Naza! Naza! Naza! 



a last defiance, changed its course abruptly to slow 

 down and drown the sound of rapids in muffling 

 distance. Once more the craft swept on smoothly, 

 to the drive of the wind and the rush of the rain. 



By midnight the storm cleared. Murky clouds 

 split to show shining, blue-white stars and a fitful 

 moon, that silvered the crests of the spruces and 

 sometimes hid like a gleaming, black-threaded pearl 

 behind the dark branches. 



Jones, a plainsman all his days, wonderingly 

 watched the moon-blanched water. He saw it shade 

 and darken under shadowy walls of granite, where 

 it swelled with hollow song and gurgle. He heard 

 again the far-off rumble, faint on the night wind. 

 High cliff banks appeared, walled out the mellow 

 light, and the river suddenly narrowed. Yawning 

 holes, whirlpools of a second, opened with a gurgling 

 suck and raced with the boat. 



On the craft flew. Far ahead, a long, declining 

 plane of jumping frosted waves played dark and 

 white with the moonbeams. The Slave plunged to 

 his freedom, down his riven, stone-spiked bed, know 

 ing no patient eddy, and white-wreathed his dark, 

 shiny rocks in spume and spray. 



151 



