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But the anguish of his wounds urged him still onwards. Beyond the reed-beds he came to a long, narrow islet of wet sand, naked to the sun. This appeared to him the very refuge he was craving, a spot where he could lie secure and lick his hurts. He dragged himself out upon it eagerly. Not until he had gained the very center of it did he notice how his ponderous feet sank in it at every stride.
Below was the silver Thames in best autumn livery, for the leaf was not yet off the willows, though the reed-beds were bright russet. The sky was blue, the sun bright, and the sound of the weir came gaily up through the trees. All the wood-paths were bright with moss, the air still, and an endless shower of leaves from the oaks was falling over the whole hundred acres.
Raymond stopped in his walk and turned sharply. He was a middle-aged man, gaunt and thin, of a pale yellow complexion, but as he answered Clarke and faced him, there was a flush on his cheek. "Look about you, Clarke. You see the mountain, and hill following after hill, as wave on wave, you see the woods and orchard, the fields of ripe corn, and the meadows reaching to the reed-beds by the river.
After half an hour's gliding through heavy forest, and cleaving my way through spongy reed-beds, and circling round black lagoons, alive with the "plump, plump" of bullfrogs, and the interminable "r-r-r-r-r" of yabbies, I found the river on my right, with a well-beaten cattle-track along the bank. Here was something definite to go upon.
Then some silly cow had a whiff of the skin that bounded along in their tracks like a cat, and raised the cry of 'Tiger! Tiger! Far on the side from us, in the direction of the Squidgy Islands, Scrag trumpeted, followed by frantic splashing as the frightened herd plunged into the reed-beds. Taku slipped from my neck, shaking with laughter.
Through stretches of reed-beds and wastes of osiers they passed, and again by a path through the jungle where the briar-vines caught at them like eager fingers, and a tiger crossed their track, disturbed in his night's rest. At length out of the dank distance they saw the first colour of dawn. "Ten miles," said Tang-a-Dahit, "and we shall come to the Bar of Balmud.
But it remained untouched, and, returning to the boat, the boys pushed off and made for the more remote portion of the fen, passing from one open lake to another as they followed the long meandering lanes of water, in and out among reed-beds and alder patches, islands of bog-plants, islets of sedge, and others where the gravel and sand enabled the purple heather and lavender ling to blow profusely, in company with here and there a little gorgeous orange-yellow furze.
There were one or two pairs more breeding amongst these reeds, though I could not very well get at the place without a boat, but the birds were very noisy and vociferous whenever I got near their nests, as were the pair whose nest I found. There were also a few pairs in some reed-beds of the same sort near L'Eree.
My learned friend had known it for five-and-twenty years past, when it was in great part a wilderness, and all the work in progress. Apart from the reed-beds, which still surround and conceal the island, it is now a complete model farm. Surrounded by a dike, it is protected from any floods, and is intersected by canals, provided with water by a horse-power pumping-engine.
By the time Miss Verity reached Marychurch the rain amounted to a veritable downpour. Driven by the southwesterly wind, it swept in sheets over the low-lying country, the pallid waters, drab mud-flats, dingy grey-green salt-marsh, and rusty brown reed-beds of the estuary. The dusty road, running alongside this last through the hamlets of Horny Cross and Lampit, grew hourly deeper in gritty mud.