The Island Where Time Stands Still Read Online Free PDF

great rocky promontory still threw a heavy shadow, but soon the mounting sun would glare down into every corner of it through another long tropical day.
    As far as Gregory knew, no one except himself and Chung lived in the block, but he thought he would first make certain of that. A few days earlier he had taken a cursory look at the empty cubicles and at the big dormitory. Now he tiptoed through the latter to the far end of the building, where the kitchen quarters were situated. Long practice had enabled him to move as silently as a cat, and a swift examination showed him that the door to the galley was not locked. Very gently he eased it open and looked in. With a domestic economy typical of the East, Chung, being a servant, had no room of his own, but lay sleeping soundly on a mat that he had unrolled along the floor. Through a gauze screen door on the far side of the galley Gregory could see the scullery, and a window in its wall. As that wall formed the far end of the block it was clear that there were no other rooms further on, and no one else sleeping in it.
    Soundlessly, Gregory re-closed the door, tiptoed back the way he came, and again went out on to the terrace. Advancing to its edge, he peered over. It dropped sheer for about twenty feet, then came a much narrower terrace barely two yards wide. Along its outer edge ran the high wire-mesh fence; so even if he had been able to scramble down to the lower ledge he would still have been inside the cage.
    Turning, he walked quietly round to the back of the block, but he had already guessed what he would find. As he expected, the fence was there too, barring the way to any prospect of climbing the last fifty feet of cliff. Unbroken, except for the gate at the north end of the terrace, it entirely surrounded the building.
    Being methodical by habit Gregory next made a careful examination of the gate. He was now not at all suprised to find that its lock would defy anyone not equipped with a cracksman’s kit; and his knowledge of electrical fences was sufficient to tell him that without proper implements it would be impossible to cut off or short circuit the current, as it was laid on from a generating plant housed in a small concrete structure outside the compound.
    Nothing of the least importance hung on the result of his reconnaissance, so he felt little disappointment at having failed to find an easy way out of his prison. For some time past he had recognised that the real prison in which he was confined lay not in any fence, but in his own mind. Freedom to explore the island could not break down the barriers of sorrow that now walled him in from the joys of life, and with the grim thought that it did not really matter to him how he spent the next three months—or the next ten years—he went back to bed.
    It was therefore very probable that but for a false move by Dr. Ping, Gregory’s mental indifference to the world about him would have led to his resigning himself to remaining in the cage until the steamer could take him to San Francisco. As it was, soon after the doctor arrived that afternoon he came out to Gregory and said with an asperity quite unusual in him:
    â€˜Honoured Sir. Chung tells me that when getting up this morning, he saw you through the window of the kitchen making close examination of the gate in the fence. Already I have courteously intimated to you that it is contrary to our custom to allow our guests outside this cage. I have now to inform you that any attempt to get out is definitely forbidden. Moreover, it would be highly dangerous, as the fence carries an electric charge strong enough to inflict serious injury.’
    Something of Gregory’s old belligerence stirred within him. The muscles of his lean face tightened, and he said, ‘If I wanted to get out of this place I should get out. It would take more than an electric fence to stop me.’
    Ho-Ping bowed, ‘That may be true. Therefore I must ask you to give me