Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/62

38 it fall again. Their legs bend, their bodies stoop, and their haunches regain the upward position in cadence. The same air is to be heard on board fishing-sloops. Sea-faring men take their instrument with them, and with rhapsodies and bucolic songs, beguile the often wearisome hours and the flat calms of the open sea, adapting their plaintive and languishing refrain to the panting rhythm of the waves.

One of the youths, a pupil of the music school at Upperzyde, had transcribed this song for the fanfare. The little bugle-player shrilled out this somewhat hoarse melody to an accompaniment of trumpets and trombones, recalling the deep bass of the rolling surge.

Kehlmark noted the bugle-player, a youth taller and better formed than his companions of his own age. He had rounded hips, an amber-like complexion, eyes of velvet under long black lashes, red, fleshy lips, nostrils dilated as by some mysterious sensual olfactiveness and thick black hair. His wretched costume fitted him well, adhering to his limbs like fur to the elastic body of a cat. His body, with its graceful twisting and balancing, seemed to follow the sound-waves