QUEST OF THE FIREBIRDS 243 



again when a small headline caught my eye. Instantly I was all 

 attention. 



REVOLUTION ON TROPICAL ISLAND 



Eight Americans and Twenty Employees Flee 

 Uprising on Island of Inagua— Settlement in Flames 



There was a brief and uninformative report of a riot and 

 a battle between two factions. Little more. The article had 

 apparently been inserted to fill space and the editor had 

 clipped the story to its barest essentials. What Americans? 

 What had happened to Inagua? The editor's office could give 

 me little additional information. Unsatisfied, I was left to 

 wonder. 



After that I was unable to get the island out of my thoughts. 

 I remembered the air of sullenness and despair, the whispering 

 groups that loitered on the darkened corners. But more 

 strongly I remembered the scattering flamingos that swept 

 into the sky the evening I left. If I could get to the island in 

 four weeks I would arrive on the exact date I departed. I 

 could continue where I left off. 



The first time I landed on Inagua I came like Neptune, 

 striding out of the sea dripping with seaweed and with salt 

 foam running between my fingers. The second, I arrived in 

 the manner of Icarus, also of mythology, who for a time 

 soared dizzily through space only to be hurtled to earth again. 

 Only, unlike Icarus, I did not land with a bump but so gently 

 that the impact scarcely disturbed the precarious balance of 

 the baggage clutched between my legs. It was such an un- 

 orthodox way to land on a tropical island and was so startling 

 that it was some seconds before I could recover sufficient 

 composure to thank the almost naked but bronze and smiling 



