Read Online Death in the Andamans by M. M. Kaye - Free Book Online Page B

lay scattered over a glassy sea that was so still and smooth and shining that the wandering currents showed like paper streamers straggling across a ballroom floor after a carnival night when the dancing is over and the dancers have gone. The air had cooled with the approach of evening and the Islands were no longer veiled by a shimmering heat-haze, but clear-cut and colourful: lilac and lavender, blue and green and gold in the tropic evening ____
    â€˜Keats must have dreamed of this view,’ said Copper. ‘These are his “magic casements, opening on the foam — Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn”. ’
    â€˜Y–es,’ agreed Valerie hesitantly. ‘But there are times when I wonder if the magic is white or black?’
    â€˜Why do you say that?’ asked Copper curiously.
    â€˜I don’t know. Only — well, sometimes there is a queer sort of feeling about the Islands. Oh, not in the way you meant last night. But but they seem so out of this world. As though civilization and the twentieth century had only made a little scratch on the surface, and underneath they were still strange and … And “forlorn” and “perilous”, I suppose! I believe that if one lived here for too long they might do odd things to one. To one’s character, I mean. Change it, and make it different and ____ Oh, I can’t explain. I’m probably talking nonsense. You know, it’s odd, but all day I’ve had a queer feeling; rather as though I were an overwound watch-spring wondering what happens when the breaking-point is reached? A loud, twanging noise perhaps, and all my nice, orderly, civilized little ideas flying in every direction in a gloriously crude and uninhibited manner. Now I am talking nonsense!’
    â€˜No,’ said Copper slowly. ‘I think I know what you mean. Everyone seems to be feeling a bit edgy today. I know I am! I was even driven to exchanging a catty scratch with La Stock. And then there were the Shiltos snarling at each other, and even Mrs Purvis got quite crisp when Amabel Withers started on yet another of those gloomy anecdotes about local characters who have been drowned or eaten by sharks or caught by an octopus.’
    â€˜I expect it’s the heat,’ said Valerie with a sigh. ‘We haven’t had any rain for days. A really good shower, and we shall all return to normal — tempers included. Don’t do that, Coppy! You’ll stain your arms!’
    Copper, who had leant far out over the window-ledge, drew back sharply. ‘Don’t do what? Heavens above! — what on earth is it?’
    â€˜Sorry,’ apologized Valerie. ‘I should have warned you. It’s some red stuff they stain all the outside woodwork with. We’ve even got it all over our house on Ross. I believe it’s earth-oil, or something of the sort. It’s an appalling nuisance because it comes off on everything.’
    â€˜It does indeed!’ commented Copper acidly, scrubbing her vividly coloured elbows with an inadequate handkerchief.
    â€˜No one warned me either,’ said Valerie with a grin, ‘and I well remember an awful occasion when … Good grief! Look over there! Hi! — Hamish!’ She leant out of the window and yelled down to Captain Rattigan, the earnest and ginger-headed officer in command of the military detachment on Ross who was standing on the drive below: ‘ Hamish! — there’s a hell of a storm coming up! You sailing people had better get going pretty quickly if you don’t want to get caught in it. Hurry! ’
    Copper turned and saw, far to the south-east, a low band of tawny-coloured darkness that lay along the horizon. It had a hard black edge to it, as straight as though it had been drawn with a ruler, and above it an ugly, ochrous stain was spreading upwards into the evening sky.
    â€˜But it’s miles away,’ she protested. ‘It could miss