At night spunk shone like phantom eyes. Strange winged creatures wheeled out of the darkness. Baboons coughed in the bush. When the moon came out the swamps glittered like sheets of rusted gunmetal—or, if it stormed, the great jungle-expanse seemed a chapel of terror. Often Trent tried to read by the campfire. But invariably the print danced before his eyes. He would lie down outside the tent, listening to the Maru porters piping on bamboo flutes, and when he grew sleepy Masein would rub him with alcohol.... Thus he spent his evenings.
Frequently—at dusk, dawn or midday—cool hands of memory fell with silken lightness upon his feverish thoughts, the hands of the girl who had become so closely woven into the fabric of his being. During those half-delirious hours she grew to be an integral possession, a real presence, warm and tangible.... And just as frequently, perhaps more poignantly, he thought of Manlove. The silence, the isolation from his kind, seemed to press deeper the realization of what had occurred. There were moments when it seemed unreal; when the woman of the cobra-bracelet, Chatterjee and the others that played in the drama, were vague shapes in a shadow-show.... Or, if it had all happened, it was long ago, dim as a dream.... That was fever.
Too, he thought of Euan Kerth and conjectured what had become of him since that evening he hurried away in the dusk at Myitkyina. That he had lost the trail he felt certain, although there was a chance that he would appear unexpectedly, as he had done before—a very filmy chance. Had he discovered where Trent was going, he would surely have communicated with him in some way.
At several villages he inquired through Masein if another caravan had preceded his. By the negative replies it became evident that Sarojini Nanjee had taken another route, and he strongly suspected that she had deliberately sent him on the longer and more difficult of the two. After a few attempts to draw information from Masein, he decided that the Lisu knew nothing, was simply what he was represented to be—a guide.
The country beyond the swampland afforded much better traveling. To the west mountains were visible—faint pastels of gray and pearl and amethyst. In rocky gashes in the earth little cataracts fumed and tumbled, and ferns and orchids grew in damp, moss-covered hollows. Trent shot a deer and several pheasants. The higher altitude buoyed his spirits, as did the fresh venison and fowl after so much canned food. He ceased thinking morose thoughts. Yet the horror and reek of those two days in the miasmas still clung in his memory, even in his nostrils, he sometimes imagined.
Thus, on the afternoon of the ninth day, they came to the spit of sand reaching out into the river and pitched camp; and Trent, pipe in mouth, sat in front of his shelter and looked at the Maru porters swimming in the jade-green river without seeing them, while Masein gathered fuel, and the mules, tethered near to the canebrake, swung their heads and stamped in futile efforts to shake off leeches. There was nothing in the scene even to suggest that an eventful night was being ushered in.
The sun dropped lower. It chased the jade-green river with gold until it glittered like a scaly python. Fireflies glimmered in the rushes, and a bat pursued a velvety-winged moth.... Across the stream, from a Shan village somewhere close by, a gong sounded. The Marus, laughing, swam across and disappeared in the high grass. Masein called after them, but received no response, and, muttering to himself, he impaled a strip of venison upon a stick and held it over the flame. It writhed....
A few minutes later Trent was stripped and in the water. Refreshed by a swim, he dried himself and ate a meal of venison steak and tea. Stars sprinkled the still flushed sky, like drippings from a silver paint-brush, and under the spell of the jungle sunset Trent sat down in front of his tent to smoke.
It was then that he heard a faint, staccato report—like that of a revolver or a rifle.
It came from the hill-jungle behind the camp, and for several seconds afterward he listened for a repetition. Masein, too, had heard, for he stood motionless, looking at his master. But there was no second report, and the silence, the utter quiet, made Trent wonder if he had really heard anything. If it was a shot—? Well, he knew the natives had no firearms; there must be white men in the district, P. W. D. men or Government officers. In that event he did not wish to be seen, as there would be questions to answer. He therefore suggested that Masein investigate, and the Lisu plunged eagerly into the canebrake.