When considered in detail by Mr. Flushing and Mrs. Ambrosethe expedition proved neither dangerous nor difficult.
They found also that it was not even unusual. Every year at thisseason English people made parties which steamed a short way upthe river, landed, and looked at the native village, bought a certainnumber of things from the natives, and returned again withoutdamage done to mind or body. When it was discovered that sixpeople really wished the same thing the arrangements were soon carried out.
Since the time of Elizabeth very few people had seen the river,and nothing has been done to change its appearance from what itwas to the eyes of the Elizabethan voyagers. The time of Elizabethwas only distant from the present time by a moment of spacecompared with the ages which had passed since the water had runbetween those banks, and the green thickets swarmed there,and the small trees had grown to huge wrinkled trees in solitude.
Changing only with the change of the sun and the clouds, the wavinggreen mass had stood there for century after century, and the waterhad run between its banks ceaselessly, sometimes washing awayearth and sometimes the branches of trees, while in other partsof the world one town had risen upon the ruins of another town,and the men in the towns had become more and more articulateand unlike each other. A few miles of this river were visiblefrom the top of the mountain where some weeks before the partyfrom the hotel had picnicked. Susan and Arthur had seen it as theykissed each other, and Terence and Rachel as they sat talkingabout Richmond, and Evelyn and Perrott as they strolled about,imagining that they were great captains sent to colonise the world.
They had seen the broad blue mark across the sand where it flowedinto the sea, and the green cloud of trees mass themselves about itfarther up, and finally hide its waters altogether from sight.
At intervals for the first twenty miles or so houses were scatteredon the bank; by degrees the houses became huts, and, later still,there was neither hut nor house, but trees and grass, which wereseen only by hunters, explorers, or merchants, marching or sailing,but making no settlement.
By leaving Santa Marina early in the morning, driving twentymiles and riding eight, the party, which was composed finallyof six English people, reached the river-side as the night fell.
They came cantering through the trees--Mr. and Mrs. Flushing,Helen Ambrose, Rachel, Terence, and St. John. The tired littlehorses then stopped automatically, and the English dismounted.
Mrs. Flushing strode to the river-bank in high spirits. The day hadbeen long and hot, but she had enjoyed the speed and the open air;she had left the hotel which she hated, and she found the companyto her liking. The river was swirling past in the darkness;they could just distinguish the smooth moving surface of the water,and the air was full of the sound of it. They stood in an emptyspace in the midst of great tree-trunks, and out there a little greenlight moving slightly up and down showed them where the steamer layin which they were to embark.
When they all stood upon its deck they found that it was a verysmall boat which throbbed gently beneath them for a few minutes,and then shoved smoothly through the water. They seemed to bedriving into the heart of the night, for the trees closed infront of them, and they could hear all round them the rustlingof leaves. The great darkness had the usual effect of taking awayall desire for communication by making their words sound thinand small; and, after walking round the deck three or four times,they clustered together, yawning deeply, and looking at the same spotof deep gloom on the banks. Murmuring very low in the rhythmicaltone of one oppressed by the air, Mrs. Flushing began to wonderwhere they were to sleep, for they could not sleep downstairs,they could not sleep in a doghole smelling of oil, they could notsleep on deck, they could not sleep--She yawned profoundly. It wasas Helen had foreseen; the question of nakedness had risen already,although they were half asleep, and almost invisible to each other.
With St. John's help she stretched an awning, and persuadedMrs. Flushing that she could take off her clothes behind this,and that no one would notice if by chance some part of her which hadbeen concealed for forty-five years was laid bare to the human eye.
Mattresses were thrown down, rugs provided, and the three womenlay near each other in the soft open air.
The gentlemen, having smoked a certain number of cigarettes,dropped the glowing ends into the river, and looked for a time atthe ripples wrinkling the black water beneath them, undressed too,and lay down at the other end of the boat. They were very tired,and curtained from each other by the darkness. The light from onelantern fell upon a few ropes, a few planks of the deck, and the railof the boat, but beyond that there was unbroken darkness, no lightreached their faces, or the trees which were massed on the sidesof the river.
Soon Wilfrid Flushing slept, and Hirst slept. Hewet alone lay awakelooking straight up into the sky. The gentle motion and the blackshapes that were drawn ceaselessly across his eyes had the effectof making it impossible for him to think. Rachel's presence so nearhim lulled thought asleep. Being so near him, only a few paces offat the other end of the boat, she made it as impossible for himto think about her as it would have been impossible to see her if shehad stood quite close to him, her forehead against his forehead.
In some strange way the boat became identified with himself, and justas it would have been useless for him to get up and steer the boat,so was it useless for him to struggle any longer with the irresistibleforce of his own feelings. He was drawn on and on away from allhe knew, slipping over barriers and past landmarks into unknownwaters as the boat glided over the smooth surface of the river.
In profound peace, enveloped in deeper unconsciousness than had beenhis for many nights, he lay on deck watching the tree-tops changetheir position slightly against the sky, and arch themselves,and sink and tower huge, until he passed from seeing them intodreams where he lay beneath the shadow of the vast trees, looking upinto the sky.
When they woke next morning they had gone a considerable way upthe river; on the right was a high yellow bank of sand tuftedwith trees, on the left a swamp quivering with long reeds and tallbamboos on the top of which, swaying slightly, perched vivid greenand yellow birds. The morning was hot and still. After breakfast theydrew chairs together and sat in an irregular semicircle in the bow.
