They had been gliding along gently, the water growing steadily shallower.  Suddenly, they came upon the end of the arm—a pool like hundreds of other pools through which they had passed, save that in each of the others there had been an outlet, and here there was none.  The water ended.  All round them the trees frowned down upon the still surface, where leaves and sticks floated idly, never to get away: doomed to wash into the rubbish along the shore, or to become water-logged, and finally to sink to the muddy bottom.  There was something unnaturally eerie and still about the place.  Even the birds had deserted it: there was no longer the happy sound of their singing and twittering.  Far overhead a fish-hawk sailed lazily.