rom
under her eyelids.

"Shall Angela fly?" Julia asked. "Remember this is your last chance."

"No," Ralph said. And the word was the growl of a balked beast.

"Then," Julia said sternly, "we will leave Angel Island forever."

"You will," Ralph sneered. "You will, will you? All right. Let's see you
do it!" Suddenly he started swiftly down toward the trail. "Come, boys!"
he commanded. Honey followed--and Billy and Pete.

But, suddenly, Julia spoke. She spoke in the loud, clear tones of her
flying days and she used the language of her girlhood. It was a word of
command. And as it fell from her lips, the five women leaped from the
top of the knoll. But they did not fall into the lake. They did not
touch its surface. They flew. Flew--and yet it was not flight. It
was half-flight. It was scarcely flight at all. Compared with the
magnificent, calm, effortless sweep of their girlhood days, it was
almost a grotesque performance. Their wing-stumps beat back and forth
violently, beat in a very agony of effort. Indeed these stunted fans
could never have held them up. They supplemented their efforts by a
curious rotary movement of the legs and feet. They could not rise
very far above the surface of the water, especially as each woman was
weighted by a child; but they sustained a steady, level flight to the
other side of the lake.

The men stared for an instant, petrified. Then panic broke. "Come
back, Lulu!" Honey yelled. "Come back!" "Julia!" Billy called hoarsely,
"Julia! Julia! Julia!" He went on calling her name as if his senses had
left him. Pete's lips moved. Words came, but no voice; he stood like a
statue, whispering. Merrill remained silent; obviously he could not even
whisper; his was the silence of paralysis. Addington, on the other hand,
was all voice. "Oh, my God!" he cried. "Don't leave me, Peachy! Don't
leave me! Peachy! Angela! Peachy! Angela!" His voice ascended on the
scale of hysteric entreaty until he screeched. "Don't leave me! Don't
leave me!" He fell to his knees and held out his arms; the tears poured
down his face.

The women heard, turned, flew back. Holding themselves above the men's
heads, they fluttered and floated. Their faces were working and the
tears flowed freely, but they kept their eyes steadily fixed on Julia,
waiting for command.

Julia was ghastly. "Shall Angela fly?" she asked. And it was as though
her voice came from an enormous distance, so thin and expressionless and
far-away had