Paul was staring over Ursula's shoulder at her nearly finished water-colour, and she, leaning back a little, was putting quick touches to it. Her chair was against the rail on the shady side of the boat deck; and just below, the endless procession of natives who had begun carrying coal from lighters alongside to the coal bunkers of the ship since but an hour or two after anchor had been dropped the night before, and who were still apparently as busy as ever, toiled, each man in it naked to the waist-cloth, sooty and perspiring, in the blazing sun. The dingy, clumsy, rough-hewn boats in the utterly clear water through which you could see almost to their keels, were bathed in that vivid light, while, between burning blue above and sparkling blue beneath, the chanting labourers passed up with full baskets and bent shoulders and down with empty ones and laughter. Now and again a fussy launch, usually with a gay flag fluttering in the breeze of its passage, chunked or chortled by. Across the flow, a big P. and O. steamer moved slowly into the Canal, its crowd of emigrants leaning over the side, staring, shouting, talking. On their own ship, people were mostly clustered at the gangways chaffering with pedlars, or dispersed ashore or below. Paul himself was back from a visit to Simon Artz and carried packages under his arm. "There," Ursula said, holding the block out before her. "Will that do?" He did not at once reply. She twisted round a bit and glanced up at him. "Well?" she queried again. "You've hit it absolutely," he said. "But the whole thing says something besides. It says it plainly, too. It's stupid of me not to be able to put it into words. I shall in a minute." The boys' monotonous chant came steadily up to them, and a siren shrieked. The P. and O. mail was lost behind a big Jap steamer, and from half a dozen ships about them came the sound of striking bells. As the noise of the last of them died away, Paul spoke. "I know," he said slowly. "You've got the incredible contrast there. Naked, sweating, tired natives, working endlessly for a mere trifle at a boring weary job in a living world of light and colour, and--and being jolly over it. They are jolly. Look at that chap's face, looking up at us. And that one, chipping his neighbour." (He indicated two figures in the sketch.) "It's just sheer animal spirits." Ursula said nothing. "Paganism, too," said Paul. "Paganism?" "Yes. It's in the sketch as you've painted it. A fierce vehemently-lived to-day, and no to-morrow or yesterday." "Write that." "I shall. Do you realise I've written like blazes since we've been on this stunt?" She stared over the side, hunching herself up a little. "I have," Paul went on. "You've made me. You're a perpetual inspiration, Ursula." Her body relaxed, and she laughed a little, happily. "The next book, please," she said. "'To Ursula: An Inspiration.'"