Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (225 page)

And
then
exhaustion
descended
upon
him
like
a
numbing
cloak, and
his
ears
sang
and
his
brain
whirled.
His
limbs
seemed
weighted, and
his
heart
pumped
violently
and
he
thought
he
must
drown, and
groaned,
for
at
that
moment
life
seemed
sweet
and
vivid,
since life
was
represented
by
the
island,
and
the
seas
were
death.

"Well,
now
for
death,"
he
thought,
and
as
he
sank,
his
foot
touched bottom.

He
realized
afterwards
that
he
must
have
sobbed
aloud
as
he staggered
ashore.
For
a
moment,
as
he
stood
ankle-deep
in
warm, powdery
sand,
with
the
sun
pouring
fiercely
upon
his
drenched
body, the
surf
curdling
at
his
feet
and
the
cool
greenness
of
a
thickly matted
forest
cresting
the
slope
above
his
head,
he
still
thought that
he
must
be
drowning,
and
that
this
land
was
mirage.
Then
the silence
was
shattered
by
a
shrill
scream;
and
a
glowing
parrot,
rainbow-bright,
flew
suddenly
from
amidst
the
blood-red
shower
of
a
tall hibiscus-bush,
to
wheel,
gorgeous
and
discordant,
above
his
head. Beating
wings
of
ruby
and
emerald
and
sapphire.
Dripping
fire-colored blossom.
Loud,
jangling,
piercing
cries.
The
island
was
real.

Patterson
fainted,
flopping
like
a
heap
of
old
clothes
upon
the smooth,
hard
silver
of
the
sand.
.
.
.

When
he
came
to
himself,
the
sun
was
lower
and
the
air
fragrant with
a
scented
coolness
that
seemed
the
very
perfume
of
dusk
itself. For
a
moment
he
lay
motionless,
his
mind
blank,
then,
as
complete consciousness
returned
to
him
and
he
rolled
over
on
his
face,
he became
aware
of
a
black,
human
shadow
splashed
across
the
sands within
a
few
inches
of
where
he
lay.
The
island,
then,
must
obviously
be
inhabited.
He
raised
his
eyes
defiantly.

He
could
not
have
explained
what
he
had
expected
to
see—some grinning,
paint-raddled
savage,
perhaps,
or
else
the
prim,
concerned face
of
a
missionary
in
white
ducks,
or,
perhaps,
a
dark-skinned
native girl
in
a
wreath
of
flowers.
He
saw
actually
none
of
these,
his
gaze encountering
a
shorter,
stranger
form—that
of
an
elderly,
dwarfish man
in
what
he
at
first
supposed
to
be
some
sort
of
fancy
dress. Comical
clothes!
He
gaped
at
the
short,
jaunty
jacket,
the
nankeen trousers,
the
hard,
round
hat,
and,
most
singular
of
all,
a
thin
and ratty
pigtail
protruding
from
beneath
the
brim
of
this
same
hat. The
little
man
returned
his
scrutiny
calmly,
with
an
air
of
complete nonchalance;
he
revealed
a
turnip
face
blotched
thick
with
freckles, a
loose
mouth
that
twitched
mechanically
from
time
to
time,
and little
piggish,
filmy
blue
eyes.

"Good
God,"
said
Patterson
at
length,
"who
are
you,
and
where did
you
appear
from?"