At the close of their last day the divine serenity of June weather was troubled, and, as evening drew on, the clouds, which for a few hours past had been weaving wisps and streamers over the sky, grew to a thick curtain that stretched from horizon to horizon. It was of opaque grey, but here and there in it were lines and patches of much darker texture, as if it had been rent, and had been darned again with a blacker thread. Instead of the coolness which succeeded sunset, the heat, clear no longer, but impure like the air of a closed room, got ever sultrier, and, for the refreshment of the evening breeze from the sea, there was exchanged a stifling stagnation. All life had gone out of the atmosphere: it was as if some immense Othello was smothering the world. The air was heavy and charged with electricity, but as yet no remote winking of lightning nor rumble of thunder showed that there was relief coming. They had dined out in the garden, where the candles burned unwaveringly in the stillness, and afterwards had strolled to the far angle of the supporting wall of the fortress, where, if anywhere, they might find some hint of movement in this intolerable calm. But no breath visited them even there, and the very bamboos that grew at the corner of the garden-bed were as motionless as if they had been made of lead. Archie mopped his streaming forehead. "If it interests anybody," he remarked, "I may say that I am going to die. I can't bear it any longer. I think I shall die in about half an hour." Jessie fanned herself. That did not do a particle of good, it only seemed to make her hotter, as when you stir the water in a hot bath. But she tried to interest herself in Archie's approaching decease. "And are we to take your corpse back to England to-morrow?" she asked. "Just as you like. I shall have no more use for it. Lord, and I haven't finished packing yet. Fancy having to pack in this heat." "You needn't, surely, if you're going to die." "I must. My immortal manuscript would be lost in the general confusion caused by my death. Or shall I go to bed? It can't be hotter in my hammock than here. Yes, I shall get into my pyjamas, go to bed, and do my packing in the morning." He trailed off into the house, and presently appeared again attired for bed and strolled across to them. "Well, I'll _wish_ you a good-night," he said, "but I very much doubt whether you'll get it. You needn't do the same to me, for I know I shan't, and your wishes would be hollow." He moved away again towards the stone-pine where his hammock was hung, a pale tall ghost of a figure against the blackness. Then, quite suddenly, some panic impulse seized Jessie, the result perhaps of her overstrung nerves and the overcharged atmosphere, and she sprang up, not knowing why. "Wait a moment, Archie," she cried. "Don't go--something is going to happen."