32 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 



reasonable scheme of earthly things he filled the 

 niche of a giant green tree-frog, and one of us 

 seemed to remember that the Knight Gawain was 

 enamored of green, and so we dubbed him. For 

 the hours of daylight Gawain preferred the role 

 of a hunched-up pebble of malachite; or if he 

 could find a leaf, he drew eighteen purple vacuum 

 toes beneath him, veiled his eyes with opalescent 

 lids, and slipped from the mineral to the vege- 

 table kingdom, flattened by masterly shading 

 which filled the hollows and leveled the bumps; 

 and the leaf became more of a leaf than it had 

 been before Gawain was merged with it. 



Night, or hunger, or the merciless tearing of 

 sleep from his soul wrought magic and trans- 

 formed him into a glowing, jeweled specter. He 

 sprouted toes and long legs; he rose and inflated 

 his sleek emerald frog- form ; his sides blazed forth 

 a mother-of-pearl waist-coat — a myriad mosaics 

 of pink and blue and salmon and mauve; and 

 from nowhere if not from the very depths of his 

 throat, there slowly rose twin globes, — great eyes, 

 — which stood above the flatness of his head, as 

 mosques above an oriental city. Gone were the 

 neutralizing lids, and in their place, strange up- 

 right pupils surrounded with vermilion lines and 



