It came between and the ship and the decks darkened. The two rose with caution to their feet. About them were darkness, shadowy forms, blended sounds, but no eye seemed to see what they were about, no voice cried out an alarm. They were close to the ship’s side—one other moment and they had swung themselves up, leaped overboard.... They touched the dark water, went under, rose, struck out. In their ears rang no shout or sound of discovery. The sucking and turmoil of the water about them lessened. A fresh wind was blowing and the ship sailed swiftly. She was no longer huge above them, they came out of her shadow; she was seen at a slight distance, then at a greater and a greater.... They were free of her, free also of her consort, the other ship. The wide ocean swept around.
It swept around save where the island rose. It rose not at all far away, a quiet and lonely strand. A light surf broke upon its shore. Sometimes floating, sometimes swimming, the two who would yet have life gained toward it. They gained toward it until at last they reached it, came out of the beating surf, and lay with closed eyes and fluttering breath upon the moonlight-coloured sand.
CHAPTER XXX
THE ISLET
This was a small island or cay. They found water and they found fruit and cassava, and with these and a shelter of boughs and leaves of the little palm they raised again the flag of life....
The death of the child. For a time that made of existence a cruel buffet, a sore bruise. The parents grieved. But time dealt with that grief—time and inner strength. At length it diffused itself, adding its own hue to many-tinted consciousness, its own strain to life’s vast orchestration, but no longer darkening and making to throb all moments of the waking day. They had within them a coördinating, harmonizing power, and sorrow brought its own wealth and added to the whole.
The outward activities of life narrowed, indeed, upon this islet. But here also they took circumstance and enlarged its bounds and deepened its meaning. They brought will and intellect to bear upon environment, moulded it as far as might be and increased their havings. Here nor nowhere in this universe could they be less than interested. Flotsam upon this islet, yet here as elsewhere the mind found food and field of action and through small doorways passed into wide countries.