Awakening Morn 391 



gathered with so much loss of life (to the mothers), 

 were hardly eatable to men who could get other and 

 more tasteful food, as we certainly could then. There 

 were eggs on the island, delicious, plentiful, large, but 

 they belong to another story. Only the honour of 

 finding them was mine, and mine alone. 



Next morning I was awake and astir before day- 

 break, not because I then loved early rising, but 

 because my sleeping-place was so miserably uncom- 

 fortable that I laid no minute longer than I could help. 

 Who would, wedged into a long row of men, as sardines 

 lie in a box, with a lump of coral the bigness of a man's 

 head in the middle of one's back, by no means get-at- 

 able because of the long cloth of canvas over it held 

 down by the bodies aforesaid. So I rose and strayed 

 along the beach, watching the tremulous shadings of 

 coming light in the sky, and listening to the murmur 

 of the wavelets against the sand and the low beginnings 

 of conversation among the birds. And then my 

 attention was divided between the glory of the new 

 day, a never-ceasing source of delight in the tropics, 

 and the strange sight afforded by the host of busy 

 birds, parents present and prospective. As it grew 

 lighter their cackling grew louder, until, when the full 

 day swung like a fanfaronade of silver trumpets 

 across the waiting concave of the heavens, they all 

 burst into a deafening chorus of cries, apropos of 

 nothing as far as I could see. Of me standing close 

 before them they took not the slightest heed. Those 

 with young ones hatched poked at and preened them 

 with their long beaks, preparatory to leaving them, 

 and those with eggs only just laid took a parting glance 

 or so at them, preened themselves, and flew — clean 

 over my head, with rapidly jerking wings towards their 

 free and common hunting-ground, the teeming sea. 



