Yet,
something there was! For the second time he left, without being able
to account for the mysterious force that lured him to this gloomy,
moon-lit place on the dark, treacherous bank. In setting out in the
stream again he decided to fight off the uncanny, unexplainable feeling
that had called him back, but scarcely a stone's throw from the bank
he had the same desire to return,--a desire that he had never before
experienced. He went again, and looked, and meditated over the thing
that he did not understand.
He had not drunk _cachassa_ that day and was consequently quite sober;
he had not had fever for two weeks and was in good health physically as
well as mentally; he had never so much indulged in the dissipations of
civilisation that his nerves had been affected; he had lived all his
life in these surroundings and knew no fear of man or beast. And now,
this splendid type of manhood, free and unbound in his thoughts and
unprejudiced by superstition, broke down completely and hid his face
in his hands, sobbing like a child in a dark room afraid of ghosts. He
had been called to this spot three times without knowing the cause, and
now, the mysterious force attracting him, as a magnet does a piece of
iron, he was unable to move.
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