kept its solitary vigil for five
thousand years, perhaps, or more.

At his base, in his shadow, looking as if under his protection, lay two
human beings, naked, clasped in each other's arms, and fast asleep. One
could scarcely pity his vigil, had it been marked sometimes through the
years by such an incident as this. The thing had been conducted just as
the birds conduct their love affairs. An affair absolutely natural,
absolutely blameless, and without sin.

It was a marriage according to Nature, without feast or guests,
consummated with accidental cynicism under the shadow of a religion a
thousand years dead.

So happy in their ignorance were they, that they only knew that
suddenly life had changed, that the skies and the sea were bluer, and
that they had become in some magical way one a part of the other. The
birds on the tree above were equally as happy in their ignorance, and
in their love.

PART II

CHAPTER X

AN ISLAND HONEYMOON

One day Dick climbed on to the tree above the house, and, driving
Madame Koko off the nest upon which she was sitting, peeped in. There
were several pale green eggs in it. He did not disturb them, but
climbed down again, and the bird resumed her seat as if nothing had
happened. Such an occurrence would have terrified a bird used to the
ways of men, but here the birds were so fearless and so full of
confidence that often they would follow Emmeline in the wood, flying
from branch to branch, peering at her through the leaves, lighting
quite close to her--once, even, on her shoulder.

The days passed. Dick had lost his restlessness: his wish to wander had
vanished. He had no reason to wander; perhaps that was the reason why.
In all the broad earth he could not have found anything more desirable
than what he had.

Instead now of finding a half-naked savage followed dog-like by his
mate, you would have found of an evening a pair of lovers wandering on
the reef. They had in a pathetic sort of way attempted to adorn the
house with a blue flowering creeper taken from the wood and trained
over the entrance.

Emmeline, up to this, had mostly done the cooking, such as it was; Dick
helped her now, always. He talked to her no longer in short sentences
flung out as if to a dog; and she, almost losing the strange reserve
that had clung to her from childhood, half showed him her mind. It was
a curious mind: the mind of a dreamer, almost the mind of a poet. The
Cluricaunes dwelt th