Page:Weird Tales Volume 5 Number 2 (1925-02).djvu/122

 these were not the ways of a cretin. He knew all about cretins! It was clearly, rather, what might be expected of a normal, healthily tired young man in magnificent physical condition, now floating for rest in this deep, very comfortable water, of high buoyancy; out here in the Pacific on a fool's errand.

That errand! What had he been thinking of? To attempt to do battle with a school of sharks, armed with a coconut knife! He was a fool! To be out here when he might be on shore—with Marian!

He remembered, with a queer feeling in his head, how he had planned never to see her again. That was because of The Change which had begun to come upon him. The Change! Nonsense! There had been no change. No man could have traveled this distance from shore and kept his direction as he had done unless he were in the very pink of condition, every nerve and sinew and muscle, and a perfectly sound brain, functioning and co-ordinating with a precision that spelled perfection. Why, he had actually been obliged to hunt about to locate the island, he had come out so far!

He floated for a few minutes more, the soft, invigorating water lapping gently over him, his hands clasped under his head. Tentatively he rubbed himself over with his hands. Every muscle was responding, working splendidly. He was not even fagged, but only slightly winded by an exceptionally long and vigorous swim.

He began to swim back toward the island. He went slowly at first, because now it was only a question of ordinary judgment to conserve his strength.

Strength! He had almost never put out his full strength! He shook his head vigorously in sheer exuberance, blowing the water away from his mouth right and left as he cut easily and swiftly through it.

HE conviction grew upon him, as he swam, it seemed, more and more easily and strongly in a straight line toward the island, that there was nothing to mark him off from any normal man—from "any other normal man," he repeated his old phrase to himself. What if he had, all these years, been deluding himself through bondservice to a fear which had no longer any substantial foundation; fear derived from his father and his dear mother, and Dr. Sturgis?

There was nothing to distinguish him from an average man,—nothing, that was, except his magnificent strength, energy, and endurance. None but a normal man could possess and retain this command over himself, his mind and body. It was no wonder, though, that he had given in to it so long. It had been dinned into his ears since as long ago as he could remember. He had simply acquiesced in a wrong idea, that was all. He had been frightened of a bogle, like a child! But he would give in to it no longer. He had left that ancient bogle of the imagination out there where he had been floating and thinking; left it out there to toss about or sink to the bottom. The sharks could have it! He laughed aloud in sheer glee, knowing that he was released from that old bondage of an overstressed idea. He swam on and on.

He walked up the beach at last, slowly, and a little stiffly and wearily from the tremendous swim, the water running in crooked trickles down his well-oiled body. The knife swung awkwardly against his broad chest. It annoyed him, and he unslung it and carried it in his hand, dangling by the lanyard. Then a glint of iridescent green and blue caught his eye as something moved across an exposed rock and caught the light from the