Both his hearers felt vividly the urgent necessity to hear no more.  D’Alcacer, uncomfortable on a campstool, sat stiff and stared at the glass stopper of a carafe.  Mrs. Travers turned a little sideways and leaning on her elbow rested her head on the palm of her hand like one thinking about matters of profound import.  Mr. Travers talked; he talked inflexibly, in a harsh blank voice, as if reading a proclamation.  The other two, as if in a state of incomplete trance, had their ears assailed by fragments of official verbiage.

“An international understanding—­the duty to civilize—­failed to carry out—­compact—­Canning—­” D’Alcacer became attentive for a moment. “—­not that this attempt, almost amusing in its impudence, influences my opinion.  I won’t admit the possibility of any violence being offered to people of our position.  It is the social aspect of such an incident I am desirous of criticising.”

Here d’Alcacer lost himself again in the recollection of Mrs. Travers and Immada looking at each other—­the beginning and the end, the flower and the leaf, the phrase and the cry.  Mr. Travers’ voice went on dogmatic and obstinate for a long time.  The end came with a certain vehemence.

“And if the inferior race must perish, it is a gain, a step toward the perfecting of society which is the aim of progress.”

He ceased.  The sparks of sunset in crystal and silver had gone out, and around the yacht the expanse of coast and Shallows seemed to await, unmoved, the coming of utter darkness.  The dinner was over a long time ago and the patient stewards had been waiting, stoical in the downpour of words like sentries under a shower.

Mrs. Travers rose nervously and going aft began to gaze at the coast.  Behind her the sun, sunk already, seemed to force through the mass of waters the glow of an unextinguishable fire, and below her feet, on each side of the yacht, the lustrous sea, as if reflecting the colour of her eyes, was tinged a sombre violet hue.

D’Alcacer came up to her with quiet footsteps and for some time they leaned side by side over the rail in silence.  Then he said—­“How quiet it is!” and she seemed to perceive that the quietness of that evening was more profound and more significant than ever before.  Almost without knowing it she murmured—­“It’s like a dream.”  Another long silence ensued; the tranquillity of the universe had such an August ampleness that the sounds remained on the lips as if checked by the fear of profanation.  The sky was limpid like a diamond, and under the last gleams of sunset the night was spreading its veil over the earth.  There was something precious and soothing in the beautifully serene end of that expiring day, of the day vibrating, glittering and ardent, and dying now in infinite peace, without a stir, without a tremor, without a sigh—­in the certitude of resurrection.

Then all at once the shadow deepened swiftly, the stars came out in a crowd, scattering a rain of pale sparks upon the blackness of the water, while the coast stretched low down, a dark belt without a gleam.  Above it the top-hamper of the brig loomed indistinct and high.