Читать книгу The Dark River онлайн

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He untied the heavy string of fish and carried it to the canoe, which he helped her to launch. She pushed it across the shallows, stepped in, and took up her paddle. "Where's your canoe?"

"On the other side of the islet," Hardie replied.

"Follow me, then," she said.

As the canoe glided away, the heron sprang into the air to overtake his mistress with slow wing beats, his long legs trailing behind him awkwardly. Hardie stood for a moment looking after them. A striking picture they made, he thought: the girl in her blue frock, her hair blown about her shoulders as she dipped her blade in water ruffled to the deepest azure by the breeze, and the bird circling about just over her head. And in the background stretched the valley of Vaihiva with the shadow of a cloud--dazzling in the purity of its whiteness against the sky--moving slowly across it.

Hardie crossed the islet to where his canoe lay, got up the anchor, and had nearly overtaken Naia when she entered the river. They moored their little vessels to the pier he had seen before and she led the way to the house.