Angel Island

By

Inez Haynes Gillmore

Author of "Phoebe and Ernest, " "Phoebe, Ernest, and Cupid, " etc. 

To

M. W. P. 

JTABLE 8 8 1

Angel Island

I

It was the morning after the shipwreck. The five men still lay wherethey had slept. A long time had passed since anybody had spoken. A longtime had passed since anybody had moved. Indeed, it, looked almost asif they would never speak or move again. So bruised and bloodless ofskin were they, so bleak and sharp of feature, so stark and hollow ofeye, so rigid and moveless of limb that they might have been corpses. Mentally, too, they were almost moribund. They stared vacantly, straight out to sea. They stared with the unwinking fixedness of thosewhose gaze is caught in hypnotic trance. 

It was Frank Merrill who broke the silence finally. Merrill stilllooked like a man of marble and his voice still kept its unnaturaltone, level, monotonous, metallic. "If I could only forget the screamthat Norton kid gave when he saw the big wave coming. It rings in myhead. And the way his mother pressed his head down on her breast--oh, my God!"

His listeners knew that he was going to say this. They knew the verywords in which he would put it. All through the night-watches he hadsaid the same thing at intervals. The effect always was of a red-hotwire drawn down the frayed ends of their nerves. But again one by onethey themselves fell into line. 

"It was that old woman I remember, " said Honey Smith. There werebruises, mottled blue and black, all over Honey's body. There was afalsetto whistling to Honey's voice. "That Irish granny! She didn't saya word. Her mouth just opened until her jaw fell. Then the wavestruck!" He paused. He tried to control the falsetto whistling. But itgot away from him. "God, I bet she was dead before it touched her!"

"That was the awful thing about it, " Pete Murphy groaned. It was asinevitable now as an antiphonal chorus. Pete's little scarred, scratched, bleeding body rocked back and forth. "The women andchildren! But it all came so quick. I was close beside 'the Newlyweds. 'She put her arms around his neck and said, 'Your face'll be the lastI'll look on in this life, dearest! 'And she stayed there looking intohis eyes. It was the last face she saw all right. " Pete stopped and hisbrow blackened. "While she was sick in her stateroom, he'd been lookinginto a good many faces besides hers, the--"

"I don't seem to remember anything definite about it, " Billy Fairfaxsaid. It was strange to hear that beating pulse of horror in Billy'smild tones and to see that look of terror frozen on his mild face. "Ihad the same feeling that I've had in nightmares lots of times--that itwas horrible--and--I didn't think I could stand it anothermoment--but--of course it would soon end--like all nightmares and I'dwake up. "

Without reason, they fell again into silence. 

They had passed through two distinct psychological changes since thesea spewed them up. When consciousness returned, they gathered into alittle terror-stricken, gibbering group. At first they babbled. Atfirst inarticulate, confused, they dripped strings of mere words;expletives, exclamations, detached phrases, broken clauses, sentencesthat started with subjects and trailed, unpredicated, to stupidsilence; sentences beginning subjectless and hobbling to futileconclusion. It was as though mentally they slavered. But every phrase, however confused and inept, voiced their panic, voiced the long strainof their fearful buffeting and their terrific final struggle. And everyclause, whether sentimental, sacrilegious, or profane, breathed theirwonder, their pathetic, poignant, horrified wonder, that such thingscould be. All this was intensified by the anarchy of sea and air andsky, by the incessant explosion of the waves, by the wind which seemedto sweep from end to end of a liquefying universe, by a downpour whichthreatened to beat their sodden bodies to pulp, by all the connotationof terror that lay in the darkness and in their unguarded condition ona barbarous, semi-tropical coast. 

Then came the long, log-like stupor of their exhaustion. 

With the day, vocabulary, grammar, logic returned. They still iteratedand reiterated their experiences, but with a coherence which graduallygrew to consistence. In between, however, came sudden, sinister attacksof dumbness. 

"I remember wondering, " Billy Fairfax broke their last silencesuddenly, "what would become of the ship's cat. "

This was typical of the astonishing fatuity which marked theircomments. Billy Fairfax had made the remark about the ship's cat adozen times. And a dozen times, it had elicited from the others aclamor of similar chatter, of insignificant haphazard detail whichbegan anywhere and ended nowhere. 

But this time it brought no comment. Perhaps it served to stir faintlyan atrophied analytic sense. No one of them had yet lost the shudderand the thrill which lay in his own narrative. But the experiences ofthe others had begun to bore and irritate. 

There came after this one remark another half-hour of stupid andreadjusting silence. 

The storm, which had seemed to worry the whole universe in its grip, had died finally but it had died hard. On a quieted earth, the seaalone showed signs of revolution. The waves, monstrous, towering, swollen, were still marching on to the beach with a machine-likeregularity that was swift and ponderous at the same time. One on one, another on another, they came, not an instant between. When theycrested, involuntarily the five men braced themselves as for a shock. When they crashed, involuntarily the five men started as if a bomb hadstruck. Beyond the wave-line, under a cover of foam, the jaded sea layfeebly palpitant like an old man asleep. Not far off, sucked close to aragged reef, stretched the black bulk that had once been the BrianBoru. Continually it leaped out of the water, threw itself like a livecreature, breast-forward on the rock, clawed furiously at it, retreateda little more shattered, settled back in the trough, brooded aninstant, then with the courage of the tortured and the strength of thedying, reared and sprang at the rock again. 

Up and down the beach stretched an unbroken line of wreckage. Here andthere, things, humanly shaped, lay prone or supine or twisted intocrazy attitudes. Some had been flung far up the slope beyond thewater-line. Others, rolling back in the torrent of the tide, engaged ina ceaseless, grotesque frolic with the foamy waters. Out of a mass ofwood caught between rocks and rising shoulder-high above it, a woman'shead, livid, rigid, stared with a fixed gaze out of her dead eyesstraight at their group. Her blonde hair had already dried; it hung instiff, salt-clogged masses that beat wildly about her face. Beyondsomething rocking between two wedged sea-chests, but concealed by them, constantly kicked a sodden foot into the air. Straight ahead, the nakedbody of a child flashed to the crest of each wave. 

All this destruction ran from north to south between two reefs of blackrock. It edged a broad bow-shaped expanse of sand, snowy, powdery, hummocky, netted with wefts of black seaweed that had dried to arattling stiffness. To the east, this silvery crescent merged finallywith a furry band of vegetation which screened the whole foreground ofthe island. 

The day was perfect and the scene beautiful. They had watched the suncome up over the trees at their back. And it was as if they had seen asunrise for the first time in their life. To them, it was neitherbeautiful nor familiar; it was sinister and strange. A chill, that wasnot of the dawn but of death itself, lay over everything. The morningwind was the breath of the tomb, the smells that came to them from theisland bore the taint of mortality, the very sunshine seemed icy. Theysuffered--the five survivors of the night's tragedy--with a scarifyingsense of disillusion with Nature. It was as though a beautiful, tender, and fondly loved mother had turned murderously on her children, hadwounded them nearly to death, had then tried to woo them to her breastagain. The loveliness of her, the mindless, heartless, soullessloveliness, as of a maniac tamed, mocked at their agonies, mocked withher gentle indifference, mocked with her self-satisfied placidity, mocked with her serenity and her peace. For them she was dead--deadlike those whom we no longer trust. 

The sun was racing up a sky smooth and clear as gray glass. It droppedon the torn green sea a shimmer that was almost dazzling; but ere wassomething incongruous about that--as though Nature had covered hervictim with a spangled scarf. It brought out millions of sparkles inthe white sand; and there seemed something calculating about that--asthough she were bribing them with jewels to forget. 

"Say, let's cut out this business of going, over and over it, " saidRalph Addington with a sudden burst of irritability. "I guess I couldgive up the ship's cat in exchange for a girl or two. " Addington's facewas livid; a muscular contraction kept pulling his lips away from hiswhite teeth; he had the look of a man who grins satanically at regularintervals. 

By a titanic mental effort, the others connected this explosion withBilly Fairfax's last remark. It was the first expression of an emotionso small as ill-humor. It was, moreover, the first excursion out of thebeaten path of their egotisms. It cleared the atmosphere a little ofthat murky cloud of horror which blurred the sunlight. Three of theother four men--Honey Smith, Frank Merrill, Pete Murphy--actuallyturned and looked at Ralph Addington. Perhaps that movement served tobreak the hideous, hypnotic spell of the sea. 

"Right-o!" Honey Smith agreed weakly. It was audible in his voice, theeffort to talk sanely of sane things, and in the slang of every day. "Addington's on. Let's can it! Here we are and here we're likely tostay for a few days. In the meantime we've got to live. How are wegoing to pull it off?"

Everybody considered his brief harangue; for an instant, it looked asthough this consideration was taking them all back into aimlessmeditation. Then, "That's right, " Billy Fairfax took it up heroically. "Say, Merrill, " he added in almost a conversational tone, "what are ourchances? I mean how soon do we get off?"

This was the first question anybody had asked. It added itsinfinitesimal weight to the wave of normality which was settling overthem all. Everybody visibly concentrated, listening for the answer. 

It came after an instant, although Frank Merrill palpably pulledhimself together to attack the problem. "I was talking that matter overwith Miner just yesterday, " he said. "Miner said God, I wonder where heis now--and a dependent blind mother in Nebraska. "

"Cut that out, " Honey Smith ordered crisply. 

"We--we--were trying to figure our chances in case of a wreck, " FrankMerrill continued slowly. "You see, we're out of the beaten path--wayout. Those days of drifting cooked our goose. You can never tell, ofcourse, what will happen in the Pacific where there are so many trampcraft. On the other hand--" he paused and hesitated. It was evident, now that he had something to expound, that Merrill had himself almostunder command, that his hesitation arose from another cause. "Well, we're all men. I guess it's up to me to tell you the truth. The sooneryou all know the worst, the sooner you'll pull yourselves together. Ishouldn't be surprised if we didn't see a ship for severalweeks--perhaps months. "

Another of their mute intervals fell upon them. Dozens of waves flashedand crashed their way up the beach; but now they trailed an iridescentnetwork of foam over the lilac-gray sand. The sun raced high; but nowit poured a flood of light on the green-gray water. The air grew brightand brighter. The earth grew warm and warmer. Blue came into the sky, deepened--and the sea reflected it, Suddenly the world was one hugeglittering bubble, half of which was the brilliant azure sky and halfthe burnished azure sea. None of the five men looked at the sea and skynow. The other four were considering Frank Merrill's words and he wasconsidering the other four. 

"Lord, God!" Ralph Addington exclaimed suddenly. "Think of being in aplace like this six months or a year without a woman round! Why, we'llbe savages at the end of three months. " He snarled his words. It was asif a new aspect of the situation--an aspect more crucially alarmingthan any other--had just struck him. 

"Yes, " said Frank Merrill. And for a moment, so much had he recoveredhimself, he reverted to his academic type. "Aside from the regret andhorror and shame that I feel to have survived when every woman drowned, I confess to that feeling too. Women keep up the standards of life. Itwould have made a great difference with us if there were only one ortwo women here. "

"If there'd been five, you mean, " Ralph Addington amended. A feeble, white-toothed smile gleamed out of his dark beard. He, too, had pulledhimself together; this smile was not muscular contraction. "One or two, and the fat would be in the fire. "

Nobody added anything to this. But now the other three considered RalphAddington's words with the same effort towards concentration that theyhad brought to Frank Merrill's. Somehow his smile--that flashing smilewhich showed so many teeth against a background of dark beard--pointedhis words uncomfortably. 

Of them all, Ralph Addington was perhaps, the least popular. This wasstrange; for he was a thorough sport, a man of a wide experience. Hewas salesman for a business concern that manufactured a whiteshoe-polish, and he made the rounds of the Oriental countries everyyear. He was a careful and intelligent observer both of men and things. He was widely if not deeply read. He was an interesting talker. Hecould, for or instance, meet each of the other four on some point ofmental contact. A superficial knowledge of sociology and a practicalexperience with many races brought him and Frank Merrill into frequentdiscussion. His interest in all athletic sports and his firsthandinformation in regard to them made common ground between him and BillyFairfax. With Honey Smith, he talked business, adventure, and romance;with Pete Murphy, German opera, French literature, American muckraking, and Japanese art. The flaw which made him alien was not of personalitybut of character. 

He presented the anomaly of a man scrupulously honorable in regard tohis own sex, and absolutely codeless in regard to the other. He waswhat modern nomenclature calls a "contemporaneous varietist. " He was, in brief, an offensive type of libertine. Woman, first and foremost, was his game. Every woman attracted him. No woman held him. Any newwoman, however plain, immediately eclipsed her predecessor, howeverbeautiful. The fact that amorous interests took precedence over allothers was quite enough to make him vaguely unpopular with men. But asin addition, he was a physical type which many women find interesting, it is likely that an instinctive sex-jealousy, unformulated butinevitable, biassed their judgment. He was a typical business man; butin appearance he represented the conventional idea of an artist. Tall, muscular, graceful, hair thick and a little wavy, beard pointed andgolden-brown, eyes liquid and long-lashed, women called him"interesting. " There was, moreover, always a slight touch of thepicturesque in his clothes; he was master of the small amatory ruseswhich delight flirtatious women. 

In brief, men were always divided in their own minds in regard to RalphAddington. They knew that, constantly, he broke every canon of thatmysterious flexible, half-developed code which governs their relationswith women. But no law of that code compelled them to punish him forungenerous treatment of somebody's else wife or sister. Had he beendishonorable with them, had he once borrowed without paying, had heonce cheated at cards, they would have ostracized him forever. He haddone none of these things, of course. 

"By jiminy!" exclaimed Honey Smith, "how I hate the unfamiliar air ofeverything. I'd like to put my lamps on something I know. A ranch and around-up would look pretty good to me at this moment. Or a New Englandfarmhouse with the cows coming home. That would set me up quicker thana highball. "

"The University campus would seem like heaven to me, " Frank Merrillconfessed drearily, "and I'd got so the very sight of it nearly droveme insane. "

"The Great White Way for mine, " said Pete Murphy, "at night--all thecorset and whisky signs flashing, the streets jammed withbenzine-buggies, the sidewalks crowded with boobs, and every lobsterpalace filled to the roof with chorus girls. "

"Say, " Billy Fairfax burst out suddenly; and for the first time sincethe shipwreck a voice among them carried a clear business-like note ofcuriosity. "You fellows troubled with your eyes? As sure as shooting, I'm seeing things. Out in the west there--black spots--any of the restof you get them?"

One or two of the group glanced cursorily backwards. A pair ofperfunctory "Noes!" greeted Billy's inquiry. 

"Well, I'm daffy then, " Billy decided. He went on with a suddenabnormal volubility. "Queer thing about it is I've been seeing them thewhole morning. I've just got back to that Point where I realized therewas something wrong. I've always had a remarkably far sight. " He rushedon at the same speed; but now he had the air of one who is trying toreconcile puzzling phenomena with natural laws. "And it seems asif--but there are no birds large enough--wish it would stop, though. Perhaps you get a different angle of vision down in these parts. Didany of you ever hear of that Russian peasant who could see the fourmoons of Jupiter without a glass? The astronomers tell about him. "

Nobody answered his question. But it seemed suddenly to bring them backto the normal. 

"See here, boys, " Frank Merrill said, an unexpected note of authorityin his voice, "we can't sit here all the morning like this. We ought torig up a signal, in case any ship--. Moreover, we've got to gettogether and save as much as we can. We'll be hungry in a little while. We can't lie down on that job too long. "

Honey Smith jumped to his feet. "Well, Lord knows, I want to get busy. I don't want to do any more thinking, thank you. How I ache! Everymuscle in my body is raising particular Hades at this moment. "

The others pulled themselves up, groaned, stretched, eased protestingmuscles. Suddenly Honey Smith pounded Billy Fairfax on the shoulder, "You're it, Billy, " he said and ran down the beach. In another instantthey were all playing tag. This changed after five minutes to baseballwith a lemon for a ball and a chair-leg for a bat. A mood of wildexhilaration caught them. The inevitable psychological reaction had setin. Their morbid horror of Nature vanished in its vitalizing flood likea cobweb in a flame. Never had sea or sky or earth seemed more lovely, more lusciously, voluptuously lovely. The sparkle of the salt windtingled through their bodies like an electric current. The warmth inthe air lapped them like a hot bath. Joy-in-life flared up in them tosuch a height that it kept them running and leaping meaninglessly. Theyshouted wild phrases to each other. They burst into song. At times theyyelled scraps of verse. 

"We'll come across something to eat soon, " said Frank Merrill, breathing hard. "Then we'll be all right. "

"I feel--better--for that run--already, " panted Billy Fairfax. "Haven'tseen a black spot for five minutes. "

Nobody paid any attention to him, and in a few minutes he was paying noattention to himself. Their expedition was offering too many shocks ofhorror and pathos. Fortunately the change in their mood held. It was, indeed, as unnatural as their torpor, and must inevitably bring its ownreaction. But after each of these tragic encounters, they recoveredbuoyancy, recovered it with a resiliency that had something almostlight-headed about it. 

"We won't touch any of them now, " Frank Merrill ordered peremptorily. "We can attend to them later. They'll keep coming back. What we've gotto do is to think of the future. Get everything out of the water thatlooks useful--immediately useful, " he corrected himself. "Don't botherabout anything above high-water mark--that's there to stay. And worklike hell every one of you!"

Work they did for three hours, worked with a kind of frenzied delightin action and pricked on by a ravenous hunger. In and out of thecombers they dashed, playing a desperate game of chance with Death. Helter-skelter, hit-or-miss, in a blind orgy of rescue, at first theypulled out everything they could reach. Repeatedly, Frank Merrillstopped to lecture them on the foolish risks they were taking, on thestupidity of such a waste of energy. "Save what we need!" he iteratedand reiterated, bellowing to make himself heard. "What we can usenow--canned stuff, tools, clothes! This lumber'll come back on the nexttide. "

He seemed to keep a supervising eye on all of them; for his voice, shouting individual orders, boomed constantly over the crash of thewaves. Realizing finally that he was the man of the hour, the othersended by following his instructions blindly. 

Merrill, himself, was no shirk. His strength seemed prodigious. Whenany of the others attempted to land something too big to handle alone, he was always near to help; and yet, unaided, he accomplished twice asmuch as the busiest. 

Frank Merrill, professor of a small university in the Middle West, wasthe scholar of the group, a sociologist traveling in the Orient tostudy conditions. He was not especially popular with his companions, although they admired him and deferred to him. On the other hand, hewas not unpopular; it was more that they stood a little in awe of him. 

On his mental side, he was a typical academic product. Normally hisconversation, both in subject-matter and in verbal form, bore towardspedantry. It was one curious effect of this crisis that he had revertedto the crisp Anglo-Saxon of his farm-nurtured youth. 

On his moral side, he was a typical reformer, a man of impeccableprivate character, solitary, a little austere. He had never married; hehad never sought the company of women, and in fact he knew nothingabout them. Women had had no more bearing on his life than the fourthdimension. 

On his physical side he was a wonder. 

Six feet four in height, two hundred and fifty pounds in weight, helooked the viking. He had carried to the verge of middle age the habitsof an athletic youth. It was said that half his popularity in hisuniversity world was due to the respect he commanded from the studentsbecause of his extraordinary feats in walking and lifting. He wasimpressive, almost handsome. For what of his face his ragged, rustybeard left uncovered was regularly if coldly featured. He was asceticin type. Moreover, the look of the born disciplinarian lay on him. Hisblue eyes carried a glacial gleam. Even through his thick mustache, thelines of his mouth showed iron. 

After a while, Honey Smith came across a water-tight tin of matches. "Great Scott, fellows!" he exclaimed. "I'm hungry enough to drop. Let'sknock off for a while and feed our faces. How about mock turtle, chicken livers, and red-headed duck?"

They built a fire, opened cans of soup and vegetables. 

"The Waldorf has nothing on that, " Pete Murphy said when they stopped, gorged. 

"Say, remember to look for smokes, all of you, " Ralph Addingtonadmonished them suddenly. 

"You betchu!" groaned Honey Smith, and his look became lugubrious. Buthis instinct to turn to the humorous side of things immediatelycrumpled his brown face into its attractive smile. "Say, aren't wegoing to be the immaculate little lads? I can't think of a single badhabit we can acquire in this place. No smokes, no drinks, few if anyeats--and not a chorister in sight. Let's organize the Robinson CrusoePurity League, Parlor Number One. "

"Oh, gee!" Pete Murphy burst out. "It's just struck me. The Wilmington'Blue, ' is lost forever--it must have gone down with everything else. "

Nobody spoke. It was an interesting indication of how their sense ofvalues had already shifted that the loss to the world of one of itsbiggest diamonds seemed the least of their minor disasters. 

"Perhaps that's what hoodooed us, " Pete went on. "You know they say theWilmington 'Blue' brought bad luck to everybody who owned it. Anyway, battle, murder, adultery, rape, rapine, and sudden death have followedit right along the line down through history. Oh, it's been a busy cakeof ice--take it from muh! Hope the mermaids fight shy of it. "

"The Wilmington 'Blue' isn't alone in that, " Ralph Addington said. "Allbig diamonds have raised hell. You ought to hear some of the storiesthey tell in India about the rajahs' treasures. Some of thosebriolettes--you listen long enough and you come to the conclusion thatthe sooner all the big stones are cut up, the better. "

"I bet this one isn't gone, " said Pete. "Anybody take me? That's thecontrariety of the beasts--they won't stay lost. We'll find that stoneyet--where among our loot. The first thing we know, we'll be allknifing each other to get it. "

"Time's up, " called Frank Merrill. "Sorry to drive you, but we've gotto keep at it as long as the light lasts. After to-day, though, we needwork only at high water. Between times, we can explore the island--" Hespoke as if he were wheedling a group of boys with the promise of play. 

"Select a site for our capital city"--Honey Smith helped him outfacetiously--"lay out streets--begin to excavate for the church, town-hall, schoolhouse, and library. "

"The first thing to do now, " Frank Merrill went on, as usual, ignoringall facetiousness, "is to put up a signal. "

Under his direction, they nailed a pair of sheets, one at the southern, the other at the northern reef, to saplings which they stripped ofbranches. Then they went back to the struggle for salvage. 

The fascination of work--and of such novel work--still held them. Theylabored the rest of the morning, lay off for a brief lunch, went at itagain in the afternoon, paused for dinner, and worked far into theevening. Once they stopped long enough to build a huge signal fire onthe each. When they turned in, not one of them but nursed torn andblistered hands. Not one of them but fell asleep the instant he laydown. 

They slept until long after sunrise. 

It was Pete Murphy who waked them. "Say, who was it, yesterday, talkedabout seeing black spots? I'm hanged if I'm not hipped, too. When Iwoke just before sunrise, there were black things off there in thewest. Of course I was almost dead to the world but--"

"Like great birds?" Billy Fairfax asked with interest. 

"Exactly. "

"Bats from your belfry, " commented Ralph Addington. Because of hisconstant globe-trotting, Addington's slang was often a half-decadebehind the times. 

"Too much sunlight, " Frank Merrill explained. "Lucky thing, we don'tany of us have to wear glasses. We'd certainly be up against it in thisdouble glare. Sand and sun both, you see! And you can thank whateverinstinct that's kept you all in training. This shipwreck is the mostperfect case I've ever seen of the survival of the fittest. "

And in fact, they were all, except for Pete Murphy, big men, and all, even he, active, strong-muscled, and in the pink of condition. 

The huge tide had not entirely subsided, but there was a perceptiblediminution in the height of the waves. Up beyond the water-line lay afresh installment of jetsam. But, as before, they labored only to savethe flotsam. They worked all the morning. 

In the afternoon, they dug a huge trench. Frank Merrill presiding, theyburied the dead with appropriate ceremony. 

"Thank God, that's done, " Ralph Addington said with a shudder. "I hatedeath and everything to do with it. "

"Yes, we'll all be more normal now they're gone, " Frank Merrill added. "And the sooner everything that reminds us of them is gone the better. "

"Say, " Honey Smith burst out the next morning. "Funny thing happened tome in the middle the night. I woke out of a sound sleep--don't knowwhy--woke with a start as if somebody'd shaken me--felt something brushme so close--well, it touched me. I was so dead that I had to work likethe merry Hades to open my eyes--seemed as if it was a full minutebefore I could lift my eyelids. When I could make things out--damned ifthere wasn't a bird--a big bird--the biggest bird I ever saw in mylife--three times as big as any eagle--flying over the water. "

Nothing could better have indicated Honey's mental turmoil than thefact that he talked in broken phrases rather than in his usual clear, swift-footed curt sentences. 

Nobody noticed this. Nobody offered comment. Nobody seemed surprised. In fact, all the psychological areas which explode in surprise andwonder were temporarily deadened. 

"As sure as I live, " Honey continued indignantly, "that bird's wingsmust have extended twenty feet above its head. "

"Oh, get out!" said Ralph Addington perfunctorily. 

"As sure as I'm sitting here, " Honey went on earnestly. "I heard awoman's laugh. Any of you others get it?"

The sense of humor, it seemed, was not extinct. Honey's companionsburst into roars of laughter. For the rest of the morning, they jokedHoney about his hallucination. And Honey, who always responded in kindto any badinage, received this in silence. In fact, wherever he could, a little pointedly, he changed the subject. 

Honey Smith was the type of man whom everybody jokes, partly because hereceived it with such good humor, partly because he turned it back withso ready and so charming a wit. Also it gave his fellow creatures agratifying sense of equality to pick humorous flaws in one somanifestly a darling of the gods. 

Honey Smith possessed not a trace of genius, not a suggestion of whatis popularly termed "temperament. " He had no mind to speak of, and notmore than the usual amount of character. In fact, but for one thing, hewas an average person. That one thing was personality--and personalityhe possessed to an extraordinary degree. Indeed, there seemed to besomething mysteriously compelling about this personality of Honey's. The whole world of creatures felt its charm. Dumb beasts fawned on him. Children clung to him. Old people lingered near as though they couldlight dead fires in the blaze of his radiant youth. Men hob-nobbed withhim; his charm brushed off on to the dryest and dullest so that, temporarily, they too bloomed with personality. As for women--Hisappearance among them was the signal for a noiseless social cataclysm. They slipped and slid in his direction as helplessly as if an inclinedplane had opened under their feet. They fluttered in circles about himlike birds around a light. If he had been allowed to follow the pull ofhis inclination, they would have held a subsidiary place in hisexistence. For he was practical, balanced, sane. He had, moreover, thetendency towards temperance of the born athlete. Besides all this, hismain interests were man-interests. But women would not let him alone. He had but to look and the thing was done. Wreaths hung on everybalcony for Honey Smith and, always at his approach, the door of theharem swung wide. He was a little lazy, almost discourteouslyuninterested in his attitude towards, the individual female; for he hadnever had to exert himself. 

It is likely that all this personal popularity would have been theresult of that trick of personality. But many good fairies had beensummoned to Honey's christening; he had good looks besides. He wasreally tall, although his broad shoulders seemed to reduce him tomedium height. Brown-skinned, brown-eyed, brown-haired, his skin was assmooth as satin, his eyes as clear as crystal, his hair as thick asfur. His expression had tremendous sparkle. But his main physical charmwas a smile which crumpled his brown face into an engaging irregularityof contour and lighted it with an expression brilliant with mirth andfriendliness. 

He was a true soldier of fortune. In the ten years which his businesscareer covered be had engaged in a score of business ventures. He hadlost two fortunes. Born in the West, educated in the East, he hadflashed from coast to coast so often that he himself would have foundit hard to say where he belonged. 

He was the admiration and the wonder and the paragon and the criterionof his friend Billy Fairfax, who had trailed his meteoric coursethrough college and who, when the Brian Boru went down, wasaccompanying him on his most recent adventure--a globe-trotting trip inthe interests of a moving-picture company. Socially they made anexcellent team. For Billy contributed money, birth, breeding, andposition to augment Honey's initiative, enterprise, audacity, andcharm. Billy Fairfax offered other contrasts quite as striking. On hisphysical side, he was shapelessly strong and hopelessly ugly, a big, shock-headed blond. On his personal side "mere mutt-man" was the wayone girl put it, "too much of a damned gentleman" Honey Smith said tohim regularly. 

Billy Fairfax was not, however, without charm of a certain shy, evasive, slow-going kind; and he was not without his own distinction. His huge fortune had permitted him to cultivate many expensive sportsand sporting tastes. His studs and kennels and strings of polo ponieswere famous. He was a polo-player well above the average and an aviatornot far below it. 

Pete Murphy, the fifth of the group, was the delight of them all. Thecarriage of a bantam rooster, the courage of a lion, more brain than hecould stagger under; a disposition fiery, mercurial, sanguine, witty;he was made, according to Billy Fairfax's dictum, of "wire and brasstacks, " and he possessed what Honey Smith (who himself had no mean giftin that direction) called "the gift of gab. " He lived by writingmagazine articles. Also he wrote fiction, verse, and drama. Also he wasa painter. Also he was a musician. In short, he was an Irishman. 

Artistically, he had all the perception of the Celt plus the acquiredsapience of the painter's training. If he could have existed in auniverse which consisted entirely of sound and color, a universeinhabited only by disembodied spirits, he would have been its ablestcitizen; but he was utterly disqualified to live in a human world. Hewas absolutely incapable of judging people. His tendency was tounderestimate men and to overestimate women. His life bore all thescars inevitable to such an instinct. Women, in particular, had playedducks and drakes with his career. Weakly chivalrous, mindlesslygallant, he lacked the faculty of learning by experience--especiallywhere the other sex were concerned. "Predestined to be stung!" was, hisfirst wife's laconic comment on her ex-husband. She, for instance, wasundoubtedly the blameworthy one in their marital failure, but she hadmanaged to extract a ruinous alimony from him. Twice married and twicedivorced, he was traveled through the Orient to write a series of muckraking articles and, incidentally if possible, to forget his lastunhappy matrimonial venture. 

Physically, Pete was the black type of Celt. The wild thatch of hisscrubbing-brush hair shone purple in the light. Scrape his face as hewould, the purple shadow of his beard seemed ingrained in his whitewhite skin. Black-browed and black-lashed, he had the luminousblue-gray-green eyes of the colleen. There was a curious untamablequality in his look that was the mixture of two mad strains, thealoofness of the Celt and the aloofness of the genius. 

Three weeks passed. The clear, warm-cool, lucid, sunny weather kept up. The ocean flattened, gradually. Twice every twenty-four hours the tidebrought treasure; but it brought less and less every day. Occasionallycame a stiffened human reminder of their great disaster. But callousedas they were now to these experiences, the men buried it with hastyceremony and forgot. 

By this time an incongruous collection stretched in parallel linesabove the high-water mark. "Something, anything, everything--and thensome, " remarked Honey Smith. Wood wreckage of all descriptions, acresof furniture, broken, split, blistered, discolored, swollen; piles ofcarpets, rugs, towels, bed-linen, stained, faded, shrunken, torn; filesof swollen mattresses, pillows, cushions, life-preservers; heaps oftable-silver and kitchen-ware tarnished and rusty; mounds of china andglass; mountains of tinned goods, barrels boxes, books, suit-cases, leather bags; trunks and trunks and more trunks and still more trunks;for, mainly, the trunks had saved themselves. 

Part of the time, in between tides, they tried to separate the grain ofthis huge collection of lumber from the chaff; part of the time theymade exploring trips into the interior. At night they sat about theirhuge fire and talked. 

The island proved to be about twenty miles in length by seven in width. It was uninhabited and there were no large animals on it. It was FrankMerrill's theory that it was the exposed peak of a huge extinctvolcano. In the center, filling the crater, was a little fresh-waterlake. The island was heavily wooded; but in contour it presented onlydiminutive contrasts of hill and valley. And except as thesemi-tropical foliage offered novelties of leaf and flower, thebeauties of unfamiliar shapes and colors, it did not seem particularlyinteresting. Ralph Addington was the guide of these expeditions. Fromthis tree, he pointed out, the South Sea Islander manufactured thetappa cloth, from that the poeepooee, from yonder the arva. Honey Smithused to say that the only depressing thing about these trips was theutter silence of the gorgeous birds which they saw on every side. Onthe other hand, they extracted what comfort they could from Merrill'sand Addington's assurance that, should the ship's supply give out, theycould live comfortably enough on birds' eggs, fruit, and fish. 

Sorting what Honey Smith called the "ship-duffle" was one prolongedadventure. At first they made little progress; for all five of themgathered over each important find, chattering like girls. Each manfollowed the bent of his individual instinct for acquisitiveness. FrankMerrill picked out books, paper, writing materials of every sort. RalphAddington ran to clothes. The habit of the man with whom it is abusiness policy to appear well-dressed maintained itself; even in theirEveless Eden, he presented a certain tailored smartness. Billy Fairfaxselected kitchen utensils and tools. Later, he came across a box filledwith tennis rackets, nets, and balls. The rackets' strings had snappedand the balls were dead. He began immediately to restring the rackets, to make new balls from twine, to lay out a court. Like true soldiers offortune, Honey Smith and Pete Murphy made no special collection; theylooted for mere loot's sake. 

One day, in the midst of one of their raids, Honey Smith yelled asurprised and triumphant, "By jiminy!" The others showed no signs, ofinterest. Honey was an alarmist; the treasure of the moment might proveto be a Japanese print or a corkscrew. But as nobody stirred or spoke, he called, "The Wilmington 'Blue'!"

These words carried their inevitable magic. His companions droppedeverything; they swarmed about him. 

Honey held on his palm what, in the brilliant sunlight looked like aglobe of blue fire, a fire that emitted rainbows instead of sparks. 

He passed it from hand to hand. It seemed a miracle that the fingerswhich touched it did not burst into flame. For a moment the five menmight have been five children. 

"Well, " said Pete Murphy, "according to all fiction precedent, the restof us ought to get together immediately, if not a little sooner, andmurder you, Honey. "

"Go as far as you like, " said Honey, dropping the stone into the pocketof his flannel shirt. "Only if anybody really gets peeved about thisjunk of carbon, I'll give it to him. "

For a while life flowed wonderful. The men labored with a joy-in-workat which they themselves marveled. Their out-of-doors existence showedits effects in a condition of glowing health. Honey Smith changed firstto a brilliant red, then to a uniform coffee brown, and last to ashining bronze which was the mixture of both these colors. Pete Murphygrew one crop of freckles, then another and still another until Honeyoffered to "excavate" his features. Ralph Addington developed a rich, subcutaneous, golden-umber glow which made him seem, in connection withan occasional unconventionality of costume, more than ever like theschoolgirl's idea of an artist. Billy Fairfax's blond hair bleached toflaxen. His complexion deepened in tone to a permanent pink. This, incontrast with the deep clear blue of his eyes, gave him a kind ofout-of-doors comeliness. But Frank Merrill was the surprise of themall. He not only grew handsomer, he grew younger; a magnificent, towering, copper-colored monolith of a man, whose gray eyes were asclear as mountain springs, whose white teeth turned his smile to aflash of light. Constantly they patrolled the beach, pairs of them, studying the ocean for sight of a distant sail, selecting at intervalsa new spot on which at night to start fires, or by day to erectsignals. They bubbled with spirits. They laughed and talked withoutcessation. The condition which Ralph Addington had deplored, theabsence of women, made first for social relaxation, for psychologicalrest. 

"Lord, I never noticed before--until I got this chance to get off andthink of it--what a damned bother women are, " Honey Smith said one day. "Of all the sexes that roam the earth, as George Ade says, I like themleast. What a mess they make of your time and your work, alwaysrequiring so much attention, always having to be waited on, alwaysdropping things, always so much foolish fuss and ceremony, alwaysasking such footless questions and never hearing you when you answerthem. Never really knowing anything or saying anything. They're adifferent kind of critter, that's all there is to it; they're amateursat life. They're a failure as a sex and an outworn convention anyway. Myself, I'm for sending them to the scrap-heap. Votes for men!"

And with this, according to the divagations of their temperaments andcharacters, the others strenuously concurred. 

Their days, crowded to the brim with work, passed so swiftly that theyscarcely noticed their flight. Their nights, filled with a sleep thatwas twin brother to Death, seemed not to exist at all. 

Their evenings were lively with the most brilliant kind of man-talk. Toit, Frank Merrill brought his encyclopedic book knowledge, hisinsatiable curiosity about life; Ralph Addington all the garneredrichness of his acute observation; Billy Fairfax his acquaintance withthe elect of the society or of the art world, his quiet, deferentialattitude of listener. But the events of these conversational orgieswere Honey Smith's adventures and Pete Murphy's romances. Honey'snarrative was crisp, clear, quick, straight from the shoulder, colloquial, slangy. He dealt often in the first person and the presenttense. He told a plain tale from its simple beginning to its simpleend. But Pete--. His language had all Honey's simplicity linedterseness and, in addition, he had the literary touch, both thedramatist's instinct and the fictionist's insight. His stories alwaysran up to a psychological climax; but this was always disguised by thebest narratory tricks. He was one of those men of whom people alwayssay, "if he could only write as he talks. " In point of fact, he wrotemuch better than he talked--but he talked better than any one else. Theunanalytic never allowed in him for the spell of the spoken word, norfor the fiery quality of his spirit. 

