Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1910-04-29

Water" she gasped in a hOarse
whisper. Water, OF l die"
The man had started violently at her
speech. Giving him no time to re-
cover, she went through the motion
again, this time with greater effect,
for the man turned and vanished. She
sank down on the sand too exhausted
to follow him even with her eyes. II
he brought the water she wOul drink
it and live; if he did not, she would
lie where she was and die. b did
not care much, she thought, which
would happen. She had sc sickened OF
life before she essayed that open boat,
that she believed it was simply an
animal craving in her which would
make her take the water n case 1t
should be brought her. And yet when
he did appear with a shell
brimming with clear, sparkling liquid,
she felt as though the elixir of life
had been proffered her.
She seized the shell with both hands
which yet SO trembled that most of
the precious water spilled on her dress
as she carried It to her parched lips.
This was good in the end, for if that
vessel had been the famed Jo~tuneheim
drinking horn, she would have drained
it dry ere she set it down. AS it was,
she got but little; yet that little was
enough to set her heart beating once
more. Emptying the shell of the last
drop-and with that keenness of per-
ceptiOn which her long training had
intensified and developed, marking the
while that it had not been cut clean
by any knife or saw or human nipple
o0n hY1R r-or Sor~o1 n~I hrolIaD nc
if from a fall, she dropped it on the
san and looked again toward the
man. He held in his hand fruit of
some kind, she did not kno what it
was. 1t might have been poison. What
mattered it? Having drunk she must
also eat. 1t looked edible, it was in
viting to the eye and smell, NJ as she
sunk her teeth into it, she found it
agreeable to the taste also. He had
brought it to her. If he had meant
harm, present harm, surely he would
not have given the water. She ate it
confidently.
AS the man saw her partake of what
he had given her, he clapped his hands
and laughed. She was grateful for
that laugh. 1t was more human than
the babbling sounds which he made
before.
There vas but little of the fruit, just
what a child would have brought and
this again was good for her, for had
there been an abundance, in her need
she would have eaten until she had
made herself ill. When she had par
taken, she, rose to her feet. Before do
ing this she had extended her hand
to him as if seeking assistance, but he
had simply stared at her uncompre-
bending and she had been forced to
get to her feet unaided. Once stand
ing, she trembled and would have
fallen, but that she caught Ibis arm
and steadied herself by holding tightly
to it. The man started back at her
touch. Color came and went in his
face; little shudders swept over him;
his mouth opened; he looked at her
with a singular expression Of awe not
unmiXed with terror in his eyes, for
this was the first time In his recOllec-
ton or what would have been his rec
objection if his retrospective faculties
had been developed, that he had ever
felt the ouch of a Woman's hand, of
any human hand upon him.
Noticing his peculiar demeanor in
the, to her, perfectly natural situation,
the woman ~summoning some of the
remains Of the reserve of force which
is in every human body until life is
gone, released his arm n stared
about her leaning against the trunk of
the nearest palm. This time, and for
the first time, she toOk in that expanse
Of sea, lonely yet beautiful, upon which
her eyes were to look so often. Out
of the deep and the night she had
come. Into what deep and into what
day had she arrived?
She turned and surveyed the shore.
The beach curved sharply to the right
and to the left, the long barrier reef
following roughly it's contour until the
and cbscured it on either side. Back
Of her stretched a grove of palms and
back of that rose a hill; it's crest bare
and crag-like lowered above a sea of
: verdure. Through a chance vista she
, saw the mass of rock as a mountain
peak. On one side high precipitous
cliffs ran down close to the shore and
shut out the view. Over them water
fell to the beach.
j, Save in the person of the man be-
; side her there was not an evidence Of
: humanity anywhere. No curl of smoke
, rose above the trees. No distant call
, of human voices smote the fearful hol-
: low of her ear. The breeze made music
. in the tall palms AID in the thick YER
dure farther up the hill side, birds
sang softly here and there, but there
was a tropical stiffness to which the
4 great heaving diapason on the distant
barriers was a foundation of sound
upon which to build a lonely quiet.
Human beings there might be, there
must be, on hat island, if island it
were; but if so, they must be abiding
= on the farther side. She and the man