It lay wet and draggled on the pale, moving sperm of the water, like a buoyant rag.
‘Swim then! Swim!’ she said, trying to urge it away into the lake.
Either it couldn’t or wouldn’t. Anyhow it didn’t.
But it was out of reach of those urchins. Kate struggled back from those stones, to her tree, to her shade, to her book, away from the rage of the sun. Silent with slow anger, she kept glancing up at the floating bird, and sideways at the reed huts of the Indians in the black shadow.
Yes, the bird was dipping its beak in the water, and shaking its head. It was coming to itself. But it did not paddle. It let itself be lifted, lifted on the ripples, and the ripples would drift it ashore.
‘Fool of a thing!’ said Kate nervously, using all her consciousness to make it paddle away into the lak
