"Nighttime on Sugar Devil Island. Nighttime in Sugar Devil Swamp. Oh, of all the idiot mistakes to have made, to have fallen into a drunken sleep here one good hour from home, with all the swamp creatures waking and hungry. What good was a pistol? What good a rifle if a snake drops on you from an overhanging tree? I didn't mind poking at the gators to scare them off, but what about everything else, including the bobcats, that came out to feast after dark?
"I rose up, furious with myself. And I had been so sure that I wouldn't be tricked by her, that I knew her for the evil thing that she was.
"Then it all came crashing back to me, what they'd done to her, and I gasped aloud.
"Vengeance? Oh, it had been enough to make a vengeful spirit of a choirboy, what they'd done. And she had died like that, I knew it. She had died and rotted there, but did she mean her vengeance to be on me?
"I saw the sticky semen on the boards, glittering in the light of the moon, and, looking through the windows, I thanked God for that moon. I needed that moon. Maybe I could get the hell out of here with that moon.
"I made the Sign of the Cross. I felt for the rosary under my shirt. (This one's not blessed but it will have to do.) And hastily and shamefully I said a Hail Mary, telling the Blessed Virgin in my own words how sorry I was to call on her only when all seemed lost.
"Then I realized to my horror that my pants were still unzipped. I'd said a Hail Mary to the Virgin Mary while officially exposing myself. I put that to rights immediately and said another three prayers before I groped my way to the stairs and down to the first floor.
"I scooped up the gold plate with its little forest of wax candles, and, taking out my lighter, I quickly lighted every wick. Carrying my little tray of light, I went to the door of the Hermitage and looked out. Yes, the moon was up there all right, I could see it from this vantage point, but the swamp looked dead black, and once I pushed off from this clearing, once I tunneled into that blackness, the moon just might not do me any good.
"Of course, I didn't have a flashlight or a lantern. I hadn't planned on this! In fact, if anybody had said, 'Will you spend the night on Sugar Devil Island?' I would have answered, 'That's insane.'
" 'Wait till I get finished with this place,' I said aloud. 'I'll have electricity everywhere. And these windows will have properly fitted glass. Maybe they'll have screens as well. And these plank floors will be covered with marble tiles that the swamp can't consume with its infernal dampness. No, this shall be a small Roman palace, what with even more elaborate Roman furniture, and the stove, I shall get a new stove. And then if I'm trapped out here, I'll have delicious pillows on a couch on which to sleep, and plenty of books to read by fine lights.' It seemed I saw the vision of the place, and Rebecca's fate had no part in what I saw. It was as if her grisly death had been erased.
"But for now? For now I was in the damned jungle in a tree house!
"Okay, what if I stayed here and didn't try to find my way home in this abominable situation? What if I just read some of those old books by candlelight, and kept my pistol on hand for any emergency either man or beast might send my way?
"Well, the worst consequence of my doing that would be that everyone at Blackwood Manor would think something terrible had happened to me. Indeed, they might be looking for me right now. That was more than a good possibility. They might be out there in a pirogue with flashlights and lanterns.
"Didn't that argue for me staying where I was?
"I set the plate of light down on the desk, and I went out the front door, down the steps, and crossed the clearing before the Hermitage so that I stood near to the bank.
"It was quite amazing how the few candles illuminated the windows of the Hermitage. Indeed, nobody coming close in a pirogue could