Page:Weird Tales volume 11 number 02.pdf/77

220 purple sea, white breakers booming softly upon the coral sand.

He rose to a sitting posture and rubbed his eyes. Gradually the truth dawned upon him. For hours or maybe days he had lain delirious upon the beach. The ship of the golden sails, Jimber Jawn, the lovely girl, all were but figments of his imagination, of his delirium. None of them existed. It was devastating to realize that he had fallen in love with an exquisite girl who existed only in his delirium. His life was ruined. He had returned to reality. Reality was a curse. His head still throbbed as though someone were playing a steady tattoo upon it. Bit by bit memory returned to him, fragmentary but credible. He was Lee Goona, a tea-merchant with offices in Canton, Tokio and in several of the islands lying near Formosa. He had been returning to Canton from his island stations when a terrific typhoon had seized the ship, tossed it about as though it had been a cork, and finally crushed it against a rock-reef as though it had been paper. What followed after that he could not remember. Evidently he had been washed by the waves upon this coral beach. And it was at this point that his delirium commenced. He had never beheld a ship with golden sails standing out like a bird against the yellow sky. All the ensuing imagery had been purely fantasies surging through his distorted mind. They did not exist, but they had played havoc with his life. He was in love with a beautiful dream. His head still throbbed. If it would only burst and put an end to that existence which had become a curse! The sight of the purple sea under the yellow sky was nauseous to him.

In despair he turned toward the fringe of palms. As he did so he beheld a figure coming toward him, the figure of his gorgeous golden girl. She waved her hand to him and she was smiling. What it meant, he could not tell. Had the thread of his reason snapped again? For now the fantasy had become the real. He could not explain it, nor did he try, for the wondrous girl was nestling in his arms and he was kissing lips more fragrant than wild cherries.

"We are saved," she whispered softly. "There is a friendly settlement of pearl divers on the other side of the island, and once a week a trading-schooner stops there en route to old Canton.