to bid his
tired body bestir itself once more. He looked at the dark forms of his
comrades, stretched in various attitudes of repose, and suddenly he knew
he could not sleep. He did not want to sleep. He wanted--what? He raised
himself to a sitting posture, then softly stood up, and with infinite
precaution stole out of the cave.

The coldness of the coming dawn took hold on him on the shore, and he saw
in the east a mysterious pallor that was not of the moon, and upon the
foam of the waves a light that was ghastly and that suggested infinite
weariness and sickness. But he did not say this to himself. He merely
felt that the night was quickly departing, and that he must hasten on his
errand before the day came.

He was going to search for the woman who had cried out to him in the sea.
And he felt as if she were a creature of the night, of the moon and of
the shadows, and as if he could never hope to find her in the glory of
the day.

VII

Delarey stole along the beach, walking lightly despite his fatigue. He
felt curiously excited, as if he were on the heels of some adventure. He
passed the Caffe Berardi almost like a thief in the night, and came to
the narrow strip of pebbles that edged the still and lakelike water,
protected by the sirens' isle. There he paused. He meant to gain that
lonely land, but how? By the water lay two or three boats, but they were
large and clumsy, impossible to move without aid. Should he climb up to
the Messina road, traverse the spit of ground that led to the rocky wall,
and try to make his way across it? The feat would be a difficult one, he
thought. But it was not that which deterred him. He was impatient of
delay, and the detour would take time. Between him and the islet was the
waterway. Already he had been in the sea. Why not go in again? He
stripped, packed his clothes into a bundle, tied roughly with a rope made
of his handkerchief and bootlaces, and waded in. For a long way the water
was shallow. Only when he was near to the island did it rise to his
breast, to his throat, higher at last. Holding the bundle on his head
with one hand, he struck out strongly and soon touched bottom again. He
scrambled out, dressed on a flat rock, then looked for a path leading
upward.

The ground was very steep, almost precipitous, and thickly covered with
trees and with undergrowth. This undergrowth concealed innumerable rocks
and stones which shifted under his feet and rolled down as he b