The Island of Regeneration by Cyrus Townsend Brady
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The Island of Regeneration
A Story of What Ought to Be
Cyrus Townsend Brady
1888
With constantly increasing affection and admiration, I dedicate this book to my friend, Beverly E. Warner
Chapter I
Whether she had fainted or fallen asleep, she did not know, but of this one thing she was sure: it had been dark when consciousness left her and it was now broad day, although the light seemed to come to her with a greenish tinge which was quite unfamiliar. The transition between her state of yesterday and that of to-day was as great as if she had been born into morning from the womb of midnight. Like a young animal vaguely stirring she drank in life blindly with closed eyes. She could hear the thunderous roaring of the breakers crashing upon the barrier reef. Alone her boat had been wrecked in the darkness of the night before the noise softened and, mellowed by distance, came to her in a deep, low accompaniment to the sharper and nearer sounds of the birds singing and the breeze rustling gently through the long leaves of the trees overhead.
The dry sand on which she lay was soft and yield ing and made a comfortable bed for her tired body, racked with weary days in the constraint and narrowness of a small boat. It was hot, too. She had been drenched and cold when she scrambled on the shore and fell prostrate on the beach, retaining just strength enough and purpose enough to crawl painfully inward to where the tall palms grew be fore she lapsed in whatsoever way it might have been into oblivion, and the warmth of the sh