More than all else, even the ravings of Hal in fever, the thing that wore on Ken and made him gloomy was the mourning of turtle-doves. As there had been thousands of these beautiful birds along the Santa Rosa River, so there were millions along the Panuco. Trees were blue with doves. There was an incessant soft, sad moaning. He fought his nervous, sensitive imaginings. And for a time he would conquer the sense of some sad omen sung by the doves. Then the monotony, the endless sweet "coo-ooo-ooo," seemed to drown him in melancholy sound. There were three distinct tones--a moan, swelling to full ring, and dying away: "Coo-ooo-ooo--coo-ooo-ooo."
All the afternoon the mourning, haunting song filled Ken Ward's ears. And when the sun set and night came, with relief to his tortured ear but not to mind, Ken kept on without a stop.
The day had slipped behind Ken with the miles, and now it was again dark. It seemed that he had little sense of time. But his faculties of sight and hearing were singularly acute. Otherwise his mind was like the weird gloom into which he was drifting.
Before the stars came out the blackness was as thick as pitch. He could not see a yard ahead. He backed the boat stern first down-stream and listened for the soft murmur of ripples on shoals. He avoided these by hearing alone. Occasionally a huge, dark pile of driftwood barred his passage, and he would have to go round it. Snags loomed up specter-like in his path, seemingly to reach for him with long, gaunt arms. Sometimes he drifted upon sand-bars, from which he would patiently pole the boat.
When the heavy dew began to fall he put on his waterproof coat. The night grew chill. Then the stars shone out. This lightened the river. Yet everywhere were shadows. Besides, clouds of mist hung low, in places obscuring the stars.
Ken turned the boat bow first downstream and rowed with slow, even stroke. He no longer felt tired. He seemed to have the strength of a giant. He fancied that with one great heave he could lift the boat out of the water or break the oars. From time to time he ceased to row, and, turning his head, he looked and listened. The river had numerous bends, and it was difficult for Ken to keep in the middle channel. He managed pretty well to keep right by watching the dark shore-line where it met the deep-blue sky. In the bends the deepest water ran close to the shore of the outside curve. And under these high banks and the leaning cypresses shadows were thicker and blacker than in the earlier night. There was mystery in them that Ken felt.
The sounds he heard when he stopped during these cautious resting intervals were the splashes of fish breaking water, the low hum of insects, and the trill of frogs. The mourning of the doves during daylight had haunted him, and now he felt the same sensation at this long-sustained, exquisitely sweet trill. It pierced him, racked him, and at last, from sheer exhaustion of his sensibilities, he seemed not to hear it any more, but to have it in his brain.
The moon rose behind the left-hand jungle wall, silvered half of the river and the opposite line of cypresses, then hid under clouds.
Suddenly, near or far away, down the river Ken saw a wavering light. It was too large for a firefly, and too steady. He took it for a Jack-o'-lantern. And for a while it enhanced the unreality, the ghostliness of the river. But it was the means of bringing Ken out of his dreamy gloom. It made him think. The light was moving. It was too wavering for a Jack-o'-lantern. It was coming up-stream. It grew larger.
Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, it vanished. Ken lost sight of it under a deep shadow of overhanging shore. As he reached a point opposite to where it disappeared he thought he heard a voice. But he could not be sure. He did not trust his ears. The incident, however, gave him a chill. What a lonesome ride! He was alone on that unknown river with three sick boys in the boat. Their lives depended upon his care, his strength, his skill, his sight and hearing. And the realization, striking him afresh, steeled his arms again and his spirit.