Even at her own moment of distress, this unselfish child found time for a compassionate thought for those hundreds of thousands who still thronged the city streets.
As for the crowds, not one person of them all was conscious that a catastrophe impended. Walled in on every side by skyscrapers, no slightest glance to the least of those black clouds was granted them. Their ears filled by the honk of horns, the blare of bands and the shouts of thousands, they heard not one rumble of distant thunder. So they laughed and shouted, crowded into this corner and that, to come out shaken and frightened; but never did one of them say, “It will storm.”
Yet out of this merry-mad throng two beings were silent. A boy of sixteen and a hunchback of uncertain age, hovering in a doorway, looked, marveled a little, and appeared to wait.
“When will it break up?” the boy asked out of the corner of his mouth.
“Early,” was the reply. “There’s too many of ’em. They can’t have much fun. See! They’re flooding the grandstands. The bands can’t play. They’ll be going soon. And then—” The hunchback gave vent to a low chuckle.
* * * * * * * *
After snatching a pair of boy’s strap-overalls from the rocks the girl, who had emerged from the water beside the submerged net, with the dark package under her arm hurried away over a narrow path and lost herself at once in the tangled mass of willows and cottonwood.
She had not gone far before a light appeared at the end of that trail.
Seen from the blackness of night, the structure she approached took on a grotesque aspect. With two small round windows set well above the door, it seemed the face of some massive monster with a prodigious mouth and great gleaming eyes. The girl, it would seem, was not in the least frightened by the monster, for she walked right up to its mouth and, after wrapping her overalls about the black package which still dripped lake water, opened the door, which let out a flood of yellow light, and disappeared within.
Had Florence witnessed all this, her mystification regarding this child of the island might have increased fourfold.