. . .
Benham turned his face to the dim jungle again. . . .
He had come far out of his way to visit this strange world of the
ancient life, that now recedes and dwindles before our new
civilization, that seems fated to shrivel up and pass altogether
before the dry advance of physical science and material
organization. He was full of unsatisfied curiosities about its
fierce hungers and passions, its fears and cruelties, its instincts
and its well-nigh incommunicable and yet most precious
understandings. He had long ceased to believe that the wild beast
is wholly evil, and safety and plenty the ultimate good for men. . . .
Perhaps he would never get nearer to this mysterious jungle life
than he was now.
It was intolerably tantalizing that it should be so close at hand
and so inaccessible. . . .
As Benham sat brooding over his disappointment the moon, swimming on
through the still circle of the hours, passed slowly over him. The
lights and shadows about him changed by imperceptible gradations and
a long pale alley where the native cart track drove into the forest,
opened slowly out of the darkness, slowly broadened, slowly
lengthened.
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