They came at last out from the shadow of the trees, left the embrace of the jungle, and mounted the rocky, narrow path, which led to the crest of wall, and it was not until that crest was reached that he joined her. The wall was broad, smooth, and level where they stood. It was a sort of little amphitheater, and there were blocks of stone, which made convenient resting places. When he had seen them before he almost come to the conclusion that it had been artificially arranged. At any rate, it was admirably adapted, both as a place from which to watch the sea and as a place for lovers' meeting in a midnight-moonlight hour.
She did not offer to sit down and the two stood side by side gazing seaward. Beneath them the cliffs fell sheer into the cuplike bay, its bottom stygian in its blackness. The descending walls of the great cylinder were lost in that darkness. Their upper edges cut a sharp silhouette against the light sky. He had tried several times to get to the points of the walls on one side or the other of the rift, but there was no passing. The place where they stood was not only the best, but the only place from which to survey the cup itself and through the rift the great sea beyond. The moonlight streamed in a broad bar through the upper part of the opening and threw the upper wall on one side into high relief. He noticed that, were the moon in a certain position, which it was now rapidly approaching, it would flood the whole cup with light as the morning sun did, but it had not yet reached that place in the heavens, and save for that one portion of the opposite wall the Egyptian darkness still prevailed.
The effect of the light beyond the rift was tremendous. They could see clearly a stretch of the barrier reef through the opening. Mighty waves broke over it. Huge rollers fell upon it. They could hear faintly in the silence of the tropic night the crash of the tumultuous silver seas rushing through the jagged needles of the barrier. That was the only sound that came to them, unless they could hear the beat of their own hearts.
They stood and stared at the enchanting picture in silence. The communion of equal appreciation, of sympathy, of love, was the tie that bound. The same throb of passion filled the breasts of the man and the woman. It was she who spoke.
"I cannot remember," she whispered, attuning her voice to the soft silence of the night, "a morning on which I have not stood here, but this is the first time that I have ever come at night."
"The first time," whispered the man, passionately, "and with me!"
He had made little secret, none at all, indeed, of his admiration for her, but this time there was a new note of rapturous admiration in his low whisper, to which her soul vibrated. She looked at him quickly, shrinking away a little. His arm went swiftly toward her and caught her slender wrist. He drew her to his breast. In his arms she felt the heart throb, which she had before inferred. She struggled a moment and then yielded to the quick passion with which he drew her to him. She upturned her face and for the first time he kissed her. They had lost the habit of kissing, these forgotten people, and no one had ever pressed her lips before.
"What is that? What is it that you do?" she whispered when she could command speech.
"I kiss you," he answered.
"I know not that word. What does it mean?"