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Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine by Edward Harrison Barker
page 87 of 319 (27%)
drowned, and since then the spot has been avoided even more than it
was before.

It was to this place, then, that we went when the sun was setting. The
way led up a deep little valley which was an absolute desert of
stones. A dead walnut-tree, struck apparently by lightning, with its
old and gnarled branches stretching out on one side like weird arms,
was just the object that the imagination would place in a valley
blighted by the influence of evil spirits, in proximity to a passage
communicating from their world to this one. Presently, as we drew near
some high rocks, Decros, pointing to a dark hollow in the shadow of
them said, 'There it is.' We went down into the basin to the edge of
the water that lay there, black and still, Decros showing evident
reluctance and restlessness the while, so strongly was his mind
affected by all the stories he had heard about the pool. Moreover, it
was rapidly growing dusk. In this half-light the funnel in which we
were standing certainly did look a very diabolic and sinister hole.
The fancy aiding, everything partook of the supernatural: the dark
masses of brambles hanging from the rocks, the wild vines clinging to
them with leaves like flakes of deep-glowing crimson fire, and
especially the intermittent sound of gurgling water.

I was glad to have seen the Pomoyssin under circumstances so
favourable, but it was with relief that I left it and began to climb
the side of the gorge from this valley of dreadful shadows towards the
pure sky that reddened as the brown dusk deepened below.




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