They did not speak often. Winthrop was attending to the boat's course, Margaret had turned and was sitting so that she could scan the water and direct him a little. Her nervousness had disappeared; either she had been able to repress it, or it had faded in the presence of the responsibility she had assumed in undertaking to act as guide through that strange water-land of the Monnlungs, whose winding channels she had heretofore seen only in the light of day. Even in the light of day they were mysterious; the enormous trees, thickly foliaged at the top, kept the sun from penetrating to the water, the masses of vines shut out still further the light, and shut in the perfumes of the myriad flowers. Channels opened out on all sides. Only one was the right one. Should she be able to follow it? the landmarks she knew—certain banks of shrubs, a tree trunk of peculiar shape, a sharp bend, a small bay full of "knees"—should she know these again by night? There came to her suddenly the memory of a little arena—an arena where the flowering vines hung straight down from the tree-tops to the water all round, like tapestry, and where the perfumes were densely thick.
"Are you cold?" said Winthrop. "You can't be—this warm night." The slightness of the canoe had betrayed what he thought was a shiver.
"No, I'm not cold."
"The best thing we can do is to make the boat as bright as possible," he went on. "But not in front, that would only be blinding; the light must be behind us." He took the torch from the bow, lighted three others, and stack them all into the canoe's lining of thin strips of wood at the stern. Primus had made his torches long; it would be an hour before they could burn down sufficiently to endanger the boat.
Thus, casting a brilliant orange-hued glow round them, lighting up the dark water vistas to the right and left, as they passed, they penetrated into the dim sweet swamp.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
They had been in the Monnlungs half an hour. Margaret acted as pilot; half kneeling, half sitting at the bow, one hand on the canoe's edge, her face turned forward, she gave her directions slowly, all her powers concentrated upon recalling correctly and keeping unmixed from present impressions her memory of the channel.
The present impressions were indeed so strange, that a strong exertion of will was necessary to prevent the mind from becoming fascinated by them, from forgetting in this series of magic pictures the different aspect of these same vistas by day. Even by day the vistas were alluring. By night, lighted up by the flare of the approaching torches, at first vaguely, then brilliantly, then vanishing into darkness again behind, they became unearthly, exceeding in contrasts of color—reds, yellows, and green, all of them edged sharply with the profoundest gloom—the most striking effects of the painters who have devoted their lives to reproducing light and shade.
Lanse had explored a part of the Monnlungs. He had not explored it all, no human eye had as yet beheld some of its mazes; but the part he had explored he knew well, he had even made a map of it. Margaret had seen this map; she felt sure, too, that she should know the channels he called the Lanes. Her idea, upon entering, had been to follow the main stream to the first of these lanes, there turn off and explore the lane to its end; then, returning to the main channel, to go on to the second lane; and so on through Lanse's part of the swamp. They had now explored two of the lanes, and were entering a third.