Meanwhile, Carington again lit a match, this time in the shelter of his hat, and kindled the resinous tips of a pine-branch he had torn away.
“Thirty-one pounds and over—say thirty-two.” As he spoke he held up the fiercely blazing branch, so that its red-and-orange light flared over the water, and, seen in a million drops, cast for a moment dancing shadows through the dense woodlands back of them. In this wild light the Indian’s visage stood out like some antique bronze, and she saw for the first time clearly a smiling brown face, clean shaven except for a slight mustache. The bowman threw the branch on the water, where it sparkled a moment, and said, cheerfully, “Will the canoe live in this wind, Polycarp?”
“Not know! Big much blow!”
“Confound it!” said the bowman. “I think we had better wait a bit, ma’am. Kind of rains like them clouds was buckets turned upside down. It can’t last. Are you gettin’ wet, ma’am?”
“No, I am wet,” said Rose. “Mama will be so uneasy. Couldn’t we go? We must go! How long will it last?”
Polycarp was silent, and the deluge went on pattering on the maples, humming softly on the water when the wind ceased, and the intervals of quiet let into the ear the myriad noises of the falling drops. Rose set her soul to be patient. She was now too cold for comfort, and very hopelessly soaked. But it was like her to say, “It is nobody’s fault, and, after all, it is great fun.” Then Carington, liking the courage and good sense of the woman, forgot himself again.
“Don’t you think it is a little difficult sometimes to say just where amusement ends, and—the other thing begins?”
“What other thing?” said Rose, too wet and shivering to be acutely critical.
“Oh—discomfort!”
“But I think one may be both amused and uncomfortable.”