Sinopsis

Below the veranda in the noon sunlight stood a cluster of slaves and bond- servants, bright and noisy as macaws. In other climes light is a negative thing: a mere absence of darkness. But in the islands when the fronds of the palm-trees move in the wind the light runs in and out among them like a live thing. So now when the restless island wind played with the kerchiefs and the petticoats the light, too, danced and ran, and the crowd moved continuously, like a field of flowers in the sun. Only one among them did not move: the young man with the black hair who was leaning against the jacaranda tree. He looked equable but absent- minded. A house-slave staggered on to the veranda carrying th...