Angel Island

One afternoon, after a long vigil in which, unaccountably, Julia had not

appeared, he started to return to camp. It was a late twilight and a

black, velvety one. The trees against a darkening curtain of sky had

turned to bunches of tangled shadow, the reefs and rocks against the

papery white of the sand to smutches and blobs of soot. Suddenly - and

his heart pounded at the sound - the air began to vibrate and thrill.

He stopped short. He waited. His breath came fast; the vibration and

thrill were coming closer.

He crystallized where he stood. It scarcely seemed that he breathed. And

then - .

Something white and nebulous came floating out of the dusk towards him.

It became a silver cloud, a white sculptured spirit of the air. It

became an angel, a fairy, a woman - Julia. She flew not far off, level

with his eyes and, as she approached, she slowed her stately flight.

Billy made no movement. He only stood and waited and watched. But

perhaps never before in his life had his eyes become so transparently

the windows of his soul. Quite as intently, Julia's eyes, big, gray, and

dark-lashed, considered him. It seemed to Billy that he had never seen

in any face so virginally young such a tragic seriousness, nor in any

eyes, superficially so calm, such a troubled wonder.

He did not stir until she had drifted out of earshot, had become again a

nebulous silver cloud drifting into the dusk, had merged with that dusk.

"What makes your eyes shine so?" said Honey, examining him keenly when

he reached camp.

It was the first time Billy had known Julia to fly low. But he

discovered gradually that only in the sunlight did she haunt the zenith.

At twilight she always kept close to the earth. Billy took to haunting

the reefs at dusk.

Again and again, the same thing happened.

Suddenly - and it was as if successive waves of electricity charged

through his body - the quiet air began to purr and vibrate and drum. Out

of the star-shot dusk emerged the speeding whiteness of Julia. Always,

as she approached, she slowed her flight. Always as she passed, her

sorrowing gray eyes would seek his burning blue ones. Billy could bring

himself to speak of this strange experience to nobody, not even to

Honey. For there was in it something untellable, unsharable, the wonder

of the vision and the dream, the unreality of the apparition.

The excitement of these happenings kept the men entertained, but it also

kept them keyed up to high tension. For a while they did not notice this

themselves. But when they attempted to go back to their interrupted

work, they found it hard to concentrate upon it. Frank Merrill had given

up trying to make them patrol the beach. Unaided, day and night he

attended to their signals.