The light from a brazier, fitted into a stanchion in the prow
of the boat, in which some pieces of birch-bark were kindled, brought
the deep dark shadow of the woods into sharp relief, and gave a more
vivid brilliance to the immediate surroundings; but along the dimly-lit
path in the forest all the magical influences of the night held sway.
Beneath the tangled underbrush they caught glimpses of the rich and
fantastic vegetation with which the earth was clothed, while above
them, intermingled with the shadows cast by the vaulted boughs, played
the vivid brightness of the moon. Some of the trees were deeply
girdled--a slow method of killing them. These lingering deaths affected
the trio with melancholy. A wounded inmate of the grove, standing in
mute and pathetic resignation to its fate, loses first the feeling of
the sap that, blood-like, circulates through every limb, then all its
leafy honours fade, and its death is slow and inevitable as the death
of a forsaken woman who carries a deep hurt at the heart.
Near where a group of lofty elms lifted their beautiful heads up to
the moonlight they found the old chief busily engaged in mending his
seine.
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