“The name of this place is ‘Angel Island,’” announced Billy Fairfax after a long time. His tone was that of a man whose thoughts, swirling in phantasmagoria, seek anchorage in fact.
They did not sleep that night.
When Frank Merrill arose the next morning, Ralph Addington was just returning from a stroll down the beach. Ralph looked at the same time exhausted and recuperated. He was white, tense, wild-eyed, but recently aroused interior fires glowed through his skin, made up for his lost color and energy. Frank also had a different look. His eyes had kindled, his face had become noticeably more alive. But it was the fire of the intellect that had produced this frigid glow.
“Seen anything?” Frank Merrill inquired.
“Not a thing.”
“You don’t think they’re frightened enough not to come back?”
The gleam in Ralph Addington’s eye changed to flame. “I don’t think they’re frightened at all. They’ll come back all right. There’s only one thing that you can depend on in women; and that is that you can’t lose them.”
“I can scarcely wait to see them again,” Frank exclaimed eagerly. “Addington, I can write a monograph on those flying-maidens that will make the whole world gasp. This is the greatest discovery of modern times. Man alive, don’t you itch to get to paper and pencil?”
“Not so I’ve noticed it,” Ralph replied with contemptuous emphasis. “I shall lie awake nights, just the same though.”
“Say, fellers, we didn’t dream that, did we?” Billy Fairfax called suddenly, rolling out of the sleep that had followed their all-night talk.