As time went on, their talks grew more and ore confidential. Women'sfaces began to gleam here and there in narrative. They began to indulgein long discussions of the despised sex; at times they ran into fiercecontroversy. Occasionally Honey Smith re-told a story which, from theintroduction of a shadowy girl-figure, became mysteriously moreinteresting and compelling. Once or twice they nearly went over theborder-line of legitimate confidence, so intimate had their talkbecome--muffled as it was by the velvety, star-sown dark andinterrupted only by the unheeded thunders of the surf. They were alwayspulling themselves up to debate openly whether they should go farther, always, on consideration, turning narrative into a channel much lessconfidential and much less, interesting, or as openly plugging straightahead, carefully disguising names and places. 

After a week or two, the first fine careless rapture of their escapefrom death disappeared. The lure of loot evaporated. They did not stoptheir work on "the ship-duffle, " but it became aimless and undirected. Their trips into the island seemed a little purposeless. Frank Merrillhad to scourge them to patrol the beach, to keep their signal sheetsflying, their signal fires burning. The effect upon their mentalcondition of this loss of animus was immediate. They became perceptiblymore serious. Their first camp--it consisted only of five haphazardpiles of bedding--satisfied superficially the shiftless habits of theirwomanless group; subconsciously, however, they all fell under thedepression of its discomfort and disorder. They bathed in the oceanregularly but they did not shave. Their clothes grew ragged and torn, and although there were scores of trunks packed with wearing apparel, they did not bother to change them. Subconsciously they all respondedto these irregularities by a sudden change in spirit. 

In the place of the gay talk-fests that filled their evenings, theybegan to hold long pessimistic discussions about their future on theisland in case rescue were indefinitely delayed. Taciturn periods fellupon them. Frank Merrill showed only a slight seriousness. BillyFairfax, however, wore a look permanently sobered. Pete Murphy becamesubject at regular intervals to wild rhapsodical seizures when heraved, almost in impromptu verse, about the beauty of sea and sky. These were followed by periods of an intense, bitter, black, Celticmelancholy. Ralph Addington degenerated into what Honey described as"the human sourball. " He spoke as seldom as possible and then only tosnarl. He showed a tendency to disobey the few orders that FrankMerrill, who still held his position of leader, laid upon them. Once ortwice he grazed a quarrel with Merrill. Honey Smith developed anabnormality equal to Ralph Addington's, but in the opposite direction. His spirits never flagged; he brimmed with joy-in-life, vitality, andoptimism. It was as if he had some secret mental solace. 

"Damn you and your sunny-side-up dope!" Ralph Addington growled at himagain and again. "Shut up, will you!"

One day Frank Merrill proposed a hike across the island. Billy Fairfaxwho, at the head, had set a brisk pace for the file, suddenly droppedback to the rear and accosted Honey Smith who had lagged behind. Honeywas skipping stones over the lake from a pocketful of flat pebbles. 

"Say, Honey, " Billy began. The other four men were far ahead, but Billykept his voice low. Do you remember that dream you had about the bigbird--the time we joshed you so?

"Sure do I, " Honey said cheerfully. "Only remember one thing, Billy. That wasn't a dream any more than this is. "

"All right, " Billy exclaimed. "You don't have to show me. A funny thinghappened to me last night. I'm not telling the others. They won'tbelieve it and--well, my nerves are all on end. I know I'd get mad ifthey began to jolly. I was sleeping like the dickens--asure-for-certain Rip Van Winkle--when all of a sudden--Did you everhave a pet cat, Honey?"

"Nope. "

"Well, I've had lots of them. I like cats. I had one once that used towake me up at two minutes past seven every morning as regularly as twominutes past seven came--not an instant before, not an instant after. He turned the trick by jumping up on the bed and looking steadily intomy face. Never touched me, you understand. Well, I waked this morningjust after sunrise with a feeling that Kilo was there staring at me. Somebody was--" Billy paused. He swallowed rapidly and wet his lips. "But it wasn't Kilo. " Billy paused again. 

"I'm listening, bo, " said Honey, shying another stone. 

"It was a girl looking at me, " Billy said, simply as though it weresomething to be expected. He paused. Then, "Get that? A girl! She wasbending over me--pretty close--I could almost touch her. I can see hernow as plainly as I see you. She was blonde. One of those pale-goldblondes with hair like honey and features cut with a chisel. You knowthe type. Some people think it's cold. It's a kind of beauty that'salways appealed to me, though. " He stopped. 

"Well, " Honey prodded him with a kind of non-committal calm, "whathappened?"

"Nothing. If you can believe me--nothing. I stared--oh, I guess Istared for a quarter of a minute straight up into the most beautifulpair of eyes that I ever saw in my life. I stared straight up into themand I stared straight down into them. They were as deep as a well andas gray as a cloud and as cold as ice. And they had lashes--" For amoment the quiet directness of Billy's narrative was disturbed by awhiff of inner tumult. "Whew! what eyelashes! Honey, did you ever comeacross a lonely mountain lake with high reeds growing around the edge?You know how pure and unspoiled and virginal it seems. That was hereyes. They sort of hypnotized me. My eyes closed and--when I awoke itwas broad daylight. What do you think?"

"Well, " said Honey judicially, "I know just how you feel. I could havekilled the boys for joshing me the way they did. I was sure. I wascertain I heard a woman laugh that night. And, by God, I did hear it. Whenever I contradict myself, something rises up and tells me I lie. But--. " His radiant brown smile crumpled his brown face. "Of course, Ididn't hear it. I couldn't have heard it. And so I guess you didn't seethe peroxide you speak of. And yet if you Punch me in the jaw, I'llknow exactly how you feel. " His face uncrumpled, smoothed itself out tohis rare look of seriousness. "The point of it is that we're all alittle touched in the bean. I figure that you and I are alike in somethings. That's why we've always hung together. And all this queer stufftakes us two the same way. Remember that psychology dope old Rand usedto pump into us at college? Well, our psychologies have got all twistedup by a recent event in nautical circles and we're seeing things thataren't there and not seeing things that are there. "

"Honey, " said Billy, "that's all right. But I want you to understand meand I don't want you, to make any mistake. I saw a girl. "

"And don't forget this, " answered Honey. "I heard one. "

Billy made no allusion to any of this with the other three men. But forthe rest of the day, he had a return of his gentle good humor. Honey'sspirits fairly sizzled. 

That night Frank Merrill suddenly started out of sleep with a yelled, "What was that?"

"What was what?" everybody demanded, waking immediately to the panic inhis voice. 

"That cry, " he explained breathlessly, "didn't you hear it?" Frank'seyes were brilliant with excitement; he was pale. 

Nobody had heard it. And Ralph Addington and Pete Murphy, cursinglustily, turned over and promptly fell asleep again. But Billy Fairfaxgrew rapidly more and more awake. "What sort of a cry?" he asked. HoneySmith said nothing, but he stirred the fire into a blaze in preparationfor a talk. 

"The strangest cry I ever heard, long-drawn-out, wild--eerie's the wordfor it, I guess, " Frank Merrill said. As he spoke, he peered off intothe darkness. "If it were possible, I should say it was a woman'svoice. "

The three men walked away from the camp, looked off into everydirection of the starlit night. Nowhere was there sign or sound of life. 

"It must have been gulls, " said Honey Smith. 

"It didn't sound like gulls, " answered Frank Merrill. For an instant hefell into meditation so deep that he virtually forgot the presence ofthe other two. "I don't know what it was, " he said finally in anexasperated tone. "I'm going to sleep. "

They walked back to camp. Frank Merrill rolled himself up in a blanket, lay down. Soon there came from his direction only the sound of regular, deep breathing. 

"Well, Honey, " Billy Fairfax asked, a note of triumph in his voice, "how about it?"

"Well, Billy, " Honey Smith said in a baffled tone, "when you get theanswer, give it to me. "

Nobody mentioned the night's experience the next day. But a dozen timesFrank Merrill stopped his work to gaze out to sea, an expression ofperplexity on his face. 

The next night, however, they were all waked again, waked twice. It wasRalph Addington who spoke first; a kind of hoarse grunt and a "What thedevil was that?"

"What?" the others called. 

"Damned if I know, " Ralph answered. "If you wouldn't think I was off myconch, I'd say it was a gang of women laughing. "

Pete Murphy, who always woke in high spirits, began to joke RalphAddington. The other three were silent. In fifteen minutes they wereall asleep; sixty, they were all awake again. 

It was Pete Murphy who sounded the alarm this time. "Say, somethingspoke to me, " he said. "Or else I'm a nut. Or else I have had the mostvivid dream I've ever had. " Evidently he did not believe that it was adream. He sat up and listened; the others listened, too. There was nosound in the soft, still night, however. They talked for a littlewhile, a strangely subdued quintette. It was as though they were alltrying to comment on these experiences without saying anything aboutthem. 

They slept through the next night undisturbed until just beforesunrise. Then Honey Smith woke them. It was still dark, but a finedawn-glow had begun faintly to silver the east. "Say, you fellows, " heexclaimed. "Wake up!" His voice vibrated with excitement, although heseemed to try to keep it low. "There are strange critters round here. No mistake this time. Woke with a start, feeling that something hadbrushed over me--saw a great bird--a gigantic thing--flying off heardone woman's laugh--then another--. "

It was significant that nobody joked Honey this time. "Say, thisisland'll be a nut-house if this keeps up, " Pete Murphy said irritably. "Let's go to sleep again. "

"No, you don't!" said Honey. "Not one of you is going to sleep. You'reall going to sit up with me until the blasted sun comes up. "

People always hastened to accommodate Honey. In spite of the hour, theybegan to rake the fire, to prepare breakfast. The others becamepreoccupied gradually, but Honey still sat with his face towards thewater, watching. 

It grew brighter. 

"It's time we started to build a camp, boys, " Frank Merrill said, withdrawing momentarily from deep reflection. "We'll go crazy doingnothing all the time. We'll--. "

"Great God, " Honey interrupted. "Look!"

Far out to sea and high in the air, birds were flying. There were fiveof them and they were enormous. They flew with amazing strength, swiftness, and grace; but for the most part they about a fixed arealike bees at a honey-pot. It was a limited area, but within it theydipped, dropped, curved, wove in and out. 

"Well, I'll be--. "

"They're those black spots we saw the first day, Pete, " Billy Fairfaxsaid breathlessly. "We thought it was the sun. "

"That's what I heard in the night, " Frank Merrill gasped to RalphAddington. 

"But what are they?" asked Honey Smith in a voice that had a falsettonote of wonder. "They laugh like a woman--take it from me. "

"Eagles--buzzards--vultures--condors--rocs--phoenixes, " Pete Murphyrecited his list in an or of imaginative conjecture. 

"They're some lost species--something left over from a prehistoricera, " Frank Merrill explained, shaking with excitement. "No vulture oreagle or condor could be as big as that at this distance. At least Ithink so. " He paused here, as one studying the problem in thescientific spirit. "Often in the Rockies I've confused a nearbychicken-hawk, at first, with a far eagle. But the human eye has its ownsystem of triangulation. Those are not little birds nearby, but bigbirds far off. See how heavily they soar. Do you realize what'shappened? We've made a discovery that will shake the whole scientificworld. There, there, they're going!"

"My God, look at them beat it!" said Honey; and there was awe in hisvoice. 

"Why, they're monster size, " Frank Merrill went on, and his voice hadgrown almost hysterical. "They could carry one of us off. We're notsafe. We must take measures at once to protect ourselves. Why, atnight--We must make traps. If we can capture one, or, better, a pair, we're famous. We're a part of history now. "

They watched the strange birds disappear over the water. For more thanan hour, the men sat still, waiting for them to return. They did notcome back, however. The men hung about camp all day long, talking ofnothing else. Night came at last, but sleep was not in them. The darkseemed to give a fresh impulse to conversation. Conjecture battled withtheory and fact jousted with fancy. But one conclusion was as futile asanother. 

Frank Merrill tried to make them devise some system of defense orconcealment, but the others laughed at him. Talk as he would, he couldnot seem to convince them of their danger. Indeed, their state of mindwas entirely different from his. Mentally he seemed to boil withinterest and curiosity, but it was the sane, calm, open-mindedexcitement of the scientist. The others were alert and preoccupied inturn, but there was an element of reserve in their attitude. Their eyeskept going off into space, fixing there until their look became onebrooding question. They avoided conversation. They avoided each other'sgaze. 

Gradually they drew off from the fire, settled themselves to rest, fellinto the splendid sleep that followed their long out-of-doors days. 

In the middle of the night, Billy Fairfax came out of a dream to theknowledge that somebody was shaking him gently, firmly, furtively. "Don't move!" Honey Smith's voice whispered; "keep quiet till I wakethe others. "

It was a still and moon-lighted world. Billy Fairfax lay quiet, hiswide-open eyes fixed on the luminous sky. The sense of drowse was beingbrushed out of his brain as though by a mighty whirlwind, and in itsplace came a vague sensation of confusion, of excitement, of amiraculous abnormality. He heard Honey Smith crawl slowly from man toman, heard him whisper his adjuration once, twice, three times. "Now, "Honey called finally. 

The men looked seawards. Then, simultaneously they leaped to their feet. 

The semi-tropical moon was at its full. Huge, white, embossed, cut out, it did not shine--it glared from the sky. It made a melted moonstone ofthe atmosphere. It faded the few clouds to a sapphire-gray, justtouched here and there with the chalky dot of a star. It slashed asilver trail across a sea jet-black except where the waves rimmed itwith snow. Up in the white enchantment, but not far above them, thestrange air-creatures were flying. They were not birds; they werewinged women!

Darting, diving, glancing, curving, wheeling, they interwove in whatseemed the premeditated figures of an aerial dance. If they wereconscious of the group of men on the beach, they did not show it; theyseemed entirely absorbed in their flying. Their wings, like enormousscimitars, caught the moonlight, flashed it back. For an interval, theyplayed close in a group inextricably intertwined, a revolving ball ofvivid color. Then, as if seized by a common impulse, they stretched, hand in hand, in a line across the sky-drifted. The moonlight floodedthem full, caught glitter and gleam from wing-sockets, shot shimmer andsheen from wing-tips, sent cataracts of iridescent color pulsingbetween. Snow-silver one, brilliant green and gold another, dazzlingblue the next, luminous orange a fourth, flaming flamingo scarlet thelast, their colors seemed half liquid, half light. One moment the wholefigure would flare into a splendid blaze, as if an inner mechanism hadsuddenly turned on all the electricity; the next, the blaze died downto the fairy glisten given by the moonlight. 

As if by one impulse, they began finally to fly upward. Higher andhigher they rose, still hand in hand. Detail of color and movementvanished. The connotation of the sexed creature, of the human thing, evaporated. One instant, relaxed, they seemed tiny galleons, all sailsset, that floated lazily, the sport of an aerial sea; another, suppleand sinuous, they seemed monstrous fish whose fins triumphantly clovethe air, monarchs of that aerial sea. 

A little of this and then came another impulse. The great wings furledclose like blades leaping back to scabbard; the flying-girls droppedsheer in a dizzying fall. Half-way to the ground, they stoppedsimultaneously as if caught by some invisible air plateau. The greatfeathery fans opened--and this time the men got the whipping whirr ofthem--spread high, palpitated with color. From this lower level, thegirls began to fall again, but gently, like dropping clouds. 

Nearer they came to the petrified group on the beach, nearer andnearer. Undoubtedly they had known all the time that an audience wasthere; undoubtedly they had planned this; they looked down and smiled. 

And now the men had every detail of them--the brown seaweeds and greensea-grasses that swathed them, their bodies just short of heroic size, deep-bosomed, broad-waisted, long-limbed; their arms round like awoman's and strong like a man's; their hair that fell, a braid overeach ear, twined with brilliant flowers and green vines; their facessuper-humanly beautiful, though elvish; the gaminerie in their laughingeyes, which sparkled through half-closed, thick-lashed lids, thegaminerie in their smiling mouths, which showed twin rows of pearlgleaming in tricksy mirth; their big, strong-looking, long-fingeredhands; their slimly smooth, exquisitely shaped, too-tiny, transparentfeet; their strong wrists; their stem-like, breakable ankles. Closerand closer and closer they came. And now the men could almost touchthem. They paused an instant and fluttered--fluttered like a swarm ofbutterflies undecided where to fly. As though choosing to rest, theyhovered-hovered with a gentle, slow, seductive undulation of wings, ofhands, of feet. 

Then another impulse took them. 

They broke handclasps and up they went, like arrows straightup--up--up--up. Then they turned out to sea, streaming through the airin line still, but one behind the other. And for the first time, soundcame from them; they threw off peals of girl-laughter that fell likehandfuls of diamonds. Their mirth ended in a long, eerie cry. Thenstraight out to the eastern horizon they went and away and off. 

They were dwindling rapidly. 

They were spots. 

They were specks. 

They were nothing. 

II

Silence, profound, portentous, protracted, followed. 

Finally, Honey Smith absently stooped and picked up a pebble. He threwit over the silver ring of the flat, foam-edged, low-tide waves. Itcurved downwards, hissed across a surface of water smooth as jade, skipped four times, and dropped. 

The men strained their eyes to follow the progress of this tangiblething. 

"Where do you suppose they've gone?" Honey said as unexcitedly as onemight inquire directions from a stranger. 

"When do you suppose they'll come back?" Billy Fairfax added ascasually as one might ask the time. 

"Did you notice the red-headed one?" asked Pete Murphy. "My first girlhad red hair. I always jump when I see a carrot-top. " He made thisintimate revelation simply, as if the time for a conventional reticencehad passed. 

"They were lookers all right, " Ralph Addington went on. "I'd pick thegolden blonde, the second from the right. " He, too, spoke in amatter-of-fact tone, as though he were selecting a favorite from thefront row in the chorus. 

"It must have happened if we saw it, " Frank Merrill said. There was inhis voice a note of petulance, almost childish. "But we ought not tohave seen it. It has no right to be. It upsets things so. "

"What are we all standing up like gawks for?" Pete Murphy demanded witha sudden irritability. 

"Sit down!"

Everybody dropped. They all sat as they fell. They sat motionless. Theysat silent. 

"The name of this place is 'Angel Island, '" announced Billy Fairfaxafter a long time. His tone was that of a man whose thoughts, swirlingin phantasmagoria, seek anchorage in fact. 

They did not sleep that night. 

When Frank Merrill arose the next morning, Ralph Addington was justreturning from a stroll down the beach. Ralph looked at the same timeexhausted and recuperated. He was white, tense, wild-eyed, but recentlyaroused interior fires glowed through his skin, made up for his lostcolor and energy. Frank also had a different look. His eyes hadkindled, his face had become noticeably more alive. But it was the fireof the intellect that had produced this frigid glow. 

"Seen anything?" Frank Merrill inquired. 

"Not a thing. "

"You don't think they're frightened enough not to come back?"

The gleam in Ralph Addington's eye changed to flame. "I don't thinkthey're frightened at all. They'll come back all right. There's onlyone thing that you can depend on in women; and that is that you can'tlose them. "

"I can scarcely wait to see them again, " Frank exclaimed eagerly. "Addington, I can write a monograph on those flying-maidens that willmake the whole world gasp. This is the greatest discovery of moderntimes. Man alive, don't you itch to get to paper and pencil?"

"Not so I've noticed it, " Ralph replied with contemptuous emphasis. "Ishall lie awake nights, just the same though. "

"Say, fellers, we didn't dream that, did we?" Billy Fairfax calledsuddenly, rolling out of the sleep that had followed their all-nighttalk. 

"Well, I reckon if it wasn't for the other four, no one of us wouldtrust his own senses, " Frank Merrill said dryly. 

"If you'd listened to me in the beginning, " Honey Smith remarked in adrowsy voice, not bothering to open his, eyes, "I wouldn't be theI-told-you-so kid now. "

"Well, if you'd listened to me and Pete!" said Billy Fairfax; "didn'twe think, way back there that first day, that our lamps were on theblink because we saw black spots? Great Scott, what dreams I've had, "he went on, "a mixture of 'Arabian Nights, ' 'Gulliver's Travels, ''Peter Wilkins, ' 'Peter Pan, ' 'Goosie, ' Jules, Verne, H. G. Wells, andevery dime novel I've ever read. Do you suppose they'll come back?"

"I've just talked that over with Ralph, " Frank Merrill answered him. "If we've frightened them away forever, it will be a terrible loss toscience. "

Ralph Addington emitted one of his cackling, ironic laughs. "I guessI'm not worrying as much about science as I might. But as to theircoming back--why, it stands to reason that they'll have just as muchcuriosity about us as we have about them. Curiosity's a woman's strongpoint, you know. Oh, they'll come back all right! The only question is, How soon?"

"It made me dream of music--of Siegfried. " It was Pete Murphy who spokeand he seemed to plump from sleep straight into the conversation. "Whata theme for grand opera. Women with wings! Flying-girls! Will you tellme what the Hippodrome! has on Angel Island?"

"Nothing, " said Honey Smith, "except this--you can get acquainted witha Hippodrome girl--how long is it going to take us to get acquaintedwith these angels?"

"Not any longer than usual, " said Ralph Addington with an expressivewink. "Leave that to me. I'm going now to see what I can see. " Hewalked rapidly down the beach, scaled the southern reef, and stoodthere studying the horizon. 

The others remained sitting on the sand. For a while they watchedRalph. Then they talked the whole thing over with as much interest asif they had not yet discussed it. Ralph rejoined them and they wentthrough it again. It was as though by some miracle ofmind-transference, they had all dreamed the same dream; as though, bysome miracle of sight-transference they had all seen the same vision;as though, by some miracle of space-transference, they had all steppedinto the fourth dimension. Their comment was ever of the wonder oftheir strange adventure, the beauty, the thrill, the romance of it. Ithad brought out in them every instinct of chivalry and kindness, it haddeveloped in them every tendency towards high-mindedness and idealism. Angel Island would be an Atlantis, an Eden, an Arden, an Arcadia, aUtopia, a Milleamours, a Paradise, the Garden of Hesperides. Into itthe Golden Age would come again. They drew glowing pictures of thewonderful friendships that would grow up on Angel Island between themand their beautiful visitors. These poetic considerations gave wayfinally to a discussion of ways and means. They agreed that they mustget to work at once on some sort of shelter for their guests, in casethe weather should turn bad. They even discussed at length the bestmethods of teaching the English language. They talked the wholemorning, going over the same things again and again, questioning eachother eagerly without listening for an answer, interrupting ruthlessly, and then adding nothing. 

The day passed without event. At the slightest sound they all jumped. Their sleeplessness was beginning to tell on them and their nerves werestill obsessed by the unnaturalness of their experience. It was a longtime before they quieted down, but the night passed withoutinterruption. So did the next day. Another day went by and another, andduring this time they did little but sit about and talk. 

"See here, boys, " Ralph Addington said one morning. "I say we gettogether and build some cabins. There's no calculating how long thisgrand weather'll keep up. The first thing we know we'll be up against arainy season. Isn't that right, Professor?"

On most practical matters Ralph treated Frank Merrill's opinion with acontempt that was offensively obvious to the others. In questions oftheory or of abstruse information, he was foolishly deferential. Atthose times, he always gave Frank his title of Professor. 

"I hardly think so, " Frank Merrill answered. "I think we'll have anequable, semi-tropical climate all the year round--about like Honolulu. "

"Well, anyway, " Ralph Addington went on, "it's barbarous living likethis. And we want to be prepared for anything. " His gaze left FrankMerrill's face and traveled with a growing significance to each of theother three. "Anything, " he repeated with emphasis. "We've got enoughtruck here to make a young Buckingham Palace. And we'll go mad sittinground waiting for those air-queens to pay us a visit. How about it?"

"It's an excellent idea, " Frank Merrill said heartily. "I have been onthe point of proposing it many times myself. "

However, they seemed unable to pull themselves together; they didnothing that day. But the next morning, urged back to work by theharrying monotony of waiting, they began to clear a space among thetrees close to the beach. Two of them had a little practical buildingknowledge: Ralph Addington who had roughed it in many strangecountries; Billy Fairfax who, in the San Francisco earthquake, had on awager built himself a house. They worked with all their initial energy. They worked with the impetus that comes from capable supervision. Andthey worked as if under the impulse of some unformulated motive. Asusual, Honey Smith bubbled with spirits. Billy Fairfax and Pete Murphyhardly spoke, so close was their concentration. Ralph Addington workedlonger and harder than anybody, and even Honey was not more gay; hewhistled and sang constantly. Frank Merrill showed no real interest inthese proceedings. He did his fair share of the work, but obviouslywithout a driving motive. He had reverted utterly to type. He spent hisleisure writing a monograph. When inspiration ran low, he occupiedhimself doctoring books. Eternally, he hunted for the flat stonesbetween which he pressed their swollen bulks back to shape. Eternallyhe puttered about, mending and patching them. He used to sit for hoursat a desk which he had rescued from the ship's furniture. The othersnever became accustomed to the comic incongruity of thispicture--especially when, later, he virtually boxed himself in with atrio of book-cases. 

"Wouldn't you think he was sitting in an office?" Ralph Addington said. 

"Curious about Merrill, " Honey Smith answered, indulging in one of hissudden, off-hand characterizations, bull's-eye shots every one of them. "He's a good man, ruined by culturine. He's the bucko-mate typetranslated into the language of the academic world. Three centuries agohe'd have been a Drake or a Frobisher. And to-day, even, if he'dfollowed the lead of his real ability, he'd have made a greatfinancier, a captain of industry or a party boss. But, you see, he wasbrought up to think that book-education was the whole cheese. The onlyambition he knows is to make good in the university world. How I hatedthat college atmosphere and its insistence on culture! That was whatriled me most about it. As a general thing, I detest a professor. Can'thelp liking old Frank, though. "

The four men virtually took no time off from work; or at least thechange of work that stood for leisure was all in the line ofhome-making. Eternally, they joked each other about these womanishoccupations; but they all kept steadily to it. Ralph Addington andHoney Smith put the furniture into shape, repairing and polishing it. Billy Fairfax sorted out the glass, china, tools, household utensils ofevery kind. 

Pete Murphy went through the trunks with his art side uppermost. Hecollected all kinds of Oriental bric-a-brac, pictures and draperies. Heactually mended and pressed things; he had all the artist's capabilityin these various feminine lines. When the others joked him about hisexotic and impracticable tastes, he said that, before he left, heintended to establish a museum of fine arts, on Angel Island. 

Hard as the men worked, they had always the appearance of those whoawait the expected. But the expected did not occur; and gradually thesharp edge of anticipation wore dull. Emotionally they calmed. Theirnerves settled to a normal condition. The sudden whirr of a bird'sflight attracted only a casual glance. In Ralph Addington alone, expectation maintained itself at the boiling point. He trained himselfto work with one eye searching the horizon. One afternoon, when theyhad scattered for a siesta, his hoarse cry brought them running to thebeach from all directions. 

So suddenly had the girls appeared that they might have materializedfrom the air. This time they had not come from the sea. When Ralphdiscovered them, they were hovering back of them above the trees thatbanded the beach. The sun was setting, blood-red; the whole western skyhad broken away. The girls seemed to be floating in a sea ofcrimson-amber ether. Its light brought lustre to every feather; itturned the edges of their wings to flame; it changed their smoothlypiled hair to helmets of burnished metal. 

The men tore from the beach to the trees at full speed. For a momentthe violence of this action threw the girls into a panic. Theyfluttered, broke lines, flew high, circled. And all the time, theyuttered shrill cries of distress. 

"They're frightened, " Billy Fairfax said. "Keep quiet, boys. "

The men stopped running, stood stock-still. 

Gradually the girls calmed, sank, took up the interweaving figures oftheir air-dance. If at their first appearance they seemed creatures ofthe sea, this time they were as distinctively of the forest. Theylooked like spirits of the trees over which they hovered. Indeed, butfor their wings they might have been dryads. Wreaths of green encircledtheir heads and waists. Long leafy streamers trailed from theirshoulders. Often in the course of their aerial play, they plunged downinto the feathery tree-tops. 

Once, the blonde with the blue wings sailed out of the group andbalanced herself for a toppling second on a long, outstretching bough. 

"Good Lord, what a picture!" Pete Murphy said. 

As if she understood, she repeated her performance. She cast a glanceover her shoulder at them--unmistakably noting the effect. 

"Hates herself, doesn't she?" commented Honey Smith. "They're talking!"he added after an interval of silence. "Some one of them is givingdirections--I can tell by the tone of her voice. Can't make out whichone it is though. Thank God, they can talk!"

"It's the quiet one--the blonde--the one with the white wings, " BillyFairfax explained. "She's captain. Some bean on her, too; shestraightened them out a moment ago when they got so frightened. "

"I now officially file my claim, " said Ralph Addington, "to that peachyone--the golden blonde--the one with the blue wings, the one who triedto stand on the bough. That girl's a corker. I can tell her kind ofpirate craft as far as I see it. "

"Me for the thin one!" said Pete Murphy. "She's a pippin, if youplease. Quick as a cat! Graceful as they make them. And look at thatmop of red hair! Isn't that a holocaust? I bet she's a shrew. "

"You win, all right, " agreed Ralph Addington. "I'd like nothing betterthan the job of taming her, too. "

"See here, Ralph, " bantered Pete, "I've copped Brick-top for myself. You keep off the grass. See!"

"All right, " Ralph answered. "Katherine for yours, Petruchio. Thegolden blonde for mine!" He smiled for the first time in days. In fact, at sight of the flying-girls he had begun to beam with fatuous goodnature. 

"Two blondes, two brunettes, and a red-top" said Honey Smith, summingthem up practically. "One of those brunettes, the brown one, must be aKanaka. The other's prettier--she looks like a Spanish woman. There'ssomething rather taking about the plain one, though. Pretty snappy--ifanybody should fly up in a biplane and ask you!"

"It's curious, " Frank Merrill said with his most academic manner, "ithas not yet occurred to me to consider those young women from the pointof view of their physical pulchritude. I'm interested only in theirability to fly. The one with the silver-white wings, the one Billycalls the 'quiet one, ' flies better than any of the others, The darkone on the end, the one who looks like a Spaniard, flies least well. Itis rather disturbing, but I can think of them only as birds. I have tokeep recalling to myself that they're women. I can't realize it. "

"Well, don't worry, " Ralph Addington said with the contemptuous accentwith which latterly he answered all Frank Merrill's remarks. "You will. "

The others laughed, but Frank turned on them a look of severe reproof. 

"Oh, hell!" Honey Smith exclaimed in a regretful tone; "they're beatingit again. I say, girls, " he called at the top of his lungs, "don't go!Stay a little longer and we'll buy you a dinner and a taxicab. "

Apparently the flying-girls realized that he was addressing them. For ahair's breadth of a second they paused. Then, with a speed that had asuggestion of panic in it, they flew out to sea. And again a flood ofgirl-laughter fell in bubbles upon them. 

"They distrust muh!" Honey commented. But he smiled with the indolentamusement of the man who has always held the master-hand with women. 

"Must have come from the east, this time, " he said as they filedsoberly back to camp. "But where in thunder do they start from?"

They had, of course, discussed this question as they had discussed ahundred other obvious ones. "I'm wondering now, " Frank Merrillanswered, "if there are islands both to the east and the west. But, after all, I'm more interested to know if there are any more of thesewinged women, and if there are any males. "

Again they talked far into the night. And as before their comment wasof the wonder, the romance, the poetry of their strange situation. Andagain they drew imaginary pictures of what Honey Smith called "theyoung Golden Age" that they would soon institute on Angel Island. 

"Say, " Honey remarked facetiously when at length they started to rundown, "what happens to a man if he marries an angel? Does he becomeangel-consort or one of those seraphim arrangements?"

Ralph Addington laughed. But Billy Fairfax and Pete Murphy frowned. Frank Merrill did not seem to hear him. He was taking notes by thefirelight. 

The men continued to work at the high rate of speed that, since theappearance of the women, they had set for themselves. But whatever formtheir labor took, their talk was ever of the flying-girls. Theyreferred to them individually now as the "dark one, " the "plain one, "the "thin one, " the "quiet one, " and the "peachy one. " They theorizedeternally about them. It was a long time, however, before they saw themagain, so long that they had begun to get impatient. In Ralph Addingtonthis uneasiness took the form of irritation. "If I'd had a gun, " hesnarled more than once, "by the Lord Harry, I'd have winged one ofthem. " He sat far into the night and waited. He arose early in themorning and watched. He went for long, slow, solitary, silent, prowlinghikes into the interior. His eyes began to look strained from so minutea study of the horizon-line. He grew haggard. His attitude in thematter annoyed Pete Murphy, who maintained that he had no right to spyon women. Argument broke out between them, waxing hot, waned tosilence, broke out again and with increased fury. Frank Merrill andBilly Fairfax listened to all this, occasionally smoothing things overbetween the disputants. But Honey Smith, who seemed more amused thanbothered, deftly fed the flame of controversy by agreeing first withone and then with the other. 

Late one afternoon, just as the evening star flashed the signal oftwilight, the girls came streaming over the sea toward the island. 

At the first far-away glimpse, the men dropped their tools and ran tothe water's edge. Honey Smith waded out, waist-deep. 

"Well, what do you know about that?" he called out. "Pipe theformation!"

They came massed vertically. In the distance they might have been arainbow torn from its moorings, borne violently forward on a high wind. The rainbow broke in spots, fluttered, and then came together again. Itvibrated with color. It pulsed with iridescence. 

"How the thunder--" Addington began and stopped. "Well, can you beatit?" he concluded. 

The human column was so arranged that the wings of one of the air-girlsconcealed the body of another just above her. 

The "dark one" led, flying low, her scarlet pinions beating slowly backand forth about her head. 

Just above, near enough for her body to be concealed by the scarletwings of the "dark one, " but high enough for her pointed brown face topeer between their curves, came the "plain one. "

Higher flew the "thin one. " Her body was entirely covered by the orangewings of the "plain one, " but her copper-colored hair made a gleamyspot in their vase-shaped opening. 

Still higher appeared the "peachy one. " She seemed to be holding herlustrous blonde head carefully centered in the oval between the "thinone's" green-and-yellow plumage. She looked like a portrait in a frame. 

Highest of them all, floating upright, a Winged Victory of the air, hersilver wings towering straight above her head, the cameo face of the"quiet one" looked level into the distance. 

Their wings moved in rotation, and with machine-like regularity. Firstone pair flashed up, swept back and down, then another, and another. Asthey neared, the color seemed the least wonderful detail of thepicture. For it changed in effect from a column of glittering wings toa column of girl-faces, a column that floated light as thistle-down, acolumn that divided, parted, opened, closed again. 

The background of all this was a veil of dark gauze at thehorizon-line, its foil a golden, virgin moon, dangling a singlebrilliant star. 

"They're talking!" Honey Smith exclaimed. "And they're leaving!"

The girls did not pause once. They flew in a straight line over theisland to the west, always maintaining their columnar formation. Atfirst the men thought that they were making for the trees. They ranafter them. The speed of their running had no effect this time on theirvisitors, who continued to sail eastward. The men called on them tostay. They called repeatedly, singly and in chorus. They called inevery tone of humble masculine entreaty and of arrogant masculinecommand. But their cries might have fallen on marble ears. The girlsneither turned nor paused. They disappeared. 

"Females are certainly alike under their skins, whether they're angelsor Hottentots, " Ralph Addington commented. "That tableau appearance wasall cooked up for us. They must have practised it for hours. "

"It has the rose-carnival at Tetaluma, Cal. , faded, " remarked HoneySmith. 

"The 'quiet one' was giving the orders for that wing-movement, " saidBilly Fairfax. "She whispered them, but I heard her. She engineered thewhole thing. She seems to be their leader. "

"I got their voices this time, " said Pete Murphy. "Beautiful, all ofthem. Soprano, high and clear. They've got a language, all right, too. What did you think of it, Frank?"

"Most interesting, " replied Frank Merrill, "most interesting. Apreponderance of consonants. Never guttural in effect, and as you say, beautiful voices, very high and clear. "

"I don't see why they don't stop and play, " complained Honey. His tonewas the petulant one of a spoiled child. It is likely that during thewhole course of his woman-petted existence, he had never been socompletely ignored. "If I only knew their lingo, I could convince themin five minutes that we wouldn't hurt them. "

"If we could only signal, " said Billy Fairfax, "that if they'd onlycome down to earth, we wouldn't go any nearer than they wanted. But thedeuce of it is proving to them that we don't bite. "

"It is probably that they have known only males of a more primitivetype, " Frank Merrill explained. "Possibly they are accustomed tomarriage by capture. "

"That would be a very lucky thing, " Ralph explained in an aside toHoney. "Marriage by capture isn't such a foolish proposition, afterall. Look at the Sabine women. I never heard tell that there was anykick coming from them. It all depends on the men. "

"Oh, Lord, Ralph, marriage by capture isn't a sporting proposition, "said Honey in a disgusted tone. "I'm not for it. A man doesn't get arun for his money. It's too much like shooting trapped game. "

"Well, I will admit that there's more fun in the chase, " Ralph answered. 

