For some months past, my daily stint at the typewriter has been cheered
by an ambitious hope: that this story might prove entertaining to the
young--the finest of all audiences. They are too wise even to glance
at so dull a thing as a preface, but to you older people, who are
responsible for what the young ones read, I have a word to say.
I make no claim, in the pages which follow, to have done more than
muster the familiar marionettes and put them through their paces before
your eyes. In one respect, nevertheless, I venture to commit myself.
I know the islands fairly well--white man and native; skipper, trader,
and pearl-diver; the sea, the lagoons, the small and lonely bits of
land; and I can vouch for the genuineness of the story's atmosphere.
As for the story, there is nothing in it which has not happened, or
might not happen to-day--for Romance, like the sea itself, is ever old
and ever new.