Page:Wisdom of the Wilderness (1923).pdf/117

 make his attar of song still more rare and precious, he cut off the final note, that haunting, ethereal—clear.

Again the tranced stillness. But now, as if too far above reality to be permitted to endure, after a few seconds it was rudely broken. From somewhere in the mysterious and misty depths of the swamp came a great booming and yet strangulated voice, so dominant that the ineffable colors of the evening seemed to fade and the twilight to deepen suddenly under its somber vibrations. Three times it sounded—''Klunk-er-glungk. . . Klunk-er-glungk. . . Klunk-er-glunk''. . . an uncouth, mysterious sound, sonorous, and at the same time half-muffled, as if pumped with effort through obstructing waters. It was the late cry of the bittern, proclaiming that the day was done.

The hermit thrush, on his tree top against the pale sky, sang no more, but dropped noiselessly to his mate on her nest in the thickets. Two bats flickered and zigzagged hither and thither above the glimmering stream. And the leaf-scented dusk gathered down broodingly, with the dew, over the wide solitudes of Lost Water Swamp.

It was high morning in the heart of the swamp. From a sky of purest cobalt flecked sparsely with silver-white wisps of cloud, the sun glowed down