Often he laughed aloud, sending a great shout of mirth across the water in fresh relish of those comedies best known and best enjoyed.  It was as excruciatingly funny as it had ever been, when his boat nosed its way into a great flock of ducks idling upon the water, to see the mad paddling haste of those nearest him, the reproachful turn of their heads, or, if he came too near, their spattering run out of water, feet and wings pumping together as they rose from the surface, looking for all the world like fat little women, scurrying with clutched skirts across city streets.  The pelicans, too, delighted him as they perched with pedantic solemnity upon wharf-piles, or sailed in hunched and huddled gravity twenty feet above the river’s surface in swift, dignified flight, which always ended suddenly in an abrupt, up-ended plunge that threw dignity to the winds in its greedy haste, and dropped them crashing into the water.

When darkness came suddenly at last, he made in toward shore, mooring to the warm-fretted end of a fallen and forgotten landing.  A straggling orange-grove was here, broken lines of vanquished cultivation, struggling little trees swathed and choked in the festooning gray moss, still showing here and there the valiant golden gleam of fruit.  Gideon had seen many such places, had seen settlers come and clear themselves a space in the jungle, plant their groves, and live for a while in lazy independence; and then for some reason or other they would go, and before they had scarcely turned their backs, the jungle had crept in again, patiently restoring its ancient sovereignty.  The place was eery with the ghost of dead effort; but it pleased him.

He made a fire and cooked supper, eating enormously and with relish.  His conscience did not trouble him at all.  Stuhk and his own career seemed already distant; they took small place in his thoughts, and served merely as a background for his present absolute content.  He picked some oranges, and ate them in meditative enjoyment.  For a while he nodded, half asleep, beside his fire, watching the darkened river, where the mullet, shimmering with phosphorescence, still leaped starkly above the surface, and fell in spattering brilliance.  Midnight found him sprawled asleep beside his fire.

Once he awoke.  The moon had risen, and a little breeze waved the hanging moss, and whispered in the glossy foliage of orange and palmetto with a sound like falling rain.  Gideon sat up and peered about him, rolling his eyes hither and thither at the menacing leap and dance of the jet shadows.  His heart was beating thickly, his muscles twitched, and the awful terrors of night pulsed and shuddered over him.  Nameless specters peered at him from every shadow, ingenerate familiars of his wild, forgotten blood.  He groaned aloud in a delicious terror; and presently, still twitching and shivering, fell asleep again.  It was as if something magical had happened; his fear remembered the fear of centuries, and yet with the warm daylight was absolutely forgotten.