Show dy Y CYRUS Y Y BRADY A xa Q q ala Y ITA VT 9 y CA qa awn al CHAPTER I 1 the primitive norm whether she had bad fainted or fallen asleep she did not know but this one thing she was sure it had boon been dark when consciousness left her and it was now broad day although the light seemed to como come to her with a greenish tinge drige which was quite unfamiliar the transition between her state of yesterday and that of t today oday to o day was as great as tf if silo she had been born into morning from the womb of midnight and like it a young ant animal she drank it in blindly with closed eyes she could hear the thunderous roaring of the breakers crashing upon the barrier ree reef alone fAlone her boat had been wrecked in the darkness of the night before the sound softened and mellowed by distance came to her in a deep low accompaniment to tile the sharper and nearer sounds of the birds singing and the breeze rustling gently through the long leaves of the trees overhead the dry sand on which she lay was soft and yielding and made a comfortable bed for her tired body racked with weary days in the constraint and narrowness of a small boat it was worm warm too she had been drenched when she scrambled on the shore shor a and fell prostrate on the beach retaining just strength enough and purpose enough to crawl painfully inward to where the tall palms grow before she lapsed in whatsoever way it might have been into oblivion thoughts raced through her bewildered brain each one however bringing her a little nearer nearer the awakening point of realization then there ran through her young body a primal pang which dispelled the tremulous and vague illusions which her fancy had woven about herself as she lay warm and snug and sunny at tile the foot of the tall trees and she realized that she was frightfully thirsty so thirsty that she did not know how hungry she was the demand for the material material awakened the animal in her her thoughts centered instantly they were at once localized on one supreme desire coln cl ci dently her eyes unclosed and she sat up blinking in the strong light the rising sun still low on the horizon smote emote tier her full in the eyes and left per her for the moment dazed again she asat at leaning jeaner ig upon her hands extender extence ext endea ld behind her back staring seaward saying nothing thinking nothing until a strange sound to the right of her attracted her attention it was a sound made by a human voice and yet it was like nothing human that she had ever heard it was a wordless langua ge ejaculation but it roused her interest at once despite her material cravings clavings cravi she weakly turned her head and there standing erect with folded arms looking down upon her was a man ile he was unclothed entirely save for a fantastic girdle of palm leaves about hla his waist she stared at him puzzled amazed affrighted ile he returned tier her look with an intent curiosity in which there was no suggestion of evil purpose rather of great I 1 incomprehension acom an amazing wonderment there was nothing about him save the fact that he was there which should have caused any alarm in her heart for with a womans comans swift mastery of f tho the possibilities of the other sex she noticed in her vague terror and wonderment that he was remarkably good to look at indeed she thought that she had bed never seen been so splendid a specimen of physical manhood as that before her in color lie he was white save that he was bronzed by the tropic sun he was perhaps whiter than she was ills hair which hung about his head bead in a wild matted tangle not quo que was golden his eyes bright blue geneath his beard unkempt but short ind and curly she could see ills hla firm clean cut lips ills proportions were superb ile he was limbed and cheated like the apollo belvedere in him grace brace and strength strove for predominance ile he was totally unlike all that she ehe had load fad of the aborigines of the south seas it was the man who broke the silence as it had been the man who had broken tho the spell of her slumber ile ho made that queer little chuckling noise in his which sounded familiar enough and yet she had heard it from the lips of no man before it meant nothing to her except that pie ne who stood before her at least was not dumb although the noise he made was certainly no articulate speech as she knew speech or could imagine it at an any rate it was waa a stimulus to her ii opened her own parched lips and se atie to make reply but her thirst wil with a rising terror and nervousness made her dumb and no sound camo came forth the man might be preparing to kill her he could do so if he willed she thought but she must dr drink ink or die it if she could not speak she could make signs she leaned forward raised her arm hollowed her liv h d aud alid dipped as it if from a well and made as if to pour it into her lips then she stretched out both her hands to him in the attitude of petition the man stared hard at her ills his brow wrinkled jt t was such a simple sign that tha t any would have comprehended it she thought and yet it appeared to bar watching in despair that