"What's the matter?" he began abruptly.

"Mr. Maynard," said Harnash, summoning his courage up to the

self-accusing point, "I've something very important to say."

"What is it?" asked the financier, sitting down at the big desk,

disregarding his mail, and staring at Harnash.

"It begins somewhat far back."

"Get to the point quickly."

"I will. I love your daughter. I have loved her ever since I met her,

long before she became engaged to Beekman."

"Damn him."

"Wait a minute before you condemn him."

"What's he got to do with your trouble?"

"Much."

"I think Stephanie has about forgotten him, and, frankly, if you want to

marry her--well, I had other views for her, but I don't see why you

shouldn't," was the old man's surprising answer.

"There may be reasons to the contrary of which you know nothing, Mr.

Maynard."

"What are they? Why all this beating around the bush?"

"You've thought hardly of Beekman because he disappeared on his wedding

day."

"Yes."

"I was the cause of it."

"Good God! Did you murder him?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Do you know what you're saying?"

"Perfectly."

"You must be crazy."

"I think I am. This came this morning."

The unhappy Harnash held out the telegram.

"Well," said Maynard, reading it over quickly. "That's a bad job, of

course, but the _Susquehanna_ is fully insured. It's unfortunate about

the men, and the Russians have been cabling us for that shipment of

munitions and war material, but what's this got to do with Beekman?"

"He was on the burned ship."

"What!"

"Her mate, Woywod, was a boyhood friend of mine. I told him I loved

your daughter and she loved me--"

"Oh, it's got that far, has it?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you had him shanghaied by this Woywod," said Maynard, frowning, as

the whole situation became instantly clear to him.

"I did."

"Does Stephanie know?"

"Not a thing."

"Was she a party to this transaction?"

"In no way. I always knew I loved her, but we only found out she loved

me while Beekman was away during the year after his father's death. I

begged her to confess the truth, to appeal to you and to Beekman, and to

break the engagement. She refused to do any of these things. She said

it was the most cherished desire of your heart, that you and old

Beekman, who were bound together by affection of long standing, had

agreed upon it, that she had given her word with her eyes open."

"And you did this thing with what in view, pray?"

"To delay the marriage in the hope that something might turn up and I

might win her."

"Something has turned up."

"I'm afraid so."

"But isn't it just possible that Beekman may be one of those six men who

survived?"

"We should have heard from him in that event."

"Right, but isn't it just possible that the other boat may turn up or

its men may have landed on some Pacific island?"

"It's possible," said Harnash, "but not likely."

"It's generally the unlikely thing that happens in life," said Maynard,

coolly, staring hard at the unfortunate young man to whom confession was

obviously difficult. "For instance, the most unlikely thing that I

could think of is that I should be sitting here quietly listening to you

confess this treacherous and dastardly crime without being able to

determine whether I shall hand you over to the authorities or give you

my daughter as a wife."

"I don't think the disposition of your daughter's hand rests with you

now."

"Does it rest with you?"

"No. She has told me that she would never even allow me to speak to you

or consent to marry me until she had been released by you and Beekman."

Maynard thought deeply. He was, as he had said, in a state of

indecision most unusual and extraordinary with him. To be unable to

settle upon his course was most annoying to him.

"You haven't told her what you did?"

"Not a word."

"You'll have to tell her now," he said at last, thinking that perhaps

she might throw some light on the problem.

"I intend to."

Maynard reached for the telephone. He called up the house, got his

daughter on the wire, and asked her to take her car and come to the

office immediately. He brushed away questions and objections by

assuring her that it was a matter of life and death. Having thus

aroused her curiosity and greatly alarmed her, he disconnected.

"Now," he said, turning to Harnash, who had waited, "what have you to

suggest?"

"Cable our agent at Honolulu to send the survivors to San Francisco by

the first steamer."

"Good so far."

"I'll go out there in time to meet them and ascertain the facts. If

Beekman is there I'll tell him the truth and bring him home, if he

doesn't kill me."

"If he is not?"

"I'll turn everything I have into money and on the chance that he may be

somewhere in the South Seas I'll charter a ship and go and hunt for

him."

"I wouldn't like to be in your shoes when you meet him, if you do."

"I don't much fancy the situation myself," admitted Harnash, "but that's

neither here nor there. I've got to do it."

"You must have been desperately in love with Stephanie to have done this

thing."

"I was. I am. I don't want to plead anything in justification,"

answered the other, "but if Stephanie had loved Beekman I don't think I

should have interfered, although she probably would have found out that

I loved her because I couldn't help letting her see it. You have seen

it yourself, haven't you?"

"Now that you say it, I recall things that looked that way and, yes, I

had begun to suspect it."

"But when I found out that she didn't love him and that she did love me

and that she was only going through with it to please you and the elder

Beekman--well, it seemed horrible. I swore to her that I would prevent

it if I had to snatch her away from him at the foot of the altar."

"Instead of which you snatched him from her the day before."