"Oh, well, if the little darlings are not accustomed to chivalry frommen, " Pete Murphy was in the meantime saying, "that explains why theystand us off. "

It was typical of Pete to refer to the flying-girls as "littledarlings. " The shortest among them was, of course, taller than he. Butto Pete any woman was "little one, " no matter what her stature, as anywoman was "pure as the driven snow" until she proved the contrary. Thisimpregnable simplicity explained much of the disaster of his marriedlife. 

"I am convinced, " Frank Merrill said meditatively, "we must go aboutwinning their confidence with the utmost care. One false step might befatal. I know what your impatience is though--for I can hardly schoolmyself to wait--that extraordinary phenomenon of the wings interests meso much. The great question in my mind is their position biologicallyand sociologically. "

"The only thing that bothers me, " Honey contributed solemnly, "iswhether or not they're our social equals. "

Even Frank Merrill laughed. "I mean, are they birds, " he went on stillin a puzzled tone, "free creatures of the air, or, women, boundcreatures of the earth? And what should be our attitude toward them?Have we the right to capture them as ornithological specimens, or is itour duty to respect their liberty as independent human beings?

"They're neither birds nor women, " Pete Murphy burst out impetuously. "They're angels. Our duty is to fall down and worship them. "

"They're women, " said Billy Fairfax earnestly. "Our duty is to cherishand protect them. "

"They're girls, " Honey insisted jovially, "our duty is to josh andjolly them, to buy them taxicabs, theater-tickets, late suppers, candy, and flowers. "

"They're females, " said Ralph Addington contemptuously. "Our duty is totame, subjugate, infatuate, and control them. "

Frank Merrill listened to each with the look on his face, halfperplexity, half irritation, which always came when the conversationtook a humorous turn. "I am myself inclined to look upon them as anentirely new race of beings, requiring new laws, " he said thoughtfully. 

Although the quick appearance and the quick departure of the girls hadupset the men temporarily, they went back to work at once. And asthough inspired by their appearance, they worked like tigers. Asbefore, they talked constantly of them, piling mountains of conjectureon molehills of fact. But now their talk was less of the wonder and theromance of the situation and more of the irritation of it. RalphAddington's unease seemed to have infected them all. Frank Merrill hadactually to coax them to keep at their duty of patrolling the beach. They were constantly studying the horizon for a glimpse of theirstrange visitors. Every morning they said, "I hope they'll cometo-day"; every night, "Perhaps they'll come to-morrow. " And always, "They won't put it over on us this time when we're not looking. "

But in point of fact, the next visit of the flying girls came when theyleast expected it--late in the evening. 

It had been damp and dull all day. A high fog was gradually melting outof the air. Back of it a misty moon, more mature now, gleamed like aflask of honey in a golden veil. A few stars glimmered, placid, pale, and big. Suddenly between fog and earth--and they seemed to emerge fromthe mist like dreams from sleep--appeared the five dazzlinggirl-figures. 

The fog had blurred the vividness of their plumage. The color no longerthrobbed from wing-sockets to wing-tips; light no longer pulsatedthere. But great scintillating beads of fog-dew outlined the longcurves of the wings, accentuated the long curves of the body. Hair, brows, lashes glittered as if threaded with diamonds. Their cheeks andlips actually glowed, luscious as ripe fruit. 

"My God!" groaned Pete Murphy; "how beautiful and inaccessible! Butwomen should be inaccessible, " he ended with a sigh. 

"Not so inaccessible as they were, though, "

Ralph Addington said. Again the appearance of the women had transformedhim physically and mentally. He moved with the nervous activity of aman strung on wires. His brown eyes showed yellow gleams like a cat's. "They're flying lower and slower to-night. "

It did seem as though the fog, light as it was, definitely impededtheir wings. It gave to their movements a little languor that had aplaintive appealing quality. Perhaps they realized this themselves. Inthe midst of their aerial evolutions suddenly--and apparently withoutcause--they developed panic, turned seawards. Their audience, taken bysurprise, burst into shouts of remonstrance, ran after them. The clamorand the motion seemed only to add to the girls' alarm. Their retreatingspeed was almost frenzied. 

"What the--what's frightened them?" Honey Smith asked. Honey's browshad come together in an unaccustomed scowl. He bit his lips. 

"Give it up, " Billy Fairfax answered, and his tone boiled withexasperation. "I hope they haven't been frightened away for good. "

"I think every time it's the last, " exclaimed Pete Murphy, "but theykeep coming back. "

"Son, " said Ralph Addington, and there was a perceptible element ofpatronage in his tone, "I'll tell you the exact order of events. Itthrew a scare into the girls to-night that they couldn't fly so well. But in an hour's time, they'll be sore because they didn't put up agood exhibition. Now, if I know anything at all about women--and maybeI flatter myself, but I think I know a lot--they'll be back the firstthing to-morrow to prove to us that their bad flying was not our effecton them but the weather's. "

Whether Ralph's theory was correct could not, of course, beascertained. But in the matter of prophecy, he was absolutelyvindicated. About half-way through the morning five black spotsappeared in the west. They grew gradually to bewildering shapes andcolors, for the girls came dressed in gowns woven of brilliant flowers. And the torrents of their beautiful hair floated loose. This time theyheld themselves grouped close; they kept themselves aloof, high. Butagain came the sinuous interplay of flower-clad bodies, the flashingevolution of rainbow wings, the dazzling interweaving of snowy arms andlegs. It held the men breathless. 

"They're like goldfish in a bowl, " Billy Fairfax said. "I never sawsuch suppleness. You wouldn't think they had a bone in their systems. "

"I bet they're as strong as tigers, though, " commented Addington. "Iwouldn't want to handle more than one of them at once. "

"I think I could handle two, " remarked Frank Merrill. He said this, notboastfully, but as one who states an interesting fact. And he spoke asimpersonally as though the girls were machines. 

Ralph Addington studied Frank Merrill's gigantic copper-colored bulkenviously. "I guess you could, " he agreed. 

"Fortunately, " Frank went on, "it would be impossible for such asituation to arise. Men don't war on women. "

"On the contrary, " Ralph disagreed, "men always war on women, and womenon men. Why, Merrill, " he added with his inevitable tone of patronage, "aren't you wise to the fact that the war between the sexes is inreality more bitter and bloody than any war between the races?"

But Frank did not answer. He only stared. 

"Did you notice, " Pete Murphy asked, "what wonderful hair they had?Loose like that--they looked more than ever like Valkyries. "

"Yes, I got that, " Ralph answered. He smiled until all his white teethshowed. "And take it from me, that's a point gained. When a womanbegins to let her hair down, she's interested. "

"Well, " said Honey Smith, "their game may be the same as every otherwoman's you've known, but it takes a damned long time to come down tocases. What I want to know is how many months more will have to passbefore we speak when we pass by. "

"That matter'll take care of itself, " Ralph reassured him. "You leaveit to natural selection. "

"Well, it's a deuce of a slow process, " Honey grumbled. 

What hitherto had been devotion to their work grew almost to mania. Itincreased their interest that the little settlement of five cabins wasfast taking shape. The men slept in beds now; for they had furnishedtheir rooms. They had begun to decorate the walls. They re-opened thetrunks and made another careful division of spoils. They were evenexperimenting with razors and quarreling amicably over their merits. Atnight, when their work was done, they actually changed their clothes. 

"One week more of this, " commented Honey Smith, "and we'll be servingmeals in courses. I hope that our lady-friends will call sometime whenwe're dressed for dinner. I've tried several flossy effects in tieswithout results. But I expect to lay them out cold with theseriding-boots. "

Nevertheless many days passed and the flying-girls continued not toappear. 

"I don't believe they're ever coming again, " Pete Murphy said one dayin a tone of despair. 

"Oh, they'll come, " Ralph Addington insisted. "They think themselvesthat they're not coming again, after having proved to us that theycould fly just as well as ever. But they'll appear sometime when weleast expect it. There's something pulling them over here that'sstronger than anything they've ever come up against. They don't knowwhat it is, but we do--Mr. G. Bernard Shaw's life-force. They haven'trealized yet what put the spoke in their wheel, but it will bring themhere in the end. "

But days and days went by. The men worked hard, in the maingood-naturedly, but with occasional outbreaks of discontent andirritation. "How about that proposition of the life-force?" they askedRalph Addington again and again. "You wait!" was all he ever answered. 

One day, Honey Smith, who had gone off for a solitary walk, camerunning back to camp. "What do you think?" he burst out when he gotwithin earshot. "I've seen one of them, the little brunette, the onewith the orange wings, the 'plain one. ' She was flying on the otherside of the island all by her lonesome. She saw me first, and as sureas I stand here, she called to me--a regular bird-call. I whistled andshe came flying over in my direction. Blamed if she didn't keep rightover my head for the whole trip. "

"Low?" Ralph questioned eagerly. 

"Yes, " Honey answered succinctly, "but not low enough. I couldn't touchher, of course. If I stopped for a while and kept quiet as the dead, she'd come much closer. But the instant I made a movetowards--bing!--she hit the welkin. But the way she rubbered. And, Lord, how easy scared. Once I waved my handkerchief--she nearly threw afit. Strangest sensation I've ever had in my life to be walking calmlyalong like that with a girl beside me--flying. She isn't so plain whenyou get close--she does look like a Kanaka, though. " He stopped andburst out laughing. "Funny thing! I kept calling her Lulu. After awhile, she got it that that was her tag. She didn't exactly come closerwhen I said 'Lulu, ' but she'd turn her head over her shoulder and lookat me. "

"Well, damn you and your beaux yeux!" said Ralph. There was a realchagrin behind the amusement in his voice. 

"Did you notice the muscular development of her back and shoulders?"Frank Merrill asked eagerly. 

"No, " said Honey regretfully, "I don't seem to remember anything buther face. "

The next morning when they were working, Pete Murphy suddenly yelled inan excited voice, "Here comes one of them!"

Everybody turned. There, heading straight towards them, an unbelievableorange patch sailing through the blue sky, flew the "plain one. "

"Lulu! Lulu! Here I am, Lulu, " Honey called in his most coaxing toneand with his most radiant smile. Lulu did not descend, but, involuntarily it seemed, she turned her course a little nearer toHoney. She fluttered an instant over his head, then flew straight as anarrow eastward. 

"She's a looker, all right, all right, " Ralph Addington said, gazing aslong as she was in sight. "I guess I'll trade my blonde for yourbrunette, Honey. "

"I bet you won't, " answered Honey. "I've got Lulu half-tamed. She'll beeating out of my hand in another week. "

They found this incident exciting enough to justify them in laying offfrom work the rest of the afternoon. But they had to get accustomed toit in the week that followed. Thereafter, some time during the day, thecry would ring out, "Here's your girl, Honey!" And Honey, not evendropping his tools, would smile over his shoulder at the approachingLulu. 

As time went by, she ventured nearer and nearer, stayed longer andlonger. Honey, calmly driving nails, addressed to her an endless, chaffing monologue. At first, it was apparent she was as much repelledby the tools as she was fascinated by Honey. For him to throw a nail tothe ground was the signal for her to speed to the zenith. Butgradually, in spite of the noise they made, she came to accept them asdumb, inanimate, harmless. And one day, when Honey, working on theroof, dropped a screw-driver, she flew down, picked it up, flew back, and placed it within reach of his hand. She would hover over him forhours, helping in many small ways. This only, however, when the othermen were sufficiently far away and only when Honey's two hands wereoccupied. If any one of them--Honey and the rest--made the most casualof accidental moves in her direction, her flight was that of an arrow. But nobody could have been more careful than they not to frighten her. 

They always stopped, however, to watch her approach and her departure. There was something irresistibly feminine about Lulu's flight. Sheherself seemed to appreciate this. If anybody looked at her, sheexhibited her accomplishments with an eagerness that had a charmingtouch of naivete. She dipped and dove endlessly. She dealt in littledarts and rushes, bird-like in their speed and grace. She never flewhigh, but, on her level, her activity was marvelous. 

"The supermanning little imp!" Pete Murphy said again and again. "Thevain little devil, " Ralph Addington would add, chuckling. 

"How the thunder did we ever start to call her the 'plain one'?" Honeywas always asking in an injured tone. 

Lulu was far from plain. She was, however, one of those girls who startby being "ugly" or "queer-looking, " or downright "homely, " and end bybecoming "interesting" or "picturesque" or "fascinating, " according tothe divagations of the individual vocabulary. She had the beautetroublante. At first sight, you might have called her gipsy, Indian, Kanaka, Chinese, Japanese, Korean--any exotic type that you had notseen. Which is to say that she had the look of the primitive woman andthe foreign woman. Superficially, her beauty of irregularity was of allbeauty the most perturbing and provocative. Eyes, skin, hair, she wasall copper-browns and crimson-bronzes, all the high gloss of satinysurfaces. Every shape and contour was a variant from the regular. Hereyes took a bewildering slant. Her face showed a little piquant stresson the cheekbones. Her hair banded in a long, solid, club-like braid. In repose she bore a look a little sullen, a little heavy. When shesmiled, it seemed as if her whole face waked up; but it was only theglitter of white teeth in the slit of her scarlet mouth. 

Lulu always dressed in browns and greens; leaves, mosses, grasses madea dim-colored, velvety fabric that contrasted richly with her copperysatin surfaces and her brilliant orange wings. 

The excitement of this had hardly died down when Frank Merrill broughtthe tale of another adventure to camp. He had fallen into the habit ofwithdrawing late in the afternoon to one of the reefs, far enough awayto read and to write quietly. One day, just as he had gone deep intohis book, a shadow fell across it. Startled, he looked up. Directlyover his head, pasted on the sky like a scarlet V, hovered the "darkone. " After his first instant of surprise and a second interval ofperplexity, he put his book down, settled himself back quietly, andwatched. Conscious of his espionage apparently, she flew away, floated, flew back, floated, flew up, flew down, floated--always within a littledistance. After half an hour of this aerial irresolution, she sailedoff. She repeated her performance the next afternoon and the next, andthe next, staying longer each time. By the end of the week she wasspending whole afternoons there. She, too, became a regular visitor. 

She never spoke. And she scarcely moved. She waved her great scarletwings only fast enough to hold herself beyond Frank's reach. But fromthat distance she watched his movements, watched closely andunceasingly, watched with the interest of a child at a moving-pictureshow. Her surveillance of him was so intense it seemed impossible thatshe could see anything else. But if one of the other four men startedto join them, she became a flash of scarlet lightning that tore thedistance. 

Frank, of course, found this interesting. Every day he made voluminousnotes of his observations. Every night be embodied these notes in hismonograph. 

"What does she look like close to?" the others asked him again andagain. 

"Really, I've hardly had a chance to notice yet, " was Frank'sinvariable answer. "She's a comely young person, I should say, and, asyou can easily see, of the brunette coloring. I'm so much moreinterested in her flying than in her appearance that I've never reallytaken a good look at her. Unfortunately she flies less well than theothers. I wish I could get a chance to study all of them--the 'quietone' in particular; she flies so much faster. On the other hand, thisone seems able to hold herself motionless in the air longer than they. "

"She's lazy, " Honey Smith said decisively. "I got that right off. Shelooks like a Spanish woman and she is a good deal like one in her ways. "

Honey was right; the "dark one" was lazy. Alone she always flew low, and at no time, even in company, did she dare great altitudes. Sheseemed to love to float, wings outspread and eyes half closed, on oneof those tranquil air-plateaux that lie between drifting air-currents. She was an adept, apparently, at finding the little nodule of quietspace that forms the center of every windstorm. Standing upright in it, flaming wings erect, she would whirl through space like an autumn leaf. Gradually, she became less suspicious of the other men. She oftenpassed in their direction on the way to her afternoon vigil with Frank. 

"She certainly is one peach of a female, " said Ralph Addington. "Idon't know but what she's prettier than my blonde. Too bad she's stuckon that stiff of a Merrill. I suppose he'd sit there every afternoonfor a year and just look at her. "

"I should think she came from Andalusia, " Honey answered, watching thelong, low sweep of her scarlet flight. "She's got to have a Spanishname. Say we call her Chiquita. "

And Chiquita she became. 

Chiquita was beautiful. Her beauty had a highwayman quality ofviolence; it struck quick and full in the face. She was the darkest ofall the girls, a raven black. As Lulu was all coppery shine andshimmer, all satiny gloss and gleam, so Chiquita was all dusk in thecoloring, all velvet in the surfaces. Her great heavy-lidded eyes weredusk and velvet, with depth on depth of an unmeaning dreaminess. Herhair, brows, lashes were dusk and velvet; and there was no light inthem. Her skin, a dusky cream on which velvety shade accented velvetyshadow, was colorless except where her lips, cupped like a flower, offered a splash of crimson. Yet, in spite of the violence of herbeauty, her expression held a tropical languor. Indeed, had not herflying compelled a superficial vigor from her, she would have seemedvoluptuous. 

Chiquita wore scarlet always, the exact scarlet of her wings, aclinging mass of tropical bloom; huge star-shaped or lilly-like flowerswhose brilliant lustre accentuated her dusky coloring. 

They had no sooner accustomed themselves to the incongruity of FrankMerrill's conquest of this big, gorgeous creature than Pete Murphydeveloped what Honey called "a case. " It was scarcely a question ofdevelopment; for with Pete it had been the "thin one" from thebeginning. Following an inexplicable masculine vagary, he christenedher Clara--and Clara she ultimately became. Among themselves, the menemployed other names for her; with them she was not so popular as withPete. To Ralph she was "the cat"; to Billy, "the poser"; to Honey, "Carrots. "

Clara appeared first with Lulu. She did not stay long on her initialvisit. But afterwards she always accompanied her friend, always stayedas late as she. 

"I'd pick those two for running-mates anywhere, " Ralph said in privateto Honey. "I wish I had a dollar bill for every time I've met up withthat combination, one simple, devoted, self-sacrificing, the otherselfish, calculating, catty. "

Clara was not exactly beautiful, although she had many points ofbeauty. Her straight red hair clung to her head like a close-fittinghelmet of copper. Her skin balanced delicately between a brown pallorand a golden sallowness. Her long, black lashes paled her gray eyesslightly; her snub nose made charming havoc of what, without it, wouldhave been a conventional regularity of profile. She was really no moreslender than the normal woman, but, compared with her mates, she seemedof elfin slimness; she was shapely in a supple, long-limbed way. Therewas something a little exotic about her. Her green and gold plumagegave her a touch of the fantastic and the bizarre. Prevailingly, shearrayed herself in flowers that ran all the shades from cream and lemonto yellow and orange. She was like a parrot among more uniformlyfeathered birds. 

Clara never flew high. It was apparent, however, that if she made atremendous effort, she could take any height. On the other hand, sheflew more swiftly than either Lulu or Chiquita. She seemed to keep bypreference to the middle altitudes. She hated wind and fog; sheappeared only in calm and dry weather. Perhaps this was because thewind interfered with her histrionics, the fog with the wavycomplications of her red hair. For she postured as she moved; whateverher hurry, she presented a picture, absolutely composed. And her hairwas always intricately arranged, always decked with leaves and flowers. 

"By jiminy, I'd make my everlasting fortune off you, " Honey Smith onceaddressed her, as she flew over his head, "selling you to themoving-picture people. "

Wings straight up, legs straight out, arms straight ahead, delicatelyslender feet, and strong-looking hands dropping like flowers, her onlyanswer to this remark was an enigmatic closing of her thick-lashedlids, a twist into a pose even more sensuously beautiful. 

"Say, I'm tired waiting, " Ralph Addington growled one day, when thelovely trio flew over his head in a group. "Why doesn't that blonde ofmine put in an appearance? Oh, Clara, Lulu, Chiquita, " he called, "won't you bring your peachy friend the next time you call?"

It was a long time, however, before the "peachy one" appeared. Thensuddenly one day a great jagged shadow enveloped them in its purplecoolness. The men looked up, startled. She must have come upon themslowly and quietly, for she was close. Her mischievous face smiledalluringly down at them from the wide triangle of her blue wings. 

Followed an exhibition of flying which outdid all the others. 

Dropping like a star from the zenith and dropping so close and soswiftly that the men involuntarily scattered to give her landing-room, she caught herself up within two feet of their heads and boundedstraight up to the zenith again. Up she went, and up and up until shewas only a blue shimmer; and up and up and up until she was only a darkdot. Then, without warning, again she dropped, gradually this time, head-foremost like' a diver, down and down and down until her body wasperfectly outlined, down and down and down until she floated just abovetheir heads. 

Coming thus slowly upon them, she gave, for the first time, a closeview of her wonderful blondeness. It was a sheer golden blondeness, nota hint of tow, or flaxen, or yellow; not a touch of silver, or honey, or auburn. It was half her charm that the extraordinary strength andvigor of her contours contrasted with the delicacy and dewiness of hercoloring, that from one aspect, she seemed as frail as a flower, fromanother as hard as a crystal. She had, at the same time, the untouched, unstained beauty of the virgin girl, and the hard, muscular strength ofthe virgin boy. Her skin, white as a lily-petal and as thick andsmooth, had been deepened by a single drop of amber to cream. Her eyes, of which the sculpturesque lids drooped a little, flashed a blue aslimpid as the sky. Teeth, set as close as seed-pearls, gleamed betweenlips which were the pink of the faded rose. The sunlight turned hergolden hair to spun glass, melted it to light itself. The shadowthickened it to fluid, hardened it to massy gold again. The details ofher face came out only as the result of determined study. Her chiefbeauty--and it amounted to witchery, to enchantment--lay in a constantand a constantly subtle change of expression. 

During this exhibition the men stood frozen in the exact attitudes inwhich she found them. Ralph Addington alone remained master of himself. He stood quiet, every nerve tense, every muscle alert, the expressionon his face that of a cat watching a bird. At her second dip downward, he suddenly jumped into the air, jumped so high that his clutchingfingers grazed her finger-tips. 

That frightened her. 

Her upward flight was of a terrific speed--she leaped into the sky. Butonce beyond the danger-line her composure came back. She dropped onthem a coil of laughter, clear as running water, contemptuous, mischievous. Still laughing, she sank again, almost as near. Her mirthbrought her lids close together. Her eyes, sparkling between thickfiles of golden lash, had almost a cruel sweetness. 

She immediately flew away, departing over the water. Ralph cursedhimself for the rest of the day. She returned before the week was out, however, and, after that, she continued to visit them at intervals of afew days. The sudden note of blue, even in the distance it seemed toconnote coquetry, was the signal for all the men to stop work. Theycould not think clearly or consecutively when she was about. She wasone of those women whose presence creates disturbance, perturbation, unrest. The very sunshine seemed alive, the very air seemed vibrantwith her. Even when she flew high, her shadow came between them andtheir work. 

"She sure qualifies when it comes to fancy flying, " said Honey Smith. "She's in a class all by herself. "

Her flying was daring, eccentric, temperamental, the apotheosis ofbrilliancy--genius. The sudden dart up, the terrifying drop down seemedher main accomplishment. The wonder of it was that the men could nevertell where she would land. Did it seem that she was aiming near, asudden swoop would bring her to rest on a far-away spot. Was it certainthat she was making for a distant tree-top, an unexpected drop wouldland her a few feet from their group. She was the only one of theflying-girls who touched the earth. And she always led up to this featas to the climax of what Honey called her "act. " She would drop to thevery ground, pose there, wavering like an enormous butterfly, her greatwings opening and shutting. Sometimes, tempted by her actual nearnessand fooled by her apparent weakness, the five men would make a rush inher direction. She would stand waiting and drooping until they werealmost on her. Then in a flash came the tremendous whirr of her start, the violent beat of her whipping progress--she had become a blue speck. 

She wore always what seemed to be gossamer, rose-color in one light, sky-color in another; a flexible film that one moment defined the longslim lines of her body and the next concealed them completely. Near, itcould be seen that this drapery was woven of tiny buds, pink and blue;afar she seemed to float in a shimmering opalescent mist. 

She teased them all, but it was evident from the beginning that she hadpicked Ralph to tease most. After a long while, the others learned toignore, or to pretend to ignore, her tantalizing overtures. But Ralphcould look at nothing else while she was about. She loved to lead himin a long, wild-goose chase across the island, dipping almost withinreach one moment, losing herself at the zenith in another, alightinghere and there with a will-o'-the-wisp capriciousness. Sometimes Ralphwould return in such an exhausted condition that he dropped to sleepwhile he ate. At such times his mood was far from agreeable. Hiscompanions soon learned not to address him after these expeditions. 

One afternoon, exercising heroic resolution, Ralph allowed Peachy tofly, apparently unnoticed, over his head, let her make an unaccompaniedway half across the island. But when she had passed out of earshot hewatched her carefully. 

"Say, Honey, " he said after half an hour's fidgeting, "Peachy's settleddown somewhere on the island. I should say on the near shore of thelake. I don't know that anything's happened--probably nothing. But Ihope to God, " he added savagely, "she's broken a wing. Come on and findout what she's up to, will you?"

"Sure!" Honey agreed cheerfully. "All's fair in love and war. And thisseems to be both love and war. "

They walked slowly, and without talking, across the beach. When theyreached the trail they dropped on all fours and pulled themselvesnoiselessly along. The slightest sound, the snapping of a twig, theflutter of a bird, brought them to quiet. An hour, they searchedprofitlessly. 

Then suddenly they got sound of her, the languid slap of great wingsopening and shutting. She had not gone to the lake. Instead, she hadchosen for her resting-place one of the tiny pools which, like pendantsof a necklace, partially encircled the main body. She was sitting on aflat stone that projected into the water. Her drooped blue wings, glittering with moisture, had finally come to rest; they trailed behindher over the gray boulder and into a mass of vivid green water-grasses. One bare shoulder had broken through her rose-and-blue drapery. Theodor of flowers, came from her. Her hair, a braid over each breast, oozed like ropes of melted gold to her knees. A hand held each of thesebraids. She was evidently preoccupied. Her eyelids were down. Absentlyshe dabbled her white feet in the water. The noise of her splashingcovered their approach. The two men signaled their plans, separated. 

Five minutes went by, and ten and fifteen and twenty. Peachy still satsilent, moveless, meditative. Not once did she lift her eyelids. 

Then Addington leaped like a cat from the bushes at her right. Simultaneously Honey pounced in her direction from the left. 

But--whir-r-r-r--it was like the beating of a tremendous drum. Straightacross the pond she went, her toes shirring the water, and up and upand up--then off. And all the time she laughed, a delicious, ripplinglaughter which seemed to climb every scale that could carry coquetry. 

The two men stood impotently watching her for a moment. Then Honeybroke into roars of delight. "Oh, you kid!" he called appreciatively toher. "She had her nerve with her to sit still all the time, knowingthat we were creeping up on her, didn't she?" He turned to Ralph. 

But Ralph did not answer, did not hear. His face was black with rage. He shook his fist in Peachy's direction. 

Of the flying-girls, there remained now only one who held herselfaloof, the "quiet one. " It was many weeks before she visited theisland. Then she came often, though always alone. There was somethingin her attitude that marked her off from the others. 

"She doesn't come because she wants to, " Billy Fairfax explained. "Shecomes because she's lonely. "

The "quiet one" habitually flew high and kept high, so high indeedthat, after the first excitement of her tardy appearance, none butBilly gave her more than passing attention. Up to that time Billy hadbeen a hard, a steady worker. But now he seemed unable to concentrateon anything. It was doubtless an extra exasperation that the "quietone" puzzled him. Her flying seemed to be more than a haphazard way ofpassing the time. It seemed to have a meaning; it was almost as if shewere trying to accomplish something by it; and ever she perfected thefigure that her flight drew on the sky. If she soared and dropped, shedropped and soared. If she curved and floated, she floated and curved. If she dipped and leaped, she leaped and dipped. All this he could see. But there were scores of minor evolutions that appeared to him only asconfused motion. 

One thing he caught immediately. Those lonely gyrations were not theexercise of the elusive coquetry which distinguished Peachy. It wasmore that the "quiet one" was pushed on by some intellectual orartistic impulse, that she expressed by the symbols, of her complicatedflight some theory, some philosophy of life, that she traced out someartless design, some primary pattern of beauty. 

Julia always seemed to shine; she wore garments of gleamy-petalled, white flowers, silvery seaweeds, pellucid marsh-grasses, vines, goldenor purple, that covered her with a delicate lustre. Her wings weredifferent from the others; theirs flashed color, but hers gave light;and that light seemed to have run down on her flesh. 

"What the thunder is she trying to do up there?" Ralph asked one day, stopping at Billy's side. Ralph's question was not in reality begottenso much of curiosity as of irritation. From the beginning the "quietone" had interested him least of any of the flying-girls as, from thebeginning, Peachy had interested him most. 

"I don't know, of course. " Billy spoke with reluctance. It was evidentthat he did not enjoy discussing the "quiet one" with Ralph. "At firstmy theory was that flying was to her what dancing is to most girls. But, somehow, it seems to go deeper than that--as if it were art, oreven creation. Anyway, there's a kind of bi-lateral symmetry abouteverything she does. "

Billy fell into the habit, each afternoon, of strolling away from therest, out of sound of their chaff. On the grassy top of one of thereefs, he found a spot where he could lie comfortably and watch the"quiet one. " He used to spin long day-dreams there. She looked soremote far up in the boiling blue, and so strange, that he had aninexplicable sensation of reverence. 

Now it was as though, in watching that aerial weaving and interweaving, he were assisting at a religious rite. He liked it best when the whiteday-moon was afloat. If he half-shut his eyes, it seemed to him thatshe and the moon made twin crescents of foaming silver, twin bubbles ofwhite fire, twin films of fairy gossamer, twin vials that held the veryessence of poetry. Somehow he had always connected her with the moon. Indeed, in her whiteness, her coldness, her aloofness, she seemed thevery sublimation of virginity. His first secret names for her wereDiana and Cynthia. But there was another quality in her that thosenames did not include--intellectuality. His favorite heroes were JuliusCaesar and Edwin Booth--a quaint pair, taken in combination. In thelong imaginary conversations which he held with her he addressed her asJulia or Edwina. 

Days and days went by and he could discover no sign that she hadnoticed him. It was typical of the "damned gentleman" side of Billythat he did not try to attract her attention. Indeed, his efforts wereever to efface himself. 

One afternoon, after a long vigil in which, unaccountably, Julia hadnot appeared, he started to return to camp. It was a late twilight anda black, velvety one. The trees against a darkening curtain of sky hadturned to bunches of tangled shadow, the reefs and rocks against thepapery white of the sand to smutches and blobs of soot. Suddenly--andhis heart pounded at the sound--the air began to vibrate and thrill. 

He stopped short. He waited. His breath came fast; the vibration andthrill were coming closer. 

He crystallized where he stood. It scarcely seemed that he breathed. And then--. 

Something white and nebulous came floating out of the dusk towards him. It became a silver cloud, a white sculptured spirit of the air. Itbecame an angel, a fairy, a woman--Julia. She flew not far off, levelwith his eyes and, as she approached, she slowed her stately flight. Billy made no movement. He only stood and waited and watched. Butperhaps never before in his life had his eyes become so transparentlythe windows of his soul. Quite as intently, Julia's eyes, big, gray, and dark-lashed, considered him. It seemed to Billy that he had neverseen in any face so virginally young such a tragic seriousness, nor inany eyes, superficially so calm, such a troubled wonder. 

He did not stir until she had drifted out of earshot, had become againa nebulous silver cloud drifting into the dusk, had merged with thatdusk. 

"What makes your eyes shine so?" said Honey, examining him keenly whenhe reached camp. 

It was the first time Billy had known Julia to fly low. But hediscovered gradually that only in the sunlight did she haunt thezenith. At twilight she always kept close to the earth. Billy took tohaunting the reefs at dusk. 

Again and again, the same thing happened. 

Suddenly--and it was as if successive waves of electricity chargedthrough his body--the quiet air began to purr and vibrate and drum. Outof the star-shot dusk emerged the speeding whiteness of Julia. Always, as she approached, she slowed her flight. Always as she passed, hersorrowing gray eyes would seek his burning blue ones. Billy could bringhimself to speak of this strange experience to nobody, not even toHoney. For there was in it something untellable, unsharable, the wonderof the vision and the dream, the unreality of the apparition. 

The excitement of these happenings kept the men entertained, but italso kept them keyed up to high tension. For a while they did notnotice this themselves. But when they attempted to go back to theirinterrupted work, they found it hard to concentrate upon it. FrankMerrill had given up trying to make them patrol the beach. Unaided, dayand night he attended to their signals. 

"Well, " said Honey Smith one day and, for the first time, there was apeevish note in his voice, "that 'natural selection' theory of yours, Ralph, seems to have worked out to some extent--but not enough. We seemto be comfortably divided, all ten of us, into happy couples, buthanged if I'm strong for this long-distance acquaintance. "

"You're right there, " Ralph Addington admitted; "we don't seem to begetting any forwarder. "

"It's all very pretty and romantic to have these girls flying about, "Honey continued in a grumbling tone, "but it's too much like flirtingwith a canary-bird. Damn it all, I want to talk with them. "

Ralph made a hopeless gesture. "It is a deadlock, I admit. I'm at mywits' end. "

Perhaps Honey expressed what the others felt. At any rate, a suddenirascibility broke out among them. They were good-natured enough whilethe girls were about, but over their work and during their leisure, they developed what Honey described as every kind of blue-bean, sourball, katzenjammer and grouch. They fought heroically againstit--and their method of fighting took various forms, according to thenature of the four men. Frank Merrill lost himself in his books. PeteMurphy began the score of an opera vaguely heroic in theme; he wroteevery spare moment. Billy Fairfax worked so hard that he grew thin. Honey Smith went off on long, solitary walks. Ralph Addington, asusual, showed an exasperating tendency towards contradiction, anunvarying contentiousness. 

And then, without warning, all the girls ceased to come to the island. Three days went by, five, a week, ten days. One morning they all passedover the island, one by one, an hour or two between flights; but theyflew high and fast, and they did not stop. 

Ralph Addington had become more and more irascible. That day the othersmaintained peace only by ignoring him. 

"By the gods!" he snarled at night as they all sat dull and dumb aboutthe fire. "Something's got to happen to change our way of living ormurder'll break out in this community. And we'd better begin prettyquick to do something about it. What I'd like to know is, " and heslapped his hand smartly against a flat rock, "coming down to cases--aswe must sooner or later--what is our right in regard to these women. "

III

"I don't exactly like your use of the word right, Ralph, " said Billy. "You mean duty, don't you?"

"And he'd better change that to privilege, " put in Pete Murphy, scowling. 

"Shut up, you mick, " Honey interposed, flicking Pete on the ear with apebble. "What do you know about machinery?"

Pete grinned and subsided for a moment. Honey could always placate himby calling him a mick. 

"No, " Ralph went on obstinately, addressing himself this time to Billy, "I mean right. Of course, I mean right, " he went on with one of his, gusty bursts of, irritation. "For God's sake, don't be so high-brow andaltruistic. "

"How about it, Frank?" Billy said, turning to Merrill. 

"Well, " said Frank slowly, "I don't exactly know how to answer thatquestion. I don't know what you mean by the word--right. I take it thatyou mean what our right would be if these flying-maidens permittedthemselves to become our friends. I would say, that, in such a case, you would have the only right that any man ever has, as far as womenare concerned--the right to woo. If he wins, all well and good. If heloses, he must abide by the consequences. "

"You're on, Frank, " said Billy Fairfax. 

"You've said the last word. "

"In normal condition, I'd agree with you, " Ralph said. "But in theseconditions I disagree utterly. "

"How?" Frank asked. "Why?" He turned to Ralph with the instinctiveequability that he always presented to an opponent in argument. 

"Well, in the first place, we find ourselves in a situationunparalleled in the world's history. " Ralph had the air of one who issaying aloud for the first time what he has said to himself many times. At any rate, he proceeded with an unusual fluency and glibness. "Circumstances alter cases. We can't handle this situation by any ofthe standards we have formerly known. In fact, we've got to throw allour former standards overboard. There are five of these girls. Thereare five of us. Voila! Following the laws of nature we have selectedeach of us the mates we prefer. Or, following the law that Bernard Shawdiscovered, the ladies have selected, each of them, the mates that theyprefer. They are now turning themselves inside out to prove to us thatwe selected them. Voila! The rest is obvious. If they come to terms, all right! If they don't--" He paused. "I repeat that we are placed in, a situation new in the history of the world. I repeat thebromidion--circumstances alter cases. We may have to stay on thisisland as long as we live. I am perfectly willing to confess that justnow I'd rather not be rescued. But it's over our months that we've beenhere. We must think of the future. The future justifies anything. Ifthese girls don't come to terms, they must be made to come to terms. You'll find I'm right. "

"Right!" exclaimed Billy hotly. "What are you talking about? Those arethe principles of an Apache or a Hottentot. "

"Or a cave-man, " Pete added. 

