As a
rule everything that can be done is done, so that one must sit idle.
Also it is then that both the physical and the moral qualities are at
their lowest ebb, as is the mercury in the thermometer. The night is
dying, the day is not yet born. All nature feels the influence of that
hour. Then bad dreams come, then infants wake and call, then memories
of those who are lost to us arise, then the hesitating soul often
takes its plunge into the depths of the Unknown. It is not wonderful,
therefore, that on this occasion the wheels of Time drave heavily for
me. I knew that the morning was at hand by many signs. The sleeping
bearers turned and muttered in their sleep, a distant lion ceased its
roaring and departed to its own place, an alert-minded cock crew
somewhere, and our donkeys rose and began to pull at their tether-
ropes. As yet, however, it was quite dark. Hans crept up to me; I saw
his wrinkled, yellow face in the light of the watch-fire.
"I smell the dawn," he said and vanished again.
Mavovo appeared, his massive frame silhouetted against the blackness.
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