played close in a group inextricably intertwined, a revolving ball of
vivid color. Then, as if seized by a common impulse, they stretched,
hand in hand, in a line across the sky-drifted. The moonlight flooded
them full, caught glitter and gleam from wing-sockets, shot shimmer and
sheen from wing-tips, sent cataracts of iridescent color pulsing
between. Snow-silver one, brilliant green and gold another, dazzling
blue the next, luminous orange a fourth, flaming flamingo scarlet the
last, their colors seemed half liquid, half light. One moment the whole
figure would flare into a splendid blaze, as if an inner mechanism had
suddenly turned on all the electricity; the next, the blaze died down to
the fairy glisten given by the moonlight.

As if by one impulse, they began finally to fly upward. Higher and
higher they rose, still hand in hand. Detail of color and movement
vanished. The connotation of the sexed creature, of the human thing,
evaporated. One instant, relaxed, they seemed tiny galleons, all sails
set, that floated lazily, the sport of an aerial sea; another, supple
and sinuous, they seemed monstrous fish whose fins triumphantly clove
the air, monarchs of that aerial sea.

A little of this and then came another impulse. The great wings furled
close like blades leaping back to scabbard; the flying-girls dropped
sheer in a dizzying fall. Half-way to the ground, they stopped
simultaneously as if caught by some invisible air plateau. The great
feathery fans opened - and this time the men got the whipping whirr of
them - spread high, palpitated with color. From this lower level, the
girls began to fall again, but gently, like dropping clouds.

Nearer they came to the petrified group on the beach, nearer and nearer.
Undoubtedly they had known all the time that an audience was there;