And the long rambles abroad were
good for the child. Was she not accustomed to convicts, as servants?
She had a houseful of them, and many years' experience. What did he
know of them, a comparative newcomer? For example, she had three
pirates, Malays from the coast of Siam. They were quiet enough now.
And one Cambodian, a murderer, true enough, but gentle enough now.
Three house-boys and a cook. As for the old Kling, he was a marvel--he
had been a thief in his day, but now--well now, he was body-servant
for her daughter and a more faithful soul it would be hard to find.
For seven years she had lived upon the island, surrounded by these
men. She knew them well enough. True, there was the graveyard back of
the prison compound, eloquent, mute testimony of certain lapses from
trustworthiness, but she was not afraid. She had no imagination, and
Mercier, failing to make her sense danger, gave it up. It had been a
great effort. He had been pleading for protection against himself.

Mercier awoke one morning very early. It was early, but still dark,
for never, in these baleful Tropics, did the dawn precede the sunrise,
and there was no slow, gradual greying and rosying creeping of
daylight, preceding the dawn. It was early and dark, with a damp
coolness in the air, and he reached down from his cot for his
slippers, and first clapped them together before placing them upon his
slim feet. Then he arose, stepped out upon his verandah, and thought
awhile. Darkness everywhere, and the noise of the surf beating within
the enclosed crescent of the harbour. Over all, a great heat, tinged
with a damp coolness, a coolness which was sinister. And standing upon
his verandah, came rushing over him the agony of his wasted life. His
prisoner life upon this lonely island in the Southern Seas. Exchanged,
this wasted life, for his romantic dreams, and a salary of a few
hundred francs a year. That day he would write and ask for his
release--send in his resignation--although it would be weeks or months
before he could be relieved. As he stood there in agony, the dawn
broke before him suddenly, as Tropic dawns do break, all of a sudden,
with a rush. Before him rose the high peaks of the binding mountains,
high, impassable, black peaks, towering like a wall of rock. It was
the wall of the world, and he could not scale it. Before him stretched
the curve of the southern sea, in a crescent, but for all its
fluidity, as impassable as the backing wall of r