Page:The Yellow Book - 13.djvu/154

138 rain of the previous few days; yet to him, after his narrow quarters in the prison, it was pleasant. Because of the personal discomfort he noticed the pools of water, into which he plunged, now and again, with a loud splash, and the heavy clay soil, in which he sank with a sucking sound at every step. But of the finer features of the landscape he saw nothing in detail. The sweet perfume of the ti-tree; the ominous sighing of the wind; the gray expanse of sky, over which dark masses of ragged-edged clouds were flying these were not distinct parts of a magnificent picture, but a perfect whole, whose beauty he felt without attempting to analyse perhaps the truest homage it is possible to pay.

When he reached a point in the road where it branched, still unconscious of the Shadow, he sat down. In front of him the ti-tree had been cleared, but already a new growth, two feet high, had sprung up in prodigal profusion, hiding the yellow earth beneath with a mantle of green. Across it a band of deep orange, left by the sun in the west, cast a weird shaft of light.

Suddenly, with the curious sound in his throat a horse makes when it is pleased, the swagger sank face downwards to the ground. Overcome by the necessity for expression, he hugged tufts of greenery passionately to his heart, and as heedless of the damp and spiky shoots as he was ignorant of the two evil blue eyes, curiously regarding him from an opening in the scrub, buried his head among it like a child on its mother's breast. When he lifted it again his eyes were full of tears.

Then, as if tired, he sat up again, and drew from his pocket the penny, tied with faded blue ribbon, with which he had tempted fate weeks before. Twirling it slowly between his thumbs, he fell to reasoning aloud.

"It's not much good," he said, "but better than nothing. Heads this way; tails that way."

Rh