halting, driving about confusedly, the droning of their operation dying and ceasing, as one after another they plunged down into the sea, with great splashes. Spinning down into the sea, when the plant-men inside them were smitten down by the reaching, powerful ray. Smitten down—to slime!
The last of the flying globes splashed down and vanished, and Walton and Owen turned and looked at each other. There were tears standing in their eyes. Over the island lay a thick, stupendous silence.
6
As their little sailboat swept across the waters, Walton and Owen stood at its stern, watching the island drop behind. In the west, the setting sun hung at the water's edge, a great, flaming door into which the sea seemed to be pouring. And remembering the utter despair with which they had come down to the island so short a time before, Owen felt infinitely grateful, infinitely humbled.
Walton's thoughts were on something else. "Brilling gone," he said, "the plant-men all gone, the ray-projector destroyed by us—and I alone know how to make another."
"You are hardly likely to make another, are you?" asked Owen, smiling. But there was no smile on Walton's face as he answered.
"No, all that is finished, now. But it was close—close"
As the two watched the island sink behind them, a silence fell on them, a silence of complete understanding. The sun had dropped down beneath the horizon, now, and they could hardly see the island in the darkening twilight. A moment longer they glimpsed it, a dark mass wavering against the distant skyline, then it had passed, had blended into the thickening dusk.
With a sigh, Owen turned around, and more slowly, Walton did likewise. Shoulder to shoulder, they looked out ahead. Thus the little yawl clove the waters, speeding steadily north through the swiftly gathering night.
Neobule, being tired,
Far too tired to laugh or weep,
From the hours, rosy and gray,
Hid her golden face away.
Neobule, fain of sleep,
Slept at last as she desired!
Neobule! is it well
That you haunt the hollow lands,
Where the poor, dead people stray,
Ghostly, pitiful and gray,
Plucking, with their spectral hands,
Scentless blooms of asphodel?
Neobule, tired to death
Of the flowers that I threw
On her flowerlike, fair feet,
Sighed for blossoms not so sweet,
Lunar roses pale and blue,
Lilies of the world beneath.
Neobule! ah, too tired
Of the dreams and days above,
Where the poor, dead people stray,
Ghostly, pitiful and gray,
Out of life and out of love,
Sleeps the sleep which she desired.
