Angel Island

They immediately broke the news of Pete's desertion to Merrill. Frank

received it without any appearance of surprise. But he announced, with a

sudden boom of authority in his big voice, that he expected them all to

stand by their agreement. Billy answered for the rest that they had no

intention of doing anything else. But the four were now in high spirits.

Among themselves, they no longer said, "If we capture them," but "When

we capture them."

The stress of the situation at once pulled Frank away from his books.

Again he took complete charge of the little group. He was a natural

disciplinarian, as they had learned at the time of the wreck. Now his

sense of responsibility developed a severity that was almost austerity.

He kept them constantly at work. In private the others chafed at his

tone of authority. But in his presence they never failed of respect.

Besides, his remarkable unselfishness compelled their esteem, a shy vein

of innocent, humorless sweetness their affection. "Old Frank" they

always called him.

One afternoon, Frank started on one of the long walks which latterly he

had abandoned. He left three of his underlings behind. Pete painted a

water-color; Clara, weaving back and forth, watched his progress. Ralph

worked on the big cabin - they called it the Clubhouse - Peachy whirling

back and forth in wonderful air-patterns for his benefit. A distant

speck of silver indicated Julia; Billy must be on the reef. Honey had

left camp fifteen minutes before for the solitary afternoon tramp that

had become a daily habit with him.

Frank's path lay part-way through the jungle. For half an hour he walked

so sunk in thought that he glanced neither to the right nor the left.

Then he stopped suddenly, held by some invisible, intangible, impalpable

force. He listened. The air hummed delicately, hummed with an alien

element, hummed with something that was neither the susurrus of insects

nor the music of birds. He moved onward slowly and quietly. The hum grew

and strengthened. It became a sound. It divided into component parts,

whistlings, trillings, twitterings, callings. Bird-like they were - but

they could come only from the human throat. Impersonal they were - and

yet they were sexed, female and male. Frank looked about him carefully.

A little distance away, the trail sent off a tiny feeler into the

jungle. It dipped into one of the pretty glades which diversified the

flatness of the island. Creeping slowly, Frank followed the sound.

Half-way down the slope, Honey Smith was standing, staring upwards. In

his virile, bronzed semi-nudity, he might have been a god who had

emerged for the first time into the air from the woods at his back. His

lips were open and from them came sound.