"It was the same day."

"I wonder why none of us ever thought of the _Susquehanna_."

"She is on record as having sailed the evening before. Her clearance

papers were so made out and as she probably got away without tug or

pilot in the early dawn nobody connected him with her."

"You didn't have this end of the voyage in mind, of course?"

"As God is my judge I did not," answered Harnash, earnestly.

"The _Susquehanna_ was overdue at Vladivostok by about three weeks, I

believe," continued the old man. "That's why you've been so distrait

and worried and generally knocked up during the last month?"

"Yes. I expected to get word from Beekman."

"How?"

"He would naturally cable me, his business partner."

"Oh, then he doesn't know anything about your part, if he is alive."

"Certainly not, unless Woywod told him, which would be most unlikely."

"I see. Well, go and cable Smithfield and find out when the next

steamer sails for the United States from Hawaii, and arrange to leave

here four days before her scheduled arrival so you can get this third

officer and his men before they scatter. You know what sailors are. By

the way, who is the third officer?"

"I don't know."

"Well, find that out in the shipping department. And keep within call.

When Stephanie gets here I shall want you to tell her," said the old

man, still painfully undecided as to his course.

"Very good, sir," said Harnash, turning away, glad for the relief of the

temporary duties devolved upon him.

By the time he had completed them Stephanie had reached the office

building and had gone to her father's private room, where Harnash

presently followed her.

"I hurried down here, of course," she began, "on receipt of your

surprising message. What has happened since you left this morning? Oh,

good morning, Mr. Harnash," she continued, her face brightening as she

held out her hand to that unhappy man as he entered the office.

"This," said her father in answer to her question, meanwhile keenly

observing the other two.

He handed her the cable. She read it over and looked up with a little

bewilderment.

"The _Susquehanna_!" she said. "I remember it was the last sailing

ship. It's too bad that she is lost, but you were insured. Of course,

it's terrible about the brave captain and the poor men."

Old Maynard nodded. He looked at Harnash. That young man's hour had

come.

"Beekman was on the _Susquehanna_," he said quietly.

*CHAPTER XIII*

*THE SEARCH DETERMINED UPON*

For a moment Stephanie Maynard did not take in the tremendous import of

the declaration that had just fallen from her lover's lips. For one

thing, he had spoken so quietly that she had not at first sensed the

meaning. She stared from Harnash to her father in no little

bewilderment. Both men watched her keenly; the older curious to know

what she would do and say, the younger as one might wait the death

sentence of a court.

"I don't understand," she faltered at last. "Did you say that Derrick

Beekman-- It's impossible. How could that be?"

"I had him shanghaied by a friend of mine."

"Shanghaied?"

"Yes. After the dinner broke up we stopped at an uptown place

and"--Harnash hesitated. It was bad enough to compass the main fact,

but the necessary admission of the sordid, unlovely details seemed to

make his turpitude much greater.

"Yes, go on. What then?"

"Yes. I'm curious to know how you did it, too," put in Maynard.

"I persuaded him to take a drink. He was utterly unsuspicious. It was

easy--"

"Oh, you doctored it," said Maynard.

"Yes--but-- Good God, this is the hardest thing I ever did," cried poor

Harnash, looking at the girl. "Knock-out drops, you know, and then he

was shanghaied."

"I don't understand," she said again.

"He was delivered to a friend of mine down on Water Street who was

waiting for him with a gang. I had arranged it all beforehand and they

put him on the ship."

"But his watch, his money, jewelry?"

"I have those," admitted Harnash. "They're in my safe deposit box. I

put them there, you understand, for safe keeping."

"Of course," said Maynard. "I don't think you're a thief as well as an

abductor."

"Thank you," said Harnash.

"Well, even if he were on that ship," began Stephanie, at last

comprehending, "it doesn't follow that he was lost."

"No. It doesn't follow. He may have been one of those picked up in the

third mate's boat."

"By the way, who is the third mate?" interposed Maynard.

"She didn't carry one, sir. Her officers were Captain Peleg Fish,

Woywod, and Salver. She had a boatswain, carpenter, sail-maker, and a

crew of forty."

"Strange. Who could that officer be? But go on."

"Yes, and the other boat," said Stephanie, looking at the telegram

again. "She may be found. He may be in her."

"It is possible," said Harnash hopelessly, "but I am convinced that he

has been lost and I alone am responsible for his death."

The girl stared at the man, a strange look in her eyes. Harnash met her

gaze bravely, although it took superhuman courage to do so. He loved

her. There was no doubt about that. He had proved it in his perverted

way. And she had loved him. There was no doubt of that, or there had

not been. He even dared to hope that she would still love him, even in

the face of his present confession; but whether she loved him or not he

would rather have faced any judge on earth than Stephanie Maynard. The

situation forced him to speak.

"It is no excuse that I did it for you," he began. "I said I'd be

willing to kill him rather than he should have you; but while I want you

just as much as ever, more, if possible, that doesn't prevent me from

feeling like a murderer now. And it is all so useless, too. Your

father never could give his consent now and you--with this hideous

possibility before us, I've lost you, too."

