le, he died.

It should not have been expected, perhaps, that he could live. But in
some way Mark had expected it.

A few hours later a canoe was floating down the Branch through South
Devil. One man was paddling at the stern; another was stretched on a
couch, with his head on a pillow placed at the bow, where he could see
the blossoming network above through his closed eyes. As Carl had said,
Scipio had left a trail all the way--a broken branch, a bent reed, or a
shred of cloth tied to the lily-leaves. All through the still day they
glided on, the canoe moving without a sound on the bosom of the dark
stream. They passed under the gray and solemn cypresses, rising without
branches to an enormous height, their far foliage hidden by the moss,
which hung down thickly in long flakes, diffusing the sunshine and
making it silvery like mist; in the silver swung the air-plants, great
cream-colored disks, and wands of scarlet, crowded with little buds,
blossoms that looked like butterflies, and blossoms that looked like
humming-birds, and little dragon-heads with grinning faces. Then they
came to the region of the palms; these shot up, slender and graceful,
and leaned over the stream, the great aureum-ferns growing on their
trunks high in the air. Beneath was a firmer soil than in the domain of
the cypresses, and here grew a mat of little flowers, each less than a
quarter of an inch wide, close together, pink, blue, scarlet, yellow,
purple, but never white, producing a hue singularly rich, owing to the
absence of that colorless color which man ever mingles with his floral
combinations, and strangely makes sacred alike to the bridal and to
death. Great vines ran up the palms, knotted themselves, and came down
again, hand over hand, wreathed in little fresh leaves of exquisite
green. Birds with plumage of blush-rose pink flew slowly by; also some
with scarlet wings, and the jeweled paroquets. The great Savannah cranes
stood on the shore, and did not stir as the boat moved by. And, as the
spring was now in its prime, the alligators showed their horny heads
above water, and climbed awkwardly out on the bank; or else, swimming by
the side of the canoe, accompanied it long distances, no doubt moved by
dull curiosity concerning its means of locomotion, and its ideas as to
choice morsels of food. The air was absolutely still; no breeze reached
these blossoming aisles; each leaf hung motionless. The atmosphere was
hot, and heavy with pe