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 each other; 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."
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."
"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?"
"Good-by," she answered, but her voice was very small and still.
"Good-by," 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 did not even frighten me; I watched it over my shoulder, swimming strongly, with the tide now aiding me, now stemming my course; but I saw the shore passing quickly and my strength increased, and I shouted when I came in sight of the house, and scrambled up on the sand, dripping and excited. There was nobody in sight, and I gave a last glance up into the air where the bird wheeled, still screeching, and hastened into the house. Freda stared at me in amazement as I seized the rifle and shouted for the professor.
"He has just gone to town, with Captain McPeek in his wagon," stammered Freda.
"What!" I cried. "Does he know where his daughter is?"