She wondered if Augustine saw the beauty of the sharp-cut palms, the delicate-leaved bamboos, and the full-foliaged ceibas, all festooned with long silver streamers of moss. Gnarled branches of a dead monarch of the forest, silhouetted against the deep blue of the sky, showed orchids and aloes and long, strangling vines—parasites that had killed it. Every unshadowed leaf along the trail glistened white with dew. The glamor of the white night was upon Muella.
Augustine’s voice broke the spell.
“You are tiring, but we must not lag. Shall I carry you?”
“No, no! I can keep up.”
His words and the glint of his naked machete brought her back to actuality. She slipped her hand from his.
Slowly a haze overspread the moon. The brightness failed, and then the moonlit patches imperceptibly merged into the shadows, until all was gray. The jungle trees rose dim and weird and lost their tips in clouds of mist. A chicolocki burst into song, and the broken notes heralded the coming of day.
“Augustine, it is near dawn,” said Muella. “Oh, how good the light will be! I’m so cold—so wet. We shall be safe in Micas soon, shall we not?”
The herder mumbled a reply that she did not understand.