The night was like a veil of softest velvet dropping slowly from the heavens. The moon, in its first quarter, displayed a very narrow, horizontal sickle, like a Turkish crescent, between whose points the unlit portion of the disk was faintly washed in against the sky. A long avenue of tjemara-trees stretched in front of the house, their trunks straight, their leafage like drawn plush or ravelled velvet, showing like blots of cotton-wool against the clouds, which, drifting low, announced the approaching rainy monsoon fully a month beforehand. Wood-pigeons cooed at intervals and a gecko was calling, first with two rattling, preliminary notes, as though tuning up, then with his call of "Tokkè! Tokkè!" four or five times repeated: first loudly, then submissively and more faintly. A night watchman, in his hut in front of the house, on the high-road, where the sleeping market-place now showed its empty stalls, struck eleven blows on his hollow block of wood; and as yet one more belated cart drove past, he cried, in a hoarse voice: "Who goes there?" The night was like softest velvet dropping slowly from the heavens, like a whirling mystery, like an oppressive menace of the future. But, in that mystery, under the frayed black blots, the ravelled plush of the tjemaras, there was an inexorable incitement to love, in the windless night, like a whisper that this hour should not be wasted.... True, the gecko was gibing like a mocking imp, with a sort of dry humour; and the watchman, with his "Who goes there?" startled the hearer; but the wood-pigeons cooed softly and the whole night was like a world of softest velvet, like a great alcove curtained by the plush of the tjemaras, while the distant, sultry rain-clouds, hanging all that month on the horizon, ringed the skies with an oppressive spell. Mystery and enchantment hovered through the velvety night, drifting down in the twilit alcove; and at their touch all thought was dissolved; the very soul dissolved, leaving only a warm, sensuous vision.... The gecko fell silent, the watchman dropped asleep; the velvety night reigned like an enchantress crowned with the sickle of the moon. They came walking slowly, two youthful figures, their arms about each other's waists, lips seeking lips under the tyranny of the enchantment. They were as shadows under the drawn velvet of the tjemaras; and softly, in their white garments, they dawned on the beholder like an eternal pair of lovers who are forever and everywhere repeating themselves. And here above all were lovers inevitable, in this enchanted night, were one with the night, conjured up by the all-powerful spell; here they were inevitable, unfolding like a twin flower of predestined love, in the velvet mystery of the compelling heavens.