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one by one, drop everlasting dews. And at the roots strange poisonous
flowers lie writhing in perturbed slumber. And overhead, with a rustling
and loud noise, the gray clouds rush westwardly forever, until they
roll, a cataract, over the fiery wall of the horizon. But there is no
wind throughout the heaven. And by the shores of the river Zaire there
is neither quiet nor silence.
"It was night, and the rain fell; and falling, it was rain, but, having
fallen, it was blood. And I stood in the morass among the tall and the
rain fell upon my head--and the lilies sighed one unto the other in the
solemnity of their desolation.
"And, all at once, the moon arose through the thin ghastly mist, and was
crimson in color. And mine eyes fell upon a huge gray rock which stood
by the shore of the river, and was lighted by the light of the moon. And
the rock was gray, and ghastly, and tall,--and the rock was gray. Upon
its front were characters engraven in the stone; and I walked through
the morass of water-lilies, until I came close unto the shore, that I
might read the characters upon the stone. But I could not decypher them.
And I was going back into the morass, when the moon shone with a
fuller red, and I turned and looked again upon the rock, and upon the
characters;--and the characters were DESOLATION.
"And I looked upwards, and there stood a man upon the summit of the
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