The Pearl- John Steinbeck- Chapter 5 and 6

He saw a little glow ahead of him, and then without interval a tall flame leaped up in the dark with a crackling roar, and a tall ediface of fire lighted the pathway.

She, being the nearest woman relative, raised a formal lament for the dead of the family.

And Kino, looking closely, saw deep worry come into his brother's eyes and he forestalled him in a possible refusal.

The wind cried and whisked in the brush, and the family went on monotonously, hour after hour.

Perhaps this has all been an illusion.

But she sat as still as a sentinel, and when Coyotito awakened she placed him on the ground in front of her and watched him wave his arms and kick his feet, and he smiled and gurgled at her until she smiled too.

Kino stirred in a dream, and he cried out in a guttural voice and his hand moved in symbolic fighting.

But ahead were the naked granite mountains, rising out of the erossion rubble and standing monolithic against the sky.

He looked then for weakness in her face, for fear or irresolution, and there was none.

Now there were long outcroppings of granite with deep crevices between and Kino walked on bare unmarkable stone when he could and leaped from ledge to ledge.

There wasn't much left of it then anyway, for every time it fell over an escarpment the thirsty air drank it, and splashed from the pools to the dry vegetation.

And the baby was weary and petulant, and he cried softly until Juana gave him her breast, and then he gurgled and clucked against her.

She cold feel his warm breath against her skin, and Juana whispered her combination of prayer and magic, her Hail Marys and her ancient intercession, against the black unhuman things.

Any sound that was not germane to the night would make them alert.

And the pearl was ugly; it was gray, like a malignant growth.