The moon had risen, and the song of the surf on the reef filled the whole night with its lullaby. The broad lagoon lay waving and rippling in the moonlight to the incoming tide. Twice as broad it always looked seen by moonlight or starlight than when seen by day. Occasionally the splash of a great fish would cross the silence, and the ripple of it would pass a moment later across the placid water.
Big things happened in the lagoon at night, unseen by eyes from the shore. You would have found the wood behind them, had you walked through it, full of light. A tropic forest under a tropic moon is green as a sea cave. You can see the vine tendrils and the flowers, the orchids and tree boles all lit as by the light of an emerald-tinted day.
Mr Button took a long piece of string from his pocket.
“It’s bedtime,” said he; “and I’m going to tether Em’leen, for fear she’d be walkin’ in her slape, and wandherin’ away an’ bein’ lost in the woods.”
“I don’t want to be tethered,” said Emmeline.
“It’s for your own good I’m doin’ it,” replied Mr Button, fixing the string round her waist. “Now come ’long.”
He led her like a dog in a leash to the tent, and tied the other end of the string to the scull, which was the tent’s main prop and support.
“Now,” said he, “if you be gettin’ up and walkin’ about in the night, it’s down the tint will be on top of us all.”
And, sure enough, in the small hours of the morning, it was.