Page:Anderson--Isle of seven moons.djvu/103

91 by the warm hues of silver and golden tree-ferns, the delicate hues of myriad lichens and parasites, and here and there picked out by the crimson beauty of the Mountain Rose. And ever hither and thither among the trees and vine- mazes darted wild blue pigeons, while above the thickly netted vines hummingbirds hung suspended like little thrumming ruby gyroscopes.

The bewildering intricacies of blade, and frond, and trunk, and vine, of colour, light, and shadow, were so overpowering that he felt enmeshed and longed for some thing clear-cut, like the simple outlines of old New England roofs, or the familiar spars and cordage of a ship. It seemed as if some form must shortly disentangle itself from the green labyrinth, some half-human thing with body of faun or satyr, perhaps, but with at least the semblance of human lineament. The absence was uncanny.

Sometimes he thought he heard hallooing, faint and afar-off, and he ran after the fancies until he stumbled over some natural abattis. Then, recovering his footing and fortitude, he dismissed the wild imaginings from his mind.

Now, as the terraces ranged on and up, the tangle thinned out, and the trees loomed higher and higher, like columns supporting the rent blue roof of the sky. So deep was the twilight and so majestic the upward sweep of the Gothic shafts that in the silence, broken only by the cataract's thunder, the castaway christened this highest terrace "Cathedral Woods." But the organ-music of the waterfall was sharply pierced by the shriek of the birds above, whose harshness belied their gorgeous colouring. Harsh, harsh,