And now I come to the first of those mysterious episodes that happened on our journey up country and bear, as I now see, so profoundly on the queer adventures we were to meet with afterwards. I have made my account of this with great care and constant reference to the very clear recollection of the event my memory retains; and I don't think that in what follows there is one jot more or less than I actually observed. I don't know whether it was because of the heat, which was steamy and penetrating, or because of the mosquitoes that had already come up in clouds from the swampy land bordering the creek; but weary as I was, I couldn't sleep a wink. I lay tossing and turning and going over in my mind our jumpy experiences of the past forty-eight hours, and the longer I lay, the more feverishly alert I grew. Every noise of the night, the mumble of talk from the servants' quarters at the far end of the inn, an occasional clanging ricsha-bell away in the city, the screech of an early cicada on the lawns, even the subtle hiss of water among the roots of the willows beneath our wall--all came to my ears magnified about fourfold. When Philipson withdrew to his bedroom some hours after I had left him, the noise he made was relatively deafening. I heard him throw himself on to the bed with a jangle of springs, and then lay dozing, praying for sleep but more honestly inclined to swear at my insomnia. At last, opening my eyes, I saw there was a curious light outside the window, so bright that at first I thought some native house on the other side of the creek must be going up in flames. I got out of bed and looked on to the verandah that ran along outside our wing of the inn. Then I saw where the illumination came from: it was the moon, full and brilliant, which had climbed round to that side of the building and was bathing the creek in a glory of silver and gold. Without the distraction of stewy heat and savage mosquitoes it would have been a picture to paint or write poetry about. Then, suddenly, I became conscious of voices farther along the verandah. I couldn't distinguish the words, but I knew at once the language was not English. Nor was it any dialect of Chinese I ever struck, and I have heard and spoken most. All caution drowned in a prickling curiosity, I stepped noiselessly out on to the verandah and peeped round the jutting stone jamb of the window. Now I saw the speakers, and at the sight I could have cried out in my astonishment. There were two figures, a man and a woman. The former looked to me uncommonly like Saunders Philipson, dressed as I had left him a few hours before. The real stunning surprise for me, however, was in the appearance of the woman. She was no dusky, cramp-footed native, but manifestly European, tall, queenly, with bare head and loose gown, and so far as I could distinguish her features, of a remarkable beauty.