Page 101 (1/2)

Just over Billy's shoulder, Pete appeared, a Pete as thin and nervous as

ever, the incipient black beard still prickling in tiny ink-spots

through a skin stained a deep e in

Pete that was not of the flesh but of the spirit Perhaps the look in

his face - doubly wild of a Celt and of a genius - had tamed a little

But in its place had conity and in huton followed Pete And Ralph also had changed True, he

retained his inalienable air of elegance, an elegance a little too

sartorial And even after six years of the jungle, he -haired, liquid-eyed, still with a beard

symmetrically pointed and a mustache carefully cropped, he was irl's idea of an artist And yet soht touch of gray in his wavy hair did

not account for it; nor the lines, netting delicately his long-lashed

eyes The eyes themselves bore a baffled expression, half of revolt,

half of resignation; as one who has at last found the immovable

obstacle, who accepts the situation even while he rebels against it

At the end of the line ca

at the saer and even more muscular