The Captive
In open country each morning came brighter and warmer than the last, and cypress and pine dipped their boughs over the river like retreating shadows. The current ran quick in the center; at the reedy bank it slowed and skimmer insects went dancing on the slight, ductile membrane that the water raised against the element of air. Dragonflies glinted the blue of burning gas. A scattering of pepper grains in the sky became a flock of starlings that fell upon the cypress, for a minute or two traded leaps among the boughs and grassy bank, then rose in a storm and winged downriver. A mossy smell hung on the water, and a hint of brine from the west, where a last bend hid the river’s mouth.
The convent, set on a rise above the bank, was the only work of man in the valley. Its low towe
