264                 NATALIE WANHOFF:
the company. Above the " town," on a high knoll,
is a large grist mill. Describing an arc of perfect
proportions, its midmost depression a mile behind
the Fort, a great mountain forms a natural rampart.
At either extreme it tapers to the jagged cliffs. On
its three lower tables the mountain is green and .
bare ; then abruptly rises a forest of redwoods, tall,
rigid, tenebrious.
The mountain is visible but a moment. An
immense white fog-bank which has been crouching
on the horizon rears suddenly and rushes across
the ocean, whose low mutter rises to a roar. It
sweeps like a tidal wave across cliffs and Fort. It
halts abruptly against the face of the mountain. In
the same moment the ocean stills. It would almost
seem that nature held her breath, awaiting some
awful event.
Suddenly, in the very middle of the fog-bank,
appears the shadowy figure of a woman. She
is gliding—to the right—rapidly and stealthily.
Youth is in her slender grace, her delicate profile,
dimly outlined. Her long hair of a silveren-blonde
color, is unbound and luminously distinct from the
white fog. She walks swiftly across the lower
table of the mountain, then disappears. One sees,
vaguely, a dark figure crouching along the lower
fringe of the fog.   That, too, disappears.
For a moment the silence seems intensified.
Then, suddenly, it ia crossed by a low whirr—a
strange sound in the midnight. Then a shriek
whose like is never heard save when a soul is