““They were doing it for strangers, throwing themselves on that beach, slaughtered till the sea ran dark, and another wave came, and was slaughtered, and another, whole cities of men. They had never met Emma, she would never meet them, and still another wave. It was so humbling, Emma clung to the tree and did not think she could continue to breathe. The weight of their sacrifice might crush her. Here they had died, and up the beach they were still dying, in flocks and willingly for the idea that she, Emma herself, and her friends and family and neighbors, ought to live in freedom. Who on earth deserved such a gift? She turned again to Monkey Boy, tears stinging the cut on her chin, and she nodded. "For us.””
