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For a mile or more the course was not entirely unknown to me, although the darkness obscured all familiar landmarks. The negro, however, apparently possessed the instinct of an animal, or else had night eyes, for he never hesitated, keeping close along the edge of the stream. The tree-branches brushed our faces, but our feet pressed a well defined path.
But as there were no signs of presence, and no track through the thick bushes; and, moreover, as I was in Fairy Land where one does very much as he pleases, I forced my way to the brink, stepped into the boat, pushed it, with the help of the tree-branches, out into the stream, lay down in the bottom, and let my boat and me float whither the stream would carry us.
My Saint-Bernard-brute followed me to the enclosure every night, and his vigilance enabled me to sleep at times in something like peace. The little pink sloth-thing became shy and left me, to crawl back to its natural life once more among the tree-branches.
"I must have fallen asleep about ten o'clock," I continued, "and after a while I dreamt that I awoke. So plainly did I hear the midnight bells, the wind in the tree-branches, and the whistle of steamers from the bay, that even now I can scarcely believe I was not awake. I seemed to be lying in a box which had a glass cover.
They were held once a year and were largely attended. Saunders had driven over with Mostyn, who had just returned for a short visit. A big arbor of tree-branches had been constructed, seated with crude benches made of undressed planks. At one end there was a platform, and on it a cottage organ and a speaker's stand holding a pitcher of water and a goblet.
I saw rays from it coming in through the parted curtains, and distinctly traced tree-branches wavering to and fro out in the night-wind, set astir as the moon came up. At last she said, "I wish you would go to sleep. Won't you wake Katie up, and then lie down? She has had a rest." "Poor, tired child," I said; "she had work to do yesterday; I had not." "Abraham, then, if not Katie."
The small panes of the window-glass were bare to the darkness without and the empty tree-branches. The heavy latch of the closed door was fastened crookedly for lack of good workmanship. Her unsatisfied mind ached for counsel, and her thought, roving over the world, could fix only on Ephraim as she had at first learned to know him, wise and quiet and kind.
It gives the kind of joy we find in nature, in the golden-green of light under tree-branches, or the mingled green and gray of tree and rock shadows, or the pearl and rose of sunrise and sunset.
The two priests went near him, softly, while the tree-branches filled in and swayed under weight of monkeys finding places. Here and there a local chattering broke the stillness for a moment, where some dry branch snapped, refusing to bear its burden. For minutes the two hesitated, considering the wounded one; then the elder priest drew out the kerchief.
Tree-branches thrashed violently in the down draught. It swept splendidly away down a valley leading to another valley and under a precipitous cliff and down more valleys.
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