it took a long time for the idea to beat into ills his brain she could wait no longer she rose to her knees and stretched out tier her hands again water W a ter she gasped in a hoarse wilts whisper per water or I 1 die the man had started violently at her speech giving him no time to recover 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 if lie he brought tile the water she would drink it and live if lie he did not she would llo lie where she was and die site she did not care much she thought which would happen she had so sickened of life before she essayed that open boat that she rho believed it was simply an animal craving in her which would make tier her take the water in case it should be brought her and yet when lie he did appear with a cocoanut coco anut shell brimming with clear sparkling liquid silo she felt as though the elixir of life had been proffered her she seized the shell with both hands bands which yet so trembled that most of the precious water spilled on her dress as she carried it to her parched lips this way was good in tho the end for if that vessel had been the famed elm drinking horn she would have it dry ere eie she set it down As aa it was she got but little yet et that little was enough to set her heart beating once more moie emptying the shell of the last drop and with that keenness of per lier caption which her ber long training had intensified and developed marking g the while that it had not been cut clean by any knife or saw dr human implement but was jagged and broken as if from a fall she dropped it on the sand and looked again toward the man ile he held in his hand fruit of some kind she did not know whit what it was it might have been poison what mattered it ita having drunk she must also eat at it looked edible it was inviting to the eye and smell small and as she sunk tier her teeth into it she found it agreeable to the taste also ile he bad had brought it to her it lie he had meant harm barm present harm surely he would not have given the water she ate it conil confidently dently As abe nun man saw her partake of what he had given her he clapped lit his 9 hands bands and laughed she was grateful for that laugh it was waa more human than the babbling sounds which he made before there was 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 bad par taken she rose to her feet before doing this she had extended her hand to him as if seeking assistance but he had simply stared at her uncomprehending and she had been forced to to get to her bar feet unaided once standing she trembled and would have fallen but that she caught his arm and steadied herself by holding tightly to it the man mail started back at her touch color canie came and went in ills hi face little shudders is swept over him ills his mouth opened he looked at her with a singular expression of awe not unmixed lint nixed wl with fit terror in ills his eyes for this was the first time in his recollection or what would have been his recollection ol it if his retrospective faculties had been developed that he had ever felt the touch of a womans comans hand of any ally human hand upon him noticing ills bis peculiar demeanor in the to her perfectly natural situation the woman summoning some of tile the remains of the reserve of force which Is ta in every human body until life la Is gone released his arm and stared about tier 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 ahe had come into what deep and into what day had she arrived she turned and surveyed sun eyed the shore tile the beach curved sharply to the right and to the left the long barrier reef following roughly its contour until the th land obscured it on either side dack back ot of her stretched a grove of palms Palm sand and back of that rose a hill its crest bare and crag like towered above a sea of verdure through a chance vista she saw raw the mass of rock as a mountain peak on one side high precipitous cliffs ran down close to the shorland shore and shut out the view over them water fell to the beach save in the person of the man beside tier 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 hollow of her ear the breeze mide made music in the tall palms and in the thick verdure farther faither up tip the hill side birds sang softly here and there but there was a tropical stillness to which the great heaving diapason on the distant barri barriers eVs was a foundation of sound upon which to build a lonely quiet human beings there might be there must fiust be on that island if island it were but if so they must be abiding on an the farther side she and the man were alone standing on her feet with a slight renewal of her strength from what she had eaten and drunk the woman now felt less fear of tile the man ile ho had treated her kindly ills ilia aspect was vas gentle even amiable ile he looked at tier her wistfully bending his brows fram time to time and ever and again shaking his head bead as a great dog looks lit at the roaster master with whom he would fain speak whose language he would fain b s j V 4 0 P t Wa water terl she gasped in a hoarse whisper understand to whom lie ho w fain impart his