"Here's luck and a long stay, sir," said Wilkins.
"Thanks." But Trask was rather listless and tired, frankly bored by the clerk. He stared out over the sickle curve of the bay along the Cavite shore, where a line of white beach made a barrier between the water and the green jungle. The red-roofed buildings of Cavite lay out on the end of the sickle like a clutter of bleached bones cast up by the tide.
The bay lay like a great shining shield before him, blazing with millions of mirrors that danced on the shoulders of the sleek and lazy swells, lifting in the sun-dazzle from the entrance, some twenty-five miles away.
Trask looked at his watch. It was well after one, the hour when men take shelter from the sun in cafés to talk over prolonged tiffins and wait for the heat of mid-day to wane.
A hush had fallen over the city, like the lull which precedes the breaking of a typhoon, a panting sort of hush. Heat waves rose from the bare expanse of the Luneta like siroccos from the nether regions, and the palm trees of the Malecon Drive, seen through the shimmering air, appeared to dance like souls in torture.
Beyond the Luneta the tawny walls of the city fairly cracked with the heat, and over them could be seen the sea of roofs of the intra-mural section, the heart of Manila, inside its ancient bastions. Spires rose from the ruck of low buildings like dead trees denuded of their branches. Down the bay a streamer of smoke hung over the Bataan hills, the last vestige of the outward-bound Taming, a sort of farewell pennant left behind to tell that she was driving jauntily toward Hong Kong.
"It'll be cooler in an hour," ventured Wilkins.
"If you'll order a rig for me," said Trask, "I'll roll down to the customs house and see about my baggage."
"How about tiffin, sir?"
"Good idea. I'll have it with you. Never mind the rig now. By the way, I heard some gossip coming down. Did you ever hear of a man named Dinshaw? A sailor?"