"Well, what are we under our skins but Hottentots and Apaches andcave-men?" said Ralph. "Now, I leave it to you. Look facts in the face. Use your common sense. Count out civilization and all its artificialrules. Think of our situation on this island, if we don't capture thesewomen soon. We can't tell when they'll stop coming. We don't know whatthe conditions of their life may be. The caprice may strike themto-morrow to cut us out for good. Maybe their men will discover it--andprevent them from coming. A lot of things may happen to keep them away. What's to become of us in that case? We'll go mad, five men alone here. It isn't as though we could tame them by any gentle methods. You can'tcatch eagles by putting salt on their tails. In the first place, wecan't get close enough to them, because of their accursed wings, toprove that we wouldn't harm them. They've sent us a challenge--it's amagnificent one. They've thrown down the gage. And how have weresponded? I bet they think we're a precious lot of molly-coddles! Ibet they're laughing in their sleeves all the time. I'd hate to hearwhat they say about us. But the point I'm trying to make is not that. It's this: we can't afford to lose them. This place is a prison now. Itwill be worse than that if this keeps up--it'll be a madhouse. "

"Do you mean to tell me that you're advocating marriage by capture?"Billy asked in an incredulous voice. 

"I mean to tell you I'm arguing capture, " Ralph said with emphasis. "After that, you, can trust the marriage question to take care ofitself. "

Argument broke out hydra-headed. They wrangled the whole evening. Theory at first guided them. In the beginning, names like Plato, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer preceded quotation; then, came Shaw, Havelock-Ellis, Kraft-Ebing, Weininger. Sleep deadened their discussiontemporarily but it burst out at intervals all the next day. In fact, itseemed to possess eternal vitality, eternal fascination. Leavingtheory, they went for parallels of their strange situation, to history, to the Scriptures, to fiction, to drama, to poetry. 

Honey ended every discussion with a philosophic, "Aside from thequestion of brutality, this marriage by capture isn't a sportingproposition. It's like jacking deer. I'm not for it. And, O Lord, what's the use of chewing the rag so much about it? Wait a while. We'llget them yet, I betchu!"

All of Honey's sex-pride flared in this buoyant assurance. It hadapparently not yet occurred to him that he would not conquer Lulu inthe end and conquer her by merely submitting to her wooing of him. 

And in the meantime, the voiceless tete-a-teteing of the five couplescontinued. 

"Say, Ralph, " Honey said one day in a calm interval, "it's justoccurred to me that we haven't seen those girls, flying in a bunch forquite some time. Don't suppose they've quarrelled, do you?"

Everybody stopped work to stare at him. "I bet that's the answer, "Ralph exclaimed. His voice held the note of one for whom a privatemystification has at last broken. 

"But what do you suppose they've quarrelled about?" Pete Murphy asked. 

"Me, " Honey said promptly. 

Ralph laughed absent-mindedly. "It's a hundred to one shot that they'requarrelling about us, though, " he said. For some mysterious reason thistheory raised his spirits perceptibly. 

"But--to get down to brass tacks, " Pete asked in a puzzled tone, "whathave we done to make them quarrel?"

"Oh, we've done nothing, " Ralph answered with one of his lordlyassumptions of a special knowledge. "It's just the disorganization thatalways falls on women when men appear on their horizon. They'reabsolutely without sex-loyalty, you know. They seem to have principleenough in regard to some things, a few things. But the moment a manappears, it's all off. West of Suez, they'll lie and steal; east ofSuez, they'll betray and murder as easy as breathe. "

"Cut that out, Addington, " Pete Murphy commanded in a dangerous voice. "I won't stand for that kind of talk. "

Ralph glared. "Won't stand for it?" he repeated. "I'd like to know howthe hell you're going to help yourself?"

"I'll find a way, and pretty damned quick, " Pete retorted. 

It was the closest approach to a quarrel that had yet occurred. Theother three men hastily threw themselves into the breach. "Shut up, youmick, " Honey called to Pete. "Remember you came over in the steerage. "

Pete grinned and subsided. 

"As sure as shooting, " Honey said, "those girls have quarrelled. I betwe never see them again. "

It was a long time before they saw any of them; but, curiously enough, the next time the flying-girls visited the island they came in a group. 

It had been sultry, the first of a long series of sticky, muggy days. What threatened to be a thunderstorm and then, as Honey said, failed to"make good, " came up in the afternoon. Just as the sky was at itsblackest, Honey called, "Hurroo! Here they come!"

The effect of the approach of the flying-maidens was so strange as tomake them unfamiliar. There was no sun to pour a liquid iridescencethrough their wings. All the high lights of their plumage had dulled. Painted in flat primary colors, they looked like paper dolls pasted onthe inky thundercloud. As usual, when they came in a group, they wovein and out in a limited spherical area, achieving extraordinary effectsin close wheeling. 

As the girls made for the island, a new impulse seized Honey. He randown the beach, dashed into the water, swam out to meet them. 

"Come back, you fool!" Frank yelled. 

There may be sharks in that water. 

But Honey only laughed. He was a magnificent swimmer. He seemeddetermined to give, in an alien element, an exhibition which wouldequal that of the flying-girls. The effect on them was immediate; theybroke ranks and floated, watching every move. 

To hold their interest, Honey nearly turned himself inside out. 

At first he tore the water white with the vigor of his trudgeon-stroke. Then turning from left to right, he employed the side-stroke. Fromthat, he went to the breast-stroke. Last of all, he floated, dove, swamunder water so long that the girls began uneasily to fly back andforth, to twitter with alarm. 

Finally he emerged and floated again. 

"He swims like a motor-boat!" said Ralph admiringly. 

Suddenly Lulu fluttered away from her companions, dropped so low thatshe could have touched Honey with her hand, and flew protectingly abovehim. 

The men on the beach watched these proceedings with a gradualdiminution of their alarm, with the admiration that Honey in the wateralways excited, with the amusement that Lulu's fearless display ofinfatuation always developed. 

"Oh, my God!" Frank called suddenly. "There's a shark!"

Simultaneously, the others saw what he saw--a sinister black triangleswiftly shearing the water. They ran, yelling, down to the water's edgeand stood there trying to shout a warning over the noise of the surf. 

Honey did not get it at once. He was still floating, his smiling, up-turned face looking into Lulu's smiling, down-turned one. Then, rolling over, he apparently caught a glimpse of the black fin bearingso steadily on him. He made immediately for the shore but he had swumfar and fast. 

Lulu was slower even than he in realizing the situation. For a moment, obviously piqued at his action, she dropped and hung in the rear. Perhaps her mates signaled to her, perhaps her intuition flashed thewarning. Suddenly she looked back. The scream which she emitted was asshrill with terror as any wingless woman's. Swooping down like aneagle, she seized Honey under the shoulders, lifted him out of thewater. His weight crippled her. For though the first impulse of herterror carried her high, she sank at once until Honey hung just abovethe water. 

And continuously she screamed. 

The other girls realized her plight in an instant. They dropped likestones to her side, eased her partially of Honey's weight. Julia alonedid not touch him. She floated above, calling directions. The group ofgirls arose gradually, flew swiftly over the water toward the beach. The men ran to meet them. 

"Don't go any further, " Billy commanded in a peremptory voice unusualwith him. "They'll not put him down if we come too near. "

The men hesitated, stopped. 

Immediately the girls deposited Honey on the sand. 

"Did you notice the cleverness of that breakaway?" said Pete. "Hecouldn't have got a clinch in anywhere. "

But to do Honey justice, he attempted nothing of the sort. He lay flatand still until his rescuers were at a safe height. Then he sat up andsmiled radiantly at them. "Ladies, I thank you, " he said. 

"And I'll see that you get a Carnegie medal if it takes the rest of mylife. I guess, " he remarked unabashed, as his companions joined him, "it will be fresh-water swimming for your little friend hereafter. "

Nobody spoke for a while. His companions were still white and BillyFairfax even shook. 

"You looked like an engraving that used to hang over my bed when I wasa child, " said Ralph, with an attempt at humor that had, coming fromhim, a touching quality, "a bunch of, angels lugging a dead man toheaven. You'd have been a ringer for it if you'd had a shave. "

"Well, the next time the girls come, I'm going to swim out among thepretty sharks, " said Pete, obviously trying to echo Ralph's light note. "By Jove, hear them chatter up there. They're talking all at once andat the top of their lungs just like your sisters and your cousins andyour aunts. "

"They're as pale as death, too, " observed Billy. "Look at that!"

The flying-maidens had come together in a compact circular group, handsover each other's shoulders, wings faintly fluttering. Perceptibly theyclung to each other for support. Their faces had turned chalky; theirheads drooped. Intertwined thus, they drifted out of sight. 

"Lord, they are beautiful, close-to!" Honey said. "You never saw suchcomplexions! Or such eyes and teeth! And--and--by George, such aneffect of purity and stainlessness. I feel like a--and yet, by--. " Hefell into an abstraction so deep that it was as though he had forgottenhis companions. 

For several days, the girls did not appear on Angel Island. All thattime, the capture argument lay in abeyance. Even Ralph, who hadintroduced the project, seemed touched by the gallantry of Honey'srescue. Honey, himself, was strangely subdued; his eternal monologuehad dried up; he seemed preoccupied. Nevertheless, it was he, who, onenight, reopened the discussion with a defiant flat: "Well, boys, Imight as well tell you, I've swung over to Ralph's side. I'm for thecapture of those girls, and capture as soon as we can make it. "

"Well, I'll be--" said Billy. "After they saved your life! Honey, Iguess I don't know you any more. "

"What's changed you?" Pete asked in amazement. 

"Can't tell you why--don't know myself why when you get the answer tellme. Only in the ten minutes that those girls packed me through the air, I did some quick thinking, I can't explain to you why we've got theright to capture them. But we have. That's all there is to it. "

War broke out with a new animosity; for they had, of course, nowdefinitely divided into sides. Their conversation always turned intoargument now, no matter how peaceably and innocently it began. 

The girls had begun to visit the island again, singly now, singlyalways. Discussion died down temporarily and the wordlesstete-a-teteing began again. Lulu hovered ever at Honey's shoulder. Clara postured always within Pete's vision. Chiquita took up hereternal vigil on Frank's reef. Peachy discovered new wonders of whatHoney called "trick flying. " Julia became a fixed white star in theirblue noon sky. 

A day or two or three of this long-distance wooing, and argumentexploded more vehemently than ever. Honey and Ralph still maintainedthat, as the ruling sex of a man-managed world, they had the right ofdiscovery to these women. Frank still maintained that, as a supra-humanrace, the flying-girls were subject to supra-human laws. Billy and Petestill maintained that, as the development not only of the race but ofthe individual depended on the treatment of the female by the male, thecapture of these independent beings at this stage of civilization wouldbe a return to barbarism. 

After one night of wrangling, they came to the agreement that no one ofthem would take steps towards capture until all five had consented toit. They drew up a paper to this effect and signed it. 

Their cabins were nearly completed now. Boundless leisure threatened toopen before them. More and more in the time which they were alone theyfell into the habits which their individual tastes developed. Frankstill worked on his library. He had transferred the desk and thebookcases to the interior of his hut. He spent all his spare time therearranging, classifying, and cataloguing his books. Billy fell into anorgy of furniture-making and repairing. Addington began, unaided, tobuild a huge cabin, bigger than the others, and separated a littledistance from them. Nobody asked him what it was for. Honey took longsolitary walks into the interior of the island. He returned with greatbunches of uprooted flowers which he planted against the cabin-walls. Pete dragged out from an unexplored trunk a box of water-colors, ablock of paper. Now, when he was not working on a symphonic poem, hewas coping with the wonders of the semi-tropical coloring. Hiscompanions rallied and harried him, especially about the poem; but hecould always silence them with a threat to read it aloud. All the Celtin him had come to the surface. They heard him chanting his numbers inthe depths of the forest; sometimes he intoned them, swinging on thebranch of a high tree. He even wandered over the reefs, reciting themto the waves. 

One day, late in the afternoon, Billy lay on his favorite spot on thesouthern reef, dreaming. High up in the air, Julia flashed and gyrated, revolved and spun. It seemed to Billy that he had never seen her go sohigh. She looked like a silver feather. But as he looked, she wenthigher and higher, so high that she disappeared vertically. 

A strange sense of loneliness fell on Billy. This was the first timesince she had begun to come regularly to the island that she had cuttheir tryst short. He waited. She did not appear. A minute went by. Another and another and another. His sense of loneliness deepened touneasiness. Still there was no sign of Julia. Uneasiness became alarm. Ah, there she was at last--a speck, a dot, a spot, a splotch. How shewas flying! How--. 

Like a bullet the conviction struck him. 

She was falling!

Memories of certain biplanic explorations surged into his mind. "She'sfrozen, " he thought to himself. "She can't move her wings!" Terrorparalyzed him; horror bound him. He stood still-numb, dumb, helpless. 

Down she came like an arrow. Her wings kept straight above her head, moveless, still. He could see her breast and shoulders heave and twist, and contort in a fury of effort. Underneath her were the trees. He hada sudden, lightning-swift vision of a falling aviator that he had onceseen. The horror of what was coming turned his blood to ice. But hecould not move; nor could he close his eyes. 

"Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!" he groaned. And, finally, "Oh, thank God!"

Julia's wings were moving. But apparently she still had little controlof them. They flapped frantically a half-minute; but they had arrestedher fall; they held her up. They continued to support her, although shebeat about in jagged circles. Alternately floating and fluttering, shecaught on an air-current, hurled herself on it, floated; then, asthough she were sliding through some gigantic pillar of quiet air, sankearthwards. She seized the topmost bough of one of the high trees, threw her arms across it and hung limp. She panted; it seemed as if herbreasts must burst. Her eyes closed; but the tears streamed from underher eyelids. 

Billy ran close. He made no attempt to climb the tree to which sheclung, so weakly accessible. But he called up to her broken words ofassurance, broken phrases of comfort that ended in a wild harangue oflove and entreaty. 

After a while her breath came back. She pulled herself up on the boughand sat huddled there, her eyelids down, her silvery fans drooping, thegreat mass of her honey-colored hair drifting over the green branches, her drapery of white lilies, slashed and hanging in tatters, the tearsstill streaming. Except for its ghastly whiteness, her face showed nochange of expression. She did not sob or moan, she did not even speak;she sat relaxed. The tears stopped flowing gradually. Her eyelidslifted. Her eyes, stark and dark in her white face, gazed straight downinto Billy's eyes. 

And then Billy knew. 

He stood moveless staring up at her; never, perhaps, had human eyesasked so definite a question or begged so definite a boon. 

She sat moveless, staring straight down at him. But her eyes continuedto withhold all answer, all reassurance. 

After a while, she stirred and the spell broke. She opened and shut herwings, half a dozen times before she ventured to leave her perch. Butonce, in the air, all her strength, physical and mental, seemed to comeback. She shook the hair out of her eyes. She pulled her draperytogether. For a moment, she lingered near, floating, almost moveless, white, shining, carved, chiseled: like a marvelous piece of aerialsculpture. Then a flush of a delicate dawn-pink came into her whiteface. She caught the great tumbled mass of hair in both hands, tied itabout her head. Swift as a flash of lightning, she turned, wheeled, soared, dipped. And for the first time, Billy heard her laugh. Herlaughter was like a child's--gleeful. But each musical ripple thrustlike a knife into his heart. 

He watched her cleave the distance, watched her disappear. Then, suddenly, a curious weakness came over him. His head swam and he couldnot see distinctly. Every bone in his body seemed to repudiate itsfunction; his flexed muscles slid him gently to the earth. Time passed. After a while consciousness came back. His dizziness ceased. But he layfor a long while, face downward, his forehead against the cool moss. Again and again that awful picture came, the long, white, girl-shapeshooting earthwards, the ghastly, tortured face, the frenzied, heavingshoulders. It was to come again many times in the next week, thatpicture, and for years to make recurrent horror in his sleep. 

He returned to the camp white, wrung, and weak. Apparently hiscompanions had been busy at their various occupations. Nobody had seenJulia's fall; at least nobody mentioned it. After dinner, when thenightly argument broke into its first round, he was silent for a while. Then, "Oh, I might as well tell you, Frank, and you, Pete, " he saidabruptly, "that I've gone over to the other side. I'm for capture, friendship by capture, marriage by capture--whatever you choose to callit--but capture. "

The other four stared at him. "What's happened to you and Ju--" Honeybegan. But he stopped, flushing. 

Billy paid no attention to the bitten-off end of Honey's question. "Nothing's happened to me, " he lied simply and directly. "I don't knowwhy I've changed, but I have. I think this is a case where the endjustifies the means. Women don't know what's best for them. We do. Unguided, they take the awful risks of their awful ignorance. Moreover, they are the conservative sex. They have no conscious initiative. Theseflying-women, for instance, have plenty of physical courage but nomental or moral courage. They hold the whip-hand, of course, now. Anything might happen to them. This situation will prolong itselfindefinitely unless--unless we beat their cunning by our strategy. " Hepaused. "I don't think they're competent to take care of themselves. Ithink it's our duty to take care of them. I think the sooner--. " Hepaused again. "At the same time, I'm prepared to keep to our agreement. I won't take a step in this matter until we've all come round to it. "

"If it wasn't for their wings, " Honey said. 

Billy shuddered violently. "If it wasn't for their wings, " he agreed. 

Frank bore Billy's defection in the spirit of classic calm with whichhe accepted everything. But Pete could not seem to reconcile himself toit. He was constantly trying to draw Billy into debate. 

"I won't argue the matter, Pete, " Billy said again and again. "I can'targue it. I don't pretend even to myself that I'm reasonable orlogical, or just or ethical. It's only a feeling or an instinct. Butit's too strong for me. I can't fight it. It's as if I'd taken ajourney drugged and blindfolded. I don't know how I got on thisside--but I'm here. "

The effect of this was to weaken a little the friendship that had grownbetween Billy and Pete. Also Honey pulled a little way from Ralph andslipped nearer to his old place in Billy's regard. 

But now there were three warring elements in camp. Honey, Ralph, andBilly hobnobbed constantly. Frank more than ever devoted himself to hisreading. Pete kept away from them all, writing furiously most of theday. 

"We're going to have a harder time with him than with Frank, " Billyremarked once. 

"I guess we can leave that matter to take care of itself, " Ralph saidwith one of his irritating superior smiles. "How about it, Honey?"

"Surest thing you know, " Honey answered reassuringly. "All you've gotto do is wait--believe muh!"

"It does seem as if we'd waited pretty long, " Honey himself fumed twoweeks later, "I say we three get together and repudiate that agreement. "

"That would be dishonorable, " Billy said, "and foolish. You can see foryourself that we cannot stir a step in this matter withoutco-operation. As opponents, Pete and Frank could warn the girls offfaster than we could lure them on. "

"That's right, too, " agreed Honey. "But I'm damned tired of this, " headded drearily. "Not more tired than we are, " said Billy. 

An incident that varied the monotony of the deadlock occurred the nextday. Pete Murphy packed up food and writing materials and, without aword, decamped into the interior. He did not return that day, thatnight, or the next day, or the next night. 

"Say, don't you think we ought to go after him, " Billy said again andagain, "something may have happened. "

And, "No!" Honey always answered. "Trust that Dogan to take care ofhimself. You can't kill him. "

Pete worked gradually across the island to the other side. There thebeach was slashed by many black, saw-toothed reefs. The sea leaped upupon them on one side and the trees bore down upon them on the other. The air was filled with tumult, the hollow roar of the waves, thestrident hum of the pines. For the first day, Pete entertained himselfwith exploration, clambering from one reef to another, pausing only tolook listlessly off at the horizon, climbing a pine here and there, swinging on a bough while he stared absently back over the island. Butalthough his look fixed on the restless peacock glitter of the sea, orthe moveless green cushions that the massed trees made, it was evidentthat it took no account of them; they served only the more closely toset his mental gaze on its half-seen vision. 

The second morning, he arose, bathed, breakfasted, lay for an hour inthe sun; then drew pencil and paper from his pack. He wrote furiously. If he looked up at all, it was only to gaze the more fixedly inwards. But mainly his head hung over his work. 

In the midst of one of these periods of absorption, a flower fell outof the air on his paper. It was a brilliant, orange-colored tropicalbloom, so big and so freshly plucked that it dashed his verse with dew. For an instant he stared stupidly at it. Then he looked up. 

Just above him, not very high, her green-and-gold wings spread broadlike a butterfly's, floated Clara. Her body was sheathed in greenvines, delicately shining. Her hair was wreathed in fluttering yelloworchid-like flowers, her arms and legs wound with them. She was flyinglower than usual. And, under her wreath of flowers, her eyes lookedstraight into his. 

Pete stared at her stupidly as he had stared at the flower. Then hefrowned. Deliberately he dropped his eyes. Deliberately he went onwriting. 

Whir-r-r-r-r! Pete looked up again. Clara was beating back over theisland, a tempest of green-and-gold. 

Again, he concentrated on his work. 

Pete wrote all the rest of the day and by firelight far into the night. He wrote all the next morning. In the middle of the afternoon, aseashell struck his paper, glanced off. 

It was Clara again. 

This time, apparently, she had come from the ocean. Sea-kelp, stillglistening with brine, encased her close as with armor. A littlepointed cap of kelp covered her tawny hair as with a helmet. That gaveher a piquant quality of boyishness. She was flying lower than he hadever seen her, and as Pete's eyelids came up she dropped nearer, threwherself into one of her sinuous poses, arms and legs outstretchedclose, hands and feet cupped, wrists, ankles, hips, shoulders allmoving. She looked straight down into Pete's eyes; and this time shesmiled. 

Pete stared for another long moment. Then as though summoning all hisresolution, he withdrew his eyes, nailed them to his paper. Clarapeppered him with shells and pebbles; but he continued to ignore her. He did not look up again until a whir-r-r-r-r--loud at first butsteadily diminishing--apprised him of her flight. 

Pete again wrote the rest of the day and by firelight far into thenight. In the middle of the morning he stopped suddenly, weighted hispaper down with a stone, rolled over on to the pine-needles, and fellimmediately into a deep sleep. He lay for hours, his face down, restingon his arm. 

Whir-r-r-r-r!

Pete awoke with a start. His manuscript was gone. He leaped to hisfeet, stared wildly about. Not far off Clara was flying, almost on theground. As he watched, she ascended swiftly. She held his poem in herhands. She studied it, her head bent. She did not once look up or back;her eyes still jealously glued to the pencil-scratchings, she driftedout to sea, disappeared. 

Pete did not move. He watched Clara intently until she melted into thesky. But as he watched, his creative mood broke and evaporated. Andsuddenly another emotion, none the less fiercely ravaging, sluiced theblood into his face, filled his eyes with glitter, shook him as thougha high wind were blowing, sent him finally speeding at a maniacal paceover the reefs. 

"Say, do you think we'd better organize a search-party?" Honey askedfinally. 

"Not yet, " said Ralph, "here he comes. "

Pete was running down the trail like a deer. 

"I've finished my poem, " he yelled jubilantly. 

"Every last word of it. And now, boys, " he added briskly before theycould recover their breath, "I'm with you on this capture question. "

For an instant, the others stared and blinked. "What do you mean, Pete?" Honey asked stupidly, after an instant. 

"Well, I'm prepared to go as far as you like. "

"But what changed you?" Honey persisted. 

"Oh, hang it all, " Pete said and never had his little black, fieryIrish face so twisted with irritation, so flamed with spirit, "a poet'sso constituted that he's got to have a woman round to read his verseto. I want to teach Clara English so she can hear that poem. "

There was a half-minute of silence. Then his listeners broke intoroars. "You damned little mick you!" Honey said. He laughed atintervals for an hour. 

They immediately broke the news of Pete's desertion to Merrill. Frankreceived it without any appearance of surprise. But he announced, witha sudden boom of authority in his big voice, that he expected them allto stand by their agreement. Billy answered for the rest that they hadno intention of doing anything else. But the four were now in highspirits. Among themselves, they no longer said, "If we capture them, "but "When we capture them. "

The stress of the situation at once pulled Frank away from his books. Again he took complete charge of the little group. He was a naturaldisciplinarian, as they had learned at the time of the wreck. Now hissense of responsibility developed a severity that was almost austerity. He kept them constantly at work. In private the others chafed at histone of authority. But in his presence they never failed of respect. Besides, his remarkable unselfishness compelled their esteem, a shyvein of innocent, humorless sweetness their affection. "Old Frank" theyalways called him. 

One afternoon, Frank started on one of the long walks which latterly hehad abandoned. He left three of his underlings behind. Pete painted awater-color; Clara, weaving back and forth, watched his progress. Ralphworked on the big cabin--they called it the Clubhouse--Peachy whirlingback and forth in wonderful air-patterns for his benefit. A distantspeck of silver indicated Julia; Billy must be on the reef. Honey hadleft camp fifteen minutes before for the solitary afternoon tramp thathad become a daily habit with him. 

Frank's path lay part-way through the jungle. For half an hour hewalked so sunk in thought that he glanced neither to the right nor theleft. Then he stopped suddenly, held by some invisible, intangible, impalpable force. He listened. The air hummed delicately, hummed withan alien element, hummed with something that was neither the susurrusof insects nor the music of birds. He moved onward slowly and quietly. The hum grew and strengthened. It became a sound. It divided intocomponent parts, whistlings, trillings, twitterings, callings. Bird-like they were--but they could come only from the human throat. Impersonal they were--and yet they were sexed, female and male. Franklooked about him carefully. A little distance away, the trail sent offa tiny feeler into the jungle. It dipped into one of the pretty gladeswhich diversified the flatness of the island. Creeping slowly, Frankfollowed the sound. 

Half-way down the slope, Honey Smith was standing, staring upwards. Inhis virile, bronzed semi-nudity, he might have been a god who hademerged for the first time into the air from the woods at his back. Hislips were open and from them came sound. 

Above him, almost within reach, Lulu floated, gazing downward. She hada listening look; and she listened fascinated. She seemed to liemotionless on the air. It was the first time that Merrill had seen Luluso close. But in some mysterious way he knew that there was somethingabnormal about her. Her piquant Kanaka face shone with a strangeemotion. Her narrow eyes were big with wonder; her blood-red lips hadtrembled open. She stared at Honey as if she were seeing him from a newangle. She stared, but sound came from her parted lips. 

It was Honey who whistled and called. It was Lulu who twittered andtrilled. No mating male bird could have put more of entreatingtenderness into his voice. No mating female bird could have answeredwith more perplexity of abandon. 

For a moment Frank stared. Then, with a sudden sense of eavesdropping, he moved noiselessly back until he struck the main trail. 

He kept on until he came to the shady side of his favorite reef. Hetook from his pocket a book and began to read. To his surprise anddiscomfort, he could not get into it. Something psychological keptcoming between him and the printed page. He tried to concentrate on aparagraph, a sentence, a phrase. It was like eating granite. It waslike drinking dust. He stared at the words, but they seemed to floatoff the page. 

That, then, was what all the other four men were doing while he wasreading and writing, or while, with narrowed, scrutinizing eyes, hefollowed Chiquita's languid flight. He had not seen Chiquita for aweek; he had been so busy getting the first part of his monograph intoshape that he had not come to the reef. And all that week, the othermen had been--. A word from the university slang came into hismind--twosing--came into it with a new significance. How descriptivethat word was! How concrete! Twosing!

He took up his book again. He glued his eyes to the print. Five minutespassed; he was gazing at the same words. But now instead of floatingoff the page, they engaged in little dances, dizzyingly concentric. Suddenly something that was not of the mind interposed another obstacleto concentration, a jagged, purple shadow. 

It was Chiquita. 

Frank leaped to his feet and stood staring. The quickness of hismovement--ordinarily he moved measuredly--frightened her. Shefluttered, drifted away, paused. Frank stiffened. His immobilityreassured her. She drifted nearer. Something impelled Frank to hold hisrigid pose. But, for some unaccustomed reason, his hand trembled. Hisbook dropped noiselessly on to the soft grass. 

Chiquita floated down, closer than ever before. 

She had undoubtedly just waked up. The dew of dreams still lay on herluscious lips and in her great black eyes. Scarlet flowers, flat-petaled, black-stamened, wreathed her dusky hair. Scarlet bandsoutlined her dusky shoulders. Scarlet streamers trailed in her wake. Never had she seemed more lazy and languid, more velvety andvoluptuous, more colorful and sumptuous. 

Frank stared and stared. Then, following an inexplicable impulse, hewhistled as he had heard Honey whistle; and called as he had heardHoney call, the plaintive, entreating note of the mating male bird. 

The same look which had come into Lulu's face came into Chiquita's, alook of wonder and alarm and--. She trembled, but she sank slowly, headforemost like a diver. 

Frank continued softly to call and whistle. After an interval, anothermysterious instinct impelled him to stop. Chiquita's lips moved; fromthem came answering sound, faint, breathy, scarcely voiced butexquisitely musical, exquisitely feminine, the call of the matingfemale bird. 

When she stopped, Frank took it up. He raised his hand to her gently. As if that gave her confidence, she floated nearer, so close that hecould have touched her. But some new wisdom taught him not to do that. She sank lower and lower until she was just above him. Frank did notmove--nor speak now. She fluttered and continued to sink. Now he couldlook straight into her eyes. Frank had never really looked into awoman's eyes before. The depth of Chiquita's was immeasurable. Therewere dreams on the surface. But his gaze pierced through the dreams, through layer on layer of purple black, to where stars lay. Someemotion that constantly grew in her seemed to melt and fuse all theselayers; but the stars still held their shine. 

Slowly still, but as though at the urge of a compelled abandon, Chiquita sank lower and lower. Nearer she came and nearer. The pollenfrom the flowers at her breast sifted on to his face. Now their eyeswere level. And now--. 

She kissed him. 

Billy, Ralph, and Pete sat on the sand bantering Honey, who hadreturned in radiant spirits from his walk. 

"Here comes old Frank, " Billy said. "He's running. But he's staggering. By George, I should think he was drunk. "

Frank was drunk, but not with wine. When he came nearer, they saw thathis face was white. 

"You're right boys, " he said quietly, "and I'm wrong. " For a moment, headded nothing; but they knew what he meant. "A situation like this isspecial; it requires special laws. It's the masculine right of eminentdomain. I give my consent--I--I--I--I agree to anything you want to do. "

IV

"The question before the house now is, " said Ralph, "how are we goingto do it? Myself, I'd be strong for winging them sometime when they'reflying low. "

The other four men burst into shocked remonstrance. 

"Well, don't go up in the air, " Ralph said in an amused voice. "Itwouldn't hurt them any. And it seems to me if we've definitely made upour minds to capture them, the best way is the swiftest and surest. "

"But to shoot a woman!" Pete exclaimed. 

"Well, don't worry, " Ralph answered him, "we haven't any guns. I didthink of bows and arrows, though. " He said this in the tone of one whothrows out a suggestion and he stopped to study the faces of his fellowconspirators. Equally they expressed horror and disgust. "All right, "he said with equanimity. "I see you're like all human nature. You'redetermined to pull off this caveman stunt, but you want to do it withevery appearance of chivalry and generosity. You're saving face. Allright! I'm agreeable--although personally I think the quickest way themost merciful. Has anybody a better plan?"

Nobody had. It was obvious, though, from the talk that followed, thatthey had all been secretly considering the matter. 

"The only thing for us to do, " Honey said at once, "is to lie in wait. Conceal ourselves in the bushes and leap out on them. "

"That sounds easy, " Ralph said. "But has it occurred to you that thesegirls have the ears of wild animals? Has it occurred to you that theyhave all the instincts and cunning of the animal and all the intuitionand prescience of the woman? Has it occurred to you that they alwaysapproach from above?"

"The only thing I can think of, " said Billy, "is to lasso them. Onlywe've got to get them to alight and walk round first. But either theycan't walk or they don't like to walk. We must off offer them somebait. Now, what in thunder would tempt a creature that's one-thirdwoman, one-third bird, and one-third angel to come down to earth?"

For a moment they were all silent considering this question. "By Jove, "Ralph burst out finally, "what are we all sitting here like dopes for?Those trunks are full of women's clothes. Did you ever see a woman yetwho wouldn't fall for ribbons and laces?"

"Good shot!" exclaimed Honey. "Let's go through the women-truckto-morrow and pick out some things that would please a girl. We'll putthem on the beach a good distance off from us, so they'll not thinkit's a trap. If we do that every day for a week or two they'll getaccustomed to walking round while we're working. It's our play to takeno notice of them whatever. "

"That's the answer, " Ralph said in a tone of satisfaction. 

Immediately after breakfast, the next morning, they made for the fileof trunks so contemptuously rejected the first week of their stay. Honey, who was always head and shoulders in front of the others, brokeopen the first one. 

"By jiminy, boys!" he shouted, seizing something that lay on top andwaving it over his head, "we've got them on the go-off. By George, " hewent on, lowering his voice, "I bet that belonged to some darned prettywoman. "

The men crowded about him; and, as they examined his find, their facessoftened. Nothing could more subtly have emanated femininity. It was ahand-mirror of silver. Two carved Cupids held the glass between them. Their long wings made the handle. 

"Put it down there on the hard sand, " Ralph said, "where they can'tfail to see it. "

"Hold!" exclaimed Honey in a tone of burlesque warning. "There must befive mirrors. He knows nothing of women who thinks that one mirror maybe divided among five girls. I hope Lulu cops this one. "

His companions did not laugh. Apparently they were impressed with thesapience of his remark. They searched the trunks until they hadgathered the five that Honey demanded. They placed them in a row justabove the high-water line. The mirrors caught the sunlight, reflectedit. 

"They won't do a thing to those girls, " said Honey. There was the gleein his voice of a little boy who is playing a practical joke. 

The girls came in a group in the middle of the afternoon. 

"They've spotted them already, " said Honey. 

"Trust a woman and a looking-glass. "

The discovery ruined discipline; it broke ranks; the five girls flewhigh, flew low, flew separated, flew grouped, crowded about Julia, obviously asking her advice. Obviously she gave it; for following herquick, clear tones of advice came a confused chattering--remonstrance. Then Peachy, Clara, Chiquita, and Lulu dropped a little. Julia alonecame no nearer. She alone showed no excitement. 

The men meantime watched. They could not, as they had so loftilyresolved, pretend to ignore the situation. But they kept silent andstill. Once or twice the girls glanced curiously in their direction. But in the main they ignored them. Descending in big, slow, cautious, sliding curves, they circled nearer and nearer the sand. 

Suddenly Lulu screamed. Still screaming, she bounded--it was almostthat she bounced--straight up. The others streamed to the zenith in thewake of her panic, caught up, closed about her. There floated down theshrillness of agitated question and answer. 

"What the Hades--" Ralph said in a mystified tone. 

"I've got it, " said Honey. "She caught a look at herself in one of themirrors and she's scared. Don't be afraid, Lulu, " he called in areassuring tone; "it won't hurt you. "

Lulu evidently got what he intended to convey. Again she sank slowly, hovered an instant close to the sand, brought her face near to amirror, bounced up, dipped down, brought her face nearer, fluttered, put out one hand, withdrew it, put out the other, withdrew it, put outboth, seized a mirror firmly, darted to the zenith. 

"Well, what do you know about that!" said Billy. And, "Oh, the angels!"exclaimed Pete. Ralph's face opened in the fatuous grin which alwaysmeant satisfaction with him. Honey turned somersaults of delight. EvenFrank twinkled. 

For, high up in the heaven, five heads positively bumped over themeager oval of silver. 

Lulu finally pulled out of the crowd and flew away. But all the timeshe held the mirror straight before her, clasped tightly in two hands, ecstatically "eating herself up" as Honey described it. 

The men continued to watch. 

Gradually, one after another, the other four girls fell under the lureof their vanity and their acquisitiveness. 

Clara dove first, clutched a long-handled oval of yellow celluloid. Next Chiquita swam lazily downward, made a brief scarlet flutter on thebeach, seized an elaborate double mirror set in gilded wood. Peachyfollowed; she chose a heart-shaped glass, ebony-framed. Last of all, Julia came floating slowly down. She took the only one that was left:it was, of course, the smallest; it was framed in carved ivory. 

For the next ten minutes, the sky presented a picture of five wingedwomen, stationed at various points of the compass, ecstaticallystudying their own beautiful faces in mirrors held in their white, strong-looking hands. 

Then, flying together again, they discovered that the mirrorsreflected. At first, this created panic, then amusement. Ensued adelicious girl-frolic. Darting through the air, laughing, jabbering, they played tag, throwing the light into each other's eyes. A littlelater Peachy gathered them into a bunch and whispered instructions. Immediately they began flashing the mirrors into the men's faces. Toescape this bombardment, their victims had finally to throw themselvesface downward on the sand. 

