For Jacinta by Harold Bindloss

A full moon hung over the white city, and the drowsy murmur of the surf broke fitfully through the music of the artillery band when Austin sat listlessly on a bench in the plaza of Santa Cruz. It was about eight o'clock in the evening, and the plaza was crowded, as usual at that hour. Peon and officer, merchant and clerk, paced slowly up and down, enjoying the cool of the evening with their wives and daughters, or sat in clusters outside the lighted cafA(C)s. The band was an excellent one, the crowd gravely good-humoured, and picturesquely attired, for white linen, pale-tinted draperies, sombre cloth, and green uniform formed patches of kaleidoscopic colouring as the stream of humanity flowed by under the glaring lamplight and the soft radiance of the moon.

Austin had sat there often before he went to Africa, listening to the music and watching the spectacle; but neither had any charm for him that night. The laughter sounded hollow, the waltz the band was playing had lost its swing, and the streams of light from the cafA(C)s hurt his eyes and irritated him. The deep murmur of the sea alone was faintly soothing, and remembering how often he had thought of that cool plaza, with its lights and music, in the steamy blackness of the swamps, he wondered vaguely what had happened to him. The zest and sparkle seemed to have gone out of life, and he did not attribute it to the fact that the melancholia of the swamp belt was still upon him.