I leaned over them for a moment, telling myself that I paused only to admire the strange colours drawn by the sunlight from the sea-soaked wilderness, the deep brown, the strange purple, the faint pink of the distant sands.

But it was none of these which my eyes sought with such fierce eagerness.

It was none of the artist's fervour which turned my limbs into dead weights, which drew the colour even from my lips, and set my heart beating with fierce quick throbs.

Half in the creek and half out, not a dozen yards from the road, was the figure of a man.

His head and shoulders were beneath the water, his body and legs and outstretched arms were upon the marsh.