Pelican Pool: A Novel

Transcriber's Note: Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.
PELICAN POOL
A NOVEL BY
SYDNEY DE LOGHE
Author of The Straits Impregnable
SYDNEY ANGUS & ROBERTSON LTD. 1917
Printed by W. C. Penfold & Co. Ltd., 183 Pitt Street, Sydney for Angus & Robertson Ltd.
TO M. L. WHO, AT SUCH A PLACE AS SURPRISE, HAS BORNE THE HEAT AND BURDEN OF THE DAY

Where the equator girdles the earth, the Indian Ocean and the amorous waters of the Pacific have their marriage bed. Afire with the passions of the tropics, excited by breezes from a thousand islands of palm, of spice, of coral, of pearl, jewelled for the ceremony with quick-lived phosphorous lights, the oceans move to each other, and mingle hot kisses under high red suns and fierce white moons. They have begotten many children; and one of these—the Sea of Carpentaria—leans deep into the northern coast of Australia, and wears itself against a thousand miles of barren shore.
As a young girl, dreaming her dreams, spends affection careless of the cost, so these romantic waters woo the stern northern land with warm and tireless embrace. And, as a man, busy on his own affairs, cares nothing for such soft entreaty, so the north land gives no sign; but remarks in silence the passage of the years.