moment he hoped that something would
happen to save him from the ultimate decision, and now doubt was
overcome.

A yellow disc appeared, cutting the flat sky sharply, and he laid his
priest's clothes in the middle of a patch of white sand where they could
be easily seen. Placing the Roman collar upon the top, and, stepping
from stone to stone, he stood on the last one as on a pedestal, tall and
gray in the moonlight--buttocks hard as a faun's, and dimpled like a
faun's when he draws himself up before plunging after a nymph.

When he emerged he was among the reeds, shaking the water from his face
and hair. The night was so warm that it was like swimming in a bath, and
when he had swum a quarter of a mile he turned over on his back to see
the moon shining. Then he turned over to see how near he was to the
island. 'Too near,' he thought, for he had started before his time. But
he might delay a little on the island, and he walked up the shore, his
blood in happy circulation, his flesh and brain a-tingle, a little
captivated by the vigour of his muscles, and ready and anxious to plunge
into the water on the other side, to tire himself if he could, in the
mile and a half of gray lake that lay between him and shore.

There were lights in every cottage window; the villagers would be about
the roads for an hour or more, and it would be well to delay on the
island, and he chose a high rock to sit upon. His hand ran the water off
his hard thighs, and then off his long, thin arms, and he watched the
laggard moon rising slowly in the dusky night, like a duck from the
marshes. Supporting himself with one arm, he let himself down the rock
and dabbled his foot in the water, and the splashing of the water
reminded him of little Philip Rean, who had been baptized twice that
morning notwithstanding his loud protest. And now one of his baptizers
was baptized, and in a few minutes would plunge again into the
beneficent flood.

The night was so still and warm that it was happiness to be naked, and
he thought he could sit for hours on that rock without feeling cold,
watching the red moon rolling up through the trees round Tinnick; and
when the moon turned from red to gold he wondered how it was that the
mere brightening of the moon could put such joy into a man's heart.

Derrinrush was the nearest shore, and far away in the wood he heard a
fox bark. 'On the trail of some rabbit,' he thought, and again he
admired the great gold moon risi