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 



