The Open Boat and Other Stories

stern sky, and to the east silver mists

e the flames capered merrily through its mesquit branches, filling the silence with the fire chorus, an ancient melody which surely bears a message of the inc

ams failed to disclose a living thing in the bushes. There was no owl-faced

y bodies gliding with the finesse of the escaping serpent. They crept forward to the last point where assuredly no frantic attempt of the fire could discover them, and there they paused to locate the prey. A romance relates the tale of the black cell hidden deep in the earth, where, upon entering, one sees only the li

The fool is asleep by the fire, God be praised!" The lips of the other widened in a grin of affectionate appreciation of the fool and his plight. There was some

r of the bush. Through its branches they surveyed for a moment of comfortable satisfaction a form in a grey blanket extended on the ground near the fire. The smile of joyful anticipation

oke fled, the dodging company back of the bush saw the blanketed form twitching; whereupon they burst out in chorus in a laugh, a

t smote them motionless in their gleeful prowl, as the stern voice from the sky smites the legendary malefactor. They might have been a weird group in wax,

ir hands had been thrust toward it, each knife was now drawn back, and its

ted decision arrived, and with bubbling cries they turned to run; but at that instant there was a long flash of red in the darkness, and with

lanketed thing and the flung corpse of the marauder, and sang the fire chorus, t