Page:Possession (Roche, February 1923).pdf/66

 sweetness of the locust flowers. Ruddy tongues licked about a heap of driftwood and cast their fierce reflection on the water next the shore. In this molten pool five little girls, three young women, and a boy of fourteen were bathing. The boy, like a bronze imp, chased one after another of his naked sisters, the captured one being roughly splashed, and then held under water despite her cries. Their smooth, brown bodies caught the glow from the fire like copper urns; Derek could see even the jewel-like glitter of their eyes. He watched them smiling, forgetting his annoyance.

The boy, soon tiring of his easy prey, swam outward into the darkness. One of the girls raised her arms to her head to fasten the long wet hair that had fallen about her shoulders. Derek's heart gave a sudden leap; a hot thrill of pleasure stirred, like a pain, in his breast. She seemed to rise, a dark water-lily on its stem, a flower of unearthly beauty, springing from the water, fed by the flames, filling the night air with the perfume of her desire. At her side the dark head of the smallest child lay on the water between its outstretched arms like an olive-tinted bud. It was a moonless night and the sky hung low, dark as a bowl of wine.

All the bathers were motionless now, or nearly so. Yes, they were water-lilies, resting languorously in this secret place, their petals drawn together, holding the sweetness of the night.

He gazed at them each in turn, but found none so lovely as she whose slender arms still curved above her head.

She left the water and came slowly to the fire; picking up a cloth she began languidly to dry her breast. Her sisters followed her, and, as they crouched together, their interlacing limbs made intricate linear designs against the sombre glow of the subsiding fire.