In the midst of this excitement came disaster. 

Lulu dropped her mirror. 

It hit square and shattered on the sand to many brilliant splinters. Lulu fell like a stone, seized the empty frame, gazed into it for aheart-broken second, burst into tears. 

It was the first time that the men as a group had ever seen in theflying-girls an exhibition of this feminine faculty. For a moment, theywatched her, deeply interested, as though confronted by an unfamiliarphenomenon. Then Billy wriggled. 

"Say, stop her, somebody, " he begged, "I hate to hear a woman cry. "

"So do I, " said Peter, his face twisted into creases of discomfort. "She's your girl, Honey. Stop her, for God's sake. "

"How's he going to stop her, I'd like to know?" demanded Ralph. "Wedon't converse very fluently yet, you know. "

"Well, I know how to stop her, " said Honey, leaping up. "I say, Lulu, "he called. "Stop that crying, that's a good girl. It makes us all sick. I'll find you another mirror in a moment. "

Lulu did not stop crying. Perhaps she was not too primitive to realizethat tears are the argument a woman negotiates best. She wailed andwept assiduously. 

Honey, in the meantime, flew to the trunks. He dumped one afteranother; clothes flew from either energetic hand like gravel from ashovel. Suddenly he gave a yell of triumph and brandished--. It wascheap and brass-bound, but it reflected the sunlight as well as thoughit had been framed in massy gold. 

"Here you are, Lulu!" he called. He ran down the beach and held it upto her. Lulu caught the reflection. She dropped sheer. In hereagerness, she took it from Honey's very hand. And as she seized it, atear dropped on his upturned cheek. And as the tear dropped, her facebroke into smiles. 

"Well, " exclaimed Ralph an instant later, "if I'd had any idea thatthey were angels and not females, this would settle the question forme. Good Lord! Well, you have got a temper, my lady. "

It was of Julia he spoke. 

For, descending slowly and deliberately, Julia hovered an instant abovea big rock. Then, with a tremendous slashing impulse of a powerful arm, she hurled her mirror on it. She flew in a very frenzy of haste intothe west. 

The girls returned the next morning early. 

"After the graft, " Ralph commented cynically. 

Honey had been rifling the trunks again. He walked down to the beachwith an armful of fans, piled them there, returned to camp. The girlsdescended, eyed them, ascended, gathered together, talked, descended, ascended again. 

"What's the row?" Billy asked. 

"They don't know what they're for, " said Pete. He ran down on to thebeach, seized a fan of feathers, opened it, and stood fanning himself. Then he put it down and ran back. 

He had hardly returned to the group of men when Chiquita swooped downand seized the fan that he had dropped. The feathers were the exactscarlet of her wings. She floated about, fanning herself slowly, herteeth flashing white in her dusky face. 

"By jiminy, if she only had a mantilla, she'd be a Spanish angel, "Billy commented whimsically. 

The other girls dropped down after a while and seized a fan, or inClara's case two, and Peachy's three. They sailed off into the west, fanning themselves slowly. 

"Say, we've got to have our ammunition all ready the next time theycome, " said Ralph. "I bet they're here this afternoon. They've neverhad any of these lover-like little attentions, apparently. And they'refalling for them so quick that it's fairly embarrassing. Pete, you'llhave to be muckraking this island before we get through. "

In their search for what Honey called "bait, " they came across a trunkfilled with scarfs of various descriptions; gauze, satin, chiffon;embroidered, sequined, fringed; every color, fabric, and decoration;every shape and size. "Drummers' samples!" Honey commented. 

"I tell you what we'll do now, " Ralph suggested. "Put the first fivescarfs on the beach where they can get them. But if they want any more, make them take them from our hands. Be careful, though, not to frightenthem. One move in their direction and we'll undo everything we'veaccomplished. "

As Ralph prophesied, the girls came again that day, but they waiteduntil after sunset. It was full-moon night, however; the island was aswhite as day. They must have seen the gay-colored heaps from adistance; they pounced on them at once. The air resounded with cooingsof delight. There was no doubt of it; the scarfs pleased them almost asmuch as the mirrors. Before the first flush of their delight hadpassed, Honey ran down the beach, bearing aloft a long, shimmering, white streamer. Ralph followed with a scarf of black and gold. Billy, Pete, and Frank joined them, each fluttering a brilliant silk gonfalon. 

The girls drew away in alarm at first. Then they drew together forcounsel. All the time the men stood quiet, waving their delicately huedspoils. One by one--Clara first, then Chiquita, Lulu, Peachy, Julia--they succumbed; they sank slowly. Even then they floated for along while, visibly swinging between the desire for possession and theinstinct of caution. But in the end each one of them took from her matethe scarf he held up to her. Followed the prettiest exhibition offlying that Angel Island had yet seen. The girls fastened the longgauzes to their heads and shoulders. They flicked and flitted andflittered, they danced and pirouetted and spun through the air, trailing what in the aqueous moonlight looked like mist, irradiated, star-sown. 

"Well, " said Ralph that night after the girls had vanished, "I don'tsee that this business of handing out loot is getting us anywhere. Wecan keep this up until we've given those harpies every blessed thing inthe trunks. Then where are we? They'll have everything we have to give, and we'll be no nearer acquainted. We've got to do something else. "

"If we could only get them down to earth--if we could only accustomthem to walking about, " Honey declared, "I'm sure we could rig up somekind of trap. "

"But you can't get them to do that, " Billy said. 

"And the answer's obvious. They can't walk. You see how tiny, anduseless-looking their feet are. They're no good to them, becausethey've never used them. It never occurs to them apparently even to tryto walk. "

"Well, who would walk if he could fly?" demanded Pete pugnaciously. 

"Well said, son, " agreed Ralph, "but what are we going to do about it?"

"I'll tell you what we can do about it, " said Frank quietly, "if you'lllisten to me. " The others turned to him. Their faces expressed varyingemotions--surprise, doubt, incredulity, a great deal of amusement. Butthey waited courteously. 

"The trouble has been heretofore, " Frank went on in his best academicmanner, "that you've gone at this problem in too obvious a way. You'veappealed to only one motive--acquisitiveness. There's a stronger onethan that--curiosity. "

The look of politely veiled amusement on the four faces began to giveway to credulity. "But how, Frank?" asked Billy. 

"I'll show you how, " said Frank. "I've been thinking it out by myselffor over a week now. "

There was an air of quiet certainty about Frank. His companions lookedfurtively at each other. The credulity in their faces changed tointerest. "Go on, Frank, " Billy said. They listened closely to hisdisquisition. 

"What ever gave you the idea, Frank?" Billy asked at the end. 

"The fact that I found a Yale spring-lock the other day, " Frankanswered quietly. 

The next morning, the men arose at sunrise and went at once to work. They worked together on the big cabin--the Clubhouse--and they dug andhammered without intermission all day long. Halfway through themorning, the girls came flying in a group to the beach. The men paid noattention to them. Many times their visitors flew up and down thelength of the crescent of white, sparkling sand, each time droppinglower, obviously examining it for loot. Finding none, they flew in abody over the roof of the Clubhouse, each face turned disdainfullyaway. The men took no notice even of this. The girls gathered togetherin a quiet group and obviously discussed the situation. After a littleparley, they flew off. Later in the afternoon came Lulu alone. Shehovered at Honey's shoulder, displaying all her little tricks ofgraceful flying; but Honey was obdurate. Apparently he did not see her. Came Chiquita, floating lazily back and forth over Frank's head like amonstrous, deeply colored tropical bloom borne toward him on a breeze. She swam down close, floated softly, but Frank did not even look in herdirection. Came Peachy with such marvels of flying, such diving andsoaring, such gyrating and flashing, that it took superhumanself-control not to drop everything and stare. But nobody looked orpaused. Came Clara, posturing almost at their elbows. Came all saveJulia, but the men ignored them equally. 

"Gee, " said Honey, after they had all disappeared, "that took the lastdrop of resolution in me. By Jove, you don't suppose they'll get soreand stay away for good?"

Frank shook his head. 

Day by day the men worked on the Clubhouse; they worked their hardestfrom the moment of sunrise to the instant of sunset. It was a squarebuilding, big compared with the little cabins. They made a wide, heavydoor at one end and long windows with shutters on both sides. Thesewere kept closed. 

"Only one more day's work, " Frank said at the end of a fortnight, "andthen--. "

They finished the Clubhouse, as he prophesied, the next day. 

"Now to furnish it, " Frank said. 

They put up rough shelves and dressing-tables. They put in chairs andhammocks. Then, working secretly at night when the moon was full, or inthe morning just after sunrise--at any time during the day when thegirls were not in sight--they transferred the contents of a half adozen women's trunks to the Clubhouse. They hung the clothesconspicuously in sight; they piled many small toilet articles on tablesand shelves; they placed dozens of mirrors about. 

"It looks like a sale at the Waldorf, " Honey said as they stoodsurveying the effect. "Tomorrow, we begin our psychological siege. Isthat right, Frank?"

"Psychological siege is right, " answered Frank with an unaccustomedgayety and an unaccustomed touch of slang. 

In the meantime the girls had shown their pique at this treatment in avariety of small ways. Peachy and Clara made long detours around theisland in the effort not to pass near the camp. Chiquita and Lulu flewoverhead, but only in order to throw pebbles and sand down on the menwhile they were working. 

Julia alone took no part in this feud. If she was visible at all, itwas only as a glittering speck in the far-off reaches of the blue sky. 

The next time the four girls approached the island, the men aroseimmediately from their work. With an ostentatious carelessness, theywent into the Clubhouse. With an ostentatious carefulness, they closedthe door. They stayed there for three hours. 

Outside, the girls watched this maneuver in visible astonishment. Theydrew together and talked it over, flew down close to the Clubhouse, flew about it in circles, examined it on every side, made even oneperilous trip across the roof, the tips of their feet tapping it invicious little dabs. But flutter as they would, jabber as they would, the Clubhouse preserved a tomb-like silence. After a while they bangedon the shutters and knocked against the door; but not a sound ormovement manifested itself inside. 

They flew away finally. 

The next day the same thing happened--and the next--and the next. 

But on the fourth day, something quite different occurred. 

The instant the men saw the girls approaching, they carefully closedthe door and windows of the Clubhouse, and then marched into theinterior of the island. Close by the lake, there was a thick jungle oftrees--a place where the branches matted together, in a roof-likestructure, leaving a cleared space below. The men crawled into thisshelter on their hands and knees for an eighth of a mile. They stayedthere three hours. 

The girls had followed this procession in an air-course that exactlyparalleled the trail. When the men disappeared under the trees, theycame together in a chattering group, obviously astonished, obviouslyirritated. Hours went by. Not a thing stirred in the jungle; not asound came from it. The girls hovered and floated, dipped, dove, flewalong the edge of the lake close to the water, tried by looking underthe trees, to get what was going on. It was useless. Then they alightedon the tree-tops and swung themselves down from branch to branch untilthey were as near earth as they dared to come. Again they peered andpeeped. And again it was useless. In the end, flying and floating withthe disconsolate air of those who kill time, they frankly waited untilthe men emerged from the jungle. Then, again the girls took up the airycourse that paralleled the trail to the camp. 

For two weeks the men rigidly followed a program. Alternately they shutthemselves inside the Clubhouse and concealed themselves in the forest. They stayed the same length of time in both places--never less thanthree hours. 

For two weeks, the girls rigidly followed a program. When the menretired to the Clubhouse, they spent the three hours hovering over it, sometimes banging viciously with feet and hands against the walls, sometimes dropping stones on the roof. When the men retired to thejungle, they spent the three hours beating about the branches of thetrees, dipping lower and lower into the underbrush, taking, as timewent on, greater and greater risks. But, as in both cases, the men werescreened from observation, all their efforts were useless. 

Finally came a day with a difference. The men retired to the forest asusual but, by an apparent inadvertence, they left the door of theClubhouse open a crack. 

As usual the girls followed the men to the lake, but this time therewas a different air about them; they seemed to bubble with excitement. The men crawled under the underbrush and waited. The girls made aperfunctory search of the jungle and then, as at a concerted signal, they darted like bolts of lightning back in the direction of the camp. 

"I think we've got them, boys, " said Frank. There was a kind ofBerserker excitement about him, a wild note of triumph in his voice anda white flare of triumph in his face. His breath came in excited gustsand his nostrils dilated under the strain. 

"I'm sure of it, " agreed Ralph. "And, by Jove, I'm glad. I've never hadanything so get on my nerves as this chase. " Ralph did, indeed, lookworn. Haggard and wild-eyed, he was shaking under the strain. 

"Lord, I'm glad--but, Lord, it's some responsibility, " said HoneySmith. Honey was not white or drawn. He did not shake. But he hadchanged. Still radiantly youthful, there was a new look in hisface--resolution. 

"I feel like a mucker, " groaned Billy. He lay face down on a heap ofvines, his forehead pressed against the cool leaves. "But it is right, "he added as one arguing fiercely with himself. "It is right. There's noother way. "

"I feel like a white slaver, " said Pete. He was unshaven and the blackshadow of his beard contrasted sharply with the white set look in hisface. "It's hell to live, isn't it? But the worst of it is, we mustlive. "

"Time's up. " Frank breathed these words on the long gust of hisoutgoing breath. "Now, don't go to pieces. Remember, it must be done. "

One behind the other, they crawled through the narrow tunnel that theyhad cut into the underbrush--found the trail. 

"Let's swim across the lake, " Honey suggested; "I'm losing my nerve. "

"Good idea, " Billy said. They plunged into the water. Fifteen minuteslater, they emerged on the other side, cool, composed, ready foranything. 

The long trip back to the camp was taken almost in silence. Once in awhile, a mechanical "That's a new bird, isn't it?" came from Billy and, a perfunctory "Look at that color, " from Pete. Frank walked ahead. Hetowered above the others. He kept his eyes to the front. Ralphfollowed. At intervals, he pulled himself up and peered into the sky ordropped and tried to pierce the untranslatable distance; all this withthe quiet, furtive, prowling movements of some predatory beast. Nextcame Honey, whistling under his breath and all the time whistling thesame tune. Billy and Pete, walking side by side, tailed the procession. At times, those two caught themselves at the beginning of shudderingfits, but always by a supreme effort they managed to calm themselves. 

They came finally to the point where the jungle-trail joined thesand-trail. 

"There isn't one in sight, " said Frank. 

"They may have flown home, " Honey said doubtfully. 

"They're in the Clubhouse, " said Ralph. And he burst suddenly into along, wild cry of triumph. The cry was taken up in a faint shrill echo. From the distance came shrieks--women's voices--smothered. 

"By God, we've got them, " said Frank again. 

And then a strange thing happened. Pete Murphy crooked his elbow up tohis face and burst into hysterical weeping. 

All this time, the men were moving swiftly towards the Clubhouse. Asthey approached, the sound inside grew in volume from a hum ofterrified whisperings accented by drumming wings, to a pandemonium ofcries and sobs and wails. 

"They'll make a rush when we open the door, remember, " Ralph remindedthem. His eyes gleamed like a cat's. 

"Yes, but we can handle them, " said Frank. "There isn't much nerve leftin them by this time. "

"I say, boys, I can't stand this, " burst out Billy. "Open the door andlet them out. "

Billy's words brought murmured echoes of approval from Pete and Honey. 

"You've got to stand it, " Frank said in a tone of command. He surveyedhis mutinous crew with a stern look of authority. 

"I can't do it, " Honey admitted. 

"I feel sick, " Pete groaned. 

Just then emerged from the pandemonium within another sound, curt andsharp-cut, the crash against the door of something heavy. 

"That door won't stand much of that, " Frank warned. "They'll get outbefore we know it. "

The look of irresolution went like a flash from Billy's face, fromHoney's, from Pete's. The look of the hunter took its place, keen, alert, determined, cruel. 

"Keep close behind me, " Frank ordered. 

"When I open the door, push in as quick as you can. They'll try to rushout. "

Inside the vibrant drumming kept up. Mixed with it came screams moresharp with terror. There came another crash. 

Frank pounded on the door. "Stand back!" he called in a quiet tone ofauthority as if the girls could understand. He fitted the key to thelock, turned it, pulled the door open, leaped over the two brokenchairs on the threshold. The others followed, crowding close. 

The rush that they had expected did not come. 

Apparently at the first touch on the door, the girls had retreated tothe farthest corner. They stood huddled there, gathered behind Julia. They stood close together, swaying, half-supporting each other, theirpinions drooped and trailing, their eyes staring black with horror outof their white faces. 

Julia, a little in front, stood at defiance. Her wings, as thoughanimated by a gentle voltage of electricity, kept lifting with a lowpurring whirr. Half-way they struck the ceiling and dropped dead. Thetiny silvery-white feathers near her shoulders rose like fur on a cat'sback. One hand was clenched; the other grasped a chair. Her face wasnot terrified; neither was it white. It glowed with rage, as if a firehad been built in an alabaster vase. 

All about on the floor, on chairs, over shelves lay the gauds that hadlured them to their capture. Of them all, Julia alone showed no change. Below the scarlet draperies swathing Chiquita's voluptuous outlinesappeared the gold stockings and the high-heeled gold slippers which shehad tried on her beautiful Andalusian feet. Necklaces swung from herthroat; bracelets covered her arms; rings crowded her fingers. Lulu hadthrown about her leafy costume an evening cape of brilliant bluebrocade trimmed with ermine. On her head glittered a boudoir-cap of weblace studded with iridescent mock jewels. Over her mail of seaweed, Clara wore a mandarin's coat--yellow, with a decoration of tinymirrors. Her hair was studded with jeweled hairpins, combs; a jeweledband, a jeweled aigrette. Peachy had put on a pink chiffon evening gownhobbled in the skirt, one shoulder-length, shining black glove, a longchain of fire-opals. Out of this emerged with an astonishing effect ofcontrast her gleaming pearly shoulders and her, lustrous blue wings. 

An instant the two armies stood staring at each other--at close termsfor the first time. Then, with one tremendous sweep of her arm, Juliathrew something over their heads out the open door. It flashed throughthe sunlight like a rainbow rocket, tore the surface of the sea in adazzle of sparks and colors. 

"There goes five hundred thousand dollars, " said Honey as theWilmington "Blue" found its last resting-place. "Shut the door, Pete. "

With another tremendous sweep of her magnificent arm, Julia lifted thechair, swung it about her head as if it were a whip, rushed--notrunning or flying, but with a movement that was both--upon the fivemen. Her companions seized anything that was near. Lulu wrenched ashelf from its fastenings. 

The men closed in upon them. 

Twenty minutes later, silence had fallen on the Clubhouse, a silencethat was broken only by panted breathing. The five men stood resting. The five girls stood, tied to the walls, their hands pinioned in frontof them. At intervals, one or the other of them would call in anagonized tone to Julia. And always she answered with words thatreassured and calmed. 

The room looked as if it had housed a cyclone. The furniture lay insplinters; the feminine loot lay on the floor, trampled and torn. 

"I'd like to sit down, " Ralph admitted. It was the first remark thatany one of the men had made. "Lucky they can't understand me. I'd hatethem to know it, but I'm as weak as a cat. "

"No sitting down, yet, " Frank commanded, still in his inflexible tonesof a disciplinarian. "Open the door, Pete--get some air in here!" Heknelt before a sea-chest which filled one corner of the room, unlockedit, lifted the cover. The sunlight glittered on the contents. 

"My God, I can't, " said Billy. 

"I feel like a murderer, " said Pete. 

"You've got to, " Frank said in a tone, growing more peremptory witheach word. "Now. "

"That's right, " said Ralph. "If we don't do it now, we'll never do it. "

Frank handed each man a pair of shears. 

"I sharpened them myself, " he said briefly. 

Heads over their shoulders, the girls watched. 

Did intuition shout a warning to them? As with one accord, a long wailarose from them, swelled to despairing volume, ascended to desperateheights. 

"Now!" Frank ordered. 

They had thought the girls securely tied. 

Clara fought like a leopardess, scratching and biting. 

Lulu struggled like a caged eagle, hysteria mounting in her all thetime until the room was filled with her moans. 

Peachy beat herself against the wall like a maniac. She shriekedwithout cessation. One scream stopped suddenly in the middle--Ralph hadstruck her on the forehead. For the rest of the shearing session shelay over a chair, limp and silent. 

Chiquita, curiously enough, resisted not at all. She only swayed andshrugged, a look of a strange cunning in her long, deep, thick-lashedeyes. But of them all, she was the only one who attempted to comfort;she talked incessantly. 

Julia did not move or speak. But at the first touch of the cold steelon her bare shoulders, she fainted in Billy's arms. 

An hour later the men emerged from the Clubhouse. 

"I'm all in, " Honey muttered. "And I don't care who knows it. I'm goingfor a swim. " Head down, he staggered away from the group and zigzaggedover the beach. 

"I guess I'll go back to the camp for a smoke, " Frank said. "I neverrealized before that I had nerves. " Frank was white, and he shook atintervals. But some strange spirit, compounded equally of a sense ofvictory and of defeat, flashed in his eyes. 

"I'm going off for a tramp. " Pete was sunken as well as ashen; helooked dead. "Do you suppose they'll hurt themselves pulling againstthose ropes?" he asked tonelessly. 

"Let them struggle for a while, " Ralph advised. Like the rest of them, Ralph was exhausted-looking and pale. But at intervals he swaggered andglowed. With his strange, new air of triumph and his white teethglittering through his dark mustache, he was more than ever like somehuge predatory cat. "Serves them right! They've taken it out of us forthree months. "

Billy did not speak, but he swayed as he followed Frank. He fell on hisbed when they reached the camp. He lay there all night motionless, staring at the ceiling. 

There was a tiny spot of blood on one hand. 

V

A. 

Dawn on Angel Island. 

A gigantic rose bloomed at the horizon-line; half its satin petals layon the iron sea, half on the granite sky. The gold-green morning starwas fading slowly. From the island came a confusion of bird-calls. 

Addington emerged from the Clubhouse. Without looking about him, hestaggered down the path to the Camp. The fire was still burning. Theother men lay beside it, moveless, asleep with their clothes on. Theywaked as his footsteps drew near. Livid with fatigue, their eyelidsdropping in spite of their efforts, they jerked upright. 

"How are they?" Billy asked. 

"The turn has come, " Ralph answered briefly. As he spoke he crumpledslowly into a heap beside the fire. "They're going to live. "

The others did not speak; they waited. 

"Julia did it. She had dozed off. Suddenly in the middle of the night, she sat upright. She was as white as marble but there was a light backof her face. And with all that wonderful hair falling down--she lookedlike an angel. She called to them one by one. And they answered her, one by one. You never heard--it was like little birds answering themother-bird's call. At first their voices were faint and weak. But shekept encouraging them until they sat up--God, it was--. "

Ralph could not go on for a while. 

"She gave them a long talk--she was so weak she had to keepstopping--but she went right on--and they listened. Of course Icouldn't understand a word. But I knew what she said. In effect, itwas: 'We cannot die. We must all live. We cannot leave any one of ushere alone. Promise me that you will get well!' She pledged them to it. She made them take an oath, one after the other. Oh, they were obedientenough. They took it. "

He stopped again. 

"That talk made the greatest difference. After it was all over, I gavethem some water. They were different even then. They looked at me--andthey didn't shrink or shudder. When I handed Julia the cup, she madeherself smile. God, you never saw such a smile. I nearly--" he paused, "I all but went back to the cabin and cut my throat. But the fight'sover. They'll get well. They're sleeping like children now. "

"Thank God!" Merrill groaned. "Oh, thank God!"

"I've felt like a murderer ever since--" Billy said. He stopped and hisvoice leaped with a sudden querulousness. "You didn't wake me up;you've done double guard duty during the night, Ralph. "

"Oh, that's all right. You were all in--I felt that--" Ralph stammeredin a shamefaced fashion. "And I knew I could stand it. "

"There's a long sleep coming to you, Ralph, " Pete said. "You've hardlyclosed your eyes this week. No question but you've saved their lives. "

B. 

Mid-morning on Angel Island. 

The sun had mounted half-way to the zenith; sky and sea and landglittered with its luster. Like war-horses, the waves came ramping overthe smooth, shimmering sand; war-horses with bodies of jade and manesof silver. 

Pete floated inshore on a huge comber, ran up the beach a little wayand sat down. Billy followed. 

"I've come out just to get the picture, " Pete explained. 

"Same here, " said Billy. 

For an instant, both men contemplated the scene with the narrowed, critical gaze of the artist. 

The flying-girls were swimming; and swimming with the same grace andstrength with which formerly they flew. And as if inevitably they musttake on the quality of the element in which they mixed, they lookedlike mermaids now, just as formerly they had looked like birds. Theycarried heads and shoulders high out of the water. Webs of sea-spumeglittered on the shining hair and on the white flesh. One behind theother, they swam in rhythmic unison. Regularly the long, round, strong-looking right arms reached out of the water, bowed forward, clutched at the wave, and pulled them on. Simultaneously, the left armsreached back, pushed against the wave, and shot them forward. Theirfeet beat the water to a lather. 

They were headed down the beach, hugging the shore. Swim as hard asthey could, Honey and Frank managed but to keep up with them. Ralphovertook them only in their brief resting-periods. Further inshore, carried ceaselessly a little forward and then a little back, Juliafloated; floated with an unimaginable lightness and yet, somehow, conserved her aspect of a creature cut in marble. 

"I have never seen anything so beautiful in any art, ancient ormodern, " Billy concluded. "When those strange draperies that theyaffect get wet, they look like the Elgin marbles. "

"If we should take them to civilization, " was Pete's answer, "the Elginmarbles would become a joke. "

Billy spoke after a long silence. "It's been an experience that--if Iwere--oh, but what's the use? You can't describe it. The words haven'tbeen invented yet. I don't mean the fact that we've discovered membersof a lost species--the missing link between bird and man. I mean what'shappened since the capture. It's left marks on me. I'll bear them untilI die. If we abandoned this island--and them--and went back to theworld, I could never be the same person. If I woke up and found it wasa dream, I could never be the same person. "

"I know, " Pete said, "I know. I've changed, too. We all have. Old Frankis a god. And Honey's grown so that--. Even Ralph's a different man. Changed--God, I should say I had. It's not only given me a new hold onthings I thought I'd lost-morality, ethics, religion even--but it'sdeveloped something I have no word for--the fourth dimension ofreligion, faith. "

"It's their weakness, I think, and their dependence. " Now it was lessthat Billy tried to translate Pete's thought and more that heendeavored to follow his own. "It puts it up to a man so. And theirbeauty and purity and innocence and simplicity--. " Billy seemed to beransacking his vocabulary for abstract nouns. 

"And that sense you have, " Pete broke in eagerly, "of molding a virginmind. It gives you a feeling of responsibility that's fairly terrifyingat times. But there's something else mixed up with it--the instinct ofthe artist. It's as though you were trying to paint a picture on humanflesh. You know that you're going to produce beauty. " Pete's face shonewith the look of creative genius. "The production of beauty excuses anymethod, to my way of thinking. " He spoke half to himself. "God knows, "he added after a pause, "whatever I've done and been, I could never door be again. Sometimes a man knows when he's reached the zenith of hisspiritual development. I've reached mine. I think they're beginning totrust us, " he added after another long interval, in which silently theycontemplated the moving composition. Pete's tone had come back to itseveryday accent. 

"No question about it, " Billy rejoined. "If I do say it as shouldn't, Ithink my scheme was the right one--never to separate any one of themfrom the others, never to seem to try to get them alone, and ineverything to be as gentle and kind and considerate as we could. "

"That look is still in their eyes, " Pete said. He turned away fromBilly and his face contracted. "It goes through me like a knife--. Whenthat's gone--. "

"It will go inevitably, Pete, " Billy reassured him cheerfully. Suddenlyhis own voice lowered. "One queer thing I've noticed. I wonder ifyou're affected that way. I always feel as if they still had wings. What I mean is this. If I stand beside one of them with my eyes turnedaway I always get an impression that they're still there, toweringabove my head--ghosts of wings. Ever notice it?"

"Oh, Lord, yes!" Pete agreed. "Often. I hate it. But that will go, too. Here they come. "

The bathers had turned; they were swimming up the beach. They passedJulia, who joined the procession, and turned toward the land. Stretchedin a long line, they rode in on a big wave. Billy and Pete leapedforward. Assisted by the men, the girls tottered up the sand, gatheredinto a little group, talking among themselves. Their wet draperiesclung to them in long, sweeping lines; but they dried with amazingquickness. The sun grew hotter and hotter. Their transient flash ofanimation died down; their conversation gradually stopped. 

Chiquita settled herself flat on the sand, the sunlight pouring like asilver liquid into the blue-black masses of her hair, her narrow brows, her thick eyelashes. Presently she fell asleep. Clara leaned against alow ledge of rock and spread her coppery mane across its surface. Itdried almost immediately; she divided it into plaits and coils and woveit into an elaborate structure. Her fingers seemed to strike sparksfrom it; it coruscated. Julia lay on her side, eyes downcast, tracingwith one finger curious tangled patterns in the sand. Her hair blew outand covered her body as with a silken, honey-colored fabric; the linesof her figure were lost in its abundance. Peachy sat drooped over, herhand supporting her chin and her knees supporting her elbows, her eyesfixed on the horizon-line. Her hair dried, too, but she did not touchit. It flowed down her back and spread into a pool of gold on the sand. She might have been a mermaid cast up by that sea on which she gazedwith such a tragic wistfulness--and forever cut off from it. 

A little distance from the rest, Honey sat with Lulu. She was shakingthe brown masses of her hair vigorously and Honey was helping her. Hewas evidently trying to teach her something because, over and overagain, his lips moved to form two words, and over and over again, herred lips parted, mimicking them. Gradually, Lulu lost all interest inher hair. She let it drop. It floated like a furry mantle over hershoulders. Into her little brown, pointed face came a look ofoverpowering seriousness, of tremendous concentration. OccasionallyHoney would stop to listen to her; but invariably her recital sent himinto peals of laughter. Lulu did not laugh; she grew more and moreserious, more and more concentrated. 

The other men talked among themselves. Occasionally they addressed aremark to their captives. The flying-girls replied in hesitatingflutters of speech, a little breathy yes or no whenever thosemonosyllables would serve, an occasional broken phrase. Superficiallythey seemed calm, placid even. But if one of the men moved suddenly, anuncontrollable panic overspread their faces. 

Honey arose after a long interval, strolled over to the main group. 

"I think they're coming to the conclusion that we're regular fellows, "he declared cheerfully. "Lulu doesn't jump or shriek any more when Irun toward her. "

"Oh, it's coming along all right, " Frank said. 

"It's surprising how quickly and how correctly they're getting thelanguage. "

"I'm going to begin reading aloud to them next week, " Pete announced. "That'll be a picnic. "

"It's been a long fight, " Ralph said contentedly. "But we've won out. We've got them going. I knew we would. " His eyes went to Peachy's face, but once there, their look of triumph melted to tenderness. 

"What are we going to read them?" Honey asked idly. He did not reallylisten to Pete's answer. His eyes, sparkling with amusement, had goneback to Lulu, who still sat seriously practising her lesson. Red lips, little white teeth, slender pink tongue seemed to get into aninextricable tangle over the simple monosyllables. 

"Leave that to me!" Pete was saying mysteriously. "I'll have themreading and writing by the end of another two months. "

"It's curious how long it's taken them to get over that terror of us, "said Billy. "I cannot understand it. "

"Oh, they'll explain why they've been so afraid, " said Frank, "as soonas they've got enough vocabulary. We cannot know, until they tell ushow many of their conventions we have broken, how brutal we may haveseemed. "

"And yet, " Billy went on, "I should think they'd see that we wouldn'tdo anything that wasn't for their own good. Well, just as soon as I canput it over with them, I'm going to give them a long spiel on thegentleman's code. I don't believe they'll ever be frightened of usagain. Hello!"

Lulu had tottered over to their group, supporting herself by the ledgeof rock. She pulled herself upright, balancing precariously. She puther sharp little teeth close, parted her lips and produced:

"K-K-K-K-K-K-Kiss-S-S-S-S-S-S Me!"

The men burst into roars of laughter. Lulu looked from one face to theother in perplexity. In perplexity, the other women looked from her tothem and at each other. 

"Sounds like the Yale yell!" Pete commented. 

"But what I can't understand, " Billy said, reverting to his thesis, "isthat they don't realize instantly that we wouldn't hurt them for anything--that that's a thing a fellow couldn't do. "

C. 

Twilight on Angel Island. 

The stars were beginning to shoot tiny white, five-pointed flamesthrough the purple sky. The fireflies were beginning to cut long arcsof gold in the sooty dusk. The waves were coming up the low-tide beachwith a long roar and retreating with a faint hiss. Afterwards floatedon the air the music of the shingle, hundreds of pebbles pattering withliquid footsteps down the sand. Peals of laughter, the continuous bassroar of the men, an occasional uncertain soprano lilting of the women, came from the group. The girls were reciting their lessons. 

 "Three little girls from school are we, Pert as schoolgirls well can be, Filled to the brim with girlish glee, Three little maids from school!"

intoned Lulu, Chiquita, and Clara together. 

 "Mary, Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow? Silver bells and cockle shells, And pretty maids all in a row. "

said Peachy. 

"The hounds of spring are on winter's traces, " began Julia. With noeffort of the memory, with a faultless enunciation, a natural feelingfor rhythm and apparently with comprehension, she, recited the Atalantachorus. 

"That's enough for lessons, " Honey demanded. 

"Wait a moment!"

He rushed into the bushes and busied himself among the fire-flies. Theother four men, divining his purpose, joined him. They came back withhandkerchiefs tied full of tiny, wriggling, fluttering green creatures. 

In a few moments, the five women sat crowned with carcanets of livingfire. 

"Now read us a story, " Lulu begged. 

Pete drew a little book from his pocket. Discolored and swollen, theprint was big and still black. 

"'Once upon a time, '" he began, "'there was a little girl who livedwith her father and her stepmother--'"

"What's 'stepmother'?" Lulu asked. 

Pete explained. 

"The stepmother had two daughters, and all three of these women werecruel and proud--"

"What's 'cruel and proud'?" Chiquita asked. 

Pete explained. 

"'And so between the three the little girl had a very hard time. Sheworked like a slave all day long, and was never allowed to go out ofthe kitchen. The stepmother and the proud sisters, used to go to ballsevery night, leaving the little girl alone. Because she was always sodusty and grimy from working over the fire, they called her Cinderella. Now, it happened that the country was ruled by a very handsome youngprince--'"

"What's 'handsome young prince'?" Clara asked. 

Pete explained. 

"'And all the ladies of the kingdom were in love with him. '"

"What's 'in love'?" Peachy asked. 

Pete closed the book. 

"Ah, that's a question, " he said after an instant of meditation, "thatwill admit of some answer. Say, you fellers, you'd better come intothis. "

D. 

Moonlight on Angel Island. 

The sea lay like a carpet of silver stretched taut from the white lineof the waves to the black seam of the sky. The land lay like a crumpledmass of silver velvet, heaped to tinselled brightness here, hollowed tovelvety shadow there. Over both arched the mammoth silver tent of thesky. In the cleft in the rock on the southern reef sat Julia and Billy. Under a tree at the north sat Peachy and Ralph. Scattered in shadedplaces between sat the others. The night was quiet; but on the breezecame murmurs sometimes in the man's voice, sometimes in the woman's. Fragmentary they were, these murmurs, and inarticulate; but theircomposite was ever the same. 

E. 

Sunrise on Angel Island. 

In and out among the trees, wound a procession following the northerntrail. First came Lulu, white-clad, serious, pale, walking with Honey. The others, crowned with flowers and carrying garlands, followed, serious and silent, the women clinging with both hands to the men, whosupported their snail-like, tottering progress with one arm about theirwaists. On the point of the northern reef, a cabin made of roundbeach-stones fronted the ocean. It fronted the rising sun now and aworld, all ocean and sky, over which lay a rose dawnlight. Stillsilent, the procession paused and grouped about the house. FrankMerrill stepped forward and placed himself in front of Honey and Lulu. 

"We are gathered here this morning, " Frank said in his deep academicvoice, "to marry this man to this woman and this woman to this man. Ifthere is any reason why you should not enter into the married state, pause before it is too late. " His voice came to a full stop. He waited. "If not, I pronounce you man and wife. "

Silently still, the others placed their garlands and wreaths at thefeet of the wedded pair. Turning, they walked slowly back over thetrail. 

F. 

Midnight on Angel Island. 

Julia sat alone on the stone bench at the door of the Honeymoon House. She gazed straight ahead out on a star-lighted sea, which joined astar-lighted sky and stretched in pulsating star-gleams to the end ofspace. She gazed straight out, but apparently she saw nothing. Her eyeswere abstracted and her brow furrowed. Her shoulders drooped. 

A man came bounding up the path. 

"Has Ralph been here?" he asked curtly. Billy's face was fiery. Hiseyes blazed. 

"He's been here, " Julia answered immediately. "He's gone!"

