"You certainly see a lot of things and work fast, when you get
a-going," whispered the engineer as he let himself down into the boat.
"Now where to?"
"Just round that bunch of mangroves and out of sight of the Swastika's
decks. Grab that oar and paddle. Easy--but work fast!"
A minute or two of swift anxious paddling and they had whisked the boat
down the shore, round the mangrove promontory into the seclusion of a
tiny bay. And then:
"Hell!" said Higgins.
V
A clean-cut, solidly built man in a suit of greasy overalls was
standing on the shore of the bay, looking steadily up at the reddened
sky. Payne followed the direction of the man's gaze. Up against the
multi-hued red of the morning was a gently undulating streak of
dazzlingly snowy white. Roger had often seen white of the purest sort
in the untracked snows of northern forests, but never a white so pure,
so soft, so warm as this. And then he saw by the undulations of the
streak that it was a flock of long, graceful birds moving in single
file from west to east. Shimmering in the brassy dawn sun, they rode
like dream birds upon a vermilion sea, their slow movements so
graceful, so rhythmic as seemingly to represent no effort, as if the
birds merely floated along, their beauty and grace the ultimate
expression of the spirit of the scene.
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