Eight o'clock
Here and there the globules coalesced in tiny streams that dripped to the heated deck and almost immediately evaporated . The lean , dark-eyed man wiped his fingers wet with a stinging stream from his forehead and flung it from him with a weary curse . Wearily , and without hope , he gazed seaward across the outer-reef , and at the tops of the palms along the beach . `` Eight o'clock , an ' hell do n't get hot till noon , '' he complained . `` Wisht to God for a breeze . Ai n't we never goin ' to get away ? '' The other man , a slender German of five and twenty , with the massive forehead of a scholar and the tumble-home chin of a degenerate , did not trouble to reply .