He turned away. He could not control himself. He clenched his jaws

together and walked toward the window, out of which he looked without

seeing anything whatsoever. For a few moments nobody broke the silence.

Old Maynard sat down quietly at his desk, leaned his face in his hands,

and scrutinized his daughter. The air was surcharged with dramatic

possibilities. He was too keen an observer not to recognize them. He

had made up his own mind at last, but he wanted to see what his daughter

would do before he disclosed his wishes or intentions. It seemed to

Harnash, in whose breast a faint hope was still struggling as he also

waited for the girl's decision, that Stephanie's silence lasted a long

time. Really it was a very few moments. Singularly enough, her first

word was not to her lover.

"Father," she began, facing the old man, "do you think it is likely that

Derrick is lost?"

"Highly probable."

"Why?"

"If he were one of the survivors he would have cabled at once."

"He might be ill or--"

Maynard shook his head.

"I think we can discount that suggestion."

"Then his only chance would be the other boat?"

"Yes."

"And you think that chance--"

"A faint one. It was probably the bigger and better boat. It should

have turned up before the other. It has not."

Every word carried conviction to the girl. The flicker of hope in

Harnash's heart died away. It revived again when Stephanie, after

pondering her father's words--and he allowed her to reflect upon them at

her pleasure, volunteering nothing, suggesting nothing--began with

another question.

"No one knew of Derrick's presence on the ship except those who were

aboard her?"

"Obviously not, since all the detectives in New York, for the past six

months, have been endeavoring to find out where he went, stimulated by a

reward big enough to arouse them all to the most frantic endeavors."

"But the people on the ship would know?"

"I haven't any doubt that Beekman disclosed his name to the officers so

soon as he came to his senses, but I imagine it wouldn't make much of an

impression upon them. They wouldn't believe him. Sailors are

proverbially happy-go-lucky people. Our agents at San Francisco will

pay off these survivors, they will scatter, and that will be the end of

them."

"And if he is lost the mystery of his disappearance would never have

been solved," whispered the young woman, "unless Mr. Harnash himself had

told."

The old man nodded. George Harnash, his back turned to them, listened

as if his life hung upon the word.

"But if he had kept the secret," said the girl, illogically but with

obvious meaning, "I could never have forgiven him, much as I loved him

and still do love him. That doesn't seem to be news to you, father."

"It isn't. Go on."

"In that case I never could have married him, even though he did it for

me, but now--"

She walked over toward Harnash and laid her hand on his shoulder. No

knight ever received an accolade, no petitioner a benison, no penitent

an absolution so precious as that. Harnash turned, coincident with the

touch, transfigured.

"Stephanie," he burst out, "you don't mean--"

"A part of the blame is mine," said the girl, facing her father, her

hand still on her lover's shoulder. "I was weak where I should have

been strong. It was my duty to break with Derrick absolutely since I

did not, could not, love him; but because I love you, Father, and

because my word had been given, I proposed to go through with the

marriage, knowing that I loved this man, letting him see that I did, and

allowing myself to hope that he would effect what I refused to attempt;

so that for this awful situation I am in a large part to blame."

"I cannot let that statement go unchallenged, Mr. Maynard," protested

Harnash, passionately. "She is no more to blame than a baby. She

couldn't help being beautiful. She couldn't help my loving her. As God

is my judge, she has never done a thing to encourage me. She told me

all along that she was going to marry Beekman, that she was in honor

bound to do so, that duty and everything made it necessary. It was my

own mad passion, for which she is not to blame, that made me do it. Not

a vestige of reproach attaches to her. God knows, I wouldn't have had

real harm come to him for anything on earth. I never dreamed of this. I

never suspected it. I never anticipated it. It's an awful shock to me,

but a man must fight for the woman he loves. Beekman didn't care. With

him it was a matter of agreement, convenience, and I--" He turned and

looked at the girl. "I think I'd do it again. I'll be honest. Now I'd

cheerfully give my own life for Beekman's. If I am not to have you life

isn't worth very much to me, and I'm terribly sorry for him; yet when I

look at you, Stephanie, and think that in spite of everything I have

lost you--"

"You haven't lost me," said the girl, quietly.

"What! You mean?"

"Where do I come in?" asked the elder Maynard with a calmness that

matched his daughter's.

"Father," said the girl, "I'm not your daughter for nothing. I suppose

I couldn't help loving George Harnash. I have the same fixity of purpose

that you have. I showed it when I intended to carry out my agreement to

marry Derrick, although it broke my heart. I know I will go on loving

him to the end, no matter what he did, or what he is, but I wouldn't

have married him if he hadn't of his own free will spoken out and told

what he might as easily have concealed without anyone ever finding it

out, if Derrick is really dead. And I feel here, somehow," said the

girl, laying her hand on her heart, "that you hold the same views

exactly."

