hanging down.
The lake stretched pale and unreal into nowhere; the motor-boat rode near in, the black canoas stood motionless a little further out. Two women, tiny as birds, were kneeling on the water’s edge, washing.
Kate jumped from her donkey on to the shingle.
“Why not ride through the water to the boat?” said Cipriano.
She looked at the boat, and thought of the donkey stumbling and splashing.
“No,” she said. “I will wade again.”
He rode his black Arab to the water. It sniffed, and entered with delicate feet into the warm shallows. Then, a little way in, it stood and suddenly started pawing the water, as a horse paws the ground, in the oddest manner possible, very rapidly striking the water with its fore-foot, so that little waves splashed up over its black legs and belly.
But this splashed Cipriano too. He lifted the reins and touched the creature with his spurs. It jumped, and went half-stumbling, half-dancing through the water, prettily, with a splashing noise. Cipriano quieted it, and it waded gingerly on through the shallows of the vast lake, bending its black head down to look, to look in a sort of fascination at the stony bottom, swaying its black tail as it moved its glossy, raven haunches gingerly.
Then again it stood still, and suddenly, with a rapid beating of its fore-paw, sent the water hollowly splashing up, till its black belly glistened wet like a black serpent, and its legs were shiny wet pillars. And again Cipriano lifted its head and touched it with the spurs, so the delicate creature danced in a churn of water.
“Oh, it looks so pretty! It looks so pretty when