by key and inlet, seeing its shadow on the pure white sand that seemed
so near its keel. The last vestige of the storm was gone, and the
little Gulf-world seemed fresher and gladder for it. The tropical
green grasses and water-plants hung their long, linear, hairlike
sheaths in graceful curves, and patches of willow-palm and palmetto,
in many an intricate curve and involution, made a labyrinth of
verdure. The wild loveliness of the numerous slips and channels, where
never a boat seemed to have sailed since the Indian's water-logged
canoe was tossed on the shadowy banks, was enhanced by the vision of
distant ships, their sails even with the water, or broken by the white
buildings of a sleepy plantation in its bower of fig and olive and
tall moss-clustered pines.

Suddenly the traveler fancied he heard a cry, but the fishermen said
No--it was the scream of water-fowl or the shrill call of an eagle far
above dropping down from the blue zenith; and they sailed on. Again
he heard the distant cry, and was told of the panther in the bush and
wild birds that drummed and called with almost human intonation; and
they sailed on again. But again the mysterious, troubled cry arose
from the labyrinth of green, and the traveler entreated them to go in
quest of it. The fishers had their freight for the market—-delay would
deteriorate its value; but the anxious traveler bade them put about
and he would bear the loss.

It was well they did. There, in the dense coverts of the sea-swamps,
amid the brackish water-growths and grasses, they found a man and
woman, ragged, torn, starved. For nine days they had had no food but
the soft pith of the palmetto, coarse mussels or scant poison-berries,
their bed the damp morass, and their drink the brackish water; and
they told the wild and terrible story of Last Island.