"His prompt and open acknowledgment, his frank confession, makes all the

difference," admitted Maynard. "It does seem to give the affair a

different complexion."

"Seem, father?"

"Well, it does, then. Go on."

"It was horribly wrong of George to do what he did, but he did it for

me. It was my fault as much as his, and I take part of the blame."

"I swear I will not allow you."

"Let her finish," interposed Maynard. "She has more sense than you

have, and I'll be hanged if I don't think she has more than I have."

Stephanie smiled faintly.

"If Derrick is dead none of us here is ever going to forget it. Neither

Mr. Harnash, nor I, not even you."

"I fail to see any responsibility attaching to me."

"No, but there will be some."

"Oh, will there?"

"So far as intent goes we can absolve ourselves, but so far as

consequences are concerned we shall have to expiate our wickedness."

"Oh, Stephanie, for God's sake don't say that of yourself," Harnash

burst forth.

"I must. And we can expiate it together. We can help each other."

"Do you mean that you will actually marry me?"

"Of course," said the girl. "How could you for a moment think

otherwise? I mean what I say when I assume part of the blame."

"And so you have settled it without me, have you?" asked her father.

"No. We are going to settle it this way with your approval and

consent."

"And I am to give my daughter to a man who would administer knock-out

drops to a friend and shanghai him on the eve of his wedding and

appropriate that friend's promised wife?"

"It is just, sir," said Harnash bitterly. "Think what you do," he

continued, turning to the girl with a gesture of renunciation.

"No," answered Stephanie to her father. "You are giving your daughter

to a man who, however he sinned, and your daughter doesn't presume to

pass condemnation upon him as she might were she not a party to it, has

frankly and openly acknowledged his transgression and expressed himself

willing to take the consequences."

"Humph," said the old man, a flicker of a smile appearing on his iron

face.

"Remember, he might have kept silent."

"Well," said Maynard, "I believe you are right. There is good stuff in

you, Harnash, and your unforced, voluntary confession shows it. I don't

think you'll administer knock-out drops to anybody again, and eventually

I suppose you'll get Stephanie, but there are conditions."

"You couldn't impose any conditions that I would not gladly meet."

"I was coming to those myself," said the girl.

"Oh, you had thought of this, too, had you?"

"Certainly."

"What are they?"

"First of all there must be no public mention by any of us of the

possible fate of Derrick until we are satisfied that he is dead."

"Certainly not," said old Maynard.

The assent of Harnash was obviously not necessary to that.

"That's where you come in, father--what is the legal term?--as an

accessory after the fact to what we have done."

The old man laughed a little.

"Clever, clever," he murmured, "my own daughter."

"The next condition is that we must satisfy ourselves beyond

peradventure that Derrick is dead before any marriage."

"That is a harder proposition," said the old man.

"Because," went on the girl, "I told George when I supposed Mr. Beekman

was alive and would turn up some time that I would never marry him until

I had got a release from Derrick's own lips, and as long as there is a

chance that he is alive that condition holds."

"I'm so glad that I can look forward to getting you at any time under

any circumstances," said Harnash fervently, "that I accede gladly to any

conditions that you may lay down."

"And how will you settle the affair if by any good fortune we succeed in

finding Beekman and he refuses to consent and wishes to hold you to your

terms?" asked Maynard thoughtfully. "You don't seem to have counted on

that."

Harnash and Stephanie looked at each other with dismay.

"And how if he wants to kill Harnash, as he would have a perfect right

to do, for his part in the--er--deplorable transaction?" continued the

old man relentlessly.

"I'll take whatever he wishes to give me," said Harnash. "I'll tell him

myself, if we are fortunate enough to see him, and I don't believe when

he learns everything that he will want to claim as his wife a woman who

loves some one else."

"I am sure he will not," said Stephanie.

The girl's father nodded.

"I guess you have it right, but we needn't worry about that now. The

first thing is to find out whether he is really dead."

"We must set about that at once," said Stephanie.

"We have already taken steps to that end," said Harnash. "I have cabled

Smithfield to ship the men from Honolulu to 'Frisco at our expense, and

to say to them that I will meet them on the arrival of the steamer. I

find that a steamer sails from Honolulu on Thursday of next week. She is

due to arrive on Friday of the week after. My personal affairs are in

such a state that I can safely leave them. I have a substantial balance

available in the bank. I am going to California to interview the men

and then I shall charter a vessel and hunt for the other boat or

prosecute whatever search is necessary."

"That's fine," said Stephanie. Then she turned to her father,

stretching out her hand. "Father--"

The old man understood perfectly well what she wanted.

"I can amplify that plan a little," he said. "I have been wanting to

get away from active business for a long time and my affairs are

fortunately in such a shape that I can trust them to others. I should

have trusted them to you, Harnash, if you weren't obliged to go along."

"Do you mean--?" cried the girl.

