Renouard didn’t even look up. It was not the displeasure of the lady which deprived him of his sleep that night. He was beginning to forget what simple, honest sleep was like. His hammock from the ship had been hung for him on a side verandah, and he spent his nights in it on his back, his hands folded on his chest, in a sort of half conscious, oppressed stupor. In the morning he watched with unseeing eyes the headland come out a shapeless inkblot against the thin light of the false dawn, pass through all the stages of daybreak to the deep purple of its outlined mass nimbed gloriously with the gold of the rising sun. He listened to the vague sounds of waking within the house: and suddenly he became aware of Luiz standing by the hammock—obviously troubled.
“What’s the matter?”
“Tse! Tse! Tse!”
“Well, what now? Trouble with the boys?”
“No, master. The gentleman when I take him his bath water he speak to me. He ask me—he ask—when, when, I think Mr. Walter, he come back.”
The half-caste’s teeth chattered slightly. Renouard got out of the hammock.
“And he is here all the time—eh?”
Luiz nodded a scared affirmative, but at once protested, “I no see him. I never. Not I! The ignorant wild boys say they see . . . Something! Ough!”
He clapped his teeth on another short rattle, and stood there, shrunk, blighted, like a man in a freezing blast.
“And what did you say to the gentleman?”