Dominic felt glad to be on the road again. He strolled along, watching the day convert to darkness and reviewing the events of the previous night and all that had happened since he'd left home to seek his fortune. The alligator-witch had been certainly been right. Life wasn't dull along this road. Fighting the bad ones in the world was a necessary and gratifying experience. Being happy among the good ones was, of course, even more gratifying. But one could not be happy among the good ones unless one fought the bad ones. He felt he was serving some important and useful purpose.
Then he began wondering what was still in store for him, and without thinking he hastened his steps as if to find out faster. Soon he realized he was not as fit as he thought. He began to feel his injuries and was exhausted. It was yet another night of magical moonlight, as mysterious and beautiful as the nights preceding it. Dominic was now in some woods rich with summer fragrance: the delicious, soul-soothing smells of growing things, the smell of warm earth, the smells the air had brought from other places—the sea, meadows, gardens. He made himself a bed in some woodland grass, the kind that grows soft as down under trees, where he was neighbored by clusters of wild forest flowers. No sooner did this tired dog lay down his head and heave a thorough sigh than he was dreaming. Moonshine bathed the sleeping Dominic, and there was moonshine in his dream.
He wasn't experiencing this dream in the usual way. It was as if he were sitting alone in a theater watching a play whose hero was himself. The Dominic on the stage was running away from an alligator-witch because he didn't want to hear the rest of his life story, not even the next episode. The Dominic sitting in the theater was afraid the witch might catch the Dominic on the stage. But that Dominic wearied of running away and turned to wait for the witch and let her talk, but she wasn't there anymore. Then he realized he was badly hurt. He was aware of pains all over his body. Now he was lying down and someone was making him feel better, soothing his hurts, causing them to dissolve and disappear. He couldn't see this someone and yet he somehow knew that she was dearly beautiful. Who was she? He didn't know her, yet he knew her well. And then they were walking close together and the Dominic sitting in the dream theater was wishing he were the Dominic on the stage . . .
While Dominic was absorbed in this dream, all was not peaceful around him. The remnants of the Doomsday Gang had regrouped since the previous night and had discovered his whereabouts in the woods, one of the ferrets having ferreted him out. They were silently closing in on this spear-carrying dog who persistently spoiled their evil designs. Before he turned up, they had been the undisputed terror of the territory, most of their mischief meeting with success. They hated Dominic with all their hearts, and their hearts were capable of drastic hatred. Now they intended to subtract him from the sum of existing things.
There he lay, innocently dreaming and so exhausted that his ears and nose, usually keen even when he was asleep, failed to alert him. The villains were creeping closer on all sides, eyes gleaming with malice, variously armed, even their sharp claws unsheathed.
Dominic dreamed on. Now they were flagrantly close, the would-be killers. A few had raised their deadly knives and clubs. But suddenly they stood like bewildered statues, listening. From all around them, from the whole woods, they heard voices—calling, echoing, re-echoing, repeating Dominic's name. "Dominic! Dominic! D O M I N I C ! Dominic! Wake up. Wake up, Dominic!"
It was the trees. The trees were calling him. They began to writhe and bend and wave their limbs as if they were yielding a heavy storm, and made terrible, creaking, cracking sounds.
News of the bright, brave, generous dog named Dominic had been spreading through the forest for some time, and the trees had come to love him. More than that, they had become impatient with standing around in silent tableau, doing nothing but looking grand and storing up resentment, indignation, and grief while all the evil-doing, the doom-delivering, of the Doomsday Gang went on. Now that Dominic, dear dog, was about to be killed in their midst, in the very heart of the woods, the trees were moved to speak out, to break their lifelong silence. Dominic heard and woke and saw it all, the gang posed about him, weapons upraised, but petrified with terror. And at that moment the surrounding trees bent toward the villains, saying, "For shame! F I E !"
Scared out of their wits entirely, the gang bolted in every possible direction, seeking the quickest way out of the woods. They were never heard from again, not as a gang, or as individual malefactors. The terror of this experience, the condemnation from the lords of the hitherto silent vegetable kingdom, had penetrated to their souls. Convinced that Nature itself could no longer abide their destructive, criminal ways, they each slunk about separately, making efforts to reform and get into Nature's good graces again, as every wanton one of them had been in his original childhood.
Dominic, in awe and gratitude, knelt and made obeisance to the trees. A responsive breeze rustled in their branches, a light sighing. For a while, he wandered through the woods, loving touching many a tree. Small birds that should have been asleep were singing. He was happy.
