ncealed with her excess of smothering abundance.

This incongruity between my procedure and the time-honoured methods of
"strong" Governors must have seemed exasperating to those who waited,
respectful, but with nerves on edge, in the canvassed and tented
regions behind the Headquarters clearing. Indeed, the Foreign Office,
could it have witnessed my unpardonable hesitation, might well have
dismissed me on the spot, I think. For I sat there, dreaming in my
deck-chair on the verandah, smoking a cigarette, safe within my net
from the countless poisonous mosquitoes, and listening to the wind in
the palms that fringed the heavy jungle round the building.

Smoking quietly, dreaming, listening, waiting, I sat there in this
mood of inner attention and expectancy, knowing that the guidance I
anticipated must surely come.

A few clouds sprawled in their beds of silver across the sky; the
heat, the perfume, were, as always, painfully, excessive; the
moonlight bathed the huge trees and giant leaves with that habitual
extravagance which made it seem ordinary, almost cheap and
wonderless. Very silent the wooden house lay all about me, there were
no footsteps, there was no human voice. I heard only the wash of the
heavy-scented wind through the colossal foliage that hardly stirred,
and watched, as a hundred times before, the immense heated sky,
drenched in its brilliant and intolerable moonlight. All seemed a
riot of excess, an orgy.

Then, suddenly, the shameless night drew on some exquisite veil, as
the moon, between three-quarters and the full, slid out of sight
behind a streaky cloud. A breath, it seemed, of lighter wind woke all
the perfume of the burdened forest leaves. The shouting splendour
hushed; there came a whisper and, at last--a hint.

I watched with relief and gratitude the momentary eclipse, for in the
half-light I was aware of that sharp and tender mood which was
preparatory to the thrill. Slowly sailing into view again from behind
that gracious veil of cloud--

"The moon put forth a little diamond peak, No bigger than an
unobserved star, Or tiny point of fairy scimitar; Bright signal that
she only stooped to tie Her silver sandals, ere deliciously She bowed
into the heavens her timid head."

And then it came. The Thrill stole forth and touched me, passing like
a meteor through my heart, but in that lightning passage, cleaving it
open to some wisdom that seemed most near to love. For power flowed
in along th