Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 20, 1896 - Travels and excursion, Volume III

NIGHT ON THE BEACH
up and try to warm me. I'm blymed if I don't
think 1 11 die else ! '
So the three crept together into one wet mass, and
lay until day came, shivering and dozing off, and
continually re-awakened to wretchedness by the
coughing of the clerk.
CHAPTER II
MORNING ON THE BEACH — THE THREE LETTERS
The clouds were all fled, the beauty of the tropic
day was spread upon Papeete ; and the wall of
breaking seas upon the reef, and the palms upon the
islet, already trembled in the heat. A French man-
of-war was going out, homeward bound ; she lay in
the middle distance of the port, an ant-heap for
activity. In the night a schooner had come in, and
now lay far out, hard by the passage ; and the
yellow flag, the emblem of pestilence, flew on her.
From up the coast, a long procession of canoes
headed round the point and towards the market,
bright as a scarf with the many-coloured clothing of
the natives and the piles of fruit. But not even
the beauty and the welcome warmth of the morning,
not even these naval movements, so interesting to
sailors and to idlers, could engage the attention of
the outcasts. They were still cold at heart, their
mouths sour from the want of sleep, their steps
rambling from the lack of food ; and they strung
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