The Island of Regeneration | Page 8

but that was in the broad daylight.
When darkness came, what then? Her heart was filled with terror. She
was suddenly afraid of the dark, a childish fear at which her soul would
have mocked in other days and under other conditions. But now she
was a prey to vivid apprehension, and the night was coming on with the
swiftness of the tropics. She was glad that she had slept through the
long afternoon. She would endeavor to keep awake during the night.
She must turn the dog out of his kennel and occupy that her self. How
was she to enforce her will under the circumstances? She could only
try.
"Man!" she said, pointing to the door, "go!" The words conveyed
nothing, but the gesture meant much. Even to that man association with
his kind for one day had effected a revolution in him. He hung
undecided, however, before her, while she repeated again and again her
injunction. Finally she took him by the shoulder, risking the peculiar
emotions that contact seemed to bring to him, and thrust him gently
through the entrance outside. Then she went back farther into the cave
and waited with a beating heart. She could see him silhouetted against
the twilight standing where she had left him. He came toward the door
at last and stood in the entrance.
"No, no!" she cried fiercely, praying that the note of terror might be lost
in the imperative tones of her voice. "Man, go!"
She stood waiting, and he likewise. Mustering her courage at last, she
went over to him and boldly thrust him out. Again and again the little
drama was played until by and by it became impressed upon the mind
of the man that he was to stay out and she was to stay in. He came no
more to the entrance. He stood outside, aloof, looking in, although in

the growing darkness he could not see her.
It was the second thing he had learned. The first ray of light in his
dawning consciousness had illuminated the ego, the personal, the
concrete. He was learning now the significance of a verb, and an
abstract idea was being bred in him and some concept of constraint was
entering his being. The first of those long checks that circumstances
impose upon freedom in order that civilization may begin to be, was
meeting him face to face. He had slept in that cave, she imagined, for
years, and suddenly he was thrust out. There was no hardship in that,
except the hardship in the necessity for obedience, if hard ship that
might be. The night was balmy and pleasant; no shelter was needed. It
was the fact that he had to go; that he was subject to another will and
purpose; that something higher than himself was overruling him which
might be hard. It would have been hard for the woman. She thought,
however, that the limited comprehension of the man might not enable
him to realize it.
He stood a long time on the sand while she watched him. Had she
conquered? Had he learned his lesson? Had she laid foundations upon
which consciousness of life and its relations might be builded? Would
she be free from the terror of molestation, which in spite of herself
sought expression in her voice and manner? Would she be permitted to
pass the night undisturbed? Was her power over him sufficiently
definite to be established and to be of value? Suppose she had not
succeeded in mastering him, in dominating him? She shuddered at the
probabilities involved. Of all the beasts of the field, the most terrible
when he is a beast is man.
She was not a weak woman. She was above the middle height, athletic,
splendidly developed, accustomed to the exercise of the gymnasium
and the field, but her strength was no match for his. One ray of safety
appeared in the fact that she believed him ignorant alike of the extent of
his power or of the possibilities of the situation. She wondered what
strange thoughts were going on in that latent brain over which, by the
use of moral force and courage, she was striving to establish
domination. She rejoiced to find that even in the midst of her anxieties

she could think so clearly about the situation.
Did he know his lesson, she wondered. She could only hope. If she
only had a weapon, she thought, the weakness of sex might be
equalized. There was nothing. Yes, her thought reverted to the
womanly pair of scissors. With trembling hand she drew them forth and
clenched the little tool of steel tightly. It was a poor dependence, but
the best she had. And then she drew quietly back into the recesses of
the cave and