The stillness of evening followed.
The captain stirred, listened, dropped his head, and sat like stone.

To Rudolph, near him, the brief disturbance called up another evening--his first on this same river, when from the grassy brink, above, he had first heard of his friend.

Now, at the same place, and by the same light, they had heard the last.

It was intolerable: he turned his back on the captain.

Inside, in the gloom of the painted cabin, the padre's wife began suddenly to cry.