CHAPTER IV

Perhaps I was not capable of thinking quite coherently on what
had just happened until I was once more fairly outside of the
forest shadows--out in that clear open daylight, where things
seem what they are, and imagination, like a juggler detected and
laughed at, hastily takes itself out of the way. As I walked
homewards I paused midway on the barren ridge to gaze back on the
scene I had left, and then the recent adventure began to take a
semi-ludicrous aspect in my mind. All that circumstance of
preparation, that mysterious prelude to something unheard of,
unimaginable, surpassing all fables ancient and modern, and all
tragedies--to end at last in a concert of howling monkeys!
Certainly the concert was very grand--indeed, one of the most
astounding in nature---but still--I sat down on a stone and
laughed freely.

The sun was sinking behind the forest, its broad red disk still
showing through the topmost leaves, and the higher part of the
foliage was of a luminous green, like green flame, throwing off
flakes of quivering, fiery light, but lower down the trees were
in profound shadow.

I felt very light-hearted while I gazed on this scene, for how
pleasant it was just now to think of the strange experience I had
passed through--to think that I had come safely out of it, that
no human eye had witnessed my weakness, and that the mystery
existed still to fascinate me! For, ludicrous as the denouement