To my right--that is to
say, northward--it stretched away level and visibly deserted so far
as the bend, little more than a gunshot distant, where it curved
around the base of low cliff and disappeared. A few paces on this
side of the cliff glimmered the rail of a footbridge, and to this
spot my ears traced the sound of running water which had been singing
through my dreams--the same stream which had turned us aside to seek
our bivouac. Not even yet could I believe that my two wayfarers had
been phantoms merely. I had given them two minutes' start at least,
and by this time they might easily have passed the bend.
Threading my way swiftly between the boles of the olive trees, I
skirted the road to the edge of the stream and stood for a moment at
pause before stepping out upon the footbridge and into the moonlight.
The water at my feet, scarcely seen through the dark ferns, ran
swiftly and without noise as through a trough channelled in the
living rock; but it brought its impetus from a cascade that hummed
aloft somewhere in the darkness with a low continuous thunder as of a
mill with a turning wheel.
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