But as yet I could see nothing save the beautiful blue sky above,
for over the water was a thick layer of mist exactly as though
the whole surface had been covered with billows of cotton wool.
By degrees, however, the sun sucked up the mists, and then I
saw that we were afloat upon a glorious sheet of blue water of
which I could not make out the shore. Some eight or ten miles
behind us, however, there stretched as far as the eye could reach
a range of precipitous hills that formed a retaining wall of
the lake, and I have no doubt but that it was through some entrance
in these hills that the subterranean river found its way into
the open water. Indeed, I afterwards ascertained this to be
the fact, and it will be some indication of the extraordinary
strength and directness of the current of the mysterious river
that the canoe, even at this distance, was still answering to
it. Presently, too, I, or rather Umslopogaas, who woke up just
then, discovered another indication, and a very unpleasant one
it was. Perceiving some whitish object upon the water, Umslopogaas
called my attention to it, and with a few strokes of the paddle
brought the canoe to the spot, whereupon we discovered that the
object was the body of a man floating face downwards.
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