hid
her, then she reappeared, a pale shape in the dusk of the
oleander-bordered path.

He listened; the perfume of the oleanders enveloped him; high under the
stars the fronds of a royal palm hung motionless. Then, through the
stillness, very far away, he heard the southern ocean murmuring in its
slumber under a million stars.

CHAPTER IV

RECONNAISSANCE

Hamil awoke early: long before breakfast he was shaved, dressed, and
hungry; but in the hotel late rising appeared to be fashionable, and
through the bewildering maze of halls and corridors nobody was yet astir
except a few children and their maids.

So he sauntered about the acres of floor space from rotunda to music
room, from desk to sun parlour, through the endless carpeted tunnel
leading to the station, and back again, taking his bearings in this
wilderness of runways so profusely embowered with palms and furniture.

In one wide corridor, lined like a street with shops, clerks were
rearranging show windows; and Hamil strolled from the jewellers to the
brilliant but dubious display of an Armenian rug dealer; from a New York
milliner's exhibition, where one or two blond, sleepy-eyed young women
moved languidly about, to an exasperating show of shells, curiosities,
and local photographs which quenched further curiosity.

However, beyond the shops, at the distant end of an Axminster vista
flanked by cabbage-palms and masterpieces from Grand Rapids, he saw
sunshine and the green tops of trees; and he made toward the oasis,
coming out along a white colonnade overlooking the hotel gardens.

It was early enough for any ambitious bird to sing, but there were few
song-birds in the gardens--a palm warbler or two, and a pair of subdued
mocking-birds not inclined to be tuneful. Everywhere, however, purple
and bronze grackle appeared, flying or walking busily over the lawns,
sunlight striking the rainbow hackle on their necks, and their
pale-yellow or bright-orange eyes staring boldly at the gardeners who
dawdled about the flowery labyrinths with watering-can and jointed hose.
And from every shrub and tree came the mildly unpleasant calling of the
grackle, and the blackbirds along the lagoon answered with their own
unmusical "Co-ca-_chee_!--Co-ca-chee-e!"

Somehow, to Hamil, the sunshine seemed to reveal more petty defects in
this semi-tropical landscape than he could have divined the night before
under the unblemished magic of the stars. For the grass was no