An awning above their heads protected them from the heat of the sun,and the breeze which the boat made aired them softly. Mrs. Flushingwas already dotting and striping her canvas, her head jerking thisway and that with the action of a bird nervously picking up grain;the others had books or pieces of paper or embroidery on their knees,at which they looked fitfully and again looked at the river ahead.
At one point Hewet read part of a poem aloud, but the number ofmoving things entirely vanquished his words. He ceased to read,and no one spoke. They moved on under the shelter of the trees.
There was now a covey of red birds feeding on one of the little isletsto the left, or again a blue-green parrot flew shrieking from treeto tree. As they moved on the country grew wilder and wilder.
The trees and the undergrowth seemed to be strangling each othernear the ground in a multitudinous wrestle; while here and therea splendid tree towered high above the swarm, shaking its thin greenumbrellas lightly in the upper air. Hewet looked at his books again.
The morning was peaceful as the night had been, only it was verystrange because he could see it was light, and he could see Racheland hear her voice and be near to her. He felt as if he were waiting,as if somehow he were stationary among things that passed over himand around him, voices, people's bodies, birds, only Rachel toowas waiting with him. He looked at her sometimes as if she mustknow that they were waiting together, and being drawn on together,without being able to offer any resistance. Again he read fromhis book:
Whoever you are holding me now in your hand,Without one thing all will be useless.
A bird gave a wild laugh, a monkey chuckled a malicious question,and, as fire fades in the hot sunshine, his words flickered and went out.
By degrees as the river narrowed, and the high sandbanks fellto level ground thickly grown with trees, the sounds of the forestcould be heard. It echoed like a hall. There were sudden cries;and then long spaces of silence, such as there are in a cathedralwhen a boy's voice has ceased and the echo of it still seemsto haunt about the remote places of the roof. Once Mr. Flushingrose and spoke to a sailor, and even announced that some timeafter luncheon the steamer would stop, and they could walk a littleway through the forest.
"There are tracks all through the trees there," he explained.
"We're no distance from civilisation yet."He scrutinised his wife's painting. Too polite to praise it openly,he contented himself with cutting off one half of the picturewith one hand, and giving a flourish in the air with the other.
"God!" Hirst exclaimed, staring straight ahead. "Don't you thinkit's amazingly beautiful?""Beautiful?" Helen enquired. It seemed a strange little word,and Hirst and herself both so small that she forgot to answer him.
Hewet felt that he must speak.
"That's where the Elizabethans got their style," he mused,staring into the profusion of leaves and blossoms and prodigious fruits.
"Shakespeare? I hate Shakespeare!" Mrs. Flushing exclaimed;and Wilfrid returned admiringly, "I believe you're the only personwho dares to say that, Alice." But Mrs. Flushing went on painting.
She did not appear to attach much value to her husband's compliment,and painted steadily, sometimes muttering a half-audible wordor groan.
The morning was now very hot.
"Look at Hirst!" Mr. Flushing whispered. His sheet of paperhad slipped on to the deck, his head lay back, and he drew a longsnoring breath.
Terence picked up the sheet of paper and spread it out before Rachel.
It was a continuation of the poem on God which he had begunin the chapel, and it was so indecent that Rachel did notunderstand half of it although she saw that it was indecent.
Hewet began to fill in words where Hirst had left spaces,but he soon ceased; his pencil rolled on deck. Gradually theyapproached nearer and nearer to the bank on the right-hand side,so that the light which covered them became definitely green,falling through a shade of green leaves, and Mrs. Flushing set asideher sketch and stared ahead of her in silence. Hirst woke up;they were then called to luncheon, and while they ate it,the steamer came to a standstill a little way out from the bank.
The boat which was towed behind them was brought to the side,and the ladies were helped into it.
For protection against boredom, Helen put a book of memoirs beneathher arm, and Mrs. Flushing her paint-box, and, thus equipped,they allowed themselves to be set on shore on the verge of the forest.
They had not strolled more than a few hundred yards along the trackwhich ran parallel with the river before Helen professed to findit was unbearably hot. The river breeze had ceased, and a hotsteamy atmosphere, thick with scents, came from the forest.
"I shall sit down here," she announced, pointing to the trunk of a treewhich had fallen long ago and was now laced across and across by creepersand thong-like brambles. She seated herself, opened her parasol,and looked at the river which was barred by the stems of trees.
She turned her back to the trees which disappeared in black shadowbehind her.
"I quite agree," said Mrs. Flushing, and proceeded to undo herpaint-box. Her husband strolled about to select an interestingpoint of view for her. Hirst cleared a space on the ground byHelen's side, and seated himself with great deliberation, as if hedid not mean to move until he had talked to her for a long time.
Terence and Rachel were left standing by themselves without occupation.
Terence saw that the time had come as it was fated to come,but although he realised this he was completely calm and masterof himself. He chose to stand for a few moments talking to Helen,and persuading her to leave her seat. Rachel joined him tooin advising her to come with them.
"Of all the people I've ever met," he said, "you're the least adventurous.
You might be sitting on green chairs in Hyde Park. Are yougoing to sit there the whole afternoon? Aren't you going to walk?""Oh, no," said Helen, "one's only got to use one's eye.
There's everything here--everything," she repeated in a drowsytone of voice. "What will you gain by walking?""You'll be hot and disagreeable by tea-time, we shall be cool and sweet,"put in Hirst. Into his eyes as he looked up at them had come yellowand green reflections from the sky and the branches, robbing themof their intentness, and he seemed to think what he did not say.
It was thus taken for granted by them both that Terence and Rachelproposed to walk into the woods together; with one look at eachother they turned away.
