"The evening red, the morning gray
Sets the traveler on his way.
The evening gray, the morning red
Brings showers down upon his head."

Hugh whispered these words softly to himself when he awoke in the
dim twilight hour just before dawn. It was still too dark for him
to distinguish objects clearly, and for a moment he felt that queer
sensation of being lost, of not knowing just where he was---that
feeling which sometimes comes to one even in the most familiar
surroundings. At once, however, it left him, and the little rhyme
crept into his mind instead.

"Wonder why I waked up so suddenly?" was his silent query as he
lay there blinking up at the sky, watching the few visible stars
grow pale and paler. "Thought I heard some noise like distant
thunder, very far away, and then it changed into the sound of
muffled oars, or the tchug-chug-tchug of a motor boat. Then a
voice said softly, 'It's a fine morn---' Oh, pshaw! Must have
been dreaming. Is anybody else awake?"

He sat up and peered through the dusk. No, his companions were
still asleep, prone on the sand. The breeze had lessened and
the nocturnal insects had begun to take flight into the shadowy
undergrowth, retreating before the advance of day. Across the
dark stretch of water between this island and the mainland a flock
of waterfowl flew noiselessly and vanished over the dunes. The
surf broke with monotonous, soothing rhythm, stirring the silence
with little waves of sound.