Page:Rowland--The Mountain of Fears.djvu/265

  boatmen talking. You must have lived in this country."

"It was but three months, and that several years ago. I came here to catch snails. There was an experience—a thing odd and uneven. It is possible that you would be interested—listen!" He held up one hand.

From out of the illusive velvety depths that marked the contours of the tumbling hills came monotonously the "tom-tom-tom-tom-tom-tom-tom," now rising with the puff of the land breeze, waning slightly, yet unvarying as the swing of a pendulum. With it came the night smells of flowers drenched in dew and the mouldy reek of the tropic woods.

"Smell it!" said Leyden. He leaned both elbows on the rail and dropped the butt of his cigar into the black water, where it drowned with a spiteful little hiss. "The 'bamboula'—the smell of the trees and the stephanotis—ach, how it seems as if it were last night! That bamboula, with its torn-tom-tom! First it is quaint, then it is a nuisance, then [ 249 ]