Hamil stood under the cocoanut palms at the lake's edge and watched the
lagoon where thousands of coloured lanterns moved on crafts, invisible
except when revealed in the glare of the rushing rockets.

Lamps glittered everywhere; electric lights were doubly festooned along
the sea wall, drooping creeper-like from palm to palmetto, from
flowering hibiscus to sprawling banyan, from dainty china-berry to
grotesque screw-pine tree, shedding strange witch-lights over masses of
blossoms, tropical and semi-tropical. Through which the fine-spun spray
of fountains drifted, and the great mousy dusk-moths darted through the
bars of light with the glimmering bullet-flight of summer meteors.

And everywhere hung the scent of orange bloom and the more subtle
perfume of white and yellow jasmine floated through the trees from
gardens or distant hammocks, combining in one intoxicating aroma, spiced
always with the savour of the sea.

Hamil was aware of considerable noise, more or less musical, afloat and
ashore; a pretentious orchestra played third-rate music under the hotel
colonnade; melody arose from the lantern-lit lake, with clamourous
mandolins and young voices singing; and over all hung the confused
murmur of unseen throngs, harmonious, capricious; laughter, voice
answering voice, and the distant shouts as brilliantly festooned boats
hailed and were hailed across the water.

Hamil passed on to the left through crowded gardens, pressing his way
slowly where all around him lantern-lit faces appeared from the dusk and
vanished again into it; where the rustle of summer gowns sweeping the