"Yes, I'll send the _Stephanie_ around through the Panama canal

immediately"--the _Stephanie_ was a magnificent steam yacht, the

greatest, most splendid, and most seaworthy of any of the floating

palaces of the millionaires of the seaboard--"and we'll go on that hunt

together."

"You mean that I--"

"Of course you can go along. Who has more interest in establishing the

fact than you?"

*CHAPTER XIV*

*THE BOATSWAIN'S STORY*

A seafaring man is less at home in a parlor than anywhere else. He can

sit comfortably on anything except a chair. The big boatswain balanced

himself gingerly on the edge of the biggest and strongest chair in the

private parlor of the Maynard apartment in the St. Francis Hotel in San

Francisco. In his hands, fortunately, for otherwise he would not have

known what to do with them, he clasped a large package wrapped in oil

silk and carefully tied up. He looked and felt supremely ill at ease

and miserable. Back of him, equally uncomfortable, were the other

survivors of the _Susquehanna_. It was proper for the boatswain, who

acted as third officer, to be seated. This much was conceded to his

rank, but Templin and the other five, deaf to all suggestions looking

toward their comfort, remained standing. They did not even lean against

anything. They took position in true seamanlike fashion, arms folded or

akimbo, feet wide apart, ready for any unexpected roll on the part of

the St. Francis Hotel.

George Harnash had met the steamer. Indeed, he had boarded her before

she tied up at her berth at the docks. He knew that Beekman would not be

with the survivors because their names had been cabled to New York by

Smithfield in answer to inquiries. The strangest circumstance was this.

A list of the other members of the crew taken from the ship's papers

which were in possession of the third officer, for so the boatswain was

designated, had also been cabled and the name of Beekman did not appear

in that list either. This puzzled Harnash beyond measure. He had

delivered Beekman to the crimp and the gang designated by Woywod,

certainly. Had anything happened? Were those knock-out drops too

strong? Harnash was a miserable man, indeed, a prey to all sorts of

fears and anxieties and each worse than the other.

The men, who had landed at Honolulu in a dilapidated condition, two

weeks' cruising in an open boat being not conducive to the preservation

of wearing apparel, had been thoroughly outfitted by the agent of the

Inter-Oceanic Trading Company, and consequently as Stephanie Maynard

looked upon them she thought them as fine an appearing body of sailors

as she had seen in her various voyagings upon the seas. Old John

Maynard, keenly appraising them as they were led in the room, arrived at

the same conclusion by a somewhat different process.

"This is the bo's'n of the _Susquehanna_," began Harnash after he had

mustered and marshaled the uneasy sailors. "That is, he was originally

shipped as bo's'n, but he has been promoted to third officer. How or

why I do not yet know. I thought it best not to question the men until

I had brought them here. Mr. Gersey--"

"Jim Gersey, at your service, sirs an' ma'am," said the old seaman,

rising and making a sort of sea-scrape with his feet while he knuckled

his brow with his hand in true if now somewhat obsolete sailor fashion.

"Mr. Gersey," said Harnash, "this is Mr. John Maynard, president of the

company which owned the _Susquehanna_, and this is his daughter."

"Pleased to meet ye both," said the boatswain.

"In addition to our natural anxiety about the ship and her people we

have reason to be deeply interested in one member of her crew,"

continued Harnash, and his personal suspense was obvious to the dullest

person in the room, much more to the girl who loved him in spite of all.

"I didn't ketch your name, sir," said the boatswain.

"Harnash, George Harnash."

The old man furrowed his brow and thought a moment.

"Of Harnash an' Beekman, 33 Broadway, New York?"

"Yes."

"Well, sir, I got a message for you."

"A message?"

"Aye. It was give to me by a man that shipped aboard the _Susquehanna_

as John Smith."

"That's why Beekman's name didn't appear among those sent us," observed

Mr. Maynard suddenly.

"I suppose so," answered Harnash, glad to be relieved of one anxiety.

"Which he said it wan't his name, but I ain't never been aboard a ship

without a John Smith on her," continued the boatswain, "an' sometimes we

gits two or three of 'em. It's a kind-a easy name, an' when nobody

knows a man we jest nachurly calls him that. Now this chap's name was

Beekman. Leastways, that's what he said it was, an' when we put him

overboard--"

"Put him overboard?" cried Stephanie.

"Yes, ma'am. In the ship's whaleboat, for his own safety."

"At the time of the fire?" interposed Harnash.

"Now, gents an' lady, if you'll excuse me, I can't quite steer my course

amid so many variable winds, so to speak. I can't shift my helm quick

enough to meet all them changes. If you'll lemme heave ahead in my own

way I'll git the yarn off'n my chest the quicker an' the plainer."

"Of course," said Maynard; "don't interrupt, young people, let him tell

us in his own way."

"Thankee, sir," said the boatswain. "You've got a seaman's instinck an'

arter I've told the yarn I'll answer any question I may be axed,

pervided they comes at me one at a time."

"Heave ahead," said Maynard, adopting nautical language for the

occasion.

