Flames Coming out of the Top by Norman Collins Page B

lying back at full length on a rattan chair. When he saw that he was observed his expression at once changed. The whole face softened and his eyes began to smile again. He even made pawing motions with his foot preparatory to rising.
    â€œNo, please don’t get up,” Dunnett begged him. “I don’t want to disturb you.”
    Señor Muras waved the remark aside. “I must be up,” he said. “My wife, you know. … She will be down at any moment now.” He shifted his weight onto his two feet and pushed himself up in the arms of his chair. Then he came over and whispered in Dunnett’s ear. “Please do not tire her,” he asked. “She is not very strong and is easily exhausted.”
    The light by now had changed. The sun slipping suddenly behind the distant range had left the room suspended in a warm gloom. It was all abrupt and instantaneous, as though unexpected even by nature; that was the peculiar charm of tropic sunsets, Dunnett discovered. At one moment it was full day and, at the next, one more page of the calendar had already gone over the edge into night. The shadows in the garden disappeared; and the two obscene birds continued their meal in darkness. The sound of tearing and feasting continued at intervals to penetrate within doors. The room grew blacker. Señor Muras did not move: the red circle of his elegant cigar butt established his position but the rest of him was in darkness. He was visible only when he drew at his cigar. Then his features lit up with startling prominence. Dunnett felt that somewhere beneath those glowing eyebrows the small, bright eyes were still regarding him. When he put the lights on, Señora Muras was already coming into the room.
    In mere physical terms Señora Muras was large, not large in the way her husband was large, but big in a heavy and imposing fashion that made small chairs—she invariably chose small ones—sag under her . But it was her colour rather thanher size that caught Dunnett’s eye. For all practical purposes she was black. Not a gross, smiling negress—whatever the point of contact with the jungle might have been, it was obviously historic generations back—but black, nevertheless. She advanced, agitating the shelfful of jewellery that lay upon her bosom, and held out her hand. Dunnett took it, but not before he had noticed those whitish crinkled give-away folds between the fingers.
    â€œYou must forgive my wife,” Señor Muras reminded him. “No linguist. It was my daughter who wrote for her. Pure Portuguese family my wife’s.”
    It was Señorita Muras who came forward to help her. They exchanged a few words and the Señorita turned to Dunnet “She says that she’s very pleased to meet you, and hopes that you’ll be seeing a lot of each other,” Señorita Muras volunteered. “She asks me to say that she wouldn’t have been late if she hadn’t been upstairs resting.”
    At what was obviously the end of the sentence Señora Muras gave a little titter and nodded her head. She was evidently anxious that her part in the conversation should not be overlooked; and it was also quite clear that so far as she herself was concerned she regarded her last remark as in the nature of a supreme politeness.
    When dinner was served, the exceedingly small company went into an excessively large loom. Señora Muras took Dunnett’s arm, and he was aware of a musky bulk of womanhood beside him as he walked. She seemed to enjoy the association, and kept on saying things in Portuguese that sounded like compliments; her voice, he noticed, was as low and unmodulated as a man’s. Behind them Señorita Muras pranced and chattered like a squirrel.
    Dinner was a meal on a Colonial scale, full and lavish and supporting. By the time they had reached the second dish of chicken—this time boiled with paprika and served with rice—Dunnett felt himself