Was it indeed only wind in the reeds
that sighed around us? only the restless water insistently whispering
and calling? only of darkness were these forbidding shadows?
I looked up sharply at the doctor from such pensive embroidery, and
found him as far away as I. He nodded and smiled, and we shook hands
on the bank in the thick mist.
"There's biscuits and a little meat, wine, and fruit," he said in an
undertone. "God be with you, sir! I sadly mistrust the future. ...
'Tis ever my way, at parting."
We said good-bye again, to the dream-cry of some little fluttering
creature of the rushes. And well before dawn I was floating midstream,
my friend a memory, Rosinante in clover, and my travels, so far as
this brief narrative will tell, nearly ended.
I saw nothing but a few long-haired, grazing cattle on my voyage, that
eyed me but cursorily. I passed unmolested among the waterfowl,
between the never-silent rushes, beneath a sky refreshed and sweetened
with storm. The boat was enormously heavy and made slow progress. When
too the tide began to flow I must needs push close in to the bank and
await the ebb.
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