No breeze sent a shiver
through the grey ilexes or the still paler olives in the orchard to
my right. On the slope the chestnut trees massed their foliage in
heavy plumes of green, plume upon plume, wave upon wave, a still
cascade of verdure held between jagged ridges of granite. Here and
there the granite pushed a bare pinnacle above the trees, and over
these pinnacles the air swam and quivered.
The minutes dragged by. A caterpillar let itself down by a thread
from the end of the bough under which I sat, in a direct line between
me and the gateway. Very slowly, while I watched him, he descended
for a couple of feet, swayed a little and hung still, as if
irresolute. A butterfly, after hovering for a while over the wall's
dry coping, left it and fluttered aimlessly across the garth,
vanishing at length into the open doorway of the church.
The church stood about thirty paces from my tree, and by turning my
head to the angle of my right shoulder I looked straight into its
porch. It struck me that from the shadow within it, or from one of
the narrow windows, a marksman could make an easy target of me.
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