Avon Fantasy Reader No. 13 — page 17: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

schooners and trading ketches, and ended in the last ketch’s boat, sent off to ferry me through a network of reefs too dangerous for any sizable ship. “If there is payable ore here,” I thought, “small wonder it’s been over- looked; God-forsaken and Satan-protected the place is, and out of the way of the world!” And I began to wonder, as the whaleboat stemmed green shallows, making for the hummocky deserted bay that stretched beyond, whether I had done well. I am from Clare; I have seen the dread sea-walls of Moher, and felt, on their high crowns, the “send” of that unknown evil that men of Ireland, for the confounding of strangers, chose to personify as the frightful Phooka. “This too is an evil place,” I thought, and on that account, I said a small prayer. Now mind you, it was well done, as you shall afterwards know. Then we beached, and began unloading my gear; and I was too busy with that, and with carrying most of it up to the bungalow, before dark should fall, to think of anything else. By and by the boat was back at the ship’s side, a long way out, and the ship had made sail, and when I looked at her, in the last of the light, and saw her fading away like a ghost that has given its message, and goes back to its tomb, I knew that I was indeed alone—pressed down and running over, I had my wish! After a day or two, I began to wonder what all the trouble was about, if indeed there had ever been any trouble except drink and the consequences of it. Cave Island was a windy spot, as I have said; not very large or long, only a mile or two at biggest, it was swept by all the winds that blow across the immense, lonely spaces of the central Pacific world, where almost ne land is. In the mornings and at nights it was cool; during the day nothing but the wind saved it from most torrid heat. It was a barren place, and full of stones, some of them black and spongy and as big as houses. There was coarse grass, that never seemed to be still, almost as if things unseen ran under it, and kept it moving even in a calm. There were a few Mowers that Rafferty had planted in his time, and there was the iron bungalow, and a storing shed, and a shaft with bucket and windlass dangling over, and — tools abandoned by the side. For the rest, there was the sun wheeling over the island, at night the myriad unpitying stars, and always sea and sea. So lonely it was, that you could hear yourself breathe; out of the wind, you could listen to your heart beating. When you got up in the morning you took _ the burden of yourself upon your shoulders, and carried it, growing heavier and heavier, all day; even at night, it was with you in your dreams. Yet I liked this, as one likes all strong, violent experience. Solitude is violent; it is delicious, it is hateful; and as surely as a snake unwatched can strike, so it can maim or kill... . What do you know, you who think that solitude is a locked room in a city, oc a garden with the neighbors shut away? A week or so went past. Every day I went to the workings, did a job with pick and shovel; wrote in my diary what I had done, and for the rest, was free. I liked to be free. Not since the war—and certainly not in it— had I been my own man; if I was not filling one of the blind-alley jobs chat 15 3 GOmi eleyoyol KS (E(0) m