Waterbury evening Democrat., 1893-04-13
CHAPTER ".


 The islet lay all night long In much the same silence which Tapped and wrapped it all the day. The water washed unsteady upon the shore; the light in the lighthouse flashed at inter vals; there was no other sign of life. Towards six o'clock in the morning the dark east grew gray; then long white rays shot out across the sky and then the light began to spread. Before the gray turned to pink or the pink to crim- son, before there was any corresponding glow in the western sky, the man who occupied the bungalow turned out of bed and came forth into the veranda clad in his silk pajamas and silk jacket, which formed the evening or dress suit in which he slept. The increasing light showed that he was young man still, perhaps about thirty, ayoung man with a strong and resolute face and Q square forehead. He stood under the veranda watching as he had done every day for two years and more, the break of day and the sunrise; he drank in the de licious breeze cooled by a thousand miles and more of ocean; no one knows the freshness and sweetness of the air until he has so stood in the open and watched the dawn of day in the trop- ics- He went back to the house and came back again clad in a rough suit of tweed and a helmet. His servant was waiting for him, with his morning tea; he drank it and sallied forth. By this time the short-lived splendor of the east was fast broadening to right and left, until it stretched from pole to pole. Suddenly the sun leaped up and the col ors fled and the splendor vanished. The sky became, all over, a deep clear blue, and round and about the sun was a brightness which no eye but that of the seabird can face and live. The man in the helmet turned to the seashore and walked briskly along the sea wall. Now and then he stepped down upon the white coral sand, picked up a shell and looked at 1t and threw it away. When he came to the seabir1's rock he sat down and watched it In the deep water below sea snakes red and purple and green were playing about; great blue fish rolled lazily round and round the rock; in the recesses lurlzed unseen the great conger eel, which dreads noth- ing but the thing of long and horny ten tacles-the ourite or squid-the humor- ous tajar which bites the bathers in shallow water all for fun and mischief and with no desire to eat their flesh, and thousand curious creatures which this man who had ruined his eyes by days and days of watching came here every day to look at. While hc otl,ut there the seabirds took no Inalir .- notice of him, flying close about him. lighting on the shore close at his feet. They were intelligent enough to know that he was only dangerous with n gun in his hand. Presently he got up and continued his walk. All round the sea wall of the island measures three miles. He took this walk every morning and every evening in the early cool and the late. The rest of the time he spent in- doors.
 When he got back 1t was past seven and the day was growing hot. He took his towels, went down to the shore to a place where the coral reef receded, leav- ing a channel out to the open. The | channel swarmed with sharks, but he bathed there every morning, keeping in the shallow water, while the creatures watched him with longing eyes. He wore pair of slippers on account of the lap, which is a very pretty little fish indeed to look at, but he turks in dark places near the shore, If he iN too lazy to pet out of the way and if voar