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. Then the fringe dweller feels that he is an outcast from the warm
places of the world where men and women meet in social intercourse.

Holman, who had been staring in silence at the fire for some twenty
minutes, turned toward me after the Professor had retired.

"Sleepy?" asked the youngster.

"Worse than that," I muttered.

"Let's turn in."

The "turning in" was an easy performance. We lay down on the pile of
leaves which the carriers had scraped together, pulled a rug over us,