My voice travelled across the still waters and woke echoes in the distant islands that came back to us like people calling out of space. It was only thirty or forty yards over the ridge and down the other side to the lagoon where the boats lay, but it was a good mile to coast round the shore in the dark to where we stood and waited. We heard him stumbling away among the boulders, and then the sounds suddenly ceased as he topped the ridge and went down past the fire on the other side.

“I didn’t want to be left alone with him,” the girl said presently in a low voice. “I’m always afraid he’s going to say or do something⁠—” She hesitated a moment, looking quickly over her shoulder towards the ridge where he had just disappeared⁠—“something that might lead to unpleasantness.”

She stopped abruptly.