"By God, I'll kill him!" Billy turned white. 

Julia's brow smoothed. She smiled a little. "No, you will not killhim, " she said with her old serene air. "You will not have to kill him. He will never come again. "

"Did he try to make love to you?"

"Yes. "

"How did he justify himself?"

"He appealed to me to save him. I did not quite understand from what. He said I could make a better man of him. " Julia laughed a little. 

"How did you know he was here?"

"I stopped at their cabin. He was not there. Peachy did not know wherehe was. Of course, I guessed at once. I came here immediately. "

"Did Peachy seem troubled?"

"No. She doesn't care. Pete was there, examining her drawings. They'rehalf in love with each other. And then again, Pete doesn't know, or ifhe does know, he doesn't care, that Clara is doing her damnedest tostart a flirtation with Honey. And Lulu has walked about like a womanin a dream for weeks. What are we all coming to? There's nothing butflirting here!"

"It must be so, " Julia said, "as long as men and women are idle. "

"But how can we be anything but idle? There's nothing to do on thisisland. "

"I don't know, " said Julia slowly; "I don't know. "

"Julia, " Billy said in a pleading voice, "marry me!"

A strange expression came into Julia's eyes. Part of it wasirresolution and part of it was terror. But a poignant wistfultenderness fused both these emotions, shot them with light. 

"Not yet, " she said in a terrified voice. "Not yet!"

"Why?"

"I don't know--why. Only that I cannot. "

"Then, when will you marry me? Julia, I see all the others together andit--. You don't know what it does to me. "

"Yes, I know! It kills me too. "

"Then why wait?"

"Because--. " The poignant look went for an instant from Julia's eyes. Astrange brooding came in its place. "Because a little voice insidesays, 'Wait!'"

"Julia, do you love me?"

Julia did not answer. She only looked at him. 

"You are sure there is nobody else?"

"I am sure. There could never be anybody else--after that first nightwhen I waked you from sleep. "

"It is forever, then?"

"Forever. "

Billy sighed. "I'll wait, then--until eternity shrivels up. "

They sat for a long time, silent. 

"Here comes somebody, " Billy said suddenly. "It's one of the girls, " headded after a moment of listening. "I'll leave you, I guess. "

He melted into the darkness. 

A woman appeared, dragging herself along by means of the rail. It wasLulu, a strange Lulu, a Lulu pallid and silent, but a Lulushining-eyed. She pulled herself over to Julia's side. "Julia!" "Julia!Oh, Julia!"

Lulu's voice was not voice. It was not speech. Liquid sound flowed fromher lips, crystallizing at the touch of the air, to words. "Julia, Icame to you first, after Honey. I wanted you to know. "

"Oh, Lulu, " Julia said, "not--. "

Her eyes reflected the stars in Lulu's eyes. And there they stood, their two faces throwing gleam for gleam. 

"Yes, " said Lulu. Suddenly she knelt sobbing on the floor, her face inJulia's lap. 

G. 

Mid-afternoon on Angel Island. 

Four women sat in the Honeymoon House, sewing. Outside the world stilllay in sunshine, the land cut by the beginning of shadow, the seastreaked with purple and green. 

"Why didn't you bring the children?" Julia, asked. 

Lulu answered. "Honey and Frank were going in swimming this morning, and they said they'd take care of them. I'm glad to get Honey-Boy offmy hands for an afternoon. "

"And why hasn't Peachy come?" Julia asked. 

"I stopped as I went by, " Lulu explained. "Oh, Julia, I wish you didn'tlive way off here--it takes us an hour of crawling to pull ourselvesalong the path. Angela hadn't waked up yet. It was a longer nap thanusual. Peachy said she'd come just as soon as she opened her eyes. Iwent in to look at her. Oh, she's such a darling, smiling in her sleep. Oh, I do hope I have a girl-baby sometime. "

"I do, too, " said Clara. "Peterkin's fun, of course. But I can't do thethings for a boy that I could for a girl. "

"I'd rather have boys, " Chiquita said; "they're less trouble. "

"Would you rather have boys or girls, Julia?" Lulu asked. 

"Girls!" said Julia decisively. "A big family of girls. "

"Then, " Lulu began, and a question trembled in her bright eyes and onher curved lips. 

But, "Here's Peachy!" Julia exclaimed before she could go on. 

Peachy came toiling up the path, pulling herself along, both hands onthe wooden rail. She tottered, but in spite of her snail-like progress, it was evident that she hurried. A tiny bundle hung between hershoulders. It oscillated gently with her haste. 

"Let me take Angela, " Julia said as Peachy struggled over the threshold. 

"Wait!" Peachy panted. She sank on a couch. 

There was a strange element in her look, an overpowering eagerness. This eagerness had brimmed over into her manner; it vibrated in hertrembling voice, her fluttering hands. She sat down. She reached up andlifted the baby from her shoulders to her lap. Angela still slept, adelicate bud of a girl-being. But Peachy gave her audience no time tostudy the sleeping face. She turned the baby over. She pulled thesingle light garment off. Then she looked up at the other women. 

The little naked figure lay in the golden sunlight, translucent, likean angel carved in alabaster. But on the shoulder-blades lay shadow, deep shadow--no, not shadow, a fluff of feathery down. 

"Wings!" Peachy said. "My little girl is going to fly!"

"Wings!" the others repeated. "Wings!"

And then the room seemed to fill with tears that ended in laughter, andlaughter that ended in tears. 

VI

"They won't be home until very late tonight, " announced Lulu. "The workthey're doing now is hard and irritating and fussy. Honey says thatthey want to get through with it as soon as possible. He said they'dkeep at it as long as the light lasted. "

"It seems as if their working days grew longer all the time, " Clarasaid petulantly. "They start off earlier and earlier in the morning andthey stay later and later at night. And did you know that they areplanning soon to stay a week at the New Camp--they say the walk back isso fatiguing after a long day's work. "

The others nodded. 

"And then the instant they've had their dinner, " Lulu continued, "offthey go to that tiresome Clubhouse--for tennis and ball and bocci. Itseems, somehow, as if I never had a chance to talk with Honey nowadays. I should think they'd get enough of each other, working side by sideall day long, the way they do. But no! The moment they've eaten and hadtheir smoke, they must get together again. Why is it, I wonder? Ishould think they would have said all they had to say in the daytime. "

"Pete is worse than any of them, " Clara went on. "After he comes backfrom the Clubhouse, he wants to sit up and write for an hour or two. Oh, I get fairly desperate sometimes, sitting there listening to theeternal scratching of his pen. I cannot understand his point of view, to save my life. If I talk, it irritates him. My very breathing annoyshim; he cannot have me in the same room with him. But if I leave thecabin, he can't write a word. He wants me near, always. He says it'sthe knowing I'm there that makes him feel like writing. And thenSundays, if he isn't writing, he's painting. I don't mind his not beingthere in the daytime in a way because, of course, there's alwaysPeterkin. But at night, when I've put Peterkin to bed I do wantsomething different to happen. As it is, I have to make a scene to getup any excitement. I do it, too, without compunction. When it gets tothe point that I know I must scream or go crazy, I scream. And I do agood job in screaming, too. "

"What would you like him to do, Clara?" Julia asked. 

The petulant frown between Clara's eyebrows deepened. "I don't know, "she said wearily. "I don't know what it is that I want to do; but Iwant to do something. Peterkin is asleep and perfectly safe--and I feellike going somewhere. Now, if I could fly, it would rest me so, to gofor a long, long journey through the air. " As she concluded, some newexpression, some strange hardness of her maturity, melted; her face wasfor an instant the face of the old Clara. 

Julia made no comment. 

It was Chiquita who took it up. 

"My husband talks enough. In fact, he talks all the time. But if I tireof his voice, I let myself fall asleep. He never notices. That is whyI've grown so big. Sometimes"--discontent dulled for an instant theslow fire of her slumberous eyes--"sometimes my life seems one longsleep. If it weren't for junior, I'd feel as if I weren't quite alive. "

"Ralph talks a great deal, " Peachy said listlessly, "by fits andstarts, and he takes me out when he comes home, if he happens to feellike walking himself. He says, though, that it exhausts him having tohelp me along. But it isn't that I want particularly. Often I want togo out alone. I want to soar. The earth has never satisfied me. I wantto explore the heights. I want to explore them alone, and I want toexplore them when the mood seizes me. And I want to feel when I comeback that I can talk about it or keep silent as he does. But I mustmake my discoveries and explorations in my own way. Ralph sometimesgives me long talks about astronomy--he seems to think that studyingabout the stars will quiet me. One little flight straight up would meanmore to me than all that talk. Ralph does not understand it in me, andI cannot explain it to him. And yet he feels exactly that wayhimself--he's always going off by himself through unexplored trails onthe island. But he cannot comprehend how I, being a woman, should havethe same desire. Do you remember when our wings first began to growstrong and our people kept us confined, how we beat our wings againstthe wall--beat and beat and beat? At times now, I feel exactly likethat. Why, sometimes I envy little Angela her wings. "

The five women reclined on long, low rustic couches in the big, clearedhalf-oval that was the Playground for their children. It began--thishalf-oval--in high land among the trees and spread down over a beach tothe waters of a tiny cove. Between the high tapering boles of the pinesat their back the sky dropped a curtain of purple. Between the longledges of tawny rock in front the sea stretched a carpet of turquoise. And between pines and sea lay first a rusty mat of pine-needles, then aribbon of purple stones, then a band of glittering sand. In the air theresinous smell of the pines competed with the salty tang of the ocean. High up, silver-winged gulls curved and dipped and called theircreaking signals. 

At the water's edge four children were playing. Honey-Boy had waded outwaist-deep. A sturdy, dark, strong-bodied, tiny replica of his father, he stood in an exact reproduction of one of Honey's poses, his armsfolded over his little pouter-pigeon chest, lips pursed, browsfrowning, dimples inhibited, gazing into the water. Just beyond, onefoot on the bottom, Peterkin pretended to swim. Peterkin had anunearthly beauty that was half Clara's coloring--combination of tawnyhair with gray-green eyes--and half Pete's expression--the look, doublystrange, of the Celt and the genius. Slender and beautifully formed, graceful, he was in every possible way a contrast to virile littleBilly-Boy; he was even elegant; he had the look of a story-book prince. Far up the beach, cuddled in a warm puddle, naked, sat a fat, redheadedbaby, Frank Merrill, junior. He watched the others intently for awhile. Then breaking into a grin which nearly bisected the face underthe fiery thatch, he began an imitative paddle with his pudgy hands andfeet. 

Flitting hither and yon, hovering one moment at the water's edge andanother at Junior's side, moving with a capricious will-o'-the-wispmotion that dominated the whole picture, flew Angela. 

Beautiful as the other children were, they sank to commonplaces incontrast with Angela. 

For Angela was a being of faery. Her single loose garment, serrated atthe edges, knee-length, and armless, left slits at the back for a pairof wings to emerge. Tiny these wings were, and yet they were perfect inform; they soared above her head, soft, fine, shining, delicate asmilkweed-down and of a white that was beginning, near the shoulders, todeepen to a pale rose. Angela's little body was as slender as aflower-stem. Her limbs showed but the faintest of curves, her skin butthe faintest of tints. Almost transparent in the sunlight, she had inthe shadow the coloring of the opal, pale rose-pinks and paleviolet-blues. Her hair floated free to her shoulders; and that, morethan any other detail, seemed to accent the quality of faery in herpersonality. In calm it clung to her head like a pale-gold mist; inbreeze it floated away like a pale-gold nimbus. It seemed as though ashake of her head would send it drifting off--a huge thistle-down ofgold. Her eyes reflected the tint of whatever blue they gazed on, whether it was the frank azure of the sky or the mysterious turquoiseof the sea. And yet their look was strangely intent. When she passedfrom shadow to sunshine, the light seemed to dissolve her hair andwing-edges, as though it were gradually taking her to itself. 

"Oh, yes, Peachy, " Lulu said, "Angela's wings must be a comfort to you. You must live it all over again in her. "

"I do!" answered Peachy. "I do. " There was tremendous conviction in hervoice, as though she were defending herself from some silentaccusation. "But it isn't the same. It isn't. It can't be. Besides, Iwant to fly with her. "

The ripples in the cove grew to little waves, to big waves, to combers. The women talked and the children played. Honey-Boy and Peterkin wadedout to their shoulders, dipped, and pretended to swim back. Angela flewout to meet a wave bigger than the others, balanced on its crest. Wingsoutspread, she fluttered back, descended when the crash came in ashower of rainbow drops. She dipped and rose, her feathers drippingmolten silver, flew on to the advancing crest. 

"Oh, " Lulu sighed, "I do want a little girl. I threatened if this onewas a boy to drown it. " "This one" proved to be a bundle lying on thepine-needles at her side. The bundle stirred and emitted a querulousprotest. She picked it up and it proved to be a baby, just such anothersturdy little dark creature as Honey-Boy must have been. "Your motherwouldn't exchange you for a million girls now, " Lulu addressed himfondly. "I pray every night, though, that the next one will be a girl. "

"I want a girl, too, " Clara remarked. "Well, we'll see next spring. "Clara had not been happy at the prospect of her first maternity, butshe was jubilant over her second. 

"It will be nice for Angela, too, " Peachy said, "to have some littlegirl to play with. Come, baby!" she called in a sudden access oftenderness. 

Angela flew down from the tip of a billow, came fluttering and flyingup the beach. Once or twice, for no apparent reason, her wings felldead, sagged for a few moments; then her little pink, shell-like feetwould pad helplessly on the sand. Twice she dropped her pinionsdeliberately; once to climb over a big root, once to mount a boulderthat lay in her path. "Don't walk, Angela!" Peachy called sharply atthese times. "Fly! Fly!" And obediently, Angela stopped, waited untilthe strength flowed into her wings, started again. She reached thegroup of mothers, not by direct flight, but a complicated method ofcurving, arching, dipping, and circling. Peachy arose, balancedherself, caught her little daughter in midair, kissed her. The womenhanded her from one to the other, petting and caressing her. 

Julia received her last. She sat with Angela in the curve of her arm, one hand caressing the drooped wings. It was like holding a little wildbird. With every breeze, Angela's wings opened. And always, hands, feet, hair, feathers fluttered with some temperamental unrest. 

The boys tiring of the waves, came scrambling in their direction. Half-way up the beach, they too came upon the boulder in the path. Itwas too high and smooth for them to climb, but they immediately setthemselves to do it. Peterkin pulled himself half-way up, onlyimmediately to fall back. Junior stood for an instant imitativelyreaching up with his baby hands, then abandoning the attempt waddledoff after a big butterfly. Honey-Boy slipped and slid to the ground, but he was up in an instant and at it again. 

Angela fluttered with baby-violence. Julia opened her arms. The childleaped from her lap, started half-running, half-flying, caught aseaward going breeze, sailed to the top of the boulder. She balancedherself there, gazing triumphantly down on Billy-Boy who, flat on hisstomach, red in the face, his black eyes bulging out of his head, stillpulled and tugged and strained. 

"Honey-Boy's tried to climb that rock every day for three months, " Luluboasted proudly. "He'll do it some day. I never saw such persistence. If he gets a thing into his head, I can't do anything with him. "

"Angela starts to climb it occasionally, " Peachy said. "But, of course, I always stop her. I'm afraid she'll hurt her feet. "

Above the rock stretched the bough of a big pine. As she contemplatedit, a look of wonder grew in Angela's eyes, of question, ofuncertainty. Suddenly it became resolution. She spread her wings, bounded into the air, fluttered upwards, and alighted squarely on thebough. 

"Oh, Angela!" Peachy called anxiously. Then, joyously, "Look at mybaby. She'll be flying as high as we did in a few years. Oh, how I loveto think of that!"

She laughed in glee--and the others laughed with her. They continued towatch Angela's antics, their faces growing more and more gay. Juliaalone did not smile; but she watched the exhibition none the lesssteadily. 

Three years had brought some changes to the women of Angel Island; andfor the most part they were devastating changes. They were stillwingless. They wore long trailing garments that concealed their feet. These garments differed in color and decoration, but they were alike inone detail-floating, wing-like draperies hung from the shoulders. 

Chiquita had grown so large as to be almost unwieldy. But her tropicalcoloring retained its vividness, retained its breath-taking quality ofpicturesqueness, retained its alluring languor. She sat now holding ahuge fan. Indeed, since the day that Honey had piled the fans on thebeach, Chiquita had never been without one in her hand. Scarlet, thescarlet of her lost pinions, seemed to be her color. Her gown wasscarlet. 

Lulu had not grown big, but she had grown round. That look of theprimitive woman which had made her strange, had softened and sobered. Her beaute troublante had gone. Her face was, the face of a happywoman. The maternal look in her eyes was duplicated by the married lookin her figure. She was always busy. Even now, though she chattered, shesewed; her little fingers fluttered like the wings of an imprisonedbird. Indeed, she looked like a little sober mother-bird in her grayand brown draperies. She was the best housewife among them. Honeylacked no creature comfort. 

Clara also had filled out; in figure, she had improved; her elfinthinness had become slimness, delicately curved and subtly contoured. Also her coloring had deepened; she was like a woman cast in gold. Buther expression was not pleasant. Her light, gray-green eyes had apetulant look; her thin, red lips a petulant droop. She was restless;something about her moved always. Either her long slender fingersadjusted her hair or her long slender feet beat a tattoo. And ever herfigure shifted from one fluid pose to another. She wore jewels in herelaborately arranged hair, jewels about her neck, on her wrists, on herfingers. Her green draperies were embroidered in beads. She was, infact, always dressed, costumed is perhaps the most appropriate word. She dressed Peterkin picturesquely too; she was always, studying theillustrations in their few books for ideas. Clara was one of thosewomen at whom instinctively other women gaze--and gaze always with aquestion in their eyes. 

Peachy was at the height of her blonde bloom; all pearl and gold, allrose and aquamarine. But something had gone out of herface--brilliance. And something had come into it--pathos. The look of amischievous boy had turned to a wild gipsy look of strangeness, a lookof longing mixed with melancholy. In some respects there was morehistory written on her than on any of the others. But it was tragichistory. At Angela's birth Peachy had gone insane. There had come timeswhen for hours she shrieked or whispered, "My wings! My wings! Mywings!" The devoted care of the other four women had saved her; she wasabsolutely normal now. Her figure still carried its suggestion of apotential, young-boy-like strength, but maternity had given a droop, exquisitely feminine, to the shoulders. She always wore blue--somethingthat floated and shimmered with every move. 

Julia had changed little; for in her case, neither marriage normaternity had laid its transmogrifying, touch upon her. Her deepblue-gray eyes--of which the brown-gold lashes seemed like reedsshadowing lonely lakes--had turned as strange as Peachy's; but it was adifferent strangeness. Her mouth--that double sculpturesque ripple ofwhich the upper lip protruded an infinitesimal fraction beyond thelower one--drooped like Clara's; but it drooped with a differentexpression. She had the air of one who looks ever into the distance andbroods on what she sees there. Perhaps because of this, her voice haddeepened to a thrilling intensity. Her hair was pulled straight back toher neck from the perfect oval of her face. It hung in a single, honey-colored braid, and it hung to the very ground. She always worewhite. 

"Do you remember"--Chiquita began presently. Her lazy purring voicegrew soft with tenderness. The dreamy, unthinking Chiquita of fouryears back seemed suddenly to peer through the unwieldy Chiquita of thepresent--"how we used to fly--and fly--and fly--just for the love offlying? Do you remember the long, bright day-flyings and the long, darknight-flyings?

"And sometimes how we used to drop like stones until we almost touchedthe water, " Lulu said, a sparkle in her cooing, friendly little voice. "And the races! Oh, what fun! I can feel the rush of the air now. "

"Over the water. " Peachy flung her long, slim arms upward and adelicious smile sent the tragedy scurrying from her sunlit face. "Doyou remember how wonderful it was at sunset? The sky heaving over us, shot with gold and touched with crimson. The sea pulsing under us linedwith crimson and splashed with gold. And then the sunset ahead--thatgold and crimson hole in the sky. We used to think we could fly throughit some day and come out on another world. And sometimes we could nottell where sea and sky joined. How we flew--on and on--farther eachtime--on and on--and on. The risks we took! Sometimes I used to wonderif we'd ever have the strength to get home. Yet I hated to turn back. Ihated to turn away from the light. I never could fly towards the eastat sunset, nor towards the west at sunrise. It hurt! I used to think, when my time came to die, that I would fly out to sea--on and on till Idropped. "

"I loved it most at noon, " Chiquita said, "when the air was soft. Itsmelled sweet; a mixture of earth and sea. I used to drift and float ongreat seas of heat until I almost slept. That was wonderful; it waslike swimming in a perfumed air or flying in a fragrant sea. "

"Oh, but the storms, Julia!" Lulu exclaimed. A wild look flared in herface, wiped oft entirely its superficial look of domesticity. "Do youremember the heavy, night-black cloud, the thunder that crashed throughour very bodies, the lightning that nearly blinded us, and the rainthat beat us almost to pieces?"

"Oh, Lulu!" Julia said; "I had forgotten that. You were wonderful in astorm, How you used to shout and sing and leap through the air like awild thing! I used to love to watch you, and yet I was always afraidthat you would hurt yourself. "

"I loved the moonlight most. I do now. " The petulance went out ofClara's eyes; dreams came into its place. "The cool softness of theair, the brilliant sparkle of the stars! And then the magic of themoonlight! Young child-moon, half-grown girl-moon, voluptuouswoman-moon, sallow, old-hag-moon, it was alike to me. Pete says I'm'fey' in the moonlight. He, says I'm Irish then. "

"I loved the sunrise, " said Julia. "I used to steal out, when you girlswere still sleeping, to fly by dawn. I'd go up, up, up. At first, itwas like a huge dewdrop--that morning world--then, colder andcolder--it was like a melted iceberg. But I never minded that cold andI loved the clearness. It exhilarated me. I used to run races with thebirds. I was not happy until I had beaten the highest-flying of themall. Oh, it was so fresh and clean then. The world seemed new-madeevery morning. I used to feel that I'd caught the moment when yesterdaybecame to-day. Then I'd sink back through layer on layer of sunlightand warm, perfume-laden, dew-damp breeze, down, down until I fell intomy bed again. And all the time the world grew warmer and warmer. And Iloved almost as well that instant of twilight when the world begins tofade. I used to feel that I'd caught the moment when to-day had becometo-morrow. I'd fly as high as I could go then, too. Then I'd sink backthrough layer on layer of deepening dusk, while one by one the starswould flash out at me--down, down, down until my feet touched thewater. And all the time the air grew cooler and cooler. "

"My wings! My wings!" Peachy did not shriek these words with maniacaldespair. She did not whisper them with dreary resignation. She breathedthem with the rapture of one who looks through a narrow, dark tunnel tomeasureless reaches of sun-tinted cloud and sea. 

"Do you remember the first time we ever saw them?" Lulu asked after along time. This was obviously a deliberate harking back to lighterthings. A gleam of reminiscence, both mischievous and tender, fired herslanting eyes. 

The others smiled, too. Even Peachy's face relaxed from the look oftension that had come into it. "I often think that was the happiesttime, " she sighed, "those weeks before they knew we were here. Atleast, they knew and they didn't know. Ralph said that they allsuspected that something curious was going on--but that they were soafraid that the others would joke about it, that no one of them wouldmention what was happening to him. Do you remember what fun it wascoming to the camp when they were asleep? Do you remember how we usedto study their faces to find out what kind of people they were?"

"And do you remember"--Chiquita rippled a low laugh--"how we would leapinto the air if they stirred or spoke in their sleep? Once, Honeystarted to wake up--and we were off over the water before he could gethis eyes open. "

"Oh, but Honey told me that he heard us laugh that time, " Luluexplained. "He told the men the next day and, oh, how they joked him. "

"And then, " Chiquita went on, "once Billy actually did wake up. Youwere bending over him, Julia. I remember we all kept as still as thedead. And you--oh, Julia, you were wonderful--you did not even breathe. He seemed to fade back into sleep again. "

"He says now that I hypnotized him, " Julia explained. 

"Do you remember, " Clara took it up, "that we even consideredkidnapping one of them? If we'd known what to do with him, I think wemight have tried it. "

"Yes, " said Chiquita. "But I think it was just as well we didn't. Wewouldn't have carried it off well. There's something about them that'sterrifying. Do you remember that time we saved Honey from the shark, how we trembled all the time we carried him through the air. He knewit, too--I noticed how triumphantly he smiled. "

"Honey told me once"--Lulu lowered her voice--"that it was the factthat we trembled--that we seemed so much women, in spite of beingcreatures of the air--that made him determine to capture us. "

"Well, there's something about them that weakens you, " Chiquita said ina puzzled tone. "It's like a spell. At first I always felt quivery andtrembly if I stood near them. "

"It's power, " Julia explained. 

"I used even to be afraid of their voices, " Chiquita went on. 

"Oh, so was I, " Lulu agreed. "I felt as I did when I heard thunder forthe first time. It went through me. It made me shake. I was afraid, butI wanted to hear it again. "

"Do you remember the first time we saw them walk!" Clara said. Her facetwisted with the expression of a past loathing. "How it disgusted us!It seemed to me the most hideous motion I had ever seen--so unnatural, so ungraceful, so repellent. It took me a long time to get used tothat. And as for their running--"

"It's curious how that feeling still lingers in us, " exclaimed Peachy. "That contempt for the thing that walks. Occasionally Angela starts toimitate the boys--it seems as if I would fly out of my skin withhorror. I shall always feel superior to Ralph, I know. "

"Do you remember the first talks we ever had after we'd got our firstglimpse of them?" asked Clara. "How astonished we were--and halffrightened and yet--in a queer way--excited and curious?

"And after we got over our fright, " Lulu carried the memories along, "and had made up our minds we didn't care whether they discovered us ornot, what fun we had with them! How we played over the entire islandand yet it took them such a long time to discover us. "

"Oh, they're awfully stupid about seeing or guessing things, " Peachysaid disdainfully. "My mind always leaps way ahead of Ralph's. "

"Do you remember that at first we used to have regular councils, " Luluasked, "before--before--"

"Before we agreed each to go her own way, " Peachy finished it for her. 

"All of us pitted against you, Julia. " Chiquita sighed. "I often thinknow, Julia, how you used to talk to us. How you used to beg us not togo to the island. How you argued with us! The prophecies you made!They've all come true. I can hear you now: 'Don't go to the island. ''Come away with me and we will fly back south before it is too late. ''Come away while you can!' 'In a little while it will be too late. ' Ina little while I shall not be able to help you!"

"And how we fought you, Julia!" Clara said. "How we denied everythingyou said, every one of us knowing in her heart that you were right!"

"But, " Julia said, "later, I told you that I might not be able to helpmyself, and you see I wasn't. "

"Did they ever guess that we had quarrelled, I wonder?" Clara asked. 

"Yes, " Lulu answered eagerly. "Honey guessed it. Now, wasn't thatclever of him?"

"Not so very, " Clara replied languidly. "I guessed that they hadquarrelled. And I had a strong suspicion, " she added consciously, "thatit was about us. "

"I wonder, " Peachy said somberly, "what would have happened if we hadtaken Julia's advice. "

"Are you sorry, Peachy?" Julia asked. 

"No, I'm not sorry exactly, " Peachy answered slowly. "I have Angela, ofcourse. Are you sorry, Julia?"

"No, " replied Julia. 

"Julia, " Peachy said, "what was it changed you? I have always wanted toask but I have never dared. What brought you to the island finally?What made you give up the fight with us?"

The far-away look in Julia's eyes grew, if possible, more far-away. Shedid not speak for a while. Then, "I'll tell you, " she said simply. "Itis something that I have never told anybody but Billy. When you firstbegan to leave me to come to this island alone, I was very unhappy. AndI grew more and more unhappy. I missed flying with you. And especiallyflying by night. Flying alone seemed melancholy. I came here at first, only because I was driven by my loneliness. I said to myself that I'ddrift with the current. But that did not help any. You were all sointerested in your lovers that it made no difference whether I was withyou or not. I began to think that you no longer cared for me, that youhad out-grown me, that all my influence over you had vanished, that, ifI were out of the way, the one tie which held you to me would break andyou would go to these men. I grew more and more unhappy every instant. That was not all. I was in love with Billy, but I did not know it. Ionly knew that I was moody and strange and in desperate despair. And, so, one day I decided to kill myself. "

There was a faint movement in the group, but it was only the swish ofdraperies as the four recumbent women came upright. They stared atJulia. They did not speak. They seemed scarcely to breathe. 

"One day, I flew up and up. Never before had I gone half so high. But Iflew deliberately higher and higher until I became cold and colder andnumb and frozen--until my wings stopped. And then--" She paused. 

"What happened?" Clara asked breathlessly. 

"I dropped. I dropped like a stone. But--but--the instant I let myselfgo, something strange happened--a miracle of self-revelation. I knewthat I loved Billy, that I could not live in any world where he couldnot come to me. And the instant that I realized that I loved him, Iknew also that I could not die. I tried to spread my wings but theywould not open. It was terrific. And that sense of despair, that mywings which had always responded--would not--now--oh, that was hell. How I fought! How I struggled! It was as though iron bands were aboutme. I strained. I tore. Of course, all this was only a moment. But onethinks a million things in a moment like that--one lives a thousandyears. It seemed an eternity. At last my wings opened and spread. Theyheld. I floated until I caught my breath. Then I dropped slowly. Ithrew myself over the bough of a tree. I lay there. "

There was an interval of intense silence. 

"Did you faint?" Peachy asked in an awed voice. 

"I wept. "

"You wept, Julia?" Peachy said. "You!"

"I had not wept since my childhood. It was strange. It frightened mealmost as much as the fall. Oh, how fast the tears came--and in suchfloods! Something melted and went away from me then. A softness cameover me. It was like a spell. I have never been the same creaturesince. I cry easily now. "

"Did you tell Billy?" Clara asked. 

"He saw me, " Julia answered. 

"He saw--. " It came from her four listeners as from one woman. 

"That's what changed him. That's what determined him to help captureus. He said that he was afraid I would try it again. I wouldn't have, though. "

Nobody spoke for a long time. 

"Julia!" It was Chiquita who broke the silence this time. "There issomething I, too, have always wanted to ask you. But I have never daredbefore. What was it tempted you to go into the Clubhouse that day? Atfirst you tried to keep us from going in. You never seemed to care forany of the things they gave us. You threw away the fans and theslippers and the scarfs. And you smashed your mirror. "

"Billy asked me this same question once, " Julia answered. "It was thatbig diamond--the Wilmington 'Blue. ' I caught a glimpse of it throughthe doorway as it lay all by itself on the table, flashing in thesunlight. I had never before in my life seen any thing that I reallywanted. But this was so exquisite, so chiseled, so tiny, so perfect, There was so much fire and color in it. It seemed like a livingcreature. I was enchanted by it. When I told Billy, he laughed. He saidthat the lust for diamonds was a recognized earth-disease amongearth-people, especially earth-women. He said that many women had beenruined by it. He said that it was a common saying among men that youcould catch any woman in a trap baited with diamonds. I have never gotover the sting of that. I blush always when I think of it. Because--although I don't exactly understand why--it was not quite truein my case. That is a thing which always bothers me in conversationwith the men. They talk about us as if they knew all about us. You'dthink they'd invented us. Not that we're not simple enough. We'reperfectly simple, but they've never bothered to study us. They say somany things about us, for instance, that are only half true--and yet Idon't know exactly how to confute them. None of us would presume to saysuch things about them. I'm glad, " she ended with a sudden fierceness, "that I threw the diamond away. "

"Julia, " and now it was Lulu who questioned, "why do you not marryBilly when you love him so?" The seriousness of her tone, the warmth ofaffection in her little brown face robbed this question of anyappearance of impertinence. 

"Lulu, " Julia answered simply, "I don't know why. Only that somethinginside has always said, 'Wait!'"

"Well, you did well, " Peachy said bitterly, "for, at least, Billy lovesyou just as much as at first. I don't see him racing over to theClubhouse the moment his dinner is eaten. I don't see him spending hisSundays in long exploring tramps. I don't see him making plans to gooff into the interior for a week at a time. "

"But he would be just like all the others, Julia, " Clara exclaimedcarefully, "if you'd married him. Keep out of it as long as you can!"

"Don't ever marry him, Julia, " Chiquita warned. "Keep your life aperpetual wooing. "

"Marry him to-morrow, Julia, " Lulu advised. "Oh, I cannot think what mylife would have been without Honey-Boy and Honey-Bunch. "

"I shall marry Billy sometime, " Julia said. "But I don't know when. When that little inner voice stops saying, 'Wait!'"

"I wonder, " Peachy questioned again, "what would have happened if--"

"It would have come out just the same way. Depend on that!" Chiquitasaid philosophically. "It was our fate--the Great Doom that our peopleused to talk of. And, after all, it's our own fault. Come to thisisland we would and come we did! And this is the end of it--we--we sitmoveless from sun-up to sun-down, we who have soared into the clouds. But there is a humorous element in it. And if I didn't weep, I couldlaugh myself mad over it. We sit here helpless and watch thesecreatures who walk desert us daily--desert us--creatures whoflew--leave us here helpless and alone. "

"But in the beginning, " Lulu interposed anxiously, "they did try totake us with them. But it tired them so to carry us--for orthat's--what in effect they do. "

"And there was one time just after we were married when it was allwonderful, " said Peachy. "I did not even miss the flying, for it seemedto me that Ralph made up for the loss of my wings by his love andservice. Then, they began to build the New Camp and graduallyeverything changed. You see, they love their work more than they do us. Or at least it seems to interest them more. "

"Why not?" Julia interpolated quietly. "We're the same all the time. Wedon't change and grow. Their work does change and grow. It presents newaspects every day, new questions and problems and difficulties, newanswers and solutions and adjustments. It makes them think all thetime. They love to think. " She added this as one who announces adiscovery, long pondered over. "They enjoy thinking. "

"Yes, " Lulu agreed wonderingly, "that's true, isn't it? That neveroccurred to me. They really do like thinking. How curious! I hate tothink. "

"I never think, " Chiquita announced. 

"I won't think, " Peachy exclaimed passionately. "I feel. That's the wayto live. "

"I don't have to think, " Clara declared proudly. "I've something betterthan thought-instinct and intuition. "

Julia was silent. 

"Julia is like them, " Lulu said, studying Julia's absent face tenderly. "She likes to think. It doesn't hurt, or bother, or irritate, ortire--or make her look old. It's as easy for her as breathing. That'swhy the men like to talk to her. "

"Well, " Clara remarked triumphantly, "I don't have to think in order tohave the men about me. I'm very glad of that. "

This was true. The second year of their stay in Angel Island, the otherfour women had rebuked Clara for this tendency to keep men abouther--without thinking. 

"It is not necessary for us to think, " said Peachy with a sudden, spirited lift of her head from her shoulders. The movement brought backsome of her old-time vivacity and luster. Her thick, brilliant, springyhair seemed to rise a little from her forehead. And under her draperiesthat which remained of what had once been wings stirred faintly. "Theymust think just as they must walk because they are earth-creatures. They cannot exist without infinite care and labor. We don't have tothink any more than we have to walk; for we are air-creatures. Andair-creatures only fly and feel. We are superior to them. "

"Peachy, " Julia said again. Her voice thrilled as though some thought, long held quiescent within her, had burst its way to expression. Itrang like a bugle. It vibrated like a violin-string. "That is themistake we've made all our lives; a mistake that has held us here tiedto this camp for or four our years; the idea that we are superior insome way, more strong, more beautiful, more good than they. But think amoment! Are we? True, we are as you say, creatures of the air. True, wewere born with wings. But didn't we have to come down to the earth toeat and sleep, to love, to marry, and to bear our young? Our trouble isthat--"

And just then, "Here they come!" Lulu cried happily. 

Lulu's eyes turned away from the group of women. Her brown face hadlighted as though somebody had placed a torch beside it. The strings oflittle dimples that her plumpness had brought in its wake played abouther mouth. 

The trail that emerged from the jungle ran between bushes, andgradually grew lower and lower, until it merged with a path shootingstraight across the sand to the Playground. 

For a while the heads of the file of men appeared above the bushes;then came shoulders, waists, knees; finally the entire figures. Theystrode through the jungle with the walk of conquerors. 

They were so absorbed in talk as not to realize that the camp was insight. Every woman's eye--and some subtle revivifying excitementtemporarily dispersed the discontent there--had found her mate longbefore he remembered to look in her direction. 

The children heard the voices and immediately raced, laughing andshouting, to meet their fathers. Angela, beating her pinions in a veryfrenzy of haste, arrived first. She fluttered away from outstretchedarms until she reached Ralph; he lifted her to his breast, carried hersnuggled there, his lips against her hair. Honey and Pete absentlyswung their sons to their shoulders and went on talking. Junior, tiredout by his exertions, sat down plumply half-way. Grinning radiantly, hewaited for the procession to overtake him. 

