Benee never felt stronger or happier than he did this evening, and he sang a strange wild song to himself, as he journeyed onwards, a kind of chant to which he kept step.
A huge snake, black as a winter's night, uncoiled itself, hissed, and darted into the heath to hide. Benee heeded it not. A wild beast of some sort sprang past him with furious growl. Benee never even raised his rifle. And when he came to the banks of a reed-girt lake, and saw his chance of shooting a huge cayman, he cared not to draw a bead thereon. He just went on with his chant and on with his walk. Benee was truly happy and hopeful for once in his life.
And amid such scenery, beneath such a galaxy of resplendent stars, who could have been aught else?
"How beautiful is night!
A dewy freshness fills the silent air;
No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain,
Breaks the serene of heaven.
In glory yonder moon divine
Rolls through the dark-blue depths,
Beneath her steely ray
The desert circle spreads,
Like the round ocean girdled with the sky.
How beautiful the night!"
But almost before he could have believed it possible, so quickly do health and happiness cause time to fly, a long line of crimson cloud, high in the east, betokened the return of another day.
The night-owls and the great flitting vampire bats saw it and retreated to darksome caves. There was heard no longer far over the plain the melancholy howl of the tiger-cat or snarl of puma or jaguar.
Day was coming!
Day was come!
[CHAPTER XIV--THE HOME OF THE CANNIBAL--BENEE'S ROMANCE]
Like the bats and the night-birds Benee now crept into concealment.