"Forget it," Parker said. "I did what had to be done, nothing more."
"But I will remember it," she calmly repeated.
Parker was silent. Under her hardness for the first time he glimpsed something deeper, finer. She was the type who meant what she said. She was a woman who paid her debts. Under other circumstances.... Parker put the thought out of his mind.
Now he set about doing what had to be done—paddling to the island. He turned his eyes toward it.
The island was gone. Calm, serene, the level face of the sea stretched away to the horizon.
Fear, dark, sudden, and overwhelming, arose in Bill Parker. The fear did not come up just because the face of the sea was level and calm, the island not visible, but because of something else, something that he had forgotten, something that he had put out of his mind and out of his life. Could it be possible that—
He caught himself. In that direction lay madness. Words exploded out of him. "Hey, what the hell? Am I nuts? What became of that island? I saw it!"
"I told you we had to hurry to get there when we saw it." Retch was hesitant. "It's—it's not always there."
"But it's got to be there! I saw it!"
"There is a trick about that island," Retch said. "I—it—I—you don't always see it. Something funny."