down his legs, reaching his feet at last, and Mr. Talliaferro fled.
Jenny looked after him. She sighed.
......
After a while the white dusty road left the swamp behind. It ran now through a country vaguely upland: sand and pines and a crisp thick undergrowth sunburnt and sibilant.
“We’re out of it at last,” she called back to him. Her pace quickened and she called over her shoulder: “It can’t be much further now. Come on, let’s run a while.” He shouted to her, but she trotted on, drawing away from him. He followed her splotched flashing legs at a slower pace, steadily losing distance.
Her legs twinkled on ahead in the shimmering forgotten road. Heat wavered and shimmered above the road and the sky was a metallic intolerable bowl and the tall pines in the windless afternoon exuded a thin exhilarating odor of resin and heat, casting sparse patches of shade upon the shimmering endless ribbon of the road. Lizards scuttled in the dust before them, hissing abruptly amid the dusty brittle undergrowth beside the road. The road went on and on, endless and shimmering ahead of them. He called to her again, but she trotted on unheeding.
Without faltering in her pace she turned and ran from the road and when he reached her she leaned against a tree, panting. “I ran too much,” she gasped through her pale open mouth. “I feel funny—all gone. Better hold me up,” she said, staring at him. “No: let me lie down.” She slumped against him. “My heart’s going too fast. Feel how it’s going.” He felt her heart leaping against his hand. “It’s too fast, isn’t it? What’ll I do now?” she asked soberly. “Do something quick, David,” she told him, staring at him, and he lowered her awkwardly and knelt beside her, supporting her
