ible to each other. With St. John's
help she stretched an awning, and persuaded Mrs. Flushing that she could
take off her clothes behind this, and that no one would notice if by
chance some part of her which had been concealed for forty-five years
was laid bare to the human eye. Mattresses were thrown down, rugs
provided, and the three women lay near each other in the soft open air.

The gentlemen, having smoked a certain number of cigarettes, dropped
the glowing ends into the river, and looked for a time at the ripples
wrinkling the black water beneath them, undressed too, and lay down at
the other end of the boat. They were very tired, and curtained from each
other by the darkness. The light from one lantern fell upon a few ropes,
a few planks of the deck, and the rail of the boat, but beyond that
there was unbroken darkness, no light reached their faces, or the trees
which were massed on the sides of the river.

Soon Wilfrid Flushing slept, and Hirst slept. Hewet alone lay awake
looking straight up into the sky. The gentle motion and the black shapes
that were drawn ceaselessly across his eyes had the effect of making
it impossible for him to think. Rachel's presence so near him lulled
thought asleep. Being so near him, only a few paces off at the other end
of the boat, she made it as impossible for him to think about her as it
would have been impossible to see her if she had stood quite close to
him, her forehead against his forehead. In some strange way the boat
became identified with himself, and just as it would have been useless
for him to get up and steer the boat, so was it useless for him to
struggle any longer with the irresistible force of his own feelings. He
was drawn on and on away from all he knew, slipping over barriers and
past landmarks into unknown waters as the boat glided over the
smooth surface of the river. In profound peace, enveloped in deeper
unconsciousness than had been his for many nights, he lay on deck
watching the tree-tops change their position slightly against the sky,
and arch themselves, and sink and tower huge, until he passed from
seeing them into dreams where he lay beneath the shadow of the vast
trees, looking up into the sky.

When they woke next morning they had gone a considerable way up the
river; on the right was a high yellow bank of sand tufted with trees, on
the left a swamp quivering with long reeds and tall bamboos on the top
of which, swaying slightly, perched vivid