Pointing toward his firearm, which stood leaning against a pile of rubble, several yards from where I sat, Crockett said: “I’ll leave you my rifle, in case any varmints come nosing around—though I reckon the fire’ll keep them away.” Then—after assuring me that he would return as soon as he had accomplished his mission—he strode to his horse, undid the reins from their makeshift hitching post, and—mounting the steed—disappeared into the darkness.

The circumstances in which I now found myself were of a sort that might easily have induced a state of extreme nervous agitation in even the most steadfast of souls. I was seated by myself in the cavernous ruins of the great, fallen manse, while—in the spectral moonlight overhead—a swirling mass of windblown clouds careered through the sky like a bevy of demons on their way to a witches’ Sabbath.

And yet—far from feeling in any way unsettled by my situation—my entire frame was suffused with a sense of the deepest calm and relaxation: a symptom, no doubt, of my extreme physical and emotional fatigue. Repositioning myself before the fire, I lay on my side with my knees drawn up and my uninjured left hand cushioning my face from the ground. Then, with the companionable crackle of the burning wood filling my ears, I closed my eyes and drifted off into a peaceful slumber.

In my dreams, I was a sailor on board the ship that bore the wily Odysseus past the isle of Anthemoëssa—the dwelling-place of the Sirens—as recounted in George Chapman’s magisterial (if intermittently laborious) translation of the great Homeric epic. Following our captain’s bidding, I—along with the other members of the crew—had obstructed my auditory canals with plugs of melted wax to shield myself from the fatal spell of the Sirens’ intoxicating song. Even with this precaution, however, faint, faraway strains of the unearthly music seemed to filter into my ears. Suddenly, I awoke with a start, prodded from my dream by the deep, unsettling conviction that the singing I had heard was real.

Sitting erect, I glanced all about me. It was evident that I had not slumbered for very long. The fire, though somewhat reduced in intensity, continued to burn. The crystalline moon still floated more or less directly overhead. Straining my auditory faculties to the utmost, I listened in vain for a repetition of the uncanny music. All at once, I heard it—the dim, barely audible but nevertheless unmistakable echo of human vocalization. The feeling of serenity that had so recently possessed me vanished in an instant, replaced by a sense of profound shock—dismay—and wonder.