Hewet, please remember that. An hour."
Whether made by man, or for some reason preserved by nature, there was
a wide pathway striking through the forest at right angles to the river.
It resembled a drive in an English forest, save that tropical bushes
with their sword-like leaves grew at the side, and the ground was
covered with an unmarked springy moss instead of grass, starred with
little yellow flowers. As they passed into the depths of the forest the
light grew dimmer, and the noises of the ordinary world were replaced
by those creaking and sighing sounds which suggest to the traveller in
a forest that he is walking at the bottom of the sea. The path narrowed
and turned; it was hedged in by dense creepers which knotted tree to
tree, and burst here and there into star-shaped crimson blossoms. The
sighing and creaking up above were broken every now and then by the
jarring cry of some startled animal. The atmosphere was close and the
air came at them in languid puffs of scent. The vast green light was
broken here and there by a round of pure yellow sunlight which fell
through some gap in the immense umbrella of green above, and in these
yellow spaces crimson and black butterflies were circling and settling.
Terence and Rachel hardly spoke.
Not only did the silence weigh upon them, but they were both unable to
frame any thoughts.
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