On the summit of a little knoll, with a pipe between his teeth and his back against a palm-tree, Trent was lounging away an hour of the breathless night.

Usually a sound sleeper, the wakefulness, which had pursued him from the instant his head had touched his travelling pillow an hour or so back, was not only an uncommon occurrence, but one which seemed proof against any effort on his part to overcome it.

So he had risen and stolen away from the little camp where his companions lay wrapped in heavy slumber.

They had closed their eyes in a dense and tropical darkness--so thick indeed that they had lit a fire, notwithstanding the stifling heat, to remove that vague feeling of oppression which chaos so complete seemed to bring with it.

Its embers burnt now with a faint and sickly glare in the full flood of yellow moonlight which had fallen upon the country.