CHAPTER II.
In the wood.
A little mention has been made before of the wooded character of this side of Saptagram. A thick forest lay at a short distance from the village. Kapalkundala wended along a narrow sylvan alley to hunt out the drug. The night was sweet and cool and an unearthly stillness hung in the air. In the vernal nightsky was the cold shining moon cleaving her way silently athwart the fleecy clouds. The forest trees and creepers were shimmering noiselessly in the cold moonlight on the earth below. Smoothly did tree-leaves reflect the moon-beam and softly did milk-white flowers put forth their blossoms inside the shrubs and foliage. The whole country-side was bathed in a gracious peace. The atmospheric closeness was hardly punctuated with the occasional wing-flutter of birds disturbed in their night-roosts—with the crackle of a dead leaf falling down on the earth—with the whish of the serpent kind crawling amidst dry leaves lying about underneath—and with the faint barking of some night dogs at a far-off distance. It was not that no wind was blowing—it was the soft, refreshing, rippling breath of the spring. It was as much soft and silent as shook the top-leaves of trees, tossed the green verdure and foliage bowing down to the earth,
