The shapes of some of the
flowers were so fantastic that it seemed impossible that Nature could
have produced them. And their colors were no less unparalleled,
inimitable, and incredible.
The flowery bank on which we had chosen our resting place was removed a
few yards from the spot where the car rested, and the latter was hidden
from view by intervening branches and huge racemes of gorgeous flowers,
hanging like embroidered curtains about us. A peculiarity of the place
was that little zephyr-like breezes seemed to haunt it, coming one could
not tell whence, and they stirred the hanging blossoms, keeping them in
almost continual rhythmic motion. The effect was wonderfully charming,
but I observed that Ala was especially influenced by it. She sat with her
maid beside her, and fixed her eyes, with an expression of ecstasy, upon
the swinging flowers. I whispered to Edmund to regard her singular
absorption. But he had already noticed it, and seemed to be puzzling his
brain with thoughts that it suggested to him.
Thus as we sat, the leaves of a tree over our heads were lightly stirred,
and a bird, adorned with long plumes more beautiful than those of a bird
of paradise, alighted on a branch, and began to ruffle its iridescent
feathers in a peculiar way.
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