A figure gradually grew upon that screen of darkness--an elf-like thing, intangible, transparent, a quivering, shadowy image, remote as the dawn.
Wide-eyed, he watched the vision, his pulses beating with a mad longing so fierce as to be utterly beyond his own control.

It was as though he had drunk strong wine and had somehow slipped the leash of ordinary convention.

The savagery of the night, the tropical intensity of it, had got into him.

Half-naked, wholly primitive, he lay and waited--and waited.
For a while the vision hung before him, tantalizing him, maddening him, eluding him.

Then came a flash of lightning, and it was gone.
He started up on the _charpoy_, every nerve tense as stretched wire.
"Come back!" he cried, hoarsely.