The clubhouse is built on a low cliff at the water's edge. It looks
across the blue waters of the bay to a headland crowned with
cocoa-palms, and beyond the headland to the Indian Ocean. The cool
trades sweep across that veranda. We idly watched a lone white oarsman
pulling strongly against the wind through the tide rips, evidently bent
on exercise. We speculated on the incredible folly of wanting exercise;
and forgot him. An hour later a huge saffron yellow squall rose from
China 'cross the way, filled the world with an unholy light, lashed the
reluctant sea to white-caps, and swooped screaming on the cocoa-palms.
Police boats to rescue the idiot oarsman! Much minor excitement! Great
rushing to and fro! We continued to sit in our lounging chairs, one hand
on our cool long drinks.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] For a fuller discussion, see "The Land of Footprints."
XII.
THE FIRE.
We were very tired, so we turned in early. W Unfortunately, our rooms
were immediately over the billiard room, where a bibulous and
cosmopolitan lot were earnestly endeavouring to bolster up by further
proof the fiction that a white man cannot retain his health in the
tropics. The process was pretty rackety, and while it could not keep us
awake, it prevented us from falling thoroughly asleep. At length, and
suddenly, the props of noise fell away from me, and I sank into a
grateful, profound abyss.
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