Maroola laid his hand on the stem and leaped lightly in, giving it a vigorous shove off.
The light craft, obeying the new impulse, cleared the log by a hair's breadth, and the river, with obedient complicity, swung it broadside to the current, and bore it off silently and rapidly between the invisible banks.

And once more Dain, at the feet of Nina, forgot the world, felt himself carried away helpless by a great wave of supreme emotion, by a rush of joy, pride, and desire; understood once more with overpowering certitude that there was no life possible without that being he held clasped in his arms with passionate strength in a prolonged embrace.
Nina disengaged herself gently with a low laugh.
"You will overturn the boat, Dain," she whispered.
He looked into her eyes eagerly for a minute and let her go with a sigh, then lying down in the canoe he put his head on her knees, gazing upwards and stretching his arms backwards till his hands met round the girl's waist.

She bent over him, and, shaking her head, framed both their faces in the falling locks of her long black hair.
And so they drifted on, he speaking with all the rude eloquence of a savage nature giving itself up without restraint to an overmastering passion, she bending low to catch the murmur of words sweeter to her than life itself.

To those two nothing existed then outside the gunwales of the narrow and fragile craft.

It was their world, filled with their intense and all-absorbing love.