The Wrong Box

“The incident took place in the French capital and in the harbor of the Marquis Islands Tai-O-Hai, around three o’clock in the afternoon, on a winter day. The wind was gusty and strong; the tide waves crashed loudly onto the shore strewn with large gravel. A fifty-ton French-flag military schooner—the representative of French authority on this cannibalistic group of islands—rocked in place at its anchorage beneath Prison Mountain. Heavy black clouds hung over the dark surrounding mountains. Rain had been falling since early morning—a real tropical downpour, pouring in torrents as if from a pipe; the shadowy green slopes were cut in places by silvery ribbons of furious streams…”