Chapter Thirty Two.
Shadows in the Water.
Alone with my thoughts, and these tainted with considerable acerbity. More than one cause contributed to their bitterness. My pleasant purpose thwarted—my heart aching for knowledge—for a renewal of tender ties—distracted with doubts—wearied with protracted suspense.
In addition to these, my mind was harassed by other emotions I experienced disgust at the part I had been playing. I had been made the mouth-piece of chicanery and wrong; aiding conspiracy had been the first act of my warlike career; and although it was not the act of my own will, I felt the disagreeableness of the duty—a sheer disgust in its performance.
Even the loveliness of the night failed to soothe me. Its effect was contrary; a storm would have been more congenial to my spirit.
And it was a lovely night. Both the earth and the air were at peace.
Here and there the sky was fleeced with white cirrhi, but so thinly, that the moon’s disk, passing behind them, appeared to move under a transparent gauze-work of silver, without losing one ray of her effulgence. Her light was resplendent in the extreme; and, glancing from the glabrous leaves of the great laurels, caused the forests to sparkle, as though beset with a million of mirrors. To add to the effect, fire-flies swarmed under the shadows of the trees, their bodies lighting up the dark aisles with a mingled coruscation of red, blue and gold—now flitting in a direct line, now curving, or waving upward and downward, as though moving through the mazes of some intricate cotillon.
In the midst of all this glittering array, lay the little tarn, shining, too, but with the gleam of plated glass—a mirror in its framework of fretted gild.
The atmosphere was redolent of the most agreeable perfumes. The night was cool enough for human comfort, but not chill. Many of the flowers refused to close their corollas—for not all of them were brides of the sun. The moon had its share of the sweets. The sassafras and bay-trees were in blossom, and dispensed their odours around, that, mingling with the aroma of the aniseed and the orange, created a delicious fragrance in the air.