadowed it again. On
and on they went, the stalker and the stalked. They were approaching
the Moraine. Big stones began to lift out of the underbrush on either
side. Some were like great tables, flat and smooth; comfortable and
comforting. Others were perturbing--like huge monsters that had thrust
themselves out of the earth, were resting on their front paws or their
haunches even. Layers of rust-colored leaves--the leaves that had
been for many years falling--lay between them. And now and then the
moonlight caught on the rocks with a black glisten and on the leaves
with a red gleam; for the dew was falling.
Arthur began to wonder what he should do. He somehow took it for
granted that Silva was going to the Moraine; mainly because there
seemed no other place for her to go; though for what purpose he could
not guess. If for any reason she stopped there, he must soon become
visible to her. Indeed there were only two courses for him to take:
retreat by the path over which he had come or through the wood on
either side. He could not make up his mind to turn back. If he took the
second course, he would undoubtedly get lost. He would have to wait for
daylight to find his way home and that, he recognized at once, would be
stretching inexcusably the generous liberty which Mr. Westabrook had
given him. He might call to Silva. But again something inside seemed
to warn him not to make his presence known. He continued to follow the
vigorous figure ahead.
As though she were approaching the end of her journey, Silva was
hurrying faster and faster. Arthur hurried too. Silva broke into what
was a half run. It would have been, Arthur felt, a complete run, if she
were not carrying the bottle of milk so carefully. Arthur seethed with
perplexity. Why was she speeding so? What could she possibly have to do
at this spot and at this hour? What could require such urgent haste?
Well, perhaps he would know in another moment.
And then suddenly strange things happened all at once.
Silva’s rapid progress had, as it apparently neared its object, become
less careful. At any rate, an overhanging briar caught her hair; pulled
her up sharply. In her first effort to extricate herself, Silva turned
completely about; caught sight of Arthur’s figure a little way down the
trail.
She started so convulsively that even Arthur could see it. Then with a
swift wrench of her slender hand she tore her hair away; turned and ran
like a deer in the direction of the Moraine.
Arthur ran too. And as he ran he called, “Don’t be afraid, Silva. It’s
Arthur Duncan from the Little House. Don’t mind me! I won’t hurt you.”
But Silva only redoubled her speed. Arthur redoubled his. He was
gaining swiftly on her. He entered the Moraine. On the other side
Silva was just disappearing from it. “I tell you,” he called, “I’m not
going to hurt you. Stop! I want to speak to you!”
Silva did not answer. He heard a frenzied floundering among the
underbrush. For the noise Silva made, she might have been an elephant.
And then suddenly came silence--silence utter and complete.
Had she fainted? What could be the matter? What a silly girl to act
like that! Arthur rushed across the Moraine; penetrated the woods on
the other side.
Silva had disappeared as completely as though she had vanished into
the air. Arthur stared about him like one waking from a dream. Then he
began to search for her. Around rocks, into clumps of bushes he peered.
Nobody. Nothing.
“Silva Burle!” he called. “Silva! Silva! Where are you?” And then
because he was genuinely alarmed, “Please answer. Please! I’m afraid
you’re hurt.” Another search over a wider area. He mounted rocks this
time. Remembering how Silva could climb, he stared upwards into trees.
He crawled on hands and knees through every little thicket he found.
And all the time he kept calling. Still nobody. Still nothing. As far
as he could see, he was absolutely alone in that part of the wood.
After half an hour, he gave it up. But he was a little alarmed and very
much humiliated. He walked back over the trail to the Magic Mirror
and all the time his head was bent in the deepest thought. He found
the canoe; absently slid into it; mechanically paddled himself across
the water. And all the time he continued to think hard. “It’s like a
dream,” he thought. “I’d think anybody else was dreaming who told me
this.”
When he reached the barn, the whole mysterious episode seemed to
float out of his mind in the great wave of drowsiness which suddenly
beat through him. He fell immediately into slumber. But his sleep was
full of dreams, all so strange that when he awoke in the morning, his
experience of the night before threatened for a moment to take its
place among them. “But I didn’t dream the peacocks or the deer,” he
said to himself. “And I know I didn’t dream Silva!”
He said nothing of his experience to any of the other children, though
he found himself strangely tempted to tell Maida. But a kind of shyness
held him back. At times it occurred to him that Silva might be lying
injured somewhere in the woods. But always some instinct made him
believe that this was not true.
Halfway through the morning Granny Flynn sent him on an errand to the
village. As he came out of the Post Office, he ran into Silva Burle
just about to enter it. He tumbled off the wheel which he had just
mounted.
“Say,” he said without any other greeting, “where did you disappear to
last night?”
“Last night!” Silva repeated in a bland tone of mere curiousness. “What
do you mean by _last night_?”
“You know very well what I mean,” Arthur persisted. “Last night in the
Moraine--in the woods.”
“In the Moraine--in the woods,” Silva repeated. “I don’t know what
you’re talking about. I didn’t sleep in the woods last night. I slept
in my tent as usual.”
Arthur looked at her hard. “Well,” he said after a moment, “either
you’re telling the biggest whopper I ever listened to or you were
walking in your sleep.”
“Walking in my sleep,” Silva said scornfully, “you’re crazy.” And she
passed on.