For Jacinta by Harold Bindloss

A week had slipped by since the negro's visit, and Austin and Jefferson were sitting late in the skipper's room. There had been no change in the weather, and it was then, if possible, hotter than ever. The muggy land breeze had died away, and a thick woolly mist shut the stranded steamer in. Door and ports were open wide, but the oil lamp that hung beneath the beams burned unwaveringly, and the ray of light that streamed out from the doorway made the blackness outside more apparent. The big pump was running behind the deck-house, and its deep vibratory humming rang startlingly through a stillness so intense that it seemed unnatural, as it hurled the water out of the engine room.

Austin sat huddled in a corner, attired only in duck trousers, and torn singlet which came no lower than his elbows, and, for want of buttons, fell open at his neck. He had an unusually clean skin, and his sun-scorched lower arms and scarred hands, with the battered knuckles and broken nails, emphasised by contrast the clear whiteness of his half-covered chest. That night it was beaded with perspiration, for which he was sincerely thankful, since there are times in the tropics when the healing moisture fails to find its way through the fevered skin, and its afflicted owner burns in torment.