HAMMOCK NIGHTS 217 



there is that note of pure vocal exuberance which 

 is beauty for beauty and for nothing else ; but in 

 this harmony there is sometimes the cry of a 

 creature who has come upon death unawares, a 

 creature who has perhaps been dumb all the days 

 of his life, only to cry aloud this once for pity, 

 for mercy, or for faith, in this hour of his ex- 

 tremity. Of all, the most terrible is the death- 

 scream of a horse, a cry of frightful timbre, 

 treasured, according to some secret law, until 

 this dire instant when for him death indeed 

 passes. 



It was years ago that I heard the pipes of Pan; 

 but one does not forget these mysteries of the 

 jungle night: the sounds and scents and the dim, 

 glimpsed ghosts which flit through the darkness 

 and the deepest shadow mark a place for them- 

 selves in one's memory, which is not erased. I 

 have lain in my hammock looking at a tapestry of 

 green draped over a half -fallen tree, and then 

 for a few minutes have turned to watch the bats 

 flicker across a bit of sky visible through the dark 

 branches. When I looked back again at the tap- 

 estry, although the dusk had only a moment be- 

 fore settled into the deeper blue of twilight, a 

 score of great lustrous stars were shining there, 



