Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/55

 the spoor revealed to him. It was evident that he was reading in the invisible signs which he alone had the power to interpret, some story that excited him strangely, but he did not heed and seemed not even to hear the eager questions with which Kria plied him.

About midnight he called a halt.

"There is still plenty of light," Kria protested.

"Here we will camp," Kûlop Rîau reiterated with a snarl.

"But" Kria began, when the other cut him short.

"When you are in childbed, do as the midwife bids you," he said; and ten minutes later the old man was fast asleep, though even in his slumber he still muttered restlessly.

The dawn broke wan and cheerless, the feeble daylight thrusting sad and irresolute fingers through the network of boughs and leaves overhead. A dank, chill, woebegone depression hung over the wilderness. The riot and the glory of the night were ended; the long ordeal of the hot and breathless day was about to begin. The forest was settling itself with scant content to its uneasy slumbering.

After the manner of all jungle-people, Kûlop Rîau awoke with the dawn, and an hour later the morning rice had been cooked and eaten. The old tracker prepared himself a quid of betel nut with great deliberation, and sat chewing it mechanically, his body swinging slowly to and fro, his eyes nearly closed, his lips busy, though none save vague sounds