before bedtime--is that right?"

"By all means," said the doctor, "get your business attended to,
and then return. I shall wait up for you. You see, one of the most
prominent physicians at the consultation diagnosed the trouble as
a blood clot; another said it was an abscess, but I--"

"Don't tell me now, Doc. Don't spoil the story. Wait till I come
back. I want to hear it as it runs off the reel--is that right?"

The mountains reached up their bulky shoulders to receive the level
gallop of Apollo's homing steeds, the day died in the lagoons and
in the shadowed banana groves and in the mangrove swamps, where the
great blue crabs were beginning to crawl to land for their nightly
ramble. And it died, at last, upon the highest peaks. Then the
brief twilight, ephemeral as the flight of a moth, came and went;
the Southern Cross peeped with its topmost eye above a row of palms,
and the fire-flies heralded with their torches and approach of
soft-footed night.

In the offing the ~Karlesfin~ swayed at anchor, her lights seeming
to penetrate the water to countless fathoms with their shimmering,
lanceolate reflections. The Caribs were busy loading her by means
of the great lighters heaped full from the piles of fruit ranged upon
the shore.

On the sandy beach, with his back against a coconut-tree and the stubs
of many cigars lying around him, Smith sat waiting, never relaxing
his sharp gaze in the direction of the steamer.