Angel Island

As if by one impulse, they began finally to fly upward. Higher and

higher they rose, still hand in hand. Detail of color and movement

vanished. The connotation of the sexed creature, of the human thing,

evaporated. One instant, relaxed, they seemed tiny galleons, all sails

set, that floated lazily, the sport of an aerial sea; another, supple

and sinuous, they seemed monstrous fish whose fins triumphantly clove

the air, monarchs of that aerial sea.

A little of this and then came another impulse. The great wings furled

close like blades leaping back to scabbard; the flying-girls dropped

sheer in a dizzying fall. Half-way to the ground, they stopped

simultaneously as if caught by some invisible air plateau. The great

feathery fans opened - and this time the men got the whipping whirr of

them - spread high, palpitated with color. From this lower level, the

girls began to fall again, but gently, like dropping clouds.

Nearer they came to the petrified group on the beach, nearer and nearer.

Undoubtedly they had known all the time that an audience was there;

undoubtedly they had planned this; they looked down and smiled.

And now the men had every detail of them - the brown seaweeds and green

sea-grasses that swathed them, their bodies just short of heroic size,

deep-bosomed, broad-waisted, long-limbed; their arms round like a

woman's and strong like a man's; their hair that fell, a braid over each

ear, twined with brilliant flowers and green vines; their faces

super-humanly beautiful, though elvish; the gaminerie in their laughing

eyes, which sparkled through half-closed, thick-lashed lids, the

gaminerie in their smiling mouths, which showed twin rows of pearl

gleaming in tricksy mirth; their big, strong-looking, long-fingered

hands; their slimly smooth, exquisitely shaped, too-tiny, transparent

feet; their strong wrists; their stem-like, breakable ankles. Closer and

closer and closer they came. And now the men could almost touch them.

They paused an instant and fluttered - fluttered like a swarm of

butterflies undecided where to fly. As though choosing to rest, they

hovered-hovered with a gentle, slow, seductive undulation of wings, of

hands, of feet.

Then another impulse took them.

They broke handclasps and up they went, like arrows straight up - up -

up - up. Then they turned out to sea, streaming through the air in line

still, but one behind the other. And for the first time, sound came from

them; they threw off peals of girl-laughter that fell like handfuls of

diamonds. Their mirth ended in a long, eerie cry. Then straight out to

the eastern horizon they went and away and off.

They were dwindling rapidly.

They were spots.