t least was something to be thankful for.
And so I sat down and inhaled the sweet night air and waited
for the dawn with such patience as I could command.

CHAPTER XI
THE FROWNING CITY

For an hour or more I sat waiting (Umslopogaas having meanwhile
gone to sleep also) till at length the east turned grey, and
huge misty shapes moved over the surface of the water like ghosts
of long-forgotten dawns. They were the vapours rising from their
watery bed to greet the sun. Then the grey turned to primrose,
and the primrose grew to red. Next, glorious bars of light sprang
up across the eastern sky, and through them the radiant messengers
of the dawn came speeding upon their arrowy way, scattering the
ghostly vapours and awaking the mountains with a kiss, as they
flew from range to range and longitude to longitude. Another
moment, and the golden gates were open and the sun himself came
forth as a bridegroom from his chamber, with pomp and glory and
a flashing as of ten million spears, and embraced the night and
covered her with brightness, and it was day.

But as yet I could see nothing save the beautiful blue sky above,
for over the water was a thick layer of mist exactly as though
the whole surface had been covered with billows of cotton wool.
By degrees, however, the sun sucked up the mists, and then I
saw that we were afloat upon a glorious sheet of blue water of
which I could not make out the shore. Some eight or ten miles
behind us, however, there stretched as far as the eye could reach
a range of precipitous hills that formed a retaining wall of
the lake, and I have no doubt but that it was through some entrance
in these hills that the subterranean river found its way into
the open water. Indeed, I afterwards ascertained this to be
the fact, and it will be some indication of the extraordinary
strength and directness of the current of the mysterious river
that the canoe, even at this distance, was still answering to
it. Presently, too, I, or rather Umslopogaas, who woke up just
then, discovered another indication, and a very unpleasant one
it was. Perceiving some whitish object upon the water, Umslopogaas
called my attention to it, and with a few strokes of the paddle
brought the canoe to the spot, whereupon we discovered that the
object was the body of a man floating face downwards. This was
bad enough, but imagine my horror when Umslopogaas having turned
him on to his back with the paddle, we rec