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He continued his gaze in the same direction, allowing his eyes slowly to ascend, as if he were looking through the tree-tops at the sky. Then turning his head quietly round he resumed his work and whistled for whistling had been invented even before that time. "Comrades," he said, after a few minutes, "don't look up from your work, but listen. We are watched.
After luncheon served with some exasperation by Patrick an hour and a half later than usual he smoked his pipe on the porch and stared reminiscently at the shifting clouds above the tree-tops, and with a tenderness about the lips that must have surprised and gratified the stubby, ill-used brier, inanimate confederate in many a lofty plot.
But they were not high enough to imperil the safety of the canoe, moreover the wind that roared so savagely aloft among the tree-tops and stripped off the dried leaves and rotten branches in blinding showers was a fair wind for the fugitives, so they stepped their mast, close-reefed their sail, and were presently foaming up the river in midstream where, although they had a strong current to contend with, they were at least safe from the branches that flew hurtling through the air as fast as a horse could trot.
Thither the bateaux were dragged on sledges and launched on the dark and tortuous stream, which, fed by a decoction of forest leaves that oozed from the marshy shores, crept in shadow through depths of foliage, with only a belt of illumined sky gleaming between the jagged tree-tops.
Grim and forbidding those mountains looked as the air-ship sailed swiftly over them, opening up a wider view when the bare, rugged crest was once left fairly to the rear. Save for those bald crowns, all below appeared a solid carpet of tree-tops, now lower, there higher, yet ever the same: seemingly impenetrable to man, should such an effort be made.
When I came to grassy plots I lay down and bathed my face in the cold dew, and also bared my arms and moistened them in the cool, damp grass. When the sun came up over the eastern tree-tops I found that I was about ten miles from Rushville. After stumbling on for some time longer I found my way to Henry Lord's, a farmer with whom I was acquainted.
His mental attitude remained hopeless: for some mysterious reason his nonchalance had deserted him in the hour of his supremest need; not in all his experience did he remember anything like this as awkward. The river purled indifferently about his calves; a vagrant breeze disturbed the tree-tops and died of sheer lassitude; Time plodded on with measured stride.
I looked out of the open door where the morning sun threw the checkered shadows of the honeysuckle on the floor of the gallery, and over the railing to the tree-tops in the court-yard. The place struck a chord in my memory. Then my eyes wandered back into the room. There was a polished dresser, a crucifix and a prie-dieu in the corner, a fauteuil, and another chair at my bed.
He killed many of our men, took some of us prisoners, sank the vessel, seized my child, and was about to separate us, putting my child into one junk while I was retained, bound, in the other." He paused, and gazed over the glowing tree-tops into the golden horizon, with a longing, wistful look.
Where was this man leading them, this Clark who had come amongst them from the skies, as it were? Did he know, himself? Night fell as though a blanket had been spread over the tree-tops, and above the dreary splashing men could be heard calling to one another in the darkness. Nor was there any supper ahead. For our food was gone, and no game was to be shot over this watery waste.
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