midday
They mounted the steps to the verandah on the first floor and laid their loads down . Then they proceeded to further conversation . Hatteras gathered from their excited faces and gestures that they wished to impart information , but he could make neither head nor tail of a word they said and at last he retired from the din of their chatter through the windows of a room which gave on the verandah , and sat down to wait for his superior , the agent . It was early in the morning when Hatteras landed and he waited until midday patiently . In the afternoon it occurred to him that the agent would have shown a kindly consideration if he had left a written message or an intelligible Kru boy to receive him . It is true that the blacks came in at intervals and chattered and gesticulated , but matters were not thereby appreciably improved . He did not like to go poking about the house , so he contemplated the mud-banks and the mud-river and the mangrove forest , and cursed the agent .