“Hi! Hi! Hi!”
Loud, shrill, heart-snatching came a hail right from behind him. It was the voice of Yves, and springing to his feet with a scream, Gaspard, clinging to the tree-bole, looked.
A great black man-o’-war bird with bright eyes and coral-red beak was passing over the islet and hailing it as it passed.
Tremendous, definite, and strong against the blue, yet more soundless in flight than an arrow, it passed overhead without a motion of the wings.
As it passed it hailed the island once again, and once again from far out at sea, motionless, but fast dwindling till it became a faint speck and was lost in the blue to southward.
Gaspard, breathing freely again, watched the great bird losing itself in nothingness, lifting veil after veil of sky, and horizon after horizon of sea, bound for some port of call in the Windwards or beyond.
The shock had been better than medicine to him, shewing him his own superstition and the stupidity of his alarm. The island seemed suddenly freed from the haunting presence; he began to doubt himself. If a bird could make a fool of him like that, he must be a fool indeed.
A year seemed to have passed since sunrise and the sun was now dropping to the sea, bringing to its end that vast blue day so filled with loneliness and the terrors of the unknown.