noon
I saw the inconceivable mystery of a soul that knew no restraint , no faith , and no fear , yet struggling blindly with itself . I kept my head pretty well ; but when I had him at last stretched on the couch , I wiped my forehead , while my legs shook under me as though I had carried half a ton on my back down that hill . And yet I had only supported him , his bony arm clasped round my neck -- and he was not much heavier than a child . `` When next day we left at noon , the crowd , of whose presence behind the curtain of trees I had been acutely conscious all the time , flowed out of the woods again , filled the clearing , covered the slope with a mass of naked , breathing , quivering , bronze bodies . I steamed up a bit , then swung down-stream , and two thousand eyes followed the evolutions of the splashing , thumping , fierce river-demon beating the water with its terrible tail and breathing black smoke into the air . In front of the first rank , along the river , three men , plastered with bright red earth from head to foot , strutted to and fro restlessly . When we came abreast again , they faced the river , stamped their feet , nodded their horned heads , swayed their scarlet bodies ; they shook towards the fierce river-demon a bunch of black feathers , a mangy skin with a pendent tail -- something that looked like a dried gourd ; they shouted periodically together strings of amazing words that resembled no sounds of human language ; and the deep murmurs of the crowd , interrupted suddenly , were like the response of some satanic litany .