For the stream narrowed, and the forest along the shores
was so dense he could not see into it. The tree-tops hung in a
tangled canopy overhead, and a gloom of twilight filled the
channel below, so that where the sun shot through, it was like
filtered moonlight shining on black oil. There was no sound except
the dull, steady beat of the rowers' oars, and the ripple of water
along the sides of the bateau. The men did not sing or laugh, and
if they talked it must have been in whispers. There was no cry of
birds from ashore. And once David saw Joe Clamart's face as he
passed the window, and it was set and hard and filled with the
superstition of a man who was passing through a devil-country.
And then suddenly the end of it came. A flood of sunlight burst in
at the windows, and all at once voices came from ahead, a laugh, a
shout, and a yell of rejoicing from the bateau, and Joe Clamart
started again the everlasting song of the allouette bird that was
plucked of everything it had. Carrigan found himself grinning.
They were a queer people, these bred-in-the-blood northerners--
still moved by the superstitions of children. Yet he conceded that
the awesome deadness of the forest passage had put strange
thoughts into his own heart.
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