"Someone had begun to play a guitar on the verandah. The next moment a voice came out on the night, soft and suppressed, a voice like an echo, that seemed to lose itself in the silken chamber of the night. Either a baritone or a very deep contralto; but I felt it to be a man's voice, without understanding why. I listened, but couldn't hear distinctly. While I listened, I was conscious of an exquisite perfection of emotion. I seemed to stand at the heart of an old and visionary land, the witness of an ancient parable; the voice was the voice of Adam singing the first love song in Eden, and the veiled languorous moon was the same moon that had stirred that song through the untold nights of men.
"Suddenly the voice rose and swelled; I caught the words, the tone, the melody.... All at once I remembered—and knew, with a shock of recollection, who it was. The quality of the voice hadn't changed; the song itself was familiar. I'd heard it often, as he lay on the couch in the New York studio, or sat at the piano in one of his wandering musical moods. It seemed impossible. How could he be here? I choked, in the midst of uttering a low exclamation—must have made quite a fuss. He got up abruptly, breaking off the song; I heard the guitar strike the floor with a hollow clash.
"'Who is there?' he asked softly, as if expecting a visitor from that direction.
"I pulled myself together, started across the patch of open ground, and came into the moonlight. When I'd reached a little nearer, I saw him standing at the rail of the verandah; he leaned out, showing his face—a good deal older than I remembered, but unmistakeably the face of my vanished friend.
"'Who is it?' he asked again, sharply now, for he had discovered that it was a man.
"I felt the need of making an excuse for introduction. 'Bert' said I 'I haven't been following your trail. It's just an amazing stroke of chance. That is my ship in the roadstead. I happened to call.
"He leaned out farther, a look of helpless bewilderment on his face. Then recognition dawned with a great rush. 'Nichols!' he cried desperately. Gazing at me wide-eyed, he repeated my name in a lower tone, in accents of simple wonder. Suddenly, as he gazed, the weight of the years seemed to strike him with a crushing force; he crumpled, dropped to his knees, and buried his face on the railing. When I took his hand, he gripped me like a vice. We didn't speak for a long time.
IV
"After I'd sent my boat back aboard, with orders to come ashore for me in the morning, we sat talking on the verandah till late in the night. Ten years of life had to be reconstructed; the astonishing thing was that I had found him even then. 'Of all places on earth' I asked 'how did you happen to land in this God-forsaken spot?'
"'Oh, I came up from Australia, about eight months ago' said he 'A friend of mine down there, a sea captain, told me about it; said the bungalow was vacant and could be had almost for the asking. It's quiet here, and yet a fellow sees ships and things—watches life go by' He had been pacing backward and forward, and now stopped in front of my chair. 'It's heaven!' he cried 'Nothing to raise a row, nothing to fight for, nothing to live for, much.... Nothing to bother—that is.... You can't imagine how quiet and peaceful it seems'