him--the intense greenness, the brilliant sunbeams that shone into
his eyes, and seemed to fill him with brightness, and the stillness
of the forest, that he sat up and stared about him. What did it
mean--that brightness and stillness?

Then, at a little distance away, he caught sight of something on a
tree of a shining golden yellow colour. Jumping up he ran to the tree,
and found that it was half overgrown with a very beautiful climbing
plant, with leaves divided like the fingers of a hand, and large
flowers and fruit, both green and ripe. The ripe fruit was as big as
a duck's egg, and the same shape, and of a shining yellow colour.
Reaching up his hand he began to feel the smooth lovely fruit, when,
being very ripe, it came off its stem into his hand. It smelt very
nice, and then, in his hunger, he bit through the smooth rind with
his teeth, and it tasted as nice as it looked. He quickly ate it,
and then pulled another and ate that, and then another, and still
others, until he could eat no more. He had not had so delicious a
meal for many a long day.

Not until he had eaten his fill did Martin begin to look closely at
the flowers on the plant. It was the passion-flower, and he had
never seen it before, and now that he looked well at it he thought
it the loveliest and strangest flower he had ever beheld; not
brilliant and shining, jewel-like, in the sun, like the scarlet
verbena of the plains, or some yellow flower, but pale and misty,
the petals being of a dim greenish cream-colour, with a large blue
circle in the centre; and the blue, too, was misty like the blue
haze in the distance on a summer day. To see and admire it better he
reached out his hand and tried to pluck one of the flowers; then in
an instant he dropped his hand, as if he had been pricked by a thorn.