A waste of waters heaved sullenly beneath a dismal canopy. Thin, slimy masses floated here and there about the shallows of a little cove or clung to its sodden beach. The cove led into a bay, which opened, in its turn, upon a vast and soundless sea. But a single reach of land, gray, flat, and lifeless and encircling partially the cove, was all of earth there was in sight. Close above and all about the huge and silent mystery and extending outward far into space, was a steaming world of vapour, c

I had broken my thumb. It was a long fall and not only was my thumb broken, but the fingers on the same hand were crushed backward and so sprained that they were useless, and when I tried to climb the tree again, to renew the fight, I could not. I do not know what made me slip and fall, for there were few among the treetop people more certain upon a limb than I. But that upon which I had stood was old and it may be that the one to which I clung was rotten, and so I fell, though I was gripping th

I awoke lying on a stretch of turf in an angle of the rocks by the river. It was almost midday and it seemed to me that I must have been aroused by the sunshine on my face. I rose to my feet and stretched myself dazedly, for my head hurt me. I reached for the club which lay near me, and examined it curiously. It was not my club at all, and, when I looked about, the rocks and earth and trees appeared as unfamiliar as the weapon. I swung the club joyously, for it was a better one than I had ever s

The sunlight was filtering down upon me through the broad foliage of a tree of an unfamiliar kind. Birds with hooked bills, brilliant plumage, and squalling voices were flitting among the branches all about. The rank perfume of strange flowers was in my nostrils, and to my ears came a pleasant, distant sound, the softened roar and lapping of waves upon a beach. I was lying in a little glade, wood-surrounded on three sides, but open to the southward. Through the space thus unobscured I could see

It was dark, absolutely dark, and I could hear no sound. I could not remember who I was nor where I was, and there came upon me something like a feeling of alarm, though I felt that to be afraid of anything was most unlike me. Furthermore, I was in pain; there was a hurt in my breast and, instinctively, I clutched at the place with my hand. Ah! I knew what it must be—a protruding arrow-head—and I strove to get such a hold upon it that I could pull it forth in the hope that so relief would come,

When it is warm there is no sound sweeter to me than the sound of splashing water. It was such a sound that came to my ears as I awoke from my sleep on a little leaf-covered mound, beneath the boughs of a thicket-surrounded beech tree on a gently sloping and wooded hillside. I knew that near me a brook came hurrying down the slope, and that it was its rejoicing that I heard as it tumbled in little cataracts along its stony bed. It had worn the stone for centuries, and had accomplished much on it

The hut, which was made of poles leaning against the perpendicular side of the rocky height, was cool and pleasant to lie in during the heat of the day. It was mid-afternoon, and why I should have been sleeping at such a time of day I could not understand. Through the entrance to the hut I could look across the valley, through which ran a shallow little river, and could see huts like the one I occupied ranged against the extending wall of the precipice, and people moving about. For a moment or t

I was aroused from a bad dream by the sharp, yipping cry of dogs. I was glad to be awake, for in my dream there was suffocation. For a little time after I awoke I was dazed in mind, and could not recognize myself or my surroundings. I was lying in a little sunlit hollow upon a grass-green spot on the surface of a slight rocky height in the plain, and my bow and skin quiver of arrows and my flint-headed spear, smooth as the teeth of the river horse and keen of edge as the blades of the marsh gras

Bees were humming in my head, and I did not like it. The humming hurt me. I opened my eyes and passed my hand across my forehead and brought it away with blood upon it. I began to understand now the humming of the bees, for I remembered dimly having heard them hum in my head at other times and of what hurt had been the cause. I must have struck there heavily. Yet all seemed strange. I looked about me, and looked upon what, assuredly, I had never seen before. I was seated, I found, upon a thick c

Great rollers were coming in upon what must be a rugged beach, for their clamour was appalling. Such roaring, thunderous sound of water I did not remember to have heard before, and I wondered where I was. It was dark where I lay upon what seemed a mass of weed in a hut-like place, having at the side a low door reminding one of the entrance to a burrow of some animal. It was nearing morning now, for it began slowly to grow lighter and I could distinguish my surroundings better. There was little t

Little fingers were fumbling about my face and there came the sound of a prattling voice close beside me. I opened my eyes and looked into the face of a child who was trying to arouse me, tugging valiantly at my hair and chattering away in great delight. Next I heard a laugh and turned upon my couch to see, on the other side of the hut, a woman, brown-haired and blue-eyed, who was looking cheerfully upon the babe and me, pausing only a moment to turn a cake browning before a fire flaming brightl

I was aroused by the sound of a strange hammering, blows following each other rapidly and with a quality of sound it seemed to me I had never heard before. It was not like that of stone upon wood or of stone upon stone, but had at times a faint ring, a something altogether unfamiliar. I had been sleeping peacefully in the sun, lying in the grass of a plot among bushes which grew in a valley-like gorge between rocky walls and having many boulders scattered about upon its surface. I sprang to my f

I had been sleeping, pleasantly enough, though dreaming of a noisy clanging of hammers in a forest. I awoke to find myself stretched lazily upon the sand, to hear the lapping of waves and look out upon blue waters to the westward, it must be, for it seemed afternoon and the sun was not far above the waters, a little to the left as I faced it. I rose to my feet and looked toward the east and there saw a host of palm trees, beyond them green hills, and beyond these, mountains. From the beach the l

What it was which had changed the nature of my dream so suddenly I could not understand at first. Most curious fancies had come to me, visions of what I had certainly never seen in all my hunting and battling, but which were familiar enough to me and comprehensible, until I awoke. There were boats with broad sails, though little of the sea had we of the great forest ever looked upon, and there were cities beside which our villages were but as the swamp villages of the ever-toiling beaver. There

That there had been a sea fight was plain from the look of the deck, upon which blood was splashed about and gathered in some places into little pools, now turned to a dark purple in the sunlight which was shining down upon it pleasantly enough. Pleasant also was the breeze which was carrying the galley westward without any aid of man in the guiding. Of the fight itself, it seemed as if I could remember something, though but confusedly, for first it would appear that we were battling among trees