Angel Island

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

"Exactly."

"Bats from your belfry," commented Ralph Addington. Because of his

constant globe-trotting, Addington's slang was often a half-decade

behind the times.

"Too much sunlight," Frank Merrill explained. "Lucky thing, we don't any

of us have to wear glasses. We'd certainly be up against it in this

double glare. Sand and sun both, you see! And you can thank whatever

instinct that's kept you all in training. This shipwreck is the most

perfect 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 perceptible

diminution in the height of the waves. Up beyond the water-line lay a

fresh installment of jetsam. But, as before, they labored only to save

the flotsam. They worked all the morning.

In the afternoon, they dug a huge trench. Frank Merrill presiding, they

buried the dead with appropriate ceremony.

"Thank God, that's done," Ralph Addington said with a shudder. "I hate

death 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 to

me in the middle the night. I woke out of a sound sleep - don't know why

- woke with a start as if somebody'd shaken me - felt something brush me

so close - well, it touched me. I was so dead that I had to work like

the merry Hades to open my eyes - seemed as if it was a full minute

before I could lift my eyelids. When I could make things out - damned if

there wasn't a bird - a big bird - the biggest bird I ever saw in my

life - three times as big as any eagle - flying over the water."

Nothing could better have indicated Honey's mental turmoil than the fact

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 and wonder

were temporarily deadened.

"As sure as I live," Honey continued indignantly, "that bird's wings

must have extended twenty feet above its head."