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The waggons creaked and jolted across the rough veldt, the gun harness jingled, the horses snorted out the cold air, the Kaffirs cried to their beasts; and in this discordant chorus we stretched out across the sea-plain while the east kindled and glowed.
Summer was back again to-day; our sea-plain was calm, shimmering in the haze; and only the buzz of an insect disturbed the peace of the little group on the brown hill. While we were watching the scouts I heard what was in the wind.
My bosom heaved with melting emotions; and had I been skilled in the art of love, the mood I was in qualified me for making it. The sun in the west was sinking slowly, the horizon was hung with a rich canopy of crimson clouds, and misty shadows played over the broad sea-plain, to the east. Then the arcades overhead filled with curtains of amber and gold; and the sight moved me to meditation.
So they quartered the sea-plain, as the kestrel doth the water-meadows, till the night fell on them, and was cloudy, though whiles the wading moon shone out; and they had seen nothing, neither sail nor ship, nor aught else on the barren brine, save the washing of waves and the hovering of sea-fowl. So they lay-to outside the horns of the bay and awaited the dawning.
"One moment there was only a broad sea-plain before him, in the next he saw it shoot up like a spark, which was why he called it Spark Island." Mr. Tickler declared himself entirely satisfied with this explanation, and was sure the priest could not have been mistaken.
And when they have thus heard, the Maiden-of-Descent-into-the-Current, who dwells in the current of the swift stream which boils down the ravines from the tops of the high mountains, and the tops of the low hills, shall carry out to the great sea plain the offences which are cleared away and purified, so that there be no remaining offence; like as Shinato's wind blows apart the manifold clouds of heaven, as the morning wind and the evening wind blow away the morning mist and the evening mist, as the great ships which lie on the shore of a great port loosen their prows, and loosen their sterns to push out into the great sea-plain; as the trunks of the forest trees, far and near, are cleared away by the sharp sickle, the sickle forged with fire: so that there ceased to be any offence called an offence in the court of the Sovran GRANDCHILD'S augustness to begin with, and in the countries of the four quarters of the region under heaven.
Swiftly his body dwindled, shrinking to a dwarf, an antlike thing, a black dot. Far below on the steely sea-plain, a tiny bubble of white leaped out, then faded. That pinpoint of foam was the stowaway's grave. "Very good," approved the Master, unmoved. He lurched against the rail, as a sudden maneuver of the pilot somewhat flattened out the air-liner's fall.
"As the great offerings set up for the Youth-god, I set up various sorts of offerings: for Clothes, bright cloth, glittering cloth, soft cloth, and coarse cloth, and the five kinds of things, a mantlet, a spear, a horse furnished with a saddle; for the Maiden-god I set up various sorts of offerings providing Clothes, a golden thread-box, a golden tatari, a golden skein-holder, bright cloth, glittering cloth, soft cloth, and coarse cloth, and the five kinds of things, a horse furnished with a saddle; as to Liquor, I raise high the beer-jars, fill and range-in-a-row the bellies of the beer-jars; soft grain and coarse grain; as to things which dwell in the hills, things soft of hair and things coarse of hair; as to things which grow in the great field plain, sweet herbs and bitter herbs; as to things which dwell in the blue sea-plain, things broad of fin and things narrow of fin down to the weeds of the offing and weeds of the shore.
There is a hill not far from my home whence it is possible to see northward and southward such a stretch of land as is not to be seen from any eminence among those I know in Western Europe. Southward the sea-plain and the sea standing up in a belt of light against the sky, and northward all the weald.
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