He slipped from the axle as the stage-coach swirled
past the brushing branches of fir, and for an instant lay unnoticed, a
scarcely distinguishable mound of dust in the broken furrows of the
road. Then, more like a beast than a man, he crept on his hands and
knees into the steaming underbrush. Here he lay still until the clatter
of harness and the sound of voices faded in the distance. Had he been
followed, it would have been difficult to detect in that inert mass of
rags any semblance to a known form or figure. A hideous, reddish mask
of dust and clay obliterated his face; his hands were shapeless stumps
exaggerated in his trailing sleeves. And when he rose, staggering like
a drunken man, and plunged wildly into the recesses of the wood, a
cloud of dust followed him, and pieces and patches of his frayed and
rotten garments clung to the impeding branches. Twice he fell, but,
maddened and upheld by the smarting spices and stimulating aroma of the
air, he kept on his course.
Gradually the heat became less oppressive; once, when he stopped and
leaned exhaustedly against a sapling, he fancied he saw the zephyr he
could not yet feel in the glittering and trembling of leaves in the
distance before him.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25