Morelli sat, cross-legged, on the knoll. In his hands was his flute, but he was staring straight below him down on to the cove. He waited, the air was heavy with heat; a crimson butterfly hovered for a moment in front of him and then swept away, a golden bee buzzed about his head and then lumbered into the air. There was silence; the trees stood rigid in the heat.
Suddenly Morelli moved. Two black specks appeared against the white shadows of the beach; he began to play.
Punch was lying on the cliff asleep. To his right, curving towards the white sand, was a sea-pool slanting with green sea-weed down into dark purple depths. The sun beat upon the still surface of it and changed it into burning gold. Below this the sea-weed flung green shadows across the rock. It reflected through the gold the straight white lines of the road above it, and the brown stem, sharp like a sword, of a slender poplar. It seemed to pass through the depths of the pool into endless distance. Besides the green of the sea-weed and the gold of the sun there was the blue of the sky reflected, and all these lights and colours mingled and passed and then mingled again as in the curving circle of a pearl shell. Everything was metallic, with a hard outline like steel, under the blazing sun.
Tony turned the corner and came down the hill. He was in flannels and carried in one hand a large tea-basket. His body, long and white, was reflected in the green and blue of the pool. It spread in little ripples driven by a tiny wind in white shadows to the bank.
He was whistling, and then suddenly he saw Toby and Punch asleep in the grass. He stopped for a moment in the road and looked at them. Then he passed on.
The white sand gleamed and sparkled in the sun; the little wind had passed from the face of the pool, and there was no movement at all except the very soft and gentle breaking of tiny waves on the sand’s edge. A white bird hanging for the moment motionless in the air, a tiny white cloud, the white edge of the breaking ripples, broke the blue.
Tony sat down. From where he was sitting he could see the town rising tier upon tier into a peak. It lay panting in the sun like a beast tired out.
The immediate problem was whether Morelli or Miss Minns would come. A tiny note in a tiny envelope had arrived at the “Man at Arms” that morning. It had said:
Dear Mr. Gale,