The Island of Regeneration | Page 7

affected him strangely, so strangely that for a moment she felt the
soul within her shrink, but realizing at once that her domination over
him was spiritual and immaterial, and that the slightest evidence of
timidity would be translated into universal language which even the
lowest creation understands, and that her dominion would go on the
instant, she mastered herself and so mastered him. Although she was
but a woman whom he might have broken in his hands, she dominated
him as the conscious soul ever dominates the unconscious soul.
She essayed no more lessons, but turned and retraced her way to the
shore where she had landed, which, because she had landed there, she
called home. On the way, she attempted an experiment. She plucked
from a low bush a bright-colored fruit of whose quality and
characteristics she was ignorant and slowly made as if to convey it to
her lips.
"Man!" cried the voice behind her, uttering its only word. She turned to
find her companion looking fixedly at her and proffering other fruit
which he had quickly gathered. She handed him that she had plucked in
exchange. He shook his head, not in negation but rather in
bewilderment, and threw it from him, and then she understood in some
way that the fruit was not good for food. How he had divined it, she
could not tell. Some compensating instinct, sharpened by use into a
protecting quality, had taught him. She had no such instinct. She had
learned to depend upon reason and observation, and these failed her in
the presence of this unknown. She was humbled a little in this thought.
She craved meat and salt, having been trained to these things, the
artificial diet and stimulant to which she had become accustomed, and

her craving was the more insistent because she had been with out them
all that time in the boat. And yet when, she had eaten the fruit that
nature had provided in that tropic island, her craving was abated and
she was satisfied. She felt that she could soon grow accustomed to such
a diet if it were necessary. So musing she passed on under the trees and
sat down, on the sand again.
The next thing she remembered, she was unclosing her eyes as she had
done early in the morning, and the man was still watching by her side.
She had been so utterly tired out by her strange adventure, by her long
wrestling with thirst and starvation in the open boat, that before she
knew it, weariness overcame her and she slept. He had watched by her
side without molesting her.
It was late in the evening now. The problems of the night had to be
faced. This time the man took the initiative. He walked along the shore
a little way and then looked back at her; then came back to her, then
left her, and repeated the process once or twice as a dog might have
done who was desirous of bringing his master to some appointed place.
Understanding, she rose and followed him. He led her along the sands,
now shadowed by the tall palms, until they came to the rivulet, where
she stopped and drank once more. They passed it, he plunging bodily
through its shallows; she leaping from rock to rock until she reached
the other bank. He went swiftly around the face of the cliff. As she
passed the point she saw that it curved suddenly inward away from the
shores into a sort of amphitheater, and fair in the center of the face she
perceived an opening. He halted opposite and entered fearlessly, she
following.
The cave was roomy and spacious, at least it seemed so in the fading
light. In the morning when the sun shone through the opening, it would
be flooded with daylight, but now, when the sun was sinking behind the
hill, it was quite dark. It was dry and clean and apparently empty. The
man stood looking at her smiling, at least there was a suggestion of a
smile upon his lips. He was nodding his head. She understood that he
lived there. The dog had come back to his kennel and had taken this
chance acquaintance there, too.

It would be a good place to pass the night. The night had to be passed
somewhere. How, was the problem. She had little fear of any savage
animals on the island. There had been no evidences of them observed in
her progress; the man himself was testimony to immunity from attack
from that source. Had it not been for him, she could have lain down in
that cave with quiet confidence and slept without apprehension of
molestation, but he complicated the issue.
Twice he had watched by her asleep,