Page:Scidmore--Java the garden of the east.djvu/327

Rh a stifling, sodden, steaming, reeking atmosphere of evil that one could hardly force in and out of the lungs. We gasped at intervals all through the long evening, and wondered if some vast vacuum bell had not been dropped down over Tjilatjap, while we batted flying things from our faces and swept them from the writing-table. Lizards ran over the walls, of course; and one pale-gray, clammy thing was picked from the bed-curtains, and thrown out with a sickening "ugh!" The invisible one, in agony, called for "Becky! Becky! Becky!" and a hoarser voice cried for "Tokee! Tokee! Tokee!" of whom we had never heard before.

Wearily, without rustle of leaves, stir, or any provocation, a sullen rain began to fall, and saturating the atmosphere, made it that much heavier. The rain ceased as wearily as it had begun, and the awful, sodden stillness was only broken by the slow, heavy drip of the listless foliage, and the occasional thud of a falling mango. Far, far away, faintly in the air was heard a smothered booming, moaning sound—the ceaseless surf of the Indian Ocean. Overhead there was darkness, profound and intense, beyond even heat-lightning's illumining, with a more impenetrable blackness where the double rows of ancient kanari-trees shaded the street beyond the hotel garden. The possibilities of its effects, the awful, desperate depression that loneliness in such surroundings would surely cause, made me wonder how great was the proportion of suicides' graves in that damp, weedy cemetery we had driven past in the gloaming.

Then three guests came over from the other part of the hotel, and, spreading themselves out on chairs in