their way up the beach; but now they trailed an iridescent
network of foam over the lilac-gray sand. The sun raced high; but now it
poured a flood of light on the green-gray water. The air grew bright
and brighter. The earth grew warm and warmer. Blue came into the sky,
deepened--and the sea reflected it, Suddenly the world was one huge
glittering bubble, half of which was the brilliant azure sky and half
the burnished azure sea. None of the five men looked at the sea and sky
now. The other four were considering Frank Merrill's words and he was
considering the other four.

"Lord, God!" Ralph Addington exclaimed suddenly. "Think of being in a
place like this six months or a year without a woman round! Why, we'll
be savages at the end of three months." He snarled his words. It was as
if a new aspect of the situation--an aspect more crucially alarming than
any other--had just struck him.

"Yes," said Frank Merrill. And for a moment, so much had he recovered
himself, he reverted to his academic type. "Aside from the regret and
horror and shame that I feel to have survived when every woman drowned,
I confess to that feeling too. Women keep up the standards of life. It
would have made a great difference with us if there were only one or two
women here."

"If there'd been five, you mean," Ralph Addington amended. A feeble,
white-toothed smile gleamed out of his dark beard. He, too, had pulled
himself together; this smile was not muscular contraction. "One or two,
and the fat would be in the fire."

Nobody added anything to this. But now the other three considered Ralph
Addington's words with the same effort towards concentration that they
had brought to Frank Merrill's. Somehow his smile--that flashing smile
which showed so many teeth against a background of dark beard--pointed
his words uncomfortably.

Of them all, Ralph Addington was perhaps, the least popular. This was
strange; for he was a thorough sport, a man of a wide experience. He was
salesman for a business concern that manufactured a white shoe-polish,
and he made the rounds of the Oriental countries every year. He was a
careful and intelligent observer both of men and things. He was widely
if not deeply read. He was an interesting talker. He could, for or
instance, meet each of the other four on some point of mental contact. A
superficial knowledge of sociology and a practical experience with
many races brought him and Frank Merrill into frequent discussion.