"He waved a hand toward the city. 'Come, my friend, let us sleep' said he 'We have earned our rest—and that is something not always won from life. But beware of over-confidence, and never plan. It is by straining to see the future that men exhaust themselves for present usefulness. It is by daring to make plans that men bring down on their heads the wrath of heaven. We are the instruments of the gods; through us, they put their own plans in operation. The only failure in life is not to hear when the gods command. In this case, however, there could have been no question; the design was too apparent. From the first, I was sure and happy. There were constantly too many propitious signs'"
THE UNCHARTED ISLE
THE UNCHARTED ISLE
I
"They say the man is mad" I whispered, nodding across the room "Pendleton pointed him out to me in Wellington Street this morning"
Nichols gave his twisted smile. "Yes, mad, or inspired, or something very wonderful. Who is competent to judge? But I haven't seen him up this way for a long while. Another expedition must be on foot in search of the Uncharted Isle"
"What's that? You know him, then?"
"Perhaps I am the only man in the East who does know him, in the proper sense of the word. Every one else listens, laughs, and passes on. But I believe. Yes, in spite of ridicule and life's disaster, I continue to believe ... well, not so much in the fact itself, as in the man. By Jove, he's faithful—and that, you must admit, is marvel enough. And his madness isn't entirely impossible; it can be explained. Yet it strikes the world as being funny—and that's his crowning misfortune. A man in search of a lost and apparently non-existent island can't help being a little ridiculous, I suppose, until he becomes a thundering bore. For no one else, of course, is looking for such a thing, or wants to find one. We keep safely within the charted area.... But let me tell you the story, and you can form your own opinion. Don't attract his attention; he won't notice us here in the shadow"
There used to be a certain tea-house in Hong Kong, the name of which was jealously guarded from touring vandals. It opened on the face of an enchanted terrace high above the harbour and the town; from the parapet the eye travelled inland over the low peninsula of Kowloon, as far as the foothills of China, the fringe of a mighty land veiled in mystery. Romance came to that terrace, filtering through lacy bamboo leaves, borne on the night breeze along with the fragrance of flowers and the music of hidden voices. The place wasn't a temple of the conventional. It isn't running now; the songs are still, the little cups no longer tinkle in the half-darkness, and no sweet, startled faces, peep out at visitors from behind the dragon-screens.
Nichols and I had been sitting there some time that evening, when the man came in. Of course Nichols knew him; who with any pretentious to a history wasn't catalogued in his omnivorous files? While I waited, I listened to a rapid conversation in Chinese somewhere in the back of the establishment. Dusk had swallowed the white houses and green slopes below us; the riding lights on the harbour had begun to prick out the berths of ships; with the coming of night, voices seemed hushed among the yellow lanterns.