An island wind, fragrant of bark and secret berries, blew in puffs from the steep.

A gull swooped to her nest in a cranny of the basalt.

From below a servant came on deck, his broad American face smiling over a tray of glasses and decanters and tinkling ice.

It was all very tranquil and public and almost commonplace--just the high tropic seas at the moment of their unrestrained sundown, and the odour of tea-cakes about the pleasantly-littered deck.

And for the moment, held by a common thought, every one kept silent.