They all woke at once, perhaps because a bird screamed as it flew over
them. Teddy sat up so swiftly that he almost toppled off the edge. He
stared wildly about him, trying to remember. The other three propped
themselves up on their arms, with tousled hair, and faces marked by the
rock. It was as if they had been carried to another place while they
slept; this was a green country with another sun shining down on it, a
second cousin to their sun; small and high and cheerful. He had a
confused feeling that he must have been drunk. No one spoke: they were
all waiting. Then, as if she could not control herself any longer, Gin
giggled.
“Gee, we look funny,” she said, and broke the spell. “What time is it?”
No one had a watch. They stood up, groaning and helping each other. One
by one, with grim sensible expressions, they disappeared behind a rocky
crag. They all used Harvey’s little black comb, and slowly worked up
enough concerted impulse to climb down the hill. It was not so easy as
it had been to climb up.
His shoes scuffed, his toes jammed into the ends of them, Teddy walked
blindly over the sand, leading the straggling procession. A luminous
exaltation possessed them all, shining from their faces, defying hunger
and sleepiness. He tried to put it into words in his mind, in a
hysterical stream of phrases.... “Companions of the night ... black wind
and the freedom of motion.... Away from the earth, here in fresh-born
sunlight, we are new again and shining. The true artist, the true man
lies down where he happens to be, like an animal, and sleeps as he
wishes....” He stumbled on a sandy hummock and felt a little dizzy.
They climbed stiffly into the car. Gin was obsessed with chatter: she
talked of her hunger, her disordered clothes, her lame shoulder, in a
gay high voice that had nothing to do with what she was saying. Harvey
watched her sombrely and silently. Her hair hung loose around her
shoulders: she tried once to twist it up but it fell again: in the wind
it streamed out sideways when they started to move, and whipped back,
catching Harvey on the cheek. She was beautiful, Teddy thought. He said,
“If you wouldn’t turn out to be such a ‘Saturday Evening Post’ girl, I’d
paint you.”
“I will anyway,” cried Blake. “I’ll paint all of us. It will be a
frontispiece to ‘Treasure Island’ and we’ll all be disgraced.”
“We are disgraced,” she cried joyfully. “Paint us, paint us.” She leaned
over the side as limply as she could, imitating a corpse. “Dead, dead,
dead,” she murmured. A roadster full of staring tourists passed in the
other direction, and swerved as the driver turned for a last look.
“Wheeee, it’s late,” said Teddy. “When do we eat? How far are we? Where
are we?”
Suddenly Gin screamed and then sat still with her fist to her open
mouth.
“What’s the matter?” they all asked.
“My job! I forgot. How could I?”
“Ooo,” said Blake. “And it’s late.”
“How could I?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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