Surely I have given only a vague picture indeed of that half hour in the boat with Nereid as the puttering little outboard motor drove us to the island where Jack Allen would be waiting for me. Half an hour, so crowded with my first jumbled impressions of what Nereid's weird Venus-world must be like.
"That is your island?" Nereid said suddenly. "Why—it looks very pretty."
The storm still was rising in the south—occasional bursts of lightning and rolling, reverberating thunderclaps. But the starlight and moonlight was over us. It silvered the island palms; it lay like white metal on the sand of the island's shore.
I headed us into the little cove. A small dilapidated dock was there. On a little rise behind the palmetto fringe, under the palm trees, a shaft of moonlight gleamed on the white of our tent. I thought that young Allen would have heard the putt-putt of my motor and be down at the dock now to greet me. But there was no sign of him.
I shut off the motor. Silence leaped at us.
"Queer," I said. "Jack promised he'd have supper ready."
The glow of campfire beside the tent was visible. In the silence I could hear the murmur of music from our little portable radio. Allen must have been here only a few minutes ago. I called,
"Oh Jack—Jack, where are you?"
There was only the roll of my words, echoing into silence. Very queer.
Nereid was in the bow of that boat. "Fend us off," I said as we glided to the dock.