"Yes!" cried John, springing up. They set off at a brisk pace over the rocky ground. They found the stream, and as if constructed for bathing there was a deep pool where it turned into a rocky crevice. Eager to cool their sun-weary limbs, the two boys were soon stripped, and splashed and shouted in the clear water. As they swam they seemed like silver fishes in the crystalline stream, and long practice had made them adept swimmers. John who had been looking for a place from which to dive, soon found a jutting rock lower down the stream. Calling to Ali, he mounted it and stood poised for the dive. As he did so, he stood up straight, cutting the brilliant sky with his slim brown body. Ali, looking up stared at his friend, for although only fifteen he had the Asian's keen appreciation of beauty. Behind John's head the sunlight danced in his wind-fluttered hair, it gilded his shoulders and rimmed with silver the outline of his young body, and as the muscles quivered, the wet flesh gleamed like a burnished shield. As he watched, John raised his arms straight above his head, the slim body was taut for a moment, the muscles contracted, then suddenly relaxed themselves and rippled as the shining figure leapt through the air and fell like a silver arrow into the blue pool below. For a moment the diver disappeared under a broken bubbled surface, and then, spluttering and laughing, John had reappeared. Ali stood on the bank, shivering despite the heat. He was unhappy and could not shake off a heavy sense of doom. What oppressed him he did not quite know, he could only attribute it in some way to John going away from him to a distant land. Swimming to the side, John climbed the bank and was amazed to find Ali not there. Their clothes lay together all in a heap, so it was impossible for him to have gone far. There was nothing to be heard save the hum of insects and the soft whisper of the grasses as they bent under the breeze. Ali would come back soon, he thought, as he lay down in the grass. It was delicious to feel the wind pass over his body. It touched him as though it delighted in rippling over the flesh and he felt its cool hand play on his shoulders then run swiftly down to his stomach, along his legs and finally make a queer sensation on the soles of his feet. He let his head fall and half-turned on his side. The wind blew down his back and between his legs deliciously. Why didn't Ali come, where had he gone?--it must be nearly two o'clock, they would have a . . . .