"Well, sir, it was this way. Arter Smith or Beekman put a knife into

the mate--"

This was too much for Harnash.

"What mate?"

The boatswain shot a look at him.

"I was comin' to that," he answered. "Mr. Woywod, as you know, he was

the mate of the ship. He was a prime seaman, an' pleasant enough if you

done what you was told an' done it quick an' kept out of his way, but

when he was roused an' riled--God help us, says I."

"We all says that," put in Templin grimly.

"Well, him an' Smith or Beekman got in an argyment the second day out

when Smith come to in the fo'c's'l an' didn't know where he was at or

why he was at it, an' Smith knocked the mate down. The mate seed he was

green an' raw, an' he passed over that, only he told him if he ever done

it agin he'd kill him. The mate battered him up considerably at the

time. I sent for him that day an' told him as an old man that had

follered the sea all his life that there wan't no use of tryin' to fight

the mate; that the officers had everything on their side. They was like

God hisself on the ship; that he'd git double irons clapped on him for

mutiny, an' mebbe hanged if he didn't knuckle down an' turn to. He told

me a long story about him bein' shanghaied. I didn't believe it at

first."

"It was true," said Harnash. "Absolutely true."

"An' leavin' a girl on his weddin' day."

"I was the girl," said Stephanie.

"Dash me," said the old boatswain, staring at the girl with quite open

admiration, "his was a harder lot than we fancied. Well, he concluded

to take my advice. He turned to an' done his work like a man, an' I

never seen a feller pick up so. Afore he left us he was as hard as

nails, an' by way of bein' a prime seaman, too. The mate didn't

manhandle him none, but there was bad blood 'twixt them two men. The

mate was allus a pickin' on him an' a bullyin' of him. It was a kind of

battle between 'em. The mate anxious to provoke an outbreak on Smith's

part, which I means Beekman, an' Beekman determined not to give the mate

no handle agin him. We had a hell of a--I beg your pardon, Miss, but

that word jest describes the ship an' the v'yage. I never did see such

a succession of gales. We was weeks gittin' round the Horn, an' there

was a dead beat agin the wind nigh all the way up to the line. One

night, I disremember the date, but I got it here"--he tapped the oilskin

package to which he clung so tightly--"all hands was called on suddenly

to reef tops'ls. The old man was for carryin' on, you know; he'd taken

in the r'yals, but the to'gall'nts'ls was still set, an' the sticks was

bendin' like whips when he decided to git 'em off her. Now there was a

mast-man, a half-witted Dutchman, aboard named Wramm."

"Jacob Wramm," said Templin. "God rest his soul."

"He done a lubberly thing. He cast off the wrong halliards, an' we lost

the main to'gall'nt mast. It was in the mid watch, an' Wramm had been

takin' a snooze under the lee rail or he wouldn't have done it. The

mate was very vi'lent with him. He had kicked him awake, au' when the

mast carried away he hit him over the head with a belayin' pin,

thinking, doubtless, to let some sense into his thick skull, but instead

he let the life out of him."

"Do you mean that he killed him?" asked Maynard in amazement, while the

others held their breath at this matter-of-fact description of tyranny

and murder.

"Aye, sir, I means jest that. There's a lot o' things that goes on

aboard your ships, that neither you nor nobody else in New York knows

nothin' about."

"Evidently. Proceed."

"Wramm died the next day, but meanwhile, arter we'd cleared away the

wreck an' got the ship snug, we took Wramm, who was still breathin' but

unconscious, to his berth in the fo'c's'l. Arter we'd examined him,

Beekman said he was goin' aft to see the old man."

"Did Captain Fish permit such brutality?"

"I ain't wishful to say nothin' agin a man that's dead an' that can't

defend hisself, but him an' Salver, which he was in charge of the other

boat, was much the same kind of men as Woywod, only not quite so

vi'lent. The cap'n was an old man an' he wan't so free with his fists,

but he allus backed up the mates in whatever they done. Well, Beekman

insisted on seein' the cap'n, an' arter the mate had inspected Wramm an'

seen he was pretty bad off, he thought best to let him go aft. Templin

here was busy about the mizzenmast, an' he can tell what happened,

though we've got it all down in writin'."

"If you please, ma'am an' gents," said old Templin, stepping forward and

taking up the tale, "I heard v'ices raised high in the cabin, which I

could see into it through the skylight which covers it an' lets in light

an', when it's open, air. You understand?"

Maynard nodded.

"Wot words passed I couldn't make out, but I seen the mate leap toward

Smith, an' Smith hit him. The mate was a big man, an' although it must

have been a powerful blow, it didn't phase him; it jest throwed him back

agin the cabin bulkhead. Then he gathered hisself up, drew a gun,

p'inted it at Smith, an' made for him agin. The cap'n was havin'

something to eat afore turnin' in, it bein' about four bells in the mid

watch, an' there was a big, sharp carvin' knife layin' on the table.

