y another--a shrill scream, unutterably
horrible--and a great bird flapped from the beach, splashing and
beating its pinions across the water with a thundering noise.

"Out across the waves it blundered, rising little by little from the
water, and now, to my horror, I saw another monstrous bird swinging in
the air above it, squealing as it turned on its vast wings. Before I
could speak we touched the beach, and I half lifted her to the shore.

"'Quick!' I repeated. 'We must not wait.'

"Her eyes were dark with fear, but she rested a hand on my shoulder,
and we crept up among the dune-grasses and sank down by the point of
sand where the rough shelter stood, surrounded by the iron-ringed
piles.

"She lay there, breathing fast and deep, dripping with spray. I had no
power of speech left, but when I rose wearily to my knees and looked
out upon the water my blood ran cold. Above the ocean, on the breast
of the roaring wind, three enormous birds sailed, turning and wheeling
among one another; and below, drifting with the gray stream of the
Gulf loop, a colossal bulk lay half submerged--a gigantic lizard,
floating belly upward.

"Then Daisy crept kneeling to my side and touched me, trembling from
head to foot.

"'I know,' I muttered. 'I must run back for the rifle.'

"'And--and leave me?'

"I took her by the hand, and we dragged ourselves through the
wire-grass to the open end of a boiler lying in the sand.

"She crept in on her hands and knees, and called to me to follow.

"'You are safe now,' I cried. 'I must go back for the rifle.'

"'The birds may--may attack you.'

"'If they do I can get into one of the other boilers,' I said. 'Daisy,
you must not venture out until I come back. You won't, will you?'

"'No-o,' she whispered, doubtfully.

"'Then--good-bye.'

"'Good-bye,' she answered, but her voice was very small and still.

"'Good-bye,' I said again. I was kneeling at the mouth of the big
iron tunnel; it was dark inside and I could not see her, but, before I
was conscious of it, her arms were around my neck and we had kissed
each other.

"I don't remember how I went away. When I came to my proper senses I
was swimming along the coast at full speed, and over my head wheeled
one of the birds, screaming at every turn.

"The intoxication of that innocent embrace, the close impress of her
arms around my neck, gave me a strength and recklessness that neither
fear nor fatigue could subdue. The bird above me