"Peachy, " Julia asked in an aside, "have you ever asked Ralph what heintends to do about Angela's wings?"

"What he intends to do?" Peachy echoed. "What do you mean? What can heintend to do? What has he to say about them, anyway?"

"He may not intend anything, " Julia answered gravely. "Still, if I wereyou, I'd have a talk with him. "

Time had brought its changes to the five men as to the five women; butthey were not such devastating changes. 

Honey led the march, a huge wreath of uprooted blossoming plantshanging about his neck. He was at the prime of his strength, the zenithof his beauty and, in the semi-nudity that the climate permitted, morethan ever like a young wood-god. Health shone from his skin in acopper-bronze that seemed to overlay the flesh like armor. Happinessshone from his eyes in a fire-play that seemed never to die down. Oneyear more and middle age might lay its dulling finger upon him. But nowhe positively flared with youth. 

Close behind Honey came Billy Fairfax, still shock-headed, his blondhair faded to tow, slimmer, more serious, more fine. His eyes ran aheadof the others, found Julia's face, lighted up. His gaze lingered therein a tender smile. 

Just over Billy's shoulder, Pete appeared, a Pete as thin and nervousas ever, the incipient black beard still prickling in tiny ink-spotsthrough a skin stained a deep mahogany. There was some subtle change inPete that was not of the flesh but of the spirit. Perhaps the look inhis face--doubly wild of a Celt and of a genius--had tamed a little. But in its place had come a question: undoubtedly he had gained inspiritual dignity and in humorous quality. 

Ralph Addington followed Pete. And Ralph also had changed. True, heretained his inalienable air of elegance, an elegance a little toosartorial. And even after six years of the jungle, he maintained hispicturesqueness. Long-haired, liquid-eyed, still with a beardsymmetrically pointed and a mustache carefully cropped, he was morethan ever like a young girl's idea of an artist. And yet somethingdifferent had come into his face, The slight touch of gray in his wavyhair did not account for it; nor the lines, netting delicately hislong-lashed eyes. The eyes themselves bore a baffled expression, halfof revolt, half of resignation; as one who has at last found theimmovable obstacle, who accepts the situation even while he rebelsagainst it. 

At the end of the line came Merrill, a doubly transformed man, lookingat the same time younger and handsomer. Bigger and even more muscularthan formerly, his eyes were wide open and sparkling, his mouth hadlost its rigidity of contour. His look of severity, of asceticism hadvanished. Nothing but his classic regularity remained and that had beenbeautifully colored by the weather. 

The five couples wound through the trail which led from the Playgroundto the Camp, the men half-carrying their wives with one arm about theirwaists and the other supporting them. 

The Camp had changed. The original cabins had spread by an addition ofone or two or three to sprawling bungalow size. Not an atom of theirwooden structure showed. Blocks of green, cubes of color, only opendoorways and windows betrayed that they were dwelling-places. A tide oftropical jungle beat in waves of green with crests of rainbow up to thevery walls. There it was met by a backwash of the vines which emboweredthe cabins, by a stream of blossoms which flooded and cascaded downtheir sides. 

The married ones stopped at the Camp. But Billy and Julia continued upthe beach. 

"How did the work go to-day, Honey?" Lulu asked in a perfunctory toneas they moved away from the Playground. 

"Fine!" Honey answered enthusiastically. 

"You wait until you see Recreation Hall. " He stopped to light his pipe. "Lord, how I wish I had some real tobacco! It's going to be a corker. We've decided to enlarge the plan by another three feet. "

"Have you really?" commented Lulu. "Dear me, you've torn your shirtagain. "

"Yes, " said Honey, puffing violently, "a nail. And we're going to havea tennis court at one side not a little squeezed-up affair likethis--but a big, fine one. We're going to lay out a golf course, too. That will be some job, Mrs. Holworthy D. Smith, and don't you forgetit. "

"Yes, I should think it would be, " agreed Lulu. "Do you know, Honey, Clara's an awful cat! She's dreadfully jealous of Peachy. The thingsshe says to her! She knows Pete's still half in love with her. Peachyunderstands him on his art side as Clara can't. Clara simply hands itto Pete if he looks at Peachy. Even when she knows that he knows, thatwe all know, that she tried her best to start a flirtation with you. "

"And to-day, " Honey interrupted eagerly, "we doped out a scheme for aseries of canals to run right round the whole place--with gardens onthe bank. You see we can pipe the lake water and--. "

"That will be great, " said Lulu, but there was no enthusiasm in hertone. "And really, Honey, Peachy's in a dreadful state of nerves. Ofcourse, she knows that Ralph is still crazy about Julia and always willbe, just because Julia's like a stone to him--oh, you know the kind ofa man Ralph is. The only woman you can depend on him to be faithful tois the one that won't have him round. I don't think that bothersPeachy, though. She adores Julia. If she could fly a little while inthe afternoon--an hour, say--I know it would cure her. "

"Too bad. But, of course, we couldn't let you girls fly again. Besides, I doubt very much if, after so many cuttings, your wings would evergrow big enough. You don't realize it yourself, perhaps, but you'remuch more healthy and normal without wings. "

"I don't mind being without them so much myself"--Lulu's tone was alittle doubtful--"though I think they would help me with Honey-Boy andHoney-Bunch. Sometimes--. " She did not finish. 

"And then, " Honey went on decidedly, "it's not natural for women tofly. God never intended them to. "

"It is wonderful, " Lulu said admiringly, "how men know exactly what Godintended. "

Honey roared. "If you'd ever heard the term sarcasm, my dear, I shouldthink you were slipping something over on me. In point of fact, wedon't know what God intended. Nobody does. But we know better than you;the man's life broadens us. "

"Then I should think--" Lulu began. But again she did not finish. 

"We're going to make a tower of rocks on the central island of thelake, " Honey went on. "We'll drag the stones from the beach--those big, beauty round ones. When it's finished, we're going to cover it withthat vine which has the scarlet, butterfly flowers. Pete says thereflections in the water will be pretty neat. "

"Really. It sounds charming. And, Honey, Chiquita is so lazy. LittleJunior runs wild. He's nearly two and she hasn't made a strip ofclothing for him yet. It's Frank's fault, though. He never noticesanything. I really think you men ought to do something about that. "

"And then, " Honey went on. But he stopped. "What's the use?" hemuttered under his breath. He subsided, enveloped himself in a cloud ofsmoke and listened, half-amused, half-irritated, to Lulu's pauseless, squirrel-like chatter. 

"My dear, " Frank Merrill said to Chiquita after dinner, "the New Campis growing famously. Six months more and you will be living in your newhome. The others--Pete especially--are very much interested inRecreation Hall. They have just worked out a new scheme for parks andgardens. It is very interesting, though purely decorative. It offersmany absorbing problems. But, for my own part, I must confess I am moreinterested in the library. It will be most gratifying to see all ourbooks ranged on shelves, classified and catalogued at last. It is agood little library as amateur libraries go. The others speak again andagain of my foresight during those early months in taking care of thebooks. We have many fine books--what people call solid reading--and areally extraordinary collection of dictionaries. You see, many scholarstravel in the Orient, and they feel they must get up on all kinds ofthings. I suggested to-day that we draw up a constitution for AngelIsland. For by the end of twenty years, there will be a thirdgeneration growing up here. And then, the population will increaseamazingly. Besides, it offers many subjects for discussion in ourevenings at the Clubhouse, etc. , etc. , etc. "

Holding the tired-out little junior in her lap, Chiquita rocked andfanned herself and napped--and woke--and rocked and fanned herself andnapped again. 

"Oh, don't bore me with any talk about the New Camp, " Clara was sayingto Pete. "I'm not an atom interested in it. "

"But you're going to live there sometime, " Pete remonstrated, wrinklingin perplexity his fiery, freckled face. 

"Yes, but I don't feel as if I were. It's all so far away. And I neversee it. If I had anything to say about it, I might feel differently. But I haven't. So please don't inflict it on me. "

"But it's the inspiration of building it for you women, " Pete saidgravely, "that makes us men work like slaves. We're only doing it foryour sake. It is the expression of our love and admiration for you. "

"Oh, slush!" exclaimed Clara flippantly, borrowing from Honey'svocabulary. "You're building it to please yourself. Besides, I don'twant to be an inspiration for anything. "

"All right, then, " Pete said in an aggrieved tone. "But you are aninspiration, just the same. It is the chief vocation of women. " Hemoved over to the desk and took up a bunch of papers there. 

"Oh, are you going to write again this evening?" Clara asked in a burstof despair. 

"Yes. " Pete hesitated. "I thought I'd work for an hour or two and thenI'd go out. "

Clara groaned. "If you leave me another minute of this day, I shall gomad. I've had nothing but housework all the morning and then a littletalk with the girls, late this afternoon. I want something differentnow. "

"Well, let me read the third act to you, " Pete offered. 

"No, I don't feel like being read to. I want some excitement. "

Pete sighed, and put his manuscript down. 

"All right. Let's go in swimming. But I'll have to leave you after anhour. "

"Are you going to see Peachy?" Clara demanded shrilly. 

"No. " Pete's tone was stern. "I'm going to the Clubhouse. "

"How has everything gone to-day, Billy?" Julia asked, as they satlooking out to sea. 

"Rather well, " Billy answered. "We were all in a working mood and allin good spirits. We've done more to-day than we've done in any threedays before. At noon, while we were eating our lunch, I showed themyour plans. "

"You didn't say--. "

"I didn't peep. I promised, you know. I let them assume that they weremine. They went wild over them, threw all kinds of fits. You see, Petehas a really fine artistic sense that's going to waste in all theseminor problems of construction and drainage. I flatter myself that I, too, have some taste. Addington and Honey are both good workmen--thatis, they work steadily under instruction. Merrill's only an inspiredplumber, of course. Pete and I have been feeling for a long time thatwe wanted to do something more creative, more esthetic. This is justthe thing we needed. I'm glad you thought it out; for I was beginningto grow stale. I sometimes wonder what will happen when the New Camp isentirely built and there's nothing else to do. "

Billy's voice had, in spite of his temperamental optimism, a dull noteof unpleasant anticipation. 

"There'll be plenty to do after that. " Julia smiled reassuringly. "I'mworking on a plan to lay out the entire island. That will take yearsand years and years. Even then you'll need help. "

"That, my beloved, " Billy said, "until the children grow up, is justwhat we can't get--help. "

Julia was silent. 

"Julia, " he went on, after an interval, in which neither spoke, "won'tyou marry me? I'm lonely. "

The poignant look--it was almost excruciating now--came into Julia'seyes. 

"Not now, Billy, " she answered. 

"And yet you say you love me!"

The sadness went. Julia's face became limpid as water, bright as light, warm as flame. "I love you, " she said. "I love you! I love you!" Shewent on reiterating these three words. And with every iteration, thethrill in her voice seemed to deepen. "And, Billy--. "

"Yes. "

"I'm not quite sure when--but I know I'm going to marry you some time. "

"I'll wait, then, " Billy promised. "As long as I know you love me, Ican wait until--the imagination of man has not conceived the limit yet. "

"Well, how have you been to-day?" Ralph asked. But before Peachy couldspeak, he answered himself in a falsetto voice that parodied her round, clear accents, "I want to fly! I want to fly! I want to fly!" His tonewas not ill-tempered, however; and his look was humorously aaffectionate, as one who has asked the same question many times andreceived the same answer. 

"I do want to fly, Ralph, " Peachy said listlessly. "Won't you let me?Oh, please let my wings grow again?"

Ralph shook his head inflexibly. "Couldn't do it, my dear. It's notwomanly. The air is no place for a woman. The earth is her home. "

"That's not argument, " Peachy asserted haughtily. "That's statement. Not that I want to argue the question. My argument is unanswerable. Whydid we have wings, if not to fly. But I don't want to quarrel--. " Hervoice sank to pleading. "I'd always be here when you came back. You'dnever see me flying. It would not prevent me from doing my duty as yourwife or as Angela's mother. In fact, I could do it better because itwould make me so happy and well. After a while, I could take Angelawith me. Oh, that would be rapture!" Peachy's eyes gleamed. 

Ralph shook his head. "Couldn't think of it, my dear. The clouds are noplace for my wife. Besides, I doubt if your wings would ever grow afterthe clipping to which we've submitted them. Now, put something on, andI'll carry you down on the beach. "

"Tell me about the New Camp, and what you did to-day!" Peachy asked, after an interval in which she visibly struggled for control. 

"Oh, Lord, ask anything but that, " Addington exclaimed with a suddengust of his old irritability. "I work hard enough all day. When I gethome, I want to talk about something else. It rests me not to think ofit. "

"But, Ralph, " Peachy entreated, "I could help you. I know I could. Ihave so many ideas about things. You know Pete says I'm a real artist. It would interest me so much if you would only talk over the buildingplans with me. "

"I don't know that I am particularly interested in Pete's opinion ofyour abilities, " Addington rejoined coldly. "My dear little girl, " hewent on, palpably striving for patience and gentleness, "there'snothing you could do to help me. Women are too impractical. This is aman's work, besides. By the way, after we've had our little outing, I'll leave you with Lulu. Honey and Pete and I are going to meet at theClubhouse to work over some plans. "

"All right, " Peachy said. She added, "I guess I won't go out, afterall. I feel tired. I think I'll lie down for a while. "

"Anything I can do for you, dear?" Addington asked tenderly as he left. 

"Nothing, thank you. " Peachy's voice was stony. Then suddenly shepulled herself upright on the couch. "Oh--Ralph--one minute. I want totalk to you about Angela. Her wings are growing so fast. "

VII

"Where's Peachy?" Julia asked casually the next afternoon. 

"I've been wondering where she was, too, " Lulu answered. "I think shemust have slept late this morning. I haven't seen her all day. "

"Is Angela with the children now?" Julia went on. 

"I suppose so, " Lulu replied. She lifted herself from the couch. Shading her hands, she studied the group at the water's edge. Honey-Boyand Peterkin were digging wells in the sand. Junior making futileimitative movements, followed close at their heels. Near the group ofwomen, Honey-Bunch crept across the mat of pine-needles, chasing anelusive sunbeam. "No, she's not there. "

"Now that I think of it, Angela didn't come to play with Peterkin thismorning, " said Clara. "Generally she comes flying over just afterbreakfast. "

"You don't suppose Peachy's ill, " asked Chiquita, "or Angela. "

"Oh, no!" Lulu answered. "Ralph would have told one of us. "

"Here she comes up the trail now, " Chiquita exclaimed. "Angela's withher. "

"Yes--but what's the matter?" Lulu cried. 

"She's all bent over and she's staggering. "

"She's crying, " said Clara, after a long, intent look. 

"Yes, " said Lulu. "She's crying hard. And look at Angela--the darling!She's trying to comfort her. "

Peachy was coming slowly towards them; slowly because, although bothhands were on the rail, she staggered and stumbled. At intervals, shedropped and crawled on hands and knees. At intervals, convulsions ofsobbing shook her, but it was voiceless sobbing. And those silentcataclysms, taken with her blind groping progress, had a sinisterquality. Lulu and Julia tottered to meet her. "What is it, oh, what isit, Peachy?" they cried. 

Peachy did not reply immediately. She fought to control herself. "Godown to the beach, baby, " she said firmly to Angela. "Stay there untilmother calls you. Fly away!"

The little girl fluttered irresolutely. "Fly away, dear!" Peachyrepeated. Angela mounted a breeze and made off, whirling, circling, dipping, and soaring, in the direction of the water. Once or twice, shepaused, dropped and, bounding from earth to air, turned her frightenedeyes back to her mother's face. But each time, Peachy waved her on. Angela joined Honey-Boy and Peterkin. For a moment she poised in theair; then she sank and began languidly to dig in the sand. 

"I couldn't let her hear it, " Peachy said. "It's about her. Ralph--. "She lost control of herself for a moment; and now her sobs had voice. "I asked him last night about Angela and her flying. I don't exactlyknow why I did. It was something you said to me yesterday, Julia, thatput it into my head. He said that when she was eighteen, he was goingto cut her wings just as he cut mine. "

There came clamor from her listeners. "Cut Angela's wings!" "Why?""What for?"

Peachy shook her head. "I don't know yet why, although he tried allnight, to make me understand. He said that he was going to cut them forthe same reason that he cut mine. He said that it was all right for herto fly now when she was a baby and later when she was a very younggirl, that it was 'girlish' and 'beautiful' and 'lovely' and 'charming'and 'fascinating' and--and--a lot of things. He said that he could notpossibly let her fly when she became a woman, that then it would be'unwomanly' and 'unlovely' and 'uncharming' and 'unfascinating. ' Hesaid that even if he were weak enough to allow it, her husband neverwould. I could not understand his argument. I could not. It was as ifwe were talking two languages. Besides, I could scarcely talk, I criedso. I've cried for hours and hours and hours. "

"Sit down, Peachy, " Julia advised gently. "Let us all sit down. " Thewomen sank to their couches. But they did not lounge; they continued tosit rigidly upright. "What are you going to do, Peachy?"

"I don't know. But I'll throw myself into the ocean with Angela in myarms before I'll consent to have her wings cut. Why, the things hesaid. Lulu, he said that Angela might marry Honey-Boy, as they were thenearest of age. He said that Honey-Boy would certainly cut her wings, that he, no more than Honey, could endure a wife who flew. He said thatall earth-men were like that. Lulu, would you let your childdo--do--that to my child?"

Lulu's face had changed--almost horribly. Her eyes glittered betweennarrowed lids. Her lips had pulled away from each other, baring herteeth. "You tell Ralph he's mistaken about my son, " she ground out. 

"That's what I told him, " Peachy went on in a breaking voice. "But hesaid you wouldn't have anything to do or say about it. He said thatHoney-Boy would be trained in these matters by his father, not by hismother. I said that you would fight them both. He asked me what chanceyou would have against your husband and your son. He--he--he alwaysspoke as if Honey-Boy were more Honey's child than yours, and as thoughAngela were more his child than mine. He said that he had talked thisquestion over with the other men when Angela's wings first began togrow. He said that they made up their minds then that her wings must becut when she became a woman. I besought him not to do it--I begged, Ientreated, I pleaded. He said that nothing I could say would changehim. I said that you would all stand by me in this, and he asked mewhat we five could do against them. He, called us five totteringfemales. Oh, it grew dreadful. I shrieked at him, finally. As he left, he said, 'Remember your first day in the Clubhouse, my dear! That's myanswer. '" She turned to Clara. "Clara, you are going to bear a child inthe spring. It may be a girl. Would you let son of mine or any of thesewomen clip her wings? Will you suffer Peterkin to clip Angela's wings?"

Clara's whole aspect had fired. Flame seemed burst from her gray-greeneyes, sparks to shoot to from her tawny head. "I would strike him deadfirst. "

Peachy turned to Chiquita. The color had poured into Chiquita's faceuntil her full brown eyes glared from a purple mask. "You, too, Chiquita. You may bear girl-children. Oh, will you help me?"

"I'll help you, " Chiquita said steadily. She added after a pause, "Icannot believe that they'll dare, though. "

"Oh, they'll dare anything, " Peachy said bitterly. Earth-men aredevils. What shall we do, Julia? she asked wearily. 

Julia had arisen. She stood upright. Curiously, she did not totter. Anddespite her shorn pinions, she seemed more than ever to tower like someWinged Victory of the air. Her face ace glowed with rage. As on thatfateful day at the Clubhouse, it was as though a fire had been built inan alabaster vase. But as they looked at her, a rush of tears wiped theflame from her eyes. She sank back again on the couch. She put herhands over her face and sobbed. "At last, " she said strangely. "Atlast! At last! At last!"

"What shall we do, Julia?" Peachy asked stonily. 

"Rebel!" answered Julia. 

"But how?"

"Refuse to let them cut Angela's wings. "

"Oh, I would not dare open the subject with Ralph, " Peachy said in aterror-stricken voice. "In the mood he's in, he'd cut her wingstonight. "

"I don't mean to tell him anything about it, " Julia replied. "Rebel insecret. I mean--they overcame us once by strategy. We must beat themnow by superior strategy. "

"You don't really mean anything secret, do you, Julia?" Luluremonstrated. "That wouldn't be quite fair, would it?"

And curiously enough, Julia answered in the exact words that Honey hadused once. "Anything's fair in love or war--and this is both. We can'tbe fair. We can't trust them. We trusted them once. Once is enough forme. "

"But how, Julia?" Peachy asked. Her voice had now a note ofquerulousness in it. "How are we going to rebel?"

Julia started to speak. Then she paused. "There's something I must askyou first. Tell me, all of you, what did you do with your wings whenthe men cut them off?"

The rage faded out of the four faces. A strange reticence seemed toblot out expression. The reticence changed to reminiscence, to a deepsadness. 

Lulu spoke first. "I thought I was going to keep my wings as long as Ilived. I always thought of them as something wonderful, left over froma happier time. I put them away, done up in silk. And at first I usedto look at them every day. But I was always sad afterwards--and--andgradually, I stopped doing it. Honey hates to come home and find mesad. Months went by--I only looked at them occasionally. And after awhile, I did not look at them at all. Then, one day, after Honey builtthe fireplace for me, I saw that we needed something--to--to--to sweepthe hearth with. I tried all kinds of things, but nothing was right. Then, suddenly, I remembered my wings. It had been two years since I'dlooked at them. And after that long time, I found that I didn't care somuch. And so--and so--one day I got them out and cut them into littlebrooms for the hearth. Honey never said anything about it--but I knewhe knew. Somehow--. " A strange expression came into the face of theunanalytic Lulu. "I always have a feeling that Honey enjoys using mywings about the hearth. "

Julia hesitated. "What did you do, Chiquita?"

"Oh, I had all Lulu's feeling at first, of course. But it died as hersdid. You see this fan. You have often commented on how well I've keptit all these years--I've mended it from month to month with feathersfrom my own wings. The color is becoming to me--and Frank likes me tocarry a fan. He says that it makes him think of a country called Spainthat he always wanted to visit when he was a youth. "

"And you, Clara?" Julia asked gently. 

"Oh, I went through, " Clara replied, "just what Lulu and Chiquita did. Then, one day, I said to myself, 'What's the use of weeping over a deadthing?' I made my wings into wall-decorations. You're right aboutHoney, Lulu. " For a moment there was a shade of conscious coquetry inClara's voice. "I know that it gives Pete a feeling of satisfaction--Idon't exactly know why (unless it's a sense of having conquered)--tosee my wings tacked up on his bedroom walls. "

Peachy did not wait for Julia to put the question to her. "As soon as Icould move, after they freed us from the Clubhouse, I threw mine intothe sea. I knew I should go mad if I kept them where I could see themevery day. Just to look at them was like a sharp knife going through myheart. One night, while Ralph was asleep, I crawled out of the house onmy hands and knees, dragging them after me. I crept down to the beachand threw them into the water. They did not sink--they floated. Istayed until they drifted out of sight. The moon was up. It shone onthem. Oh, the glorious blue of them--and the glitter--the--the--. " ButPeachy could not go on. 

"What did you do with yours, Julia?" Lulu asked at last. 

"I kept them until last night, " Julia answered. 

"Among the ship's stuff was a beautiful carved chest. It was packedwith linen. Billy said it was some earth-girl's wedding outfit. I tookeverything out of the chest and put my wings in it. Folded carefully, they just fitted. I used to brood over them every night before I wentto bed. Oh, they were wonderful in the dark--as if the chest were fullof white fire. Many times I've waked up in the middle of the night andgone to look at them. I don't know why, but I had to do it. After awhile, it hurt me so much that I made up my mind to lock the chestforever; for I always wept. I could not help it. "

Julia wept now. The tears poured down her cheeks. But she went on. 

"After yesterday's talk, I thought this situation over for a long time. Then I went to the chest, took out my wings, brought them downstairsand--and--and--. "

"What?" somebody whispered. 

"Burned them!" Julia's deep voice swelled on the word "burned" asthough she still felt the scorching agony of that moment. 

For a long moment, nobody spoke. 

Julia asked their question for them. "Do you want to know why I didit?" And without waiting, she answered, "Because I wanted to mark insome way the end of my desire to fly. We must stop wanting to fly, wewomen. We must stop wasting our energy brooding over what's past. Wemust stop it at once. Not only that but--for Angela's sake and for thesake of all girl-children who will be born on this island--we mustlearn to walk. "

"Learn to walk!" Peachy repeated. "Julia, have you gone mad? We havealways held out against this degradation. We must continue to do so. "Again came that proud lift of her shoulders, the vibrant stir ofwing-stumps. "That would lower us to a level with men. "

"But are we lowering ourselves?" Julia asked. "Are they really on alower level? Isn't the earth as good as the air?"

"It's better, Julia, " Lulu said unexpectedly. "The earth's a fineplace. It's warm and homelike. Things grow there. There's nothing inthe air. "

"There are the stars, " murmured Peachy. 

"Yes, " said Julia with a soft tenderness, "but we never reached them. "

"The air-life may not have been better or finer, " Peachy continued, "but, somehow, it seemed clearer and purer. The earth's such acluttered place. It's so full of things. You can hardly see it for thestuff that's on it. From above it seems beautiful, but near--. "

"Yet, it is on the earth that we must live--and that Angela must live, "Julia interpolated gently. 

"But what is the use of our learning to walk?" Peachy demanded. 

"To teach Angela how to walk and all the other girl-children that arecoming to us. "

"But I am afraid, " Peachy said anxiously, "that if Angela learned towalk, she would forget how to fly. "

"On the contrary, " Julia declared, "she would fly better for knowinghow to walk, and walk better for knowing how to fly. "

"I don't see it, " interposed Clara emphatically. "I don't see what weget out of walking or what Angela will get out of it. Suppose welearned to walk? The men would stop helping us along. We'd lose theappeal of helplessness. "

"But what is there about what you call 'the appeal of helplessness'that makes it worth keeping?" Julia asked, smiling affectionately intoClara's eyes. "Why shouldn't we lose it?"

"Why, because, " Clara exclaimed indignantly, "because--because--why, because, " she ended lamely. Then, with one of her unexpected bursts ofmental candor, "I'm sure I don't know why, " she admitted, "except thatwe have always appealed to them for that reason. Then again, " she tookup her argument from another angle, "if we learn to walk, they won'twait on us any more. They may even stop giving us things. As it is now, they're really very generous to us. "

The others smiled with varying degrees of furtiveness. Pete, as theyall knew, could always placate an incensed Clara by offering her someloot of the homeward way: a bunch of flowers, a handful of nuts, beautifully colored pebbles, shells with the iridescence still wet onthem. She soon tired of these toys, but she liked the excitement of thesurprise. 

"Generous to us!" Chiquita burst out--and this was as unexpected asLulu's face-about. "Well, when you come to that, they're never generousto us. They make us pay for all they give us. They seem generous--butthey aren't really--any more than we are. "

"They are far from generous, " said Peachy. "They are ungenerous. They're tyrants. They're despots. See how they took advantage of ourinnocence and ignorance of earth-conditions. "

"I protest. " A note that they had never heard from Julia made steel ofthe thrilling melody of her voice. "You must know that is not true!"she said in an accusing voice. "Be fair to them! Tell the truth toyourselves! If they took advantage of our innocence and ignorance, itwas we who tempted them to it in the first place. As for our innocenceand ignorance--you speak as, if they were beautiful or desirable. Wewere innocent and ignorant of earth-conditions because we were tooproud to learn about them, because we always assumed that we loweredourselves by knowing anything about them. Our mistake was that welearned to fly before we learned to walk. "

"But, Julia, what are we going to do about Angela?" Peachy askedimpatiently. 

"I'm coming to that presently, " Julia answered. "But before--I want toask you a question. Do you remember the big cave in the northernreef--the one we used to hide in?"

"Oh, I remember, " Lulu said, "perfectly. "

"Did you ever tell Honey about it?" Julia turned to her directly. 

"No. Why, we promised never to tell, didn't we? In case we ever neededa place of refuge--. "

"Have any of you ever told about it?" Julia turned to the others. "Think carefully! This is important. "

"I never have told, " Peachy said wearily. "But about Angela--. "

"Have you, Chiquita?" Julia interrupted with a strange insistence. 

"I have never thought of it from that day to this, " Chiquita answered. 

"Nor I, " replied Clara. "I'm not sure that I could go to it now. Couldyou, Julia?"

"Oh, yes, " Julia answered eagerly, "I've--. " She stopped abruptly. "Butnow I want to talk to you, and I want you to listen carefully. I amgoing to tell you why I think we should learn to walk. It is, in brief, for Angela's sake and for the sake of every girl-child that is born onthis island. For a long time, you will think that I am talking aboutother things. But you must be patient. I have seen this situationcoming ever since Angela's wings began to grow. I could not hurryit--but I knew it must come. Many nights I have lain awake, planningwhat I should say to you when the time came. The time has come--and Iam going to say it. It is a long, long speech that I shall deliver; andI am going to speak very plainly. But you must not get angry--for youknow how much I love you and how much I love your children. 

"I'm going back to our young girlhood, to the time when our people weredebating the Great Flight. We thought that we were different from themall, we five, that we were more original and able and courageous. Andwe were different. For when our people decided to go south to theSnowlands, the courage of rebellion grew in us and we deserted in thenight. Do you remember the wonderful sense of freedom that came to us, and how the further north we flew, the stronger it became? When wefound these islands, it seemed to us that they must have been createdespecially for us. Here, we said, we would live always, free fromearth-ties--five incorruptible air-women. 

"Then the men came. I won't go into all that. We've gone over ithundreds and hundreds of times, just as we did this afternoon, playingthe most pathetic game we know--the do-you-remember game. But afterthey came, we found that we were not free from earth-ties. For theGreat Doom overtook us and we fell in love. Then came the capture. Andwe lost our wings. "

She paused a moment. 

"Do you remember that awful day at the Clubhouse, how Chiquita, comforted us? I--I failed you then; I fainted; I felt myself to blamefor your betrayal. But Chiquita kept saying, 'Don't be afraid. Theywon't hurt us. We are precious to them. They would rather die than loseus. They need us more than we need them. They are bound to us by achain that they cannot break. ' And for a long time that seemed true. What we had to learn was that we needed them just as much as theyneeded us, that we were bound to them by a chain that we could notbreak. 

"I often think"--Julia's voice had become dreamy--"now when it is sodifferent, of those first few months after the capture. How kind theywere to us, how gentle, how considerate, how delicate, how chivalrous!Do you remember that they treated us as if we were children, how, for along time, they pretended to believe in fairies? Do you remember thelong fairy-hunts in the moonlit jungle, the long mermaid-hunts in themoonlit ocean? Do you remember the fairy-tales by the fire? It seemedto me then that life was one long fairy-tale. And how quickly welearned their language! Has it ever occurred to you that no one of themhas ever bothered to learn ours--none except Frank, and he only becausehe was mentally curious? Then came the long wooing. How we argued themarriage question--discussed and debated--each knowing that the GreatDoom was on her and could not be gain-said. 

"Then came the betrothal, the marriages, and suddenly all thatwonderful starlight and firelight life ended. For a while, the menseemed to drift away from each other. For a while, we--the 'devotedfive, ' as our people called us--seemed to drift away from each other. It was as though they took back something they had freely given eachother to give to us. It was as though we took back something we hadfreely given each other to give to them. 

"Then, just as suddenly, they began to drift away from us and back toeach other. Some of the high, worshiping quality in their attitudetoward us disappeared. It was as though we had become less beautiful, less interesting, less desirable--as if possession had killed someprecious, perishable quality. "

"What that quality is I do not know. We are not dumb like stones orplants, we women. We are not dull like birds or beasts. We do not fadein a day like flowers. We do not stop like music. We do not go out likelight. What it was that went, or when or how, I do not know. But it wassomething that thrilled and enchanted them. It went--and it wentforever. "

"It was as though we were toys--new toys--with a secret spring. And ifone found and pressed that spring, something unexpected and somethingunbelievably wonderful would happen. They hunted for that springuntiringly--hunted--and hunted--and hunted. At last they found it. Andafter they found it, we no longer interested them. The mystery andfascination had gone. After all, a toy is only a toy. "

"Then came our great trouble--that terrible time of the illicithunting. Every man of them making love to some one of you. Every womanof you making love to some one of them. That was a year of despair forme. I could see no way out. It seemed to me that you were all driftingto destruction and that I could not stay you. And then I began torealize that the root of evil was only one thing idleness. Idle men!Idle women! And as I wondered what we should do next, Nature took thematter in her hands. She gave all you women work to do. "

Julia paused. Her still gray eyes fixed on faraway things. 

"Honey-Boy was born, then Peterkin, then Angela, then Honey-Bunch. Andsuddenly everything was right again. But, somehow, the men seemed soonto exhaust the mystery and fascination of fatherhood just as they hadexhausted the mystery and fascination of husbandhood. They becamerestless and irritable. It seemed to me that another danger besetus--vague, monstrous, looming--but I did not know what. You see theyhave the souls of discoverers and explorers and conquerors, theseearth-men. They are creators. Their souls are filled with an eternalunrest. Always they must attempt one thing more; ever they seeksomething beyond. They would stop the sun and the moon in theircourses; they would harness the hurricane; they would chain theeverlasting stars. Sea, earth, sky are but their playgrounds; past, present, future their servants; they lust to conquer the unexploredareas of space and time. It came to me that what they needed was workof another kind. One night, when I was lying awake thinking it over, the idea of the New Camp burst on my mind. Do you remember howdelighted they were when I suggested it to them, how delighted youwere, how gay and jubilant we all were, how, for days and days, wetalked of nothing else? And we were as happy over the idea as they. Fora long time, we thought that we were going to help. 

"We thought that we were going with them every day, not to work but tosit in the nearby shade, to encourage them with our praise andappreciation. And we did go for a month. But they had to carry us allthe way--or nearly carry us. Think of that--supporting a full-grownwoman all that weary road. I saw the feeling begin to grow in them thatwe were burdens. I watched it develop. Understand me, a beautifulburden, a beloved burden, but still a burden, a burden that it would begood to slip off the back for the hours of the working day. I could notblame them. For we were burdens. Then, under one pretext or another, they began to suggest to us not to go daily to the New Camp with them. The sun was too hot; we might fall; insects would sting us; the suddenshowers were too violent. Finally, that if we did not watch the NewCamp grow, it would be a glorious surprise to us when it was finished. 

"At first, you were all touched and delighted with their gallantry--butI--I knew what it meant. "

"I tried to stem the torrent of their strange, absorption, but I couldnot. It grew and grew. And now you see what has happened. It has beenmonths since one of us has been to the New Camp and all of you, exceptPeachy and myself, have entirely lost interest in it. It is notsurprising. It is natural. I, too, would lose interest if I did notforce myself to talk with Billy about it every night of my life. Lulusaid yesterday that it seemed strange to her that, after workingtogether all day, they should want to get together in the Clubhouse atnight. For a long time that seemed strange to me--until I discoveredthat there is a chain binding them to each other even as there is achain binding them to us. And the Bond of Work is stronger than theBond of Sex because Work is a living, growing thing. "

"In the meantime, we have our work too--the five children. But it is alittle constructive work--not a great one. For in this beautiful, safeisland, there is not much that we can do besides feed them. And so, here we sit day after day, five women who could once fly, big, strong, full-bodied, teeming with various efficiencies and abilities--wasted. If we had kept our wings, we could have been of incalculable assistanceto them. Or if we could walk--. "

"But I won't go further into our situation. I want to considerAngela's. "

"You are wondering what all this has to do with the matter of Angela'sflying. And now I am going to tell you. Don't you see if they waituntil she is a woman before they cut her wings, she will be in the samecase that we are in, unable either to fly or to walk. Rather would Imyself cut her wings to-night and force her to walk. But on the otherhand, should she grow to womanhood with wings, she would be no truemate to a wingless man unless she could also walk. No, we must see toit that she both flies and walks. In that case, she will be a perfectmate to the wingless man. Her strength will not be as great as his--buther facility will be greater. She will walk well enough to keep by hisside; and her flying will supplement his powers. "

"And then--oh, don't you see it--don't you see why we mustfight--fight--fight for Angela, don't you see why her wings are asacred trust with us? Sometime, there will be born here-- Clara, " sheturned her look on Clara's excited face, "it may be the baby that'scoming to you in the spring--sometime there will be born here a boywith wings. Then more and more often they will come until there are asmany winged men as winged women. What will become of our girl-childrenthen if their mates fly as well as walk away from them. There is onlyone way out. And there is only one duty before us--to learn to walkthat we may teach our daughters to walk--to preserve our daughter'swings that they may teach their sons to fly. "

"But, Julia, " Peachy exclaimed, after an instant of dead silence. Therewas a stir of wonder, flutelike in her voice, a ripple of wonder, flamelike on her face. "Our feet are too fine, too soft. Ralph saysthat mine are only toy feet, that no creature could really get along onthem. "

She kicked the loose sandals off. Tiny, slim, delicately chiseled, herfeet were of a china whiteness, except where, at the tips, the toesshowed a rose-flush or where, over the instep, the veins meandered in ablue network. 

