Night crept in upon the world like the falling of a great curtain. All three, Johnny, Doris and Nieta had traveled far that day. They had been hot. Now they were cool. They had been excited. Now they were calm. They had been weary. Now their bodies were in repose.
Slowly a drowsiness crept over them. The slow patter—patter of rain on their roof, the low rush of wind through the palms whispered of sleep.
And why not? Just three winks. Here they were cosy and safe. The storm would end. Then they would wake to think of other things.
Perhaps they did not think it through in just this manner. Probably they did not think it through at all, but yielded to the call of slumber. However that may be, time found them all breathing softly and steadily in sleep. And still the rain pattered on their canvas roof.
Just how long they slept no one will ever know. It was Johnny who first awoke. He emerged from unreality to reality, from dream life to real life with something of a start.
In his dream he had once more followed the strange monkey with the band of gold and a diamond on his arm. The monkey climbed a great cocoanut palm. With quite as much ability, he followed after. Up—up—up, ten, twenty, thirty, forty feet he climbed until at last he was among the fronds, sitting on a clump of half-ripe cocoanuts.
But where was the monkey? He looked wildly about him and even as he looked a sudden burst of wind seized the great palm and set it swaying like an inverted pendulum, back and forth.
Still in the dream he threw out his hands—but found nothing to which he might cling. He tried to cry out but words stuck in his throat.
It was at this instant that he awoke. Awoke to what? A very dark little chamber at the prow of a sail-boat and silence.
No not quite silence. There was a strange rushing sound all about him, and in the distance an indistinct murmur of voices.