I know, for I've tried the odd number of 'em, an' they're all jes' the same." By this time Beverley's ears were deaf to Oncle Jazon's querulous, whining voice, and his thoughts once more followed his wistful gaze across the watery plain to where the low roofs of the creole town appeared dimly wavering in the twilight of eventide, which was fast fading into night.

The scene seemed unsubstantial; he felt a strange lethargy possessing his soul; he could not realize the situation.

In trying to imagine Alice, she eluded him, so that a sort of cloudy void fell across his vision with the effect of baffling and benumbing it.

He made vain efforts to recall her voice, things that she had said to him, her face, her smiles; all he could do was to evoke an elusive, tantalizing, ghostly something which made him shiver inwardly with a haunting fear that it meant the worst, whatever the worst might be.
Where was she?
Could she be dead, and this the shadowy message of her fate?
Darkness fell, and a thin fog began to drift in wan streaks above the water.

Not a sound, save the suppressed stir of the camp, broke the wide, dreary silence.