The question, did they ever really grow up, ever lose their childhood here in this place where the birds were the only other inhabitants and where sin was not?—this question, unasked, unanswered, scarcely nascent in his mind, may have worked upon him subconsciously, perhaps answering itself in the negative, or leaving the door open to doubt.
It was a brilliant and breezy day, just like the day on which they had made the lagoon. The _Ranatonga_ had listed over to port under the press of the wind, the main boom lifting, and the foam roaring aft, gunnel high.
Out of the rainy seasons it was always bright here, yet there were days when the north seemed to come south in some great blue ship whose sails were filled by the winds of the north spilling over in zephyrs that touched the palms with fingers scented by the pine—fresh breezes that whipped the lagoon to amethyst and spread meadows of tourmaline on the coloured swell of the ocean beyond.
To-day the horizon was curiously hard, like the rim of a great jewel, and to-day in the south that pale indication of another island was more distinct.
There were days when the horizon was hot, the azure of sea dimming off into a luminous haze flowing up to the blue of the sky.
Lestrange, with his eyes fixed on the sea-line, seemed fallen into a dream. Then, slowly recovering himself, he rose from his half-recumbent position, climbed down the rock and began the descent of the hillside.
To reach the sward he had to pass through a bad patch where the ground was moist and where things grew with a luxuriance unknown on any other part of the island. Trees living, trees dead and rotting, unknown sappy plants and cables of liantasse, rope convolvulus and python lianas made this place difficult; the air was like the air of a conservatory and to lose oneself here would be easy, but it had never troubled him; his sense of direction was keen and the slight downhill trend of the ground was guide enough.
There was about this place the vague, uncanny something that clings to the rooms of an old deserted house. One felt oneself closed in, yet not alone.
Here, as on the other side of the island, there was a little stream, a thing scarcely a foot broad that passed chuckling, half hidden by ground leaves, and making on either side of it a zone of marsh. Lestrange was stepping across this stream when something clutched the side of his coat. It was as if a tiny hand had been put out to draw him back. It was only a thorn branch, a green tendril armed with thorns an inch long, curved like the claws of a cat.