The mate was cursin' like mad, an' Smith was standin' there quiet an' as

white as the paint on the cabin bulkheads. Jest as the mate pulled the

trigger, Smith grabbed the knife an' buried it to its handle in the

mate's breast, the bullet from the pistol passin' harmless like jest

over Smith's head an' tearin' a big hole in the bulkhead."

"I seen the hole myself later on," said the boatswain as Templin stopped

for breath.

"Mr. Salver, who had the watch," resumed the sailor, "came into the

cabin, an' he grabbed Smith, who was standin' kind o' dazed like,

lookin' at the mate wrigglin' round the deck; an' Manuel, the steward,

did the same. The old man got the mate's pistol an' covered Smith, an'

they put him in the bo's'n's cabin an' moved the bo's'n aft to take the

watch, ratin' him as third mate, an' givin' Mr. Salver, the second mate,

Mr. Woywod's watch."

"Good God, how horrible!" said Harnash, shooting a quick look at

Stephanie, who sat staring and as white as Templin's description

indicated Beekman had been, as this grim, sordid tragedy of the sea was

revealed to them in the picturesque simplicity of this rude sailor's

tale.

"What happened then?" asked Maynard.

"Well, sir," answered the boatswain, "Templin can finish the yarn better

nor I can."

"Every man jack on the ship," said Templin, "had a mighty likin' for

Smith. Ain't that so, mates?"

Deep-toned approvals, with much nodding of heads, came from the other

seamen.

"He was the pleasantest man on the ship," said one.

"Free an' easy, always willin' to help a shipmate," said another.

"Full of good stories, an' doin' his best to be agreeable," added a

third.

"An' we wasn't goin' to see him hanged for that, which it was clearly

self-defense, an' a good riddance, anyway," continued Templin. "You

see, the mate was hated as much as Smith was liked. So we puts our

heads together, an' to make a long story short, we pervisions the

whaleboat, which was hangin' at the after davits. We struck the irons

off of Smith's wrists an' ankles, put him into the boat, an' lowered her

the night arter."

"I had heerd the old man an' Salver plottin' the ship's position," said

the boatswain. "They said there was land about seventy leagues to the

sou'west'ard, an we all thought he could reach it. It seemed as if the

rough weather had blowed itself out at last in the Pacific. There was

some white people on them islands. There'd be some means for him to git

back to the United States, eventually, or wherever he belonged."

"When did the captain learn of his escape?"

"Right then an' there. He done his best to prevent it, but it was dark

an' the men refused to handle the braces to wear the ship, an' that's

all there was to it."

"So Beekman wasn't on the ship when she burned," cried Harnash.

"No."

"Thank God for that," said Stephanie. "Don't you see," she continued as

the bewildered seaman stared at her, "if he had been on the ship, he

might have been lost in the other boat; Mr. Salver's boat, you said."

"Yes, ma'am."

"But, as it is now, there is a chance he may have got to those islands.

What were they? Where are they? We may find him yet."

"It's possible. There's always a chance on the sea," admitted the

boatswain. "But that ain't all the story."

"No?"

"No, ma'am; the gales hadn't quite blowed theirselves out yet, an' the

next day come the worst of 'em all. What become of that boat in that

storm, Cod only knows. We had to scud afore it under bare poles."

"It might not have blowed so hard where the whaleboat was," said Templin

sagely.

"In course; but no man can know nothin' about that."

"We got a slant of a favorin' wind arter a few days, an' ran down our

northin' at a great rate. I think it was two weeks arter we sent the

whaleboat away with Beekman in it, when a fire broke out in the

forehold. I suppose the strainin' an' pitchin' and buckin' of the ship

was the cause of it. I don't rightly know jest what we had aboard."

"About three thousand tons of the most inflammable and explosive stuff

on earth," said Mr. Maynard.

"Well, it ketched afire. We knowed it was some kind of dangerous stuff

without bein' aware of the partik'lers, an' we tried to git at the fire,

but we couldn't. We knowed the old ship was doomed just about as soon

as something that would explode got reached by the fire. There wan't no

panic."

"The officers treated us like dogs, all of us," interposed Templin; "but

they knowed their business, an' so did we."

"Two boats was got over an' pervisioned; a cutter an' a la'nch that was

on chocks amidships. The cap'n ordered me with nine of the men to the

cutter, an' Mr. Salver with the rest on 'em to the la'nch. The sea was

calm enough, an' we had no difficulty in gittin' the boats overboard,

although we had to bear a hand, an' it was well we done so. Nachurly,

the cap'n was to be the last man to 'bandon the ship, which he didn't

leave at all, as a matter of fact. He was to go in my boat, which was

one reason why the steward was in her. Salver's boat shoved off, an'

while we lay alongside at the battens waitin' for him, the old man

ordered us to shove off, too. 'Mr. Gersey,' he sez--me bein' called

'Mister' habitual after I come aft--'if you git to shore, report me as

havin' stayed with the ship.' 'Cap'n Fish,' sez I, 'savin' your

presence, it's a kind of damn fool thing for you to do, for the ship's

goin' down.' 'I ain't never yet desarted no ship under my charge,' sez

the cap'n, an' when I started to argue, he told me to go to hell an' git

away from there lest the boat should be lost. There wan't nothin' else

for me to do, ma'am, but obey orders. I've been all my life obeyin'

orders at sea, but that was about the hardest one ever put up to me. We

didn't like the old man much. As a matter of fact, we hated him, an' we

might have killed him in a fair fight, if it had been possible, but we

didn't none of us want to see him die that way."

