Panting with his efforts, Ab sat himself down upon a rock and looked upon
the monument he had raised. Again he called to Oak, but there was still no
answer. The sun had set, evening shadows thickened around him. Then there
came upon the live man a feeling as dreadful as it was new, and, with a
yell, which was almost a shriek, he leaped to his feet and bounded away in
fearful flight.
He only knew this, that there was something hurt his inside of body and
soul, but not the inside of him as it had been when once he had eaten
poisonous berries or when he had eaten too much of the little deer. It was
something different. It was an awful oppression, which seemed to leave his
body, in a manner, unfeeling but which had a great dread about it and
which made him think and think of the dead man, and made him want to run
away and keep running. He had always run far that day, but he was not
tired now. His legs seemed to have the hard sinews of the stag in them but
up toward the top of him was something for them to carry away as fast and
far as possible from somewhere. He raced from the dense woodland down into
the broad morass to the west--beyond which was the rock country--and into
which he had rarely ventured, so treacherous its ways. What cared he now!
He made great leaps and his muscles and sinews responded to the thought of
him.
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