The loose planks rattled rhythmically under their
steps with obstrusive dry sound in the perfect silence of the night. As
they were wheeling round again the younger man stood attentive.
"Did you hear that?" he asked.
"No!" said the other. "Hear what?"
"I thought I heard a cry. Ever so faint. Seemed a woman's voice. In
that other house. Ah! Again! Hear it?"
"No," said the lieutenant, after listening awhile. "You young fellows
always hear women's voices. If you are going to dream you had better get
into your hammock. Good-night."
The moon mounted higher, and the warm shadows grew smaller and crept away
as if hiding before the cold and cruel light.
CHAPTER X.
"It has set at last," said Nina to her mother pointing towards the hills
behind which the sun had sunk. "Listen, mother, I am going now to
Bulangi's creek, and if I should never return--"
She interrupted herself, and something like doubt dimmed for a moment the
fire of suppressed exaltation that had glowed in her eyes and had
illuminated the serene impassiveness of her features with a ray of eager
life during all that long day of excitement--the day of joy and anxiety,
of hope and terror, of vague grief and indistinct delight.
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