At any moment, like
shifting vapour, it might dissolve away. The thought entered my
head that perhaps it was my fault, that my head was swimming or that
something I had eaten had disagreed with me. But I glanced at
Charmian and her sad walk, and even as I glanced I saw her stagger
and bump into the yachtsman by whose side she walked. I spoke to
her, and she complained about the antic behaviour of the land.
We walked across a spacious, wonderful lawn and down an avenue of
royal palms, and across more wonderful lawn in the gracious shade of
stately trees. The air was filled with the songs of birds and was
heavy with rich warm fragrances - wafture from great lilies, and
blazing blossoms of hibiscus, and other strange gorgeous tropic
flowers. The dream was becoming almost impossibly beautiful to us
who for so long had seen naught but the restless, salty sea.
Charmian reached out her hand and clung to me - for support against
the ineffable beauty of it, thought I. But no. As I supported her
I braced my legs, while the flowers and lawns reeled and swung
around me. It was like an earthquake, only it quickly passed
without doing any harm. It was fairly difficult to catch the land
playing these tricks. As long as I kept my mind on it, nothing
happened. But as soon as my attention was distracted, away it went,
the whole panorama, swinging and heaving and tilting at all sorts of
angles. Once, however, I turned my head suddenly and caught that
stately line of royal palms swinging in a great arc across the sky.
But it stopped, just as soon as I caught it, and became a placid
dream again.
Next we came to a house of coolness, with great sweeping veranda,
where lotus-eaters might dwell. Windows and doors were wide open to
the breeze, and the songs and fragrances blew lazily in and out.
The walls were hung with tapa-cloths. Couches with grass-woven
covers invited everywhere, and there was a grand piano, that played,
I was sure, nothing more exciting than lullabies. Servants -
Japanese maids in native costume - drifted around and about,
noiselessly, like butterflies. Everything was preternaturally cool.
Here was no blazing down of a tropic sun upon an unshrinking sea.
It was too good to be true. But it was not real. It was a dream-
dwelling. I knew, for I turned suddenly and caught the grand piano
cavorting in a spacious corner of the room. I did not say anything,
for just then we were being received by a gracious woman, a
beautiful Madonna, clad in flowing white and shod with sandals, who
greeted us as though she had known us always.
We sat at table on the lotus-eating veranda, served by the butterfly
maids, and ate strange foods and partook of a nectar called poi.
But the dream threatened to dissolve.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 36 of 157
Words from 18012 to 18518
of 80724
