In their variety, too, they were entertaining.  In great number was the pretty frailty, whose wings are compact of transparencies and purple blotches.  In this full, fierce light the purple is black and the transparencies all steel-like glitter.  They came across in shoals.  There was neither beginning nor end.  All the sky glittered with winged mosaics.  Then came the great green and gold and black creature, accompanied sometimes by his less gaily decorated mate, ponderous of flight; and, anon, that insect of regal blue, that can flit as idly as any of the order, and yet dart in and out of the jungle and over the tree-tops, with swallow-like swiftness.  Rarely in the throng came that scarlet and black, which makes the gaudy, flaunting hibiscus envious of its colour; but the little yellow “wanderers,” ever busy and active, came low over the water, weary with the long journey, and sometimes ready to rest—­shifty flecks of gold—­on the white sail.

There was no end to the flight.  The air was too full.  One wearied of the ceaseless panorama of the gay bejewelled insects.  They were the possessors of the prime of that glorious morning.  Beautiful and frail, and inconsequent as they were, you envied them.  They flitted on without guide or leader, venturing the dangers of water and air, flying up in the full blaze of the sun—­eager, joyous, unconcerned.  In the boat we were compelled to loll about between heaven and the cool coral groves, and compare enforced inactivity with the blithesome freedom of the weakest butterfly.

Occasionally a turtle would bob up from its pastures below, and catching sight of the sail, with a bubbling gulp, disappear, the white splash creating concentric rings of ripples.  But the breeze came not, and the disorderly procession of butterflies, miles broad, passed on.

“Some flew light as a laugh of glee;
Some flew soft as a low, long sigh,
All to the haven where each would be.”

I listened to the wooings of the black boys to the breeze.  They liked not the prospect of sweeping the boat home.  They implored for wind with cooings, with petulant whistlings, and with gentle but novel objurgations.  But it came not, and so the afternoon passed and evening fell, and the butterflies, a faint, thin stratum, drifted on.

Then as a final challenge to the breeze that we longed for, and which had resisted all appeals, “Come on big wind and kill little boat!” exclaimed an irresponsible boy, whose ears had long ached with the days dull silence, and who saw no prospect of hot turtle steak for supper.

As if to take up the gauntlet, a faint zephyr flicked the listless cheek of the ocean, and slapped the sails.  The boom swayed and swung over, the boat, without guidance, idly headed off, and we flopped home to the placid bay before the unenergetic breeze, which was all that Nature in her idle hour could spare.

THE SERPENT BEGUILED