He was sitting upon a
rock at the foot of a slender-stemmed leafless tree. He had been
asleep, and it was daybreak. Everything was coldly clear and
colourless.
He must have slept soundly.
He heard a cock crow, and another answer--jungle fowl these must be,
because there could be no village within earshot--and then far away
and bringing back memories of terraced houses and ripe walled
gardens, was the scream of peacocks. And some invisible bird was
making a hollow beating sound among the trees near at hand.
TUNK. . . . TUNK, and out of the dry grass came a twittering.
There was a green light in the east that grew stronger, and the
stars after their magnitudes were dissolving in the blue; only a few
remained faintly visible. The sound of birds increased. Through
the trees he saw towering up a great mauve thing like the back of a
monster,--but that was nonsense, it was the crest of a steep
hillside covered with woods of teak.
He stood up and stretched himself, and wondered whether he had
dreamed of a tiger.
He tried to remember and retrace the course of his over-night
wanderings.
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