Brilliantly-plumaged birds flitted here and there, their colours contrasting with the green foliage.

Gauzy-winged insects buzzed to and fro.

The notes of the nightingale, or some kindred songster, could be heard, singing an ecstatic soprano to the cooing bass of the dove and the rippling obbligato of babbling brooks--that filtered through golden-yellow sands into the lap of the mother of waters--amid the sympathetic harmony of gushing cascades, whose noisy cadence was toned down by distance to a melodious hum.
And now I find that I am alone no longer.
I see Min stepping forward to greet me, advancing down the sloping turf- bank of the first island I reach; but, I cannot land.

I cannot touch her hand.
No.

The current sweeps my boat onward, past each tiny paradise in turn; and, on each, I still see Min always coming towards me, yet never reaching me! Swiftly the boat glides, swiftly and more swift; until, at last, Min, the palm-tree-shaded coral islets and all, are lost to sight--gradually yet in a moment.
I now seem to be borne along on the tide of a tempestuous torrent, through rocky defiles and beneath frowning precipices.
I am in the centre of a cyclone.