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By Root 8957 0

of the thunderbolt that never falls on oneself, for the lightning that always hits the next street, for the disaster that so rarely strikes at the disastrous likely hour, and it was through this mental door that Yvonne, still balancing herself on the log, now perceived that something was menacingly wrong. In the slackening thunder something was approaching with a noise that was not the rain. It was an animal of some sort, terrified by the storm, and whatever it might be--a deer, a horse, unmistakably it had hooves--it was approaching at a dead run, stampeding, plunging through the undergrowth: and now as the lightning crashed again and the thunder subsided she heard a protracted neigh becoming a scream almost human in its panic. Yvonne was aware that her knees were trembling. Calling out to Hugh she tried to turn, in order to climb back down the ladder, but felt her footing on the log give way: slipping, she tried to regain her balance, slipped again and pitched forward. One foot doubled under her with a sharp pain as she fell. The next moment attempting to rise she saw, by a brilliant flash of lightning, the riderless horse. It was plunging sideways, not at her, and she saw its every detail, the jangling saddle sliding from its back, even the number seven branded on its rump. Again trying to rise she heard herself scream as the animal turned towards her and upon her. The sky was a sheet of white flame against which the trees and the poised rearing horse were an instant pinioned.--

They were the cars at the fair that were whirling around her; no, they were the planets, while the sun stood, burning and spinning and glittering in the centre; here they came again, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto; but they were not planets, for it was not the merry-go-round at all, but the Ferris Wheel, they were constellations, in the hub of which, like a great cold eye, burned Polaris, and round and round it here they went: Cassiopeia, Cepheus, the Lynx, Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, and the Dragon; yet they were not constellations, but, somehow, myriads of beautiful butterflies, she was sailing into Acapulco harbour through a hurricane of beautiful butterflies, zigzagging overhead and endlessly vanishing astern over the sea, the sea, rough and pure, the long dawn rollers advancing, rising, and crashing down to glide in colourless ellipses over the sand, sinking, sinking, someone was calling her name far away and she remembered, they were in a dark wood, she heard the wind and the rain rushing through the forest and saw the tremors of lightning shuddering through the heavens and the horse--great God, the horse--and would this scene repeat itself endlessly and for ever?--the horse, rearing, poised over her, petrified in mid-air, a statue, somebody was sitting on the statue, it was Yvonne Griffaton, no, it was the statue of Huerta, the drunkard, the murderer, it was the Consul, or it was a mechanical horse on the merry-go-round, the carrousel, but the carrousel had stopped and she was in a ravine down which a million horses were thundering towards her, and she must escape, through the friendly forest to their house, their little home by the sea. But the house was on fire, she saw it now from the forest, from the steps above, she heard the crackling, it was on fire, everything was burning, the dream was burning, the house was burning, yet here they stood an instant, Geoffrey and she, inside it, inside the house, wringing their hands, and everything seemed all right, in its right place, the house was still there, everything dear and natural and familiar, save that the roof was on fire and there was this noise as of dry leaves blowing along the roof, this mechanical crackling, and now the fire was spreading even while they watched, the cupboard, the saucepans, the old kettle, the new kettle, the guardian figure on the deep cool well, the trowels, the rake, the sloping shingled woodshed on whose roof the white dogwood blossoms fell but would fall no more, for the tree was burning, the fire was spreading faster and