silently, and for a moment we looked down into a beautiful valley, green and with a thousand other tints and shades, and set in a great inward curve, beyond which the sea raced up in frothy billows to the clean white sands.  Far beneath us as it was, we could detect the flashes on wet foliage; indeed, I could think of nothing but a cup of emerald rimmed with sapphire and studded with brilliants.  For an all too brief space it quivered and shimmered under the sunburst, and then the mist floor closed relentlessly, the heavens grayed again, and another downpour set in.

We waited long, but the Pali declined to be wooed into sight again, nor am I certain that we were the losers thereby.  The whole effect was so brief and vivid that our pleasure in it was greatly intensified.  Longer vision might have brought out details which we missed, but it would have converted into the memory of a beautiful scene that which has remained a peep into fairyland.

Our return through the gorge was accompanied by all the original drawbacks.  Our driver had released the check-reins of the horses, but he ostentatiously checked them up again as we appeared.  He had entirely recovered his good humor, and contemplated our dishevelled appearance with secret glee.

The Pali has its good features, but it must be admitted there are drawbacks.  Among the military people aboard there was a lady of uncertain age, and of a mistaken conception of what was becoming to her fading charms.  She was gaunt, and leathery of skin, and she wore “baby necks” and elbow sleeves, and affected childish simplicity and perennial youth.  On our first night out of Honolulu I happened to come around the corner of the promenade deck in time to observe one of the men passengers contemplating this lady, who stood at some distance from him, attired in a rather decollete frock.  The man’s attitude was a modified edition of that of the Colossus of Rhodes:  He steadied a cigarette between his lips with the third and fourth fingers of his left hand, while his right hand was thrust into his trousers pocket.  A peculiar expression lingered on his countenance—­kind of struggle between a painful memory and a judicial estimate.  He was so absorbed in his musings that he did not notice me, and he spoke aloud.

“I knew she was thin,” he said, “but even with her low-necked dresses, I did not think that it was as bad as it is.”

I beat a retreat without attracting his attention, but I understood him, for I had seen him on the back seat of an army ambulance in the clutches of the perennially youthful lady, starting for the Pali.