The heavy silence that comes in the night to the outposts of the world
fell upon the place like a cold hand at that moment. A moon that
appeared to have a pellicle across it, like the film upon a dead man's
eye, peeped over the barrier of black rocks--peeped over as if it
wondered what we were doing in that God-forgotten quarter. Sudden puffs
of wind rustled the leaves of the maupei and fled hurriedly, and from
somewhere in the coral rocks one of those red-striped lizards that are
sometimes found in the rocky parts of the Carolines sent his unearthly
_shik-shuck_ into the stillness, where one fancied it a little
projectile of sound crushed in its efforts to pierce the tremendous
silence of the night. One's imagination pictured the places where there
were lights and music, the tinkle of glasses, and the laughter of men
and women, and the wilderness suffered in the comparison. Coral atolls
with waving palm trees are delightful spots when one reads of them when
seated in a comfortable armchair in a snug library, but the real island
comes down heavily upon the nerve-centres when night falls upon the
spot.
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