"Of course Peachy's feet are smaller than mine, " Lulu said wistfully. "But even my workaday little pads wouldn't carry me many steps. " Fromunder her skirts appeared a pair of capable-looking, brown feet, square, broad but little and satin-smooth. 

"Mine are quite useless, " Chiquita sighed. "Oh, why did I let myselfgrow so big?" There was a note of despair in her velvet voice. "It'salmost as if there were no muscles in them. " She pulled aside herscarlet draperies. In spite of her increasing size, her dusky feet hadkept their aristocratic Andalusian lines. 

"And I've always done just the things that would make it impossible forme to walk, " said Clara in a discouraged tone. "I've always taken asmuch care of my feet as my hands--they're like glass. " This was true. In the pale-gold of her skin, the pink nails glittered brilliantly. 

"And think of your own feet, Julia, " Lulu exclaimed. "They're likealabaster. Pete says that from the artist's point of view, they'reabsolutely perfect. You don't imagine for an instant that you couldtake a step on them, unsupported?"

"No?" said Julia. "No?" With a swift leap of her body, she stood on thefeet in question. And as the other stared, stupefied, she walked withthe splendid, swinging gait of an Amazon once, twice, thrice around thePlayground. 

"Come, Angela!" Peachy called. "Come, baby!"

Angela started to spread her pinions. "Don't fly, baby, " Peachy called. "Walk!"

Obediently, Angela dropped her wings, sank. Her feet, shell-like, pinky-soft, padded the ground. She tried to balance, but she swayed andfell. 

"No matter, darling!" Peachy called cheerily, "Try again!"

Angela heroically pulled herself up. She made a few uncertain steps, but she stumbled with every move. 

Honey-Boy and Peterkin came running up to her side; Junior, grinninghappily, waddled behind a long way in the rear. "Angela's trying towalk!" the boys cried. "Angela's trying to walk!" They capered withamusement. "Oh, isn't she funny? Look at the girl trying to walk!"

The tears spurted from Angela's eyes. Her lips quivered. Her wings shotup straight. 

"Don't mind what the boys say, Angela!" Peachy called. "Put your wingsdown! Keep right on walking!"

Again Angela's pinions dropped. Again she took a few steps. This timeshe fell to her knees. But she pulled herself up, sped onward, fellagain, and again. She had reached the stones that bounded the sand. When she arose this last time, her foot was bleeding. 

"Keep on walking, baby!" Peachy commanded inflexibly. But there was arain of tears on her check. 

Angela staggered forward a rod or two; and now both feet left a trailof blood. Then suddenly again she struggled for balance, fell headlong. 

"Keep on walking, mother's heart's treasure, " Peachy commanded. Shedropped to her knees and held out her arms; her face workeduncontrollably. 

Angela pulled herself up with a determined settling of her littlerose-petal mouth. Swaying, stumbling, staggering, she ran on in onefinal spurt until she collapsed in her mother's arms. 

VIII

"And as soon as we finish the New Camp, " Honey said eagerly, "we mustmake another on the rocks at the north. That will be our summer place. "

"And as soon as we've finished that, let's build a house-boat for thelake, " Billy suggested. 

"Then let's put up some hunting-boxes at the south, " Ralph took it up. 

"There's a good year's work on the New Camp, " Frank reminded them. 

"But after the New Camp and the Hunting-Boxes and theHouse-Boat--what?" Ralph asked a little drearily. 

"Plenty to do, " Billy promised cheerily. "I've been working on a planto lay out the entire island in camps and parks. Pete, I want to bringthem over to you some night. "

"Come to-night, " Pete said eagerly. 

"Why not bring them to the Clubhouse, " Honey asked. "I'd like to seethem, too. While I'm working with my hands on one job, I like to beworking with my head on the next. "

"Sure, " agreed Ralph, "I'm for that. I'll join you to-night. Can youcome, Frank?"

"I had meant to write to-night, " Frank said. "But of course I can putthat off. "

"Has it ever occurred to you fellows, " Billy asked, "that just as soonas the boys are big enough for us to leave the women in their care, wecan build a boat and visit the other four islands?"

"Gee!" Honey said. "Now you're shouting. I never thought of that. Lord, how I would like to get away from this place for a while. Being shut inin any way always gets on my nerves. "

Ralph drew a long breath. "I never thought of it, " he admitted. "But itgives me a new lease of life. "

"I shall feel like Columbus, " Pete acknowledged, "and then some. Whyit's like visiting the moon--or Mars. And God knows we'll need an otherisland or two in our business--provided we stay here for two or threegenerations more. We'll be a densely populated world-center before weknow it. "

"I was thinking, " Billy suddenly relapsed to the previous subject. "Howabout the women tonight? They always hate to have us leave them whenwe've been away all day, --and we've been here two days, remember. "

"Oh, that's all right, " Honey answered. "I'm sure Lulu'll be all right. There's been the greatest change in her in the last few months. "

"Peachy won't mind, " said Ralph. "She told me the other night to go tothe Clubhouse as often as I wanted and stay as late. "

"Clara says practically the same. " Pete wrinkled his forehead inperplexity. "It took my breath away. How do you account for it?"

"Oh, that's all right, " Honey answered, stopping to dash the sweat fromhis forehead, "I should say it was just a matter of their getting overtheir foolishness. I suppose all young married women have it--thatinstinct to monopolize their husbands. And when you think it over, wedo sort of give them the impression while we're courting them that theyare the whole cheese. But that isn't all. They've come to their senseson some other matters. I think, for instance, they're beginning to getour point of view on this flying proposition. Lulu hasn't hinted thatshe'd like to fly for three months. She's never been so contentedsince, we captured them. To do her justice, though, she always saw, when I pointed it out to her, that flying was foolish, besides beingdangerous. "

"Well, " Ralph said, "what between holding them down from the clouds andkeeping them away from the New Camp, managing them has been some job. But I guess you're right, Honey. I think they're reconciled now totheir lot. If I do say it as shouldn't, Peachy seems like a regularwoman nowadays. She's braced up in fine style in the last two months. Her color is much better; her spirits are high. When I get home atnight, she doesn't want to go out at all. If I say that I'm going tothe Clubhouse, she never raises a yip. In fact, she seems too tired tocare. She's always ready now to turn in when I do. For months andmonths, you know, she sat up reading until all hours of the night andmorning. But now she falls asleep like a child. "

"Then she's gotten over that insomnia?" Pete asked this casually and hedid not look at Ralph. 

"Entirely, " Ralph replied briefly, and in his turn he did not look atPete. "She's a perfectly healthy woman now. She gets her three squaresevery day and her twelve hours every night--regular. I never saw suchan improvement in a woman. "

"Well, when it comes to sleeping, " Pete said, "I don't believe she'sgot anything on Clara. I often find her dead to the world when I gethome at night. I jolly her about that--for she has always thought goingto bed early indicated lack of temperament. And as for teasing to beallowed to fly, or to be taken out swimming, or to call on any of you, or to let her tag me here--why, that's all stopped short. She keepsdozing off all the evening. Sometimes in the midst of a sentence, she'll begin to nod. Never saw her looking so well, though. "

"Chiquita, on the contrary, isn't sleeping as much as she did, " Franksaid. "She's more active, though--physically, I mean. She's rejoicingat present over the fact that she's lost twenty-five, pounds in thelast three months. She said last night that she hadn't been so slimsince she was a girl. "

"Twenty-five pounds!" exclaimed Honey. "That's a good deal to lose. Howthe hell--how do you explain it!"

"Increased household activity, " Frank replied vaguely. "And thenmentally, I think she's more vigorous. She's been reading a great dealby herself. Formerly I found that reading annoyed her--even when I readaloud, explaining carefully as I went along. "

"I haven't noticed an increased activity on Julia's part, " Billy saidthoughtfully. "But she's always been extraordinarily active, considering everything. The way she gets about is marvelous. But ofcourse she's planned the placing of her furniture with that in view. She's as quick as a cat. I have noticed, however, that she seems muchhappier. They certainly are a changed lot of women. "

"The twelve o'clock whistle has just blown, " Honey announced. "Let'seat. "

The five men dropped their tools. They gathered their lunches togetherand fell to a voracious feeding. At last, pipes appeared. Theystretched themselves to the smoker's ease. For a while, the silence wasunbroken. Then, here and there, somebody dropped an irrelevant remark. Nobody answered it. 

They lay in one corner of the big space which had been cleared from thejungle chaos. On one side rippled the blue lake carving into many tinybays and inlets and padded with great green oases of mattedlily-leaves. On the other side rose the highest hill on the island. Thecleared land stretched to the very summit of this hill. Over it layanother chaos, the chaos of confusion; half-completed buildings of logand stone, rectangles and squares of dug-up land where buildings wouldsome day stand, half-finished roadways, ditches of muddy water, hillsof round beach-stones, piles of logs, some stripped of the bark, othersstill trailing a green huddle of leaf and branch, tools everywhere. Thejungle rolled like, a tidal wave to the very boundary; in places itsgreen spume had fallen over the border. As the men smoked, their eyeswent back to the New Camp again and again. It was obvious thatconstantly they made mental measurements, that ever in their mind's eyethey saw the completed thing. 

"Well, " said Ralph, reverting without warning to the subject underdiscussion. His manner tacitly assumed that the others had also beenconsidering it mentally. "I confess I don't understand women really. I've always thought that I did. But I see now that I never have. "Addington's rare outbursts of frankness in regard to the other sex werethe more startling because they contrasted so sharply with his normalattitude of lordly understanding and contempt. "I've been a goodmanager and I'm not saying that I haven't had my successes with them. But as I look back upon them now, I realize I followed my intuitions, not my reason. I've done what I've done without knowing why. I have tofeel my way still. I can't account for the change that's come overthem. For four years now they've been at us to let their wings growagain. And for four years we've been saying no in every possible toneof voice and with every possible inflection. I've had no idea thatPeachy would ever get over it. My God, you fellows have no idea whatI've been through with her in regard to this question of flying. Why, one night three months ago, she had an awful attack of hysteria becauseI told her I'd have to cut Angela's wings as soon as she was grown-up. "

"Well, what did she expect?" Honey asked. 

"That I'd let her keep them--that I'd let her fly the way Peachy did!Or--what do you suppose she suggested?--that I cut them off now. "

"Well, what was her idea in that?" Billy's tone was the acme ofperplexity. 

"That as long as I wouldn't let her keep them after she had attainedher growth, she might as well not have them at all. "

Billy laughed. "That's a woman's reasoning all right, all right. Why, it would destroy half Angela's charm in my eyes. That little flutteringflight of hers, half on the ground, half in the air, is so lovely, soengaging, so endearing--. But of course letting her fly high wouldbe--. "

"Absurd, " Ralph interrupted. 

"Dangerous, " Honey interpolated. 

"Unwomanly, " Pete added. 

"Immodest, " Billy concluded. 

"Well, thank God it's all over, " Ralph went on. "But, as I say, I giveup guessing what's changed her, unless it's the principle that constantdropping wears away the stone. Oscar Wilde had the answer. They'resphinxes without secrets. They do anything that occurs to them and forno particular reason. I get along with, them only by laying down thelaw and holding them to it. And I reckon they've got that idea firmlyfixed in their minds now--that they're to stay where we put them. "

Honey wriggled as if in discomfort. "Seems to me, Ralph, you take apretty cold-blooded view of the situation. I guess I don't go very farwith you. Not that I pretend to understand women. I don't. My systemwith them is to give them anything they ask, within reason, of course, to keep them busy and happy, buy them presents, soft-soap them, jollythem along. I suppose that personally, I wouldn't have minded theirflying a little every afternoon, as long as they took the proper care. I mean by that, not to fly too far out to sea or too high in the airand never when we were at home, so long, in short, as they followed therules that we laid down for them. You fellows seem to have the idea ifwe let them do that we'd lose them. But if there's one generalproposition fixed more firmly in my nut than any other, it is that youcan't lose them. But of course I intend always to stand by whateveryou-all say. "

"I don't know, " Billy burst in hotly, "which of you two makes mesickest and which is the most insulting in his attitude towards women, you, Ralph, who treat them as if they were household pets, or you, Honey, who treat them as if they were dolls. In my opinion there isonly one law to govern a man's relation with a woman--the law ofchivalry. To love her, and cherish her, to do all the hard work of theworld for her, to stand between her and everything that is unbeautifuland unpleasant, to think for her, to put her on a pedestal and worshipher; to my mind that sums up the whole duty of man to woman. "

"They're better than goddesses on pedestals, " Pete said. "They'recreatures neither of flesh nor of marble--they're ideals. They're madeof stars, sunlight, moonshine. I believe in treating them like beingsof a higher world. "

"I disagree with all of you, " Frank said ponderously, "I don't believein treating them as if they were pets or dolls, or goddesses onpedestals or ideals. I believe in treating them like human beings, theother half of the race. I don't see that they are any better or anyworse than we--they're about the same. Soon after we captured them, youremember, we entered into an agreement that no one of us would ever lethis wife's wings grow without the consent of all the others. One minuteafter I had given my word, I was sorry for it. But you kept your wordto me in the agreement that I forced on you before the capture; and, so, I shall always keep mine to you. But I regret it more and more astime goes on. You see I'm so constituted that I can't see anything butabstract justice. And according to abstract justice we have no right tohold these women bound to the earth. If the air is their naturalhabitat, it is criminal for us to keep them out of it. They're ourequals in every sense--I mean in that they supplement us, as wesupplement them. They've got what we haven't got and we've got whatthey haven't got. They can't walk, but they can fly. We can't fly, butwe can walk. It is as though they compelled us, creatures of the earth, to live in the air all the time. Oh, it's wrong. You'll see it someday. "

"I never listened to such sophistry in my life, " said Ralph in disgust. "You'll be telling us next, " he added sarcastically, "that we hadn'tany right to capture them. "

"We hadn't, " Frank replied promptly. "On reflection, I consider thatthe second greatest crime of my existence. But that's done and can't bewiped out. They own this island just as much as we do. They'd beencoming to it for months before we saw it. They ought to have every kindof right and freedom and privilege on it that we, have. "

"I'd like to hear, " Addington said in the high, thin tone of hispeevish disgust, "the evidence that justifies you in saying that. Whathave they ever done on this island to put them on an equality with us?Aren't they our inferiors from every point of view, especiallyphysically?"

"Certainly they are, " agreed Honey, not peevishly but as one whoindorses, unnecessarily, a self-evident fact. "They've lived here onAngel Island as long as we have. But they haven't made good yet, and wehave. Why, just imagine them working on the New Camp--playing tennis, even. "

"But we prevented all that, " Frank protested. "We cut their wings. Handicapped as they were by their small feet, they could do nothing. "

"But, " Honey ejaculated, "if they'd been our physical equals, theywould never have let us cut their wings. "

"But we caught them with a trick, " Frank said, "we put them in aposition in which they could not use their physical strength. "

"Well, if they'd been our mental equals, they'd never let themselvesget caught like that. "

"Well--but--but--but--" Frank sputtered. "Now you're arguing crazily. You're going round in a circle. "

"Oh, well, " Honey exclaimed impatiently, "let's not argue any more. Youalways go round in a circle. I hate argument. It never changes, anybody. You never hear what the other fellow says. You always come outof it with your convictions strengthened. "

Frank made a gesture of despair. He drew a little book from his pocketand began to read. 

"There's one thing about them that certainly is to laugh, " Honey saidafter a silence, a glint of amusement in his big eyes, "and that is thecare they take of those useless feet of theirs. Lulu's even taken todoing hers up every night in oil or cream. It's their particularvanity. Now, take that, for instance. Men never have those pettyvanities. I mean real men--regular fellows. "

"How about the western cowboy and his fancy boots?" Frank shot backover his book. 

"Oh, that's different, " Ralph said. "Honey's right. That business oftaking care of their feet symbolizes the whole sex to me. They do thethings they do just because the others do them--like sheep jumping overa wall. Their fad at present is pedicure. Peachy's at it just like therest of them. Every night when I come home, I find her sitting downwith both feet done up in one of those beautiful scarfs she'scollected, resting on a cushion. It's rather amusing, though. " Ralphstruggled to suppress his smile of appreciation. 

"Clara's the same. " Pete smiled too. "She's cut herself out some highsandals from a pair of my old boots. And she wears them day and night. She says she's been careless lately about getting her feet sunburned. And she's not going to let me see them until they're perfectly whiteand transparent again. She says that small, beautiful, and useless feetwere one of the points of beauty with her people. "

"Julia's got the bug, too. " Billy's eyes lighted with a gleam oftenderness. "Among the things she found in the trunk was a box of whitesilk stockings and some moccasins. She's taken to wearing them lately. It always puts a crimp in me to get a glimpse of them--as if she'dsuddenly become a normal, civilized woman. "

"Now that I think of it, " Frank again came out of his book. "Chiquitaasked me a little while ago for a pair of shoes. She's wearing them allthe time now to protect her feet--from the sun she says. "

"It is the most curious thing, " Billy said, "that they have neverwanted to walk. Not that I want them to now, " he added hastily. "That'stheir greatest charm in my eyes--their helplessness. It has a curiousappeal. But it is singular that they never even tried it, if only outof curiosity. "

"They have great contempt for walking, " Honey observed. "And it hasnever occurred to them, apparently, that they could enjoy themselves somuch more if they could only get about freely. Not that I want themto--any more than you. That utter helplessness is, as you say, appealing. "

"Oh, well, " Ralph said contemptuously, "what can you expect of them? Itell you it's lack of gray matter. They don't cerebrate. They don'tco-ordinate. They don't correlate. They have no initiative, no creativefaculty, no mental curiosity or reflexes or reactions. They're nothingbut an unrelated bunch of instincts, intuitions, and impulses--humannonsense machines! Why if the positions were reversed and we'd lost ourwings, we'd have been trying to walk the first day. We'd have beenwalking better than they by the end of a month. "

"I like it just as it is, " Pete said contentedly. "They can't fly andthey don't want to walk. We always know where to find them. "

"Thank God we don't have to consider that matter, " Billy concluded. "Apparently the walking impulse isn't in them. They might some time, byhook or crook, wheedle us into letting them fly a little. But one thingis certain, they'll never take a step on those useless feet. "

"Delicate, adorable, useless little feet of theirs, " Pete said softlyas if he were reciting from an ode. 

"There's something moving along the trail, boys, " Frank said quietly. "I keep getting glimpses of it through the bushes--white--blue--red andyellow. "

The others stopped, petrified. They scowled, bending an intent gazethrough the brilliant noon sunshine. 

"Sure I get it!" Billy answered in a low tone. "There's somethingthere. "

"I don't. " Honey shaded his eyes. 

"Nor I. " Pete squinted. 

"Well, I don't see anything, " Ralph said impatiently. "But providingyou fellows aren't nuts, what the devil can it be?"

"It's--" Billy began. Then, "My God!" he ended. 

Something white glimmered at the end of the trail. It grew larger, bulked definitely, filled the opening. 

"Julia!" Billy gasped. 

"And she's--she's--. " Honey could not seem to go on. 

"Walking, " Billy concluded for him. 

"And Peachy!" Ralph exclaimed. 

"And why--and--and--. " It was Pete who stopped for breath this time. 

"And she's walking!" Ralph concluded for himself. 

"And Clara! And Lulu! And Chiquita!" they greeted each one of the womenas fast as they appeared. And in between them came again and againtheir astonished "And walking!"

The five women were walking, and walking with no appearance of effort, swiftly, lightly, joyously. Julia, at the head, moved with the frank, free, swinging gait of an Amazon. Peachy seemed to flit along theground; there was in her progress something of the dipping, curvinggrace of her flight. Clara glided; her effect of motionless movementwas almost obsidian. Chiquita kept the slow, languid gait, both swayingand pulsating, of a Spanish woman. Lulu trotted with the brisk, pleasing activity of a Morgan pony. 

Their skirts had been shortened; they rippled away from slim ankles. The swathing, wing-like draperies had disappeared; their slit sleevesfluttered away from bare shoulders. The women did not pause. They cameon steadily, their eyes fixed on the group of men. 

The faces in that group had changed in expression. Ralph's became blackand lowering. Honey looked surprised but interested; his color did notvary; Billy turned a deep brick-red. Pete went white. Frank Merrillalone studied the phenomenon with the cool, critical eye of scientificobservation. 

The women paused at a little distance where the path dipped to coilaround a little knoll. They abandoned the path to climb this knoll;they climbed it with surprising ease; they almost flew up the sides. They stood there silently grouped about Julia. For an instant the twoparties gazed at each other. 

Then, "What does this mean, Peachy?" Ralph asked sternly. 

Julia answered for Peachy. 

"It means--rebellion, " she said. "It means that we have decided amongourselves that we will not permit you to cut Angela's wings. It meansthat rather than have you do that, we will leave you, taking ourchildren with us. If you will promise us that you will not cut Angela'swings nor the wings of any child born to us, we in our turn willpromise to return to our homes and take our lives up with you justwhere we left off. "

A confused murmur arose from the men. Ralph leaped to his feet. He madea movement in the direction of the women, involuntary but violent. 

The women shrank closer to Julia. They turned white, but they waited. Julia did not stir. 

"Go home, you--" Ralph stopped abruptly and choked something back. 

"Go at once!" Billy added sternly. 

"I'm ashamed of you, Clara, " Pete said. 

"Better go back, girls, " Honey advised. He tried to make his toneauthoritative. But in spite of himself, there lingered a littlepleading in it. To make up, he unmasked the full battery of his coaxingsmile, his quizzical frown, his snapping dimples. "We can't let Angelafly after she's grown up. It isn't natural. It isn't what a womanshould be doing. "

Frank said nothing. 

Julia looked at them steadily an instant. 

"Come!" she said briefly to her little band. The women ran down theknoll and disappeared up the trail. 

"Well, I'll be damned, " Ralph remarked. 

"Well, when you come to that, I'll be damned, " Honey coincided. 

"Who was it said that God did not intend them to walk?" Frank askedslyly. 

"So that's what all this bandaging of feet meant, " Billy went on, ignoring this thrust. "They were learning to walk all the time. "

"You're on, " Ralph said in a disgusted tone. "Foxy little devils!"

"Gee, it must have hurt!" Honey exclaimed. "They must have been torn toribbons at first. Some pluck, believe me!"

"I bet you dollars to doughnuts, Julia's at the bottom of it, " remarkedPete. 

"No question about that, " Frank commented. "Julia thinks. "

"Considerable bean, too, " said Honey. "Well, we've got to put a stop toit to-night. "

"Sure!" Ralph agreed. "Read the riot act the instant we get home. Bythe Lord Harry, if it's necessary I'll tie my wife up!"

"I never could do that, " said Pete. 

"Nor I, " said Frank. 

"Nor I, " said Honey. "But I don't think we'll have to resort to violentmeasures. We've only got to appeal to their love; I can twist Luluright round my finger that way. "

"I guess you're right, " Ralph smiled. "That always fetches them. "

"I don't anticipate any real trouble from this, " Billy went on asthough arguing with himself. "We've got to take it at the start, though. We can't have Angela flying after she's grown. "

"Sure, " said Honey, "it'll blow over in a few days. But now that theycan walk, let's offer to teach them how to dance and play tennis andbocci and golf. And I'll tell you what--we'll lay out some gardens forthem--make them think they're beautifying the place. We might eventeach them how to put up shelves and a few little carpentering trickslike that. That'll hold them for a while. Oh, you'll all come round tomy tactics sooner or later! Pay them compliments! Give them presents!Jolly them along! And say, it will be fun to have some mixed doubles. Gee, though, they'll be something fierce now they've learned how towalk. They'll be here half the time. They'll have so many ideas how theNew Camp ought to be built and a woman is such an obstinate cuss. Asking questions and arguing and interfering--they delay things so. We've got to find out something harmless that'll keep them busy. "

"Oh, we never can have them here--never in the world, " Ralph agreed. "But we'll fix them to-night. How about it, old top?" he inquiredjovially of Frank. 

Frank did not answer. 

In point of fact they did not "fix" the women that night, owing to thesimple reason that they found the camp deserted--not a sign of woman orchild in sight or hearing. 

"Well, there's one thing about it, " Ralph said on their way back to theNew Camp the next morning, "you can always beat any woman's game byjust ignoring it. They can stand anything but not being noticed. Nowour play is to do nothing and say nothing. They're on this islandsomewhere. They can't walk off it, and they can't swim off it, and theycan't fly off it. They may stay away for day or more or possibly two. By the end of week they'll certainly be starved out. And they'll belonging for our society. We want to keep right at work as if nothinghad happened. Let them go and come as they please. But we take nonotice--see! We've done that once before and we can do it again. Whenthey come home, they'll be a pretty tired-out, hungry, discouraged gangof girls. I bet we never hear another word out of them on this subject. "

The men worked as usual the whole morning; but they talked less. Theywere visibly preoccupied. At every pause, they glanced furtively up thetrail. When noon came, it was evident that they dropped their toolswith relief. They sat with their eyes glued to the path. 

"Here they come!" Billy exclaimed at last. 

The men did not speak; nor until they came to the little knoll thatdebouched from the trail did the women. Again Julia acted as spokesman. "We have given you a night to think this matter over, " she saidbriefly. "What is your decision? Shall Angela's wings go uncut?"

"No, by God!" burst out Ralph. "No daughter of mine is going to fly. Ifyou--. "

But with a silencing gesture, Billy interposed. "Aren't you womenhappy?" he asked. 

"Oh, no, " Julia answered. "Of course we're not. I mean we have one kindof happiness--the happiness that come's from being loved and having ahome and children. But there is another kind of happiness of which whenyou cut our wings we were no longer capable--the happiness that comesfrom a sense of absolute freedom. We can bear that for ourselves, butnot for our daughters. Angela and all the girl-children who follow hermust have the freedom that we have lost. Will you give it to them?"

"No!" Ralph yelled. And "Go home!" Honey said brutally. 

The women turned. 

A dead tree grew by the knoll, one slender limb stretching across itstop to the lake. Peachy ran nimbly along this limb until she came asnear to the tip as her weight would permit. She stood there an instantbalancing herself; then she walked swiftly back and forth. Finally shejumped to the ground, landing squarely on her feet. She ran like a deerto join the file of women. 

Involuntarily the men applauded. 

"Remember the time when they first came to the island, " Ralph said, "how she was proud like a lion because she managed to hold herself foran instant on a tree-branch? Her wings were helping her then. Now it'sa real balancing act. Some stunt that! By Jove, she must have beenpractising tightrope walking. " In spite of his scowl, a certaintenderness, half of past admiration, half of present pride, gleamed inhis eyes. 

"You betchu they have. They've been practising running and jumping andleaping and vaulting and God only knows what else. Well, we've only gotto keep this up two or three days longer and they'll come back. " Honeyspoke in a tone which palpably he tried to make jaunty. In spite ofhimself, there was a wavering note of uncertainty in it. 

"Oh, we'll get them yet!" Ralph said. "How about it, old fellow?" Ralphhad never lost his old habit of turning to Frank in psychologicaldistress. 

But Frank again kept silence. 

"Betchu we find them at home to-night, " Honey said as they started downthe trail an hour ahead of time. "Who'll take me. Come!"

No one took him, luckily for Honey. There was no sign of life thatnight, nor the next, nor the next. And in the meantime, the women didnot manifest themselves once during the daytime at the New Camp. 

"God, we've got to do something about this, " Ralph said at the end offive days. "This is getting serious. I want to see Angela. I hadn't anyidea I could miss her so much. It seems as if they'd been gone for amonth. They must have been preparing for this siege for weeks. Wherethe thunder are they hiding--in the jungle somewhere, of course?"

"Oh, of course, " Honey assented. "I miss the boys, too, " he mourned, "Iused to have a frolic with them every morning before I left and everynight when I got home. "

"And it's all so uncomfortable living alone, " Ralph grumbled. He wasunshaven. The others showed in various aspects of untidiness the lackof female standards. 

"I'm so sick of my own cooking, " Honey complained. 

"Not so sick as we are, " said Pete. 

"Anybody can have my job that wants it, " Honey volunteered with a touchof surliness unusual with him. 

At noon the five women appeared again at the end of the trail. 

In contrast to the tired faces and dishevelled figures of the men, theypresented an exquisite feminine freshness, hair beautifully coiled, garments spotless and unwrinkled. But although their eyes were likestars and their cheeks like flowers, their faces were serious; a dew, as of tears lately shed, lay over them. 

"Shall Angela fly?"' Julia asked without parley. 

The women turned. 

"Wait a moment, " Frank called in a sudden tone of authority. "I'm withyou women in this. If you'll let me join your forces, I'll fight onyour side. "

He had half-covered the distance between them before Julia stopped himwith a "Wait a moment!" as decisive as his own. 

"In the first place, " she said, "we don't want your help. If we don'tget this by our own efforts, we'll never value it. In the second place, we'll never be sure of it. We don't trust you--quite. You tricked usonce. That was your fault. If you trick us again, that's our fault. Thank you--but no, Frank. "

The women disappeared down the trail while still the men stood staring. 

"Well, can you beat it?" was the only comment for a moment--and thatcame from Pete. In another instant, they had turned on Merrill, wereupbraiding him hotly for what they called his treason. 

"You can't bully me, " was his unvarying answer. "Remember, any timethey call on me, I'll fight for them. "

"Well, you can do what you want with your own wife, of course, " Ralphsaid, falling into one of his black rages. "But I'm damned if you'llencourage mine. "

"Boys, " he added later, after a day of steadily increasing rage, "I'mtired of this funny business. Let's knock off work to-morrow and huntthem. What gets me is their simplicity. They don't seem to havecalculated on our superior strength. It won't take us more than a fewhours to run them to earth. By God, I wish we had a pair ofbloodhounds. "

"All right, " said Billy. "I'm with you, Ralph. I'm tired of this. "

"Let's go, to bed early to-night, " said Pete, "and start at sunrise. "

"Well, " said Honey philosophically, "I've hunted deer, bear, panther, buffalo, Rocky Mountain sheep, jaguar, lion, tiger, and rhinoceros--butthis is the first time I ever hunted women. "

They started at sunrise--all except Frank, who refused to have anythingto do with the expedition--and they hunted all day. At sunset theycamped where they fell exhausted. They went back to the search the nextday and the next and the next and the next. 

And nowhere did they find traces of their prey. 

"Where are they?" Ralph said again and again in a baffled tone. "Theycouldn't have flown away, could they?"

And, as often as he asked this question, his companions answered it inthe varying tones of their fatigue and their despair. "Of course theycouldn't--their wings were too short. "

"Still, " Frank said once. "It's now long past the half-yearly shearingperiod. " He added in another instant, "I don't think, though, thattheir wings could more than lift them. "

"Well, it's evident, wherever they are, they won't budge until we goback to work, " Billy said at the end of a week. "This is useless andhopeless. "

The next day they returned to the New Camp. 

"Here they come, " Billy called joyously that noon. "Thank God!" headded under his breath. 

Again the five women appeared at the beginning of the trail. Theirfaces were white now, hollow and lined; but as ever, they bore a lookof extraordinary pristineness. And this time they brought the children. Angela lay in her mother's arms like a wilted flower. Her wings saggedforlornly and her feet were bandaged. But stars of a brilliant blueflared and died and flared again in her eyes; roses of a living flamebloomed and faded and bloomed again in her cheek. Her look wentstraight to her father's face, clung there in luminous entreaty. Peterkin, more than ever like a stray from some unreal, pixy world, surveyed the scene with his big, wondering, gray-green eyes. Honey-Boy, having apparently just waked, stared, owl-like, his brows pursed incomic reproduction of his father's expression. Junior grinned hiswidest grin and padded the air unceasingly with his pudgy hands. Honey-Bunch slept placidly in Julia's arms. 

Julia advanced a little from her group and dropped a singlemonosyllable. "Well?" she said in an inflexible, questioning voice. 

Nobody answered her. Instead Addington called in a beseeching voice:"Angela! Angela! Come to me! Come to dad, baby!"

Angela's dead little wings suddenly flared with life; they fluttered ina very panic. She stretched out her arms to her father. She turned herlimpid gaze in an agony of infantile entreaty up to her mother's face. But Peachy shook her head. The baby flutter died down. Angela closedher eyes, dropped her head on her mother's shoulder; the tears startedfrom under her eyelids. 

"Shall Angela fly?" Julia asked. "Remember this is your last chance. "

"No, " Ralph said. And the word was the growl of a balked beast. 

"Then, " Julia said sternly, "we will leave Angel Island forever. "

"You will, " Ralph sneered. "You will, will you? All right. Let's seeyou do it!" Suddenly he started swiftly down toward the trail. "Come, boys!" he commanded. Honey followed--and Billy and Pete. 

But, suddenly, Julia spoke. She spoke in the loud, clear tones of herflying days and she used the language of her girlhood. It was a word ofcommand. And as it fell from her lips, the five women leaped from thetop of the knoll. But they did not fall into the lake. They did nottouch its surface. They flew. Flew--and yet it was not flight. It washalf-flight. It was scarcely flight at all. Compared with themagnificent, calm, effortless sweep of their girlhood days, it wasalmost a grotesque performance. Their wing-stumps beat back and forthviolently, beat in a very agony of effort. Indeed these stunted fanscould never have held them up. They supplemented their efforts by acurious rotary movement of the legs and feet. They could not rise veryfar above the surface of the water, especially as each woman wasweighted by a child; but they sustained a steady, level flight to theother side of the lake. 

The men stared for an instant, petrified. Then panic broke. "Come back, Lulu!" Honey yelled. "Come back!" "Julia!" Billy called hoarsely, "Julia! Julia! Julia!" He went on calling her name as if his senses hadleft him. Pete's lips moved. Words came, but no voice; he stood like astatue, whispering. Merrill remained silent; obviously he could noteven whisper; his was the silence of paralysis. Addington, on the otherhand, was all voice. "Oh, my God!" he cried. "Don't leave me, Peachy!Don't leave me! Peachy! Angela! Peachy! Angela!" His voice ascended onthe scale of hysteric entreaty until he screeched. "Don't leave me!Don't leave me!" He fell to his knees and held out his arms; the tearspoured down his face. 

The women heard, turned, flew back. Holding themselves above the men'sheads, they fluttered and floated. Their faces were working and thetears flowed freely, but they kept their eyes steadily fixed on Julia, waiting for command. 

Julia was ghastly. "Shall Angela fly?" she asked. And it was as thoughher voice came from an enormous distance, so thin and expressionlessand far-away had it become. 

"Anything!" Addington said. "Anything! Oh, my God, don't leave us!"

Julia said something. Again this word was in their own language andagain it was a word of command. But emotion had come into hervoice--joy; it thrilled through the air like a magic fluid. The womensank slowly to earth. In another instant the two forces were in eachother's arms. 

"Billy, " Julia said, as hand in hand they struck into one of the pathsthat led to the jungle, "will you marry me?"

Billy did not answer. He only looked at her. 

"When?" he said finally. "To-morrow?"

"To-day, " Julia said. 

Sunset on Angel Island. 

The Honeymoon House thrilled with excitement. At intervals figurescrowded to the narrow door; at intervals faces crowded in the narrowwindow. Sometimes it was Lulu, swollen and purple and broken withweeping. Sometimes it was Chiquita, pale and blurred and sagging withtears. Often it was Peachy, whose look, white and sodden, steadilysearched the distance. Below on the sand, Clara, shriveled, pinched, bent over, her hands writhing in and out of each other's clasp, pacedback and forth, her eye moving always on the path. Suddenly she stoppedand listened. There came first a faint disturbance of the air, thenconfusion, then the pounding of feet. Angela, white-faced, frightened, appeared, flying above the trail. "I found him, " she called. Behindcame Billy, running. He flashed past Clara. 

"How is she?" he panted. 

"Alive, " Clara said briefly. 

He flew up the steps. Clara followed. Angela dropped to the sand andJay there, her little head in the crook of her elbow, sobbing. 

Inside a murmur of relief greeted Billy. "He's come, Julia, " Peachywhispered softly. 

The women withdrew from the inner room as Billy passed over thethreshold. 

Julia lay on the couch stately and still. One long white hand rested onher breast. The other stretched at her side; its fingers touched alittle bundle there. Her wings--the glorious pinions of hergirlhood--towered above the pillow, silver-shining, quiescent. Herhoney-colored hair piled in a huge crown above her brow. Her eyes wereclosed. Her face was like marble; but for an occasional faint movementof the hand at her side, she might have been the sculpture on a tomb. 

Her lids flickered as Billy approached, opened on eyes as dull asstones. But as they looked up into his, they filled with light. 

"My husband--" she said. Her eyes closed. 

But presently they opened and with a greater dazzle of light. "Ourson--" The hand at her side moved feebly on the little bundle there. That faint movement seemed a great effort. Her eyes closed again. 

But for a third time she opened them, and now they shone with theirgreatest glory. "My husband--our son--has--wings. "

And then Julia's eyes closed for the last time.