6 JUNGLE PEACE 



warm air, I head, like a frigate-bird, straight 

 into the teeth of the wind and hang for a time 

 parallel with the streaming lines of gray and 

 white smoke. Near the margin of the city 

 where the glittering water reaches long fingers 

 in between the wharves, a crowd of people 

 push, antwise, down to the brink. Many bur- 

 dened individuals pass and repass over slender 

 bridges or gang-planks, for all the world like 

 leaf -cutting ants transporting their booty over 

 twigs and grass stems. Then comes a frantic 

 waving of antennae, (or are they handker- 

 chiefs), and finally part of the wharf detaches 

 itself and is slowly separated from the city. 

 Now I can mount higher to a less dangerous 

 altitude and watch the ship become a drifting 

 leaf, then a floating mote, to vanish at last 

 over a curve of the world. I cease chuckling 

 into the roar of my motor; my amusement be- 

 comes all thrill. The gods shift and change: 

 Yoharneth-Lahai leaves me, and in his place 

 comes Slid, with the hand of Roon beside me 

 on the wheel. I hasten hangarwards with the 

 gulls which are beating towards their roosting 

 sands of far Long Island beaches. 



On some future day I in my turn, scurry up 



