boulder by the shore. When I looked again at Hermann's ship the girl
had disappeared. I could not detect the smallest dot of a bird on the
immense sky, and the flatness of the land continued the flatness of the
sea to the naked line of the horizon.

This is the setting now inseparably connected with my knowledge of
Falk's misfortune. My diplomacy had brought me there, and now I had only
to wait the time for taking up the role of an ambassador. My diplomacy
was a success; my ship was safe; old Gambril would probably live; a
feeble sound of a tapping hammer came intermittently from the Diana.
During the afternoon I looked at times at the old homely ship, the
faithful nurse of Hermann's progeny, or yawned towards the distant
temple of Buddha, like a lonely hillock on the plain, where shaven
priests cherish the thoughts of that Annihilation which is the worthy
reward of us all. Unfortunate! He had been unfortunate once. Well, that
was not so bad as life goes. And what the devil could be the nature
of that misfortune? I remembered that I had known a man before who had
declared himself to have fallen, years ago, a victim to misfortune; but
this misfortune, whose effects appeared permanent (he looked desperately
hard up) when considered dispassionately, seemed indistinguishable from
a breach of trust. Could it be something of that nature? Apart, however,
from the utter improbability that he would offer to talk of it even to
his future uncle-in-law, I had a strange feeling that Falk's physique
unfitted him for that sort of delinquency. As the person of Hermann's
niece exhaled the profound physical charm of feminine form, so her
adorer's big frame embodied to my senses the hard, straight masculinity
that would conceivably kill but would not condescend to cheat. The thing
was obvious. I might just as well have suspected the girl of a curvature
of the spine. And I perceived that the sun was about to set.

The smoke of Falk's tug hove in sight, far away at the mouth of the
river. It was time for me to assume the character of an ambassador, and
the negotiation would not be difficult except in the matter of keeping
my countenance. It was all too extravagantly nonsensical, and I
conceived that it would be best to compose for myself a grave demeanour.
I practised this in my boat as I went along, but the bashfulness that
came secretly upon me the moment I stepped on the deck of the Diana is
inexplicable. As soon as we had exchanged gr