At first the Indians thought that they were Spanish, for they had no association with other white men. Association with the Spaniard had been cruel enough for them; they belonged to the disappearing remnant of a people swept by the thousands from their islands to the larger islands, enslaved, oppressed, extirpated. These in the boat were runaways from a hard master, who had stolen this boat and put out, crazy as it was, on what might seem a hopeless voyage. Did they pass through days and nights, and leagues and leagues of sea and go uncaptured by some Spanish craft, did they come at last to their own island, what would they find there? A desert, with, perhaps, a tiny cluster of palm-thatched huts, still clinging, looking for some landing party, looking to be swept away as had been their kith and kin—a perishing group, dejection, languor of life.... But homesickness drove them on; better a death-bed with freedom than the peopled great island where they were slaves! They had felt the Spanish lash and the Spanish irons; they looked doubtfully enough upon the white man and woman, and it was perhaps a question whether now they would not pay back.... But when at last Aderhold spoke, it was in English. They did not know that tongue and they answered in altered and distorted Spanish. He had a little Spanish, and he made them understand briefly that the two had been in an English ship and that there had been a storm and that they were castaways. They were not Spanish, and they did not know the great island or any of the masters. They were English, whom the Spanish hated. That fact being weighed, the Indians turned friendly, laughed and stroked their hands in token of amity, then set apart for the two a great calabash of water, and gave them more cassava bread.
Joan and Aderhold ate and drank. The will to live was strong, for life had turned a rainbow, and a wild and beautiful forest, and a song of the high and the deep, and an intense pulsation. The two came swiftly up from Death’s threshold. Before the boat came into sight of land the light was back in their sunken eyes and some strength in their frame.... The land seemed a low, island shore. The excited Indians gesticulated, spoke in their own tongue. Aderhold, questioning them, learned that it was the outermost of their island group, but not their own island to which they were bound. They saw pale sand and verdure green as emerald; then the night came and covered all from sight. No light of torch or of cooking-fire pierced the darkness. The blank shores slipped past, the boat left them astern, and now again all around was the sea.... But though it was night there was no sleeping. The returning exiles were excited, restless, garrulous. The two learned that there were many islands and now almost no people. The people—the Indians beat their breasts—were gone now, almost all gone. For the masters sent men from the great islands to burn the villages and take the men and women and children and drive them aboard ships and carry them off to make poor slaves of them. They had done so when the oldest men were children, and when the oldest men’s fathers were children. But now the masters did not come, for the men and women and children were all gone—all gone but a few, a few. The returned from long slavery did not know if these few were yet there, yet clinging to their island.
Night passed, dawn came, the wind blew them on. Now they saw islets and islands, but no craft upon the water, or sign of life. Then, in the afternoon, the Indians’ lode-star lifted upon the horizon. They put their helm for it, a freshening wind filled their sail. Presently they saw it clear, a low island, here ivory white and here green as emerald. The Indians shouted and wept. They caressed one another in their own tongue, they gesticulated, they held out their arms to the nearing shore.
The shore dilated. Reefs appeared to be warily avoided, and the water grew unearthly blue and clear. Green plumes of palm seemed to wave and beckon. Back from the narrow ivory beach, inland out of a break in the belt of green, rose a feather of smoke. The Indians when they saw it were as mad people. They leaped to their feet, they embraced one another, they laughed, they strained their bodies toward the land, and broke into a savage chant of home-coming.... Now they were in a tortuous channel between cays and the island. The island beach widened, and now human forms appeared—not many, and at first with a hesitant and fearful air; then, as they became assured that here was only one small sailboat, with a bolder advance, until at last they came down to the edge of the small bight to which the boat was heading. They were Indians like those in the boat, a mild and placable strain, dulled and weakened by the century-old huge wrong done them. They were but a handful. In the whole island there was now but one small village.
The boat glided past a fanged reef and came into a tiny crystal anchorage where the bright fish played below like coloured birds in the air. They lowered sail; they came as close as might be to the shelving land; the Indians leaped into the water and made ashore with loud cries and incoherent words. The islanders swept about them, surrounded them; there rose a wild, emotional questioning and greeting, laughing and crying.
The infection spread to Joan and Aderhold. Behind them lay pain and horror, and pain and horror might again claim them. But now Time had spread for them a mighty reaction. It was so blessed to be alive!—they were so prepared to embrace and love life—every material thing seemed so transfused and brightly lit from within—they laughed themselves and felt in their eyes the happy dew.... They, too, must take to the water to come ashore. It was naught to them, the shallow bright flood. They crossed it as had done the Indians, and stepped upon the land.