A fervent
imagination leaped up and peopled it with weird beings. Nor would
imagination go down before will and knowledge. Boughs twisted themselves
into fantastic, hideous shapes, and the moan of the wind was certainly
like the cry of a soul in torment.
Don Francisco Alvarez shivered and the shiver became a shudder. He looked
across the fire at his prisoner, but Paul seemed unconscious of the forest
and the night, and the demon spell of the two. The lad sat immovable. Upon
his face was the dreamy, mystic look that so often came there. He seemed
to be gazing far beyond the Spaniard and the renegade into some greater
future.
Francisco Alvarez, brave man though he was, felt awe. He rose impatiently,
kicked a coal deeper into the fire, looked once more at Paul, who was yet
silent, and spoke sharply to the sentinels. Then he returned to his place,
and said to Paul:
"We offer you the hospitality of the forest and an extra blanket if you
wish it."
"It's a hospitality to which I'm used," replied Paul, "and I don't need
the extra blanket, although I thank you for the offer."
He took his own blanket from the little roll at his back, wrapped himself
in it, pillowed his head on the knoll, and closed his eyes. Francisco
Alvarez looked at him for some minutes, and could not tell whether he was
sleeping or waking, but he thought that he slept.
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