Chapter XXVI
After the fierce hunting by day, the nights were twinkling mysteries of great shining, diamond stars; and Sirius shone like a white sun. The rustling silence, the audible stillness of the vast forests lapped the encampment of the caravan, where the fires died out but still glowed sufficiently to keep the wild animals at a distance and where the guards and drivers lay immersed in sound sleep. Lucius was happy in that mystery; and in the silvery sheen of the night the last memories of his grief seemed to lift like wisps of disappearing mist.
The travellers had approached the Land of Ophir; and the pillars of Sesostris would be reached next day. In this last twinkling night of forest-life, with the stars shining through the foliage like a diamond cupola above an emerald dome, Lucius had left his tent while all the others slept. Next to his tent were those of Thrasyllus, Caleb and Cora. And he saw Cora sitting outside her tent, which was the biggest, because she was a woman, and made of spotted lynx-hides, whose warmth resisted the plentiful dew. And she rose and stretched her hands to the ground, in salutation, and preserved that attitude, shyly.
“Are you not sleeping, Cora?” asked Lucius.
“No, my lord. I cannot sleep when the nights twinkle like this, when the stars send forth such rays that it is really as though they were moving to and fro. I feel that I must go on gazing at them until they fade away.”
“Life here in the forest is too wild for you, too lonely....”
“Life in the forest is paradise, my lord. By day Thrasyllus tells me wonderful things about the mountains and the plants and the animals and the savage tribes; and so the hours pass till you return from hunting....”
“And you sing to us and dance in the light of the fire and charm the rude hunters and Caleb in particular....”
She smiled and made no reply.