The light fell through a high haze of dust and was
therefore wondrously refracted and diffused. The hills made high
lifted horizons, undulating toward the east, serrated toward the west.
In the sag between there was no human companionship abroad.
Throughout great lengths of shore-line the tuneless stridulation of
frogs, the guttural cries of water-birds and the general movement in
the sedge indicated a serene content among small life. But sometimes
he would find silence on one bank for a goodly stretch where there was
neither marsh-chorus nor cadences of insects. The hush would be
profound and an affrighted air of suspense was apparent. And there at
the river-brink the author of this breathless dismay, some lithe
flesh-eater, would stride, shadow-like, through the high reeds to
drink. Now and then the woman-like scream of the wildcat, or the harsh
staccato laugh of the hyena would startle the marshes into silence.
Sometimes retiring shapes would halt and gaze with emberous eyes at the
boat moving in midstream.
Kenkenes admitted with a grim smile that the great powers of the world
and the wild were against him. But Rachel's face came to him as
comfort--the memory of it when it was tender and yielding--and with a
lover's buoyancy he forgot his sorrows in remembering that she loved
him.
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