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The picture that these places offered, tropic, squalid, and fecund, often caused me to walk through them and watch the basking population; the intricate, broken wooden galleries, the rickety outside stair cases, the red and yellow splashes of color on the clothes lines, the agglomerate rags that stuffed holes in decaying roofs or hung nakedly on human frames, the small, choked dwellings, bursting open at doors and windows with black, round-eyed babies as an overripe melon bursts with seeds, the children playing marbles in the court, the parents playing cards in the room, the grandparents smoking pipes on the porch, and the great-grandparents stairs gazing out at you like creatures from the Old Testament or the jungle.
From another point of view it was the storm of an hour spread over two days, so that there was plenty of time to see and remember the normal ways of cyclones, which may be briefly described as first a flush of heat whether in summer or winter, then a furious wind, then hurrying clouds and much rain, with changes of wind, then more clouds and more rain, then a "clearing shower" with most rain, then a furling and brailing-up of the rain clouds, splashes of blue in the sky, with nets of scud crossing them, sudden gleams of sun, sudden cold, and perhaps a hail shower, and then piercing cold and sunlight.
Some heavy splashes in the water behind them showed how the clumsy missiles of their foes ragged clubs and fragments of broken branches were falling short; and they looked back derisively. The bow-legged, shaggy men with their wide, red, skyward nostrils were ranged along the shore, and the Chief was fiercely urging them into the water.
When she arose, he, looking on the ground all the time, saw suddenly sprinkled on the black wet beech-roots many scarlet carnation petals, like splashed drops of blood; and red, small splashes fell from her bosom, streaming down her dress to her feet. "Your flowers are smashed," he said. She looked at him heavily as she put back her hair. Suddenly he put his finger-tips on her cheek.
The bottom edges of the trousers, ragged like those of an almshouse beggar, were the sign of abject poverty. The boots left wet splashes on the floor, as the mud oozed from fissures in the soles. The gray hat, which the colonel held in his hand, was horribly greasy round the rim.
As he spoke he drew himself up on the opposite side of the bath from Ralph, and watched the latter as he took a clumsy header, his body striking the water flat, and sending great splashes over the room. When Ralph, recovering from his rude entrance into the water, looked for the other bather, he was gone.
She stood him in the tub and started dashing water over him, tearing off his clothes between the splashes. 'Here, that tin of mustard there on the shelf! she shouted to me. She knocked the lid off the tin on the edge of the tub, and went on splashing and spanking Jim. It seemed an eternity. And I? Why, I never thought clearer in my life.
Beyond it was a cluster of gray shanties and a gleam of water, evidently a wharf and a miniature harbor. And, beyond that, the deep, brilliant blue of the sea. Brown and blue were the prevailing colors, but, here and there, clumps and groves of pines gave splashes of green. There was an exhilaration in the crisp air.
Clenching his teeth, he managed somehow to light the candle-end, set it in the candlestick again, and looked about him: near the open casement, with his feet towards the right-hand corner, lay the dead body of Kirillov. The shot had been fired at the right temple and the bullet had come out at the top on the left, shattering the skull. There were splashes of blood and brains.
Many were sharp quick splashes as if some great fish had sprung out of the water in pursuit of prey, or in a desperate effort to escape a pursuer. Then every now and then there would be a resounding slap, as if one of the great reptiles that haunted the river had struck the surface a tremendous blow with its tail.