Around you on all sides life is rocketing and blazing; orchids, hibiscus, bursts of bloom, ceibas, sand-box trees, air shoots of the wild pine blossom and riot, uncanny because of their demonstrative life in this silence.
But at dark all changes. Night rushes into the high woods like some mad musician, conductor of an orchestra crazy as himself.
The blue day outside closes up swiftly like a great painted fan, just like the pictures on a fan rapidly closed, St. Pierre tucks itself into a pocket of shadow, the mornes and mountains are shrivelled up, Pelée alone remains sun-stricken still, then he, too, vanishes in a crease and as suddenly reappears; for the fan, flirted open again to its full extent, shews the same picture, only this time it is lit by starlight or the light of the moon.
It is with the first closing out of the light that the orchestra of the woods begins; shrill, tremulous, like the bleating of a flock of lilliputian goats, the voices of the cabritt-bois and his mates fill the shadows, then the moon strikes the green heart of the forest and it springs alive like a rattle. A million fantastic things give tongue. One might fancy forms to fit the insect noises of the northern woods, but the wildest imagination pauses before the possibilities of this tropical band, these drummers and harpers whose burr and rattle sways and surges beneath the farandole of the fireflies.
At four o’clock, just as Pelée sights the coming sun, and the dawn is coming over the sea like a lilac-coloured breeze, the cabritt-bois ceases his bleating and Plong! the last harper plucks the final note from his harp-string. The drummers put up their drums, the oboe, and piccolo, the microscopic sax-horn player, the bones, and flute, pocket or shoulders their instruments and depart—for dreamland maybe.
They have made music all night, music that has reached even the dreamers of St. Pierre. The people asleep in the city become aware in their sleep that something has ceased, the faint haze of sound from the great wood above surrounds them no longer and they wake.
Gaspard awoke just as the wood music ceased. On the black floor of the room the dawn through the slats of the shutter was laying seven blue-grey bars upon the floor.
He had been dreaming of the island and of Sagesse. They had burst into the treasure ship and the strand was strewn with bars of gold. Then he lost Sagesse and was hunting for him and for Yves. It was full day, and the island lay sweltering under the sun. He could see nothing of the man he was in search of; then, far away at the end of the little coral pier he saw a form that made him forget both Yves and Sagesse, the form of a girl.
As he drew closer, he saw that it was the girl. The girl of the little Place where the fountain played. The Place de la Fontaine as he called it in his own mind, not knowing its real name.
She was standing with her tray balanced on her head as though she had just landed, now she was laughing as she saw him coming towards her, laughing as only the girls of Montpellier or Avignon can laugh and, as he came along the ridge of coral he was laughing too, as he balanced himself, fearful of falling. Then the ridge of coral became the yard of a ship, the blue water below became distant, and the dream broke up.