green and yellow birds. The
morning was hot and still. After breakfast they drew chairs together and
sat in an irregular semicircle in the bow. An awning above their heads
protected them from the heat of the sun, and the breeze which the boat
made aired them softly. Mrs. Flushing was already dotting and striping
her canvas, her head jerking this way and that with the action of a bird
nervously picking up grain; the others had books or pieces of paper
or embroidery on their knees, at which they looked fitfully and again
looked at the river ahead. At one point Hewet read part of a poem aloud,
but the number of moving things entirely vanquished his words. He ceased
to read, and no one spoke. They moved on under the shelter of the trees.
There was now a covey of red birds feeding on one of the little islets
to the left, or again a blue-green parrot flew shrieking from tree to
tree. As they moved on the country grew wilder and wilder. The trees and
the undergrowth seemed to be strangling each other near the ground in a
multitudinous wrestle; while here and there a splendid tree towered high
above the swarm, shaking its thin green umbrellas lightly in the upper
air. Hewet looked at his books again. The morning was peaceful as the
night had been, only it was very strange because he could see it was
light, and he could see Rachel and hear her voice and be near to her.
He felt as if he were waiting, as if somehow he were stationary among
things that passed over him and around him, voices, people's bodies,
birds, only Rachel too was waiting with him. He looked at her sometimes
as if she must know that they were waiting together, and being drawn on
together, without being able to offer any resistance. Again he read from
his book:

Whoever you are holding me now in your hand,
Without one thing all will be useless.

A bird gave a wild laugh, a monkey chuckled a malicious question, and,
as fire fades in the hot sunshine, his words flickered and went out.

By degrees as the river narrowed, and the high sandbanks fell to level
ground thickly grown with trees, the sounds of the forest could be
heard. It echoed like a hall. There were sudden cries; and then long
spaces of silence, such as there are in a cathedral when a boy's voice
has ceased and the echo of it still seems to haunt about the remote
places of the roof. Once Mr. Flushing rose and spoke to a sailor, and
even announced that some time after luncheon the steamer w