"That night they rowed by watches, Devereux himself taking stroke oar with either crew. And when morning dawned, the real island lay right side up a couple of miles ahead, fair and alluring on the steel-blue rim of the sea. You can imagine the hoarse shout that went up from parched throats! Weak and wild, they struggled painfully at the oars; and shortly after sunrise the boat entered a little cove that split the front of the island, where the ground swell at once dropped off under the shelter of a curving point of land. A few strokes more, and the surf caught them. A long roller flung them high up the beach—a lucky thing, for God knows they wouldn’t have had the strength to save themselves. The roller went out, leaving them planted upright on a white coral strand; in the silence before the coming of another wave, they heard the drip of a little stream running down the hillside at the head of the cove. Water! They left the boat as she was, the oars cock-billed in the rowlocks, the sail, which they’d hoisted just before dawn and had been too weak or excited to take in, flapping loose across the gunwale, and ran with the last strength in their bodies toward the sound. The rivulet had cut a shallow channel in the coral, from the jungle to the water’s edge; they threw themselves face downward, buried their mouths in the stream, and drank like animals. "For some time afterwards they lay as they had fallen, saturated like so many sponges, feeling the water sink into their blood. Then Devereux, who had exercised his will power and drunk as sparingly as possible, got to his feet and turned toward the jungle. A second time he thought his eyes were deceiving him. A woman stood there in the half-shadow, still grasping the branches she had parted as she stepped out on the beach. She didn’t appear frightened, but gazed at him frankly in wonder and admiration. He thought she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. His heart went out to her in that astonishing moment of their meeting, went out freely, without restraint or volition ... and she’s held it ever since, and always will. One can hardly imagine, to see him sitting over there so dejectedly, that off on the floor of the Pacific, years ago, and utterly unseen of the world of men, he lived such a transcendent moment, that such a romance came to him under the sun that we all know. It takes one back to the days of Sinbad and Urashima and Oisin. "He advanced toward her, making signs of friendliness—of affection, it’s to be supposed. Their hearts were free as the air, and they went naturally, like God’s children, into each other’s arms. She remained unafraid ... so he discovered that she loved him, too. Their meeting at the head of the beach had been unobserved; they melted together into the jungle like creatures of the light, and the boughs that she’d parted as if opening the door of life silently closed behind them.