12
Some hours later Benham found that the trees and rocks were growing visible again, and he saw a very bright star that he knew must be Lucifer rising amidst the black branches. He was sitting upon a rock at the foot of a slender-stemmed leafless tree. He had been asleep, and it was daybreak. Everything was coldly clear and colourless.
He must have slept soundly.
He heard a cock crow, and another answer—jungle fowl these must be, because there could be no village within earshot—and then far away and bringing back memories of terraced houses and ripe walled gardens, was the scream of peacocks. And some invisible bird was making a hollow beating sound among the trees near at hand. TUNK.... TUNK, and out of the dry grass came a twittering.
There was a green light in the east that grew stronger, and the stars after their magnitudes were dissolving in the blue; only a few remained faintly visible. The sound of birds increased. Through the trees he saw towering up a great mauve thing like the back of a monster,—but that was nonsense, it was the crest of a steep hillside covered with woods of teak.
He stood up and stretched himself, and wondered whether he had dreamed of a tiger.
He tried to remember and retrace the course of his over-night wanderings.
A flight of emerald parakeets tore screaming through the trees, and then far away uphill he heard the creaking of a cart.
He followed the hint of a footmark, and went back up the glen slowly and thoughtfully.
Presently he came to a familiar place, a group of trees, a sheet of water, and the ruins of an old embankment. It was the ancient tank of his overnight encounter. The pool of his dream?