, 1909-12-02
CHAPTER l..


Whether she had tainted or fallen
asleep, she did not know, but this one
thing she was sure, it had been dark
when consciousness left her and it
was now broad day, although the light
seemed TO come to her with q greenish
tinge v, ich was quite unfamiliar. The
transition between her state of yester-
day and that of to-day was as great
as If she had been born into morning
from the womb of midnight and like
a young animal she drank it in blindly
with closed eyes. She could heal the
thunderous roaring of the breakers
crashing upon the barrier reef. Alone
her boat had been wrecked in the
darkness of the night before
the sound softened and mellowed
by distance came to her in a
deep, low accompaniment to the
SHARPER and nearer sounds of the birds
singing and the breeze rustling gently
through the long leaves of the trees
overhead.
The dry sand On which she lay was
soft and yielding and made a comfort
able bed for her tired body racked
with weary days in the constraint and
narrowness of a small boat. 1t was
warm, too. She had been drenched
when she scrambled on the shore and
fell PROSTATE on the beach, retaining
just strength eno1gh and purpose
enough to crawl painfully inward to
where the tall palms grow before she
lapsed in whatsoever way it might
have been into oblivion.
Incoherent thoughts raced through
her bewildered brain; each one. how
ever. bringing her a little nearer Che
awakening point of realization. Then
there ran through her young body "a
primal pang which dispelled the trenl-
ulous n vague Illusions which her
fancy had woven about herself as she
lay warm and snug and sunny at the
foot of the tall trees, and she realized
that she was frightfully thirsty, so
thirsty that she did not know how
hungry she was.
Tie demand for the material avail
ened the animal in her. Her thought
oentered instantly; they were at once
localized on one supreme desire. Coin.
ciF=n'r her eyes Enclosed and she sal
ur Jlinking In the strong light. The
r;siHg sun stu low on the horizon
smote her full in tie eyes and lett
Ter for the moment dazed again. She
sat leaning upon her hands extended
behind her back staring seward, say
ing nothing. thinking nothing, until a
strange sound 10 the right of her at
uacted her attention. II was a sound
made by a human voice and yet it was
like nothing human that she had ever
heard. 1t WAS a wordless. language.
less ejaculation, but it reused her in
terest at once despite her material
cravings.
She weakly turned her head and
there standing erect with folded arms
looking dovn uron Ter was a man. He
was unc'othed entirely save for a fan
tsstic girdle of ralm leaves about his
waist. She stared at him puzzled.
amazed, affrighted. lie returned her
look with an intent curiosity in which
there was no suggestion of evil pur-
rose, rather of great incomrrehension.
an amazing worderment. There was,
nothing aboat him. save the fact that
he was there, which should have
caused any alarm in her heart, for
with a wouian's swift mastery of the
possibilities of the other sex, she no
ticed in her vague terror and wonder
lnent tlat he was remarkably good TO
look at. Indeed, she thought that she
mad never seen so splendid n sreci-
men of physical manhood as that he
fore her. In color he was white, Save
that he was bronzed by the tropic sun,
he wos perhaps whittier than she was.
His hair. which hung about his head in
a wild, matted tangle, not unpictures-
que was go'dCn; his eyes bright blue.
Ben atli his beard. unkempt but short
and curly, she could see his firm,
clean-cut lirs. His proportions were
surerb He was lirrbed and chested
like the Arolo Bc'vedere. In him
grace and strcrg'h strov for FREEDOM
nance. He was totally unlike all that
she had read of the aborigines of the
South seas.
It was the man who broke the ST
lence. as 1t had been the nan who
had broken the spell of her slumber.
He made that queer little chuckling
noise in his throat which sounded ia
miliar enoygh and yet she had heard
it from the lips Of no man before. 1t
neal nothing to her except that he
who stood before her at least was not
dumb, although the noise he made
was certainly no a%rticulate speech as
she knew speech or could imagine ii.
At any rate 1t was a stimulus to her.
She opened her own parched lips and
strov to make reply, but her thirst,
with a rising terror and nervousness
made her dumb and no sound came
forth, The man might be preparing
to kill her. He could do SO. if he will
cd, she thought, but she must drink or
die. If she could not speak, she
could make signs. She leaned forward