He had long ago given up wiping the perspiration from his brow, and evidently did not care to wash his face.
Presently a peacefulness seemed to come over him, for his eyes lost their glitter and his heavy lids drooped.

His arms were crossed behind his head--before him lay the river.
Suddenly he sat upright, all eagerness and attention.

Not a leaf stirred.

It was about five o'clock in the evening, the stillest hour of the twenty-four.

In such a silence the least sound would travel almost any distance, and there was a sound travelling over the water to him.
It was nothing but a thud repeated with singular regularity; but to his practised ears it conveyed much.