own ideas it lie he could she stared at him perplexed she was entirely at loss what to do until her eyes roving past him detected a dark object on the water line just where the still blueness touched tie the white sand the sunlight was v its IT fleeten fleeted from gleams ot of metal all ana thinking that she recognized it ah ehg stepped from the shale shade of tle te PRIM palm and mado made her way unsteadily t kowarc it the man without a sound followed closely at her side her vision had bad been correct for she drew out of the sand a leather handbag such as women carry it had been elaborately fitted with bottles and mirrors and toilet articles alas it was in a sad state of dilapidation now the bottles were broken their contents gone the bag had been lying in the boat when it had been it hurled rl d on the barrier in the night and the same storm and tide which had home boine her ashore had hurled it also on tile the sand but it had come open in the battering and its contents were pitiably ruined with eager eyes and lingers she examined everything she found intact a little mirror a pair of scissors a little housewife which was not a part of the fittings and she wondered how it failed ot of being washed away two combs comba and a package of hairpins hair pins she had fought against starvation and thirst and loneliness and despair as she had fought against men and she had not given way she had set her teeth and locked her hands and endured hardship like the stoutest he hearted arted most determined soldier in the history story lil of human struggles but as the realization of this small misfortune burst upon tier her she sank down on the sands and put her head in her hands and sobbed tears did her good she had bad her cry out utterly unhindered for the man stood by shaking ills his head bead and staring at lier her animal and making C those strange little sounds but offering in no way to molest her the water was beautifully clear and she could see on the other sl alce a of the barrier the remains of her boat perhaps some time if there were need she could get to that boat but for the present all the flotsam and jetsam of her wild and fearful voyage lay in a water soaked bag full ot of broken glass and battered silver from which she had rescued a pair of scissors a mirror two combs a housewife full ot of rusty needles and some hairpins hair pins 0 banit its she was wearing a serviceable dress of blu bill serge with a sailors blouse and a short skirt putting I her precious arf treasure asure trove within the loose blouse and carrying the battered bag which she meant to examine more carefully later she turned and made for the shade of the trees again Foro for one nothing thing the sun rising rapidly was gaining power and beating down with great force upon her bare head she had enjoyed the protection of a wonderfully plaited straw hat bat on her long voyage else she could not have borne the heat but that too was gone A As she walked inland she noticed again oft off to her right that stream of water vater which dropped over the tall cliff in a slender waterfall a sweet inviting pool at the base before it ran through the sands bands toward tho the sea sho atik made her way thither and at the brinac knelt down and took long draughts of I 1 I 1 5 the silence of the man oppressed her it eating and drinking evidently went together in the mind of the man for when she raised her load head she found him standing before her with both hands filled with sonic some of the fruit silo she had partaken partaker par taken of before and other fruit she thought she recognized the breadfruit and a species of banana at any rate she ate again and having by this time recovered to some extent tier her mental poise she ate sparingly and with caution then having satis satisfied fled her material needs she knelt down by the stream and washed her face and hands handa how s sweet was the freshness of that water to her taco face burned bYthe by the sun and tile the w wind ind and subjected for a long time to the hard spray of the briny seas she would have been glad to have taken olt 0 1 her clothing and plunged into the pool to have washed the salt of days from her tired body to have had the stimulus and refreshment of its sparkling coolness over her weary limbs but in the presence of her doglike attendant this was not yet possible still she could and must arrange her hair of all the articles in her dressing bag she was more fervently thankful at that moment for the combs than anything else the combs and the little mirror and tile the hairpins hair pins small things indeed but human happiness as a rule turns on things so small that the investigator and promoter thereof generally overlook them and we know not the significance of the little until upon some desert island we are left with only those it was still early about eight how was she to pass the day she roust must do something she felt she ahe could not sit idly staring from sea to shore slie site must be moving no business called her ter she must invent some the compelling necessity of a soul not born for idleness idlene sn was upon her she would explore |