midday
It was only by slow degrees that this system of espionage grew clear to the strangers ; but as soon as they had learned its reality and ubiquity , they felt at once how undesirable it would be for them to excite the terrible man-god 's jealousy and suspicion by being observed too often in close personal intercourse with their fellow-exile and victim , the Frenchman . It was this that made them have recourse to the device of the heliograph . So three or four days passed before Muriel dared to approach M. Peyron 's cottage . When she did at last go there with Felix , it was in the early morning , before the fierce tropical sun , that beat full on the island , had begun to exert its midday force and power . The path that led there lay through the thick and tangled mass of brushwood which covered the greater part of the island with its dense vegetation ; it was overhung by huge tree-ferns and broad-leaved Southern bushes , and abutted at last on the little wind-swept knoll where the King of the Birds had his appropriate dwelling-place . The Frenchman received them with studied Parisian hospitality . He had decorated his arbor with fresh flowers for the occasion , and bright tropical fruits , with their own green leaves , did duty for the coffee or the absinthe of his fatherland on his homemade rustic table .