Eden. A clump of banana plants
interposed their broad shields between him and the sun. The gentle
slope from the consulate to the sea was covered with the dark-green
foliage of lemon-trees and orange-trees just bursting into bloom. A
lagoon pierced the land like a dark, jagged crystal, and above it a
pale ceiba-tree rose almost to the clouds. The waving cocoanut palms
on the beach flared their decorative green leaves against the slate
of an almost quiescent sea. His senses were cognizant of brilliant
scarlet and ochres amid the vert of the coppice, of odours of
fruit and bloom and the smoke from Chanca's clay oven under the
calabash-tree; of the treble laughter of the native women in their
huts, the song of the robin, the salt taste of the breeze, the
diminuendo of the faint surf running along the shore--and, gradually,
of a white speck, growing to a blur, that intruded itself upon the
drab prospect of the sea.

Lazily interested, he watched this blur increase until it became
the _Idalia_ steaming at full speed, coming down the coast. Without
changing his position he kept his eyes upon the beautiful white yacht
as she drew swiftly near, and came opposite to Coralio. Then, sitting
upright, he saw her float steadily past and on. Scarcely a mile of
sea had separated her from the shore. He had seen the frequent flash
of her polished brass work and the stripes of her deck-awnings--so
much, and no more. Like a ship on a magic lantern slide the _Idalia_
had crossed the illuminated circle of the consul's little world, and
was gone. Save for the tiny cloud of smoke that was left hanging
over the brim of the sea, she might have been an immaterial thing, a
chimera of his idle brain.

Geddie went into his office and sat down to dawdle over his report.
If the reading of the article in the paper had left him unshaken,
this silent passing of the _Idalia_ had done for him still more.
It had brought the calm and peace of a situation from which all
uncertainty had been erased. He knew that men sometimes hope without
being aware of it. Now, since she had come two thousand miles and had
passed without a sign, not even his unconscious self need cling to
the past any longer.

After dinner, when the sun was low behind the mountains, Geddie
walked on the little strip of beach under the cocoanuts. The wind was
blowing mildly landward, and the surface of the sea was rippled by
tiny wavelets.

A miniature breaker, spreading with a soft "sw