....

"I remember, when I came in sight of the fires, I threw away my coat and
ran in among them. And they scattered, and yelled their harsh,
meaningless, throaty yells. And they hid in the bush to stare at me by
the fire.... They hid in the rank, thick grasses. All except one, Joel."

Joel, listening, watched his brother and saw through his brother's eyes;
for he knew, for all his slow blood, the witchery of those warm, southern
nights.

"The moon was on her," said Mark. "The moon was on her, and there was a
red blossom in her hair, and some strings of things that clothed her. A
little brown girl, with eyes like the eyes of a deer. And--not afraid of
me. That was the thing that got me, Joel. She stood in my path, met me,
watched me; and her eyes were not afraid....

"She was very little. She was only a child. I suppose we would call her
sixteen or seventeen years old. But they ripen quickly, Joel--these
Island children. Her little shoulders were as smooth and soft.... You
could not even mark the ridge of her collar bones, she was fleshed so
sweetly. She stood, and watched me; and the others crept out of the
grasses, at last, and stood about us. And then this little brown girl
held up her hand to me, and pointed me out to the others, and said
something. I did not know what it was that she said; but I know now. She
said that I was sick.

"I did not know then that I was sick. When she lifted her hand to me, I
caught it; and I began to lead her in a wild dance, in the moonlight,
about their dying fires. I could see them, in the shadows, their eyeballs
shining as they watched us.... And they seemed, after a little, to move
about in a misty, inhuman fashion; and they twisted into strange,
cloud-like shapes. And I stopped to laugh at them, and my head dropped
down before I could catch it and struck against the earth, and the earth
forsook me, Joel, and left me swimming in nothing at all....

"My memory was a long time in coming back to me, Joel. It would peep out
at me like a timid child, hiding among the trees. I would see it for an
instant; then 'twould be gone. But I know it must have been many days
that I was on the island there. And I knew, after a time, that I was most
extremely sick; and the little brown girl put cool leaves on my head, and
gave me strange brews to drink, and rubbed and patted my chest and my
body with her hands in a fashion that was immensely comfortable and
strengthening. And I twisted on a bed