"No, we didn't," said one.

"But there wan't no help for it. We pulled away from the blazin' ship

till we got within hail of Salver's boat. When he seed the cap'n wasn't

aboard, he was for rowin' back to the ship to rescue him. We could see

the old man calmly walkin' up an' down the bridge, for'ard of the

mizzenmast, perfectly plain. The fire was for'ard, and the ship was

hove to so the smoke druv away to lee'ard. He never left that bridge

except to go aft to h'ist the American flag at the gaffend. Salver

would have gone back, anyway, only the men refused. We was willin'

enough, only we know'd it wan't no use. An' the ship was liable to blow

up any minute."

"Well?" said Maynard in the silence that ensued.

"She did blow up, an' the cap'n an' the flag an' the ship all went down

together," said the old boatswain with deep solemnity.

"He was a hard man," said Templin frowning, "but he went down with his

ship."

That last act covered a multitude of sins in the eyes of the men.

"There ain't much more to tell," continued the boatswain after the

tribute of respect and admiration had been conveyed by a solemn little

silence which no other cared to break. "We had a hard v'yage in that

open cutter, which we separated from the la'nch in the night. Food an'

water give out by the end of a week, an' afore we reached Honolulu, or

was picked up by a steamer headin' that way a day's sail from the port,

three of the men died. Among 'em was Manuel, ship's steward. As we'd

thought the old man was goin' in my boat, I had the log an' the ship's

papers. We knowed, because I had seed it, that the cap'n had logged the

yarn of the killing of Woywod, which he had got signed by Salver an'

Manuel, the steward. Manuel was a witness to the whole thing, an'

Salver to the latter part. Manuel was pretty poor stuff; afeerd of his

life when Cap'n Fish was around. So he signed a lie. When he knowed he

was goin' to die, he said he wanted to undo what he had done, as far as

he could, so I got out the logbook an' wrote in it what he said. He

made his mark after it, an' then Templin an' all the rest that could

write signed it as witnesses, an' them as couldn't, made their marks.

We thought if Beekman ever did git back home, an' this charge ever come

up, which it wouldn't be likely, since the _Susquehanna_ was lost, it

might help him to git people to believe he was innercent."

As the old man spoke he unfolded the oil silk wrapping, disclosed the

logbook, and extended it to his fascinated audience. Harnash took it.

"You'll find it there, sir," said the boatswain, opening the book at a

place marked by a slip of paper.

"Read it, George," said Maynard.

"I, Manuel Silva," Harnash read from the water-stained page, with

difficulty deciphering the blurred, soft pencil writing.

"We didn't have no pen an' ink," interrupted the boatswain in

explanation.

"Being about to die, do hereby declare before God and Mr. Gersey and the

crew of this cutter, that what I signed in the logbook about the death

of the mate is a damn lie, which I hope God and the Holy Virgin and the

Saints will pardon me. The mate struck at Smith, although he was twice

warned, and finally drew a pistol. He would have shot him if he hadn't

been killed. It was self defense. In fear of the captain and my life,

I signed that false Happy David. This is the truth, so help me God."

"There's his mark," said Gersey, getting up and pointing. "An' this is

my signature, an' there's Templin's an' Dumellow's, and there's Spear's

and Lawton's marks, which they are here to testify. Also, there's

Walling's and Allen's, which are dead."

"I see," said Harnash, handing the book to Stephanie.

"Mr. Gersey, you have done exceedingly well. I want to compliment you

and every one of the men," said Maynard. "You shall not suffer in the

loss of the _Susquehanna_. The Inter-Oceanic will pension you or give

you steady work. A sum of money will be deposited to your credit, which

will enable you to be independent of the sea, if you choose."

"That's handsome of you, Mr. Maynard," said Templin. "I don't know how

the other men feels, but as for me, I'm too young to retire. I'd just

blow in the money, wot ever it is, if it was give to me, an' I'd rather

have work."

"That goes for me."

"An' for me," cried one after the other.

"So, if you'll jest keep the money for us, so's when we're too old to go

to sea we'll have somethin' laid up, it'll be all right."

"Your decision is a wise one," said Maynard. "As it happens, I'll be

able to offer you work. These men look to me to be all right. Can you

vouch for them, Mr. Gersey?"

"They're prime seamen, every one of 'em, an' orderly an' decent men.

Not but what they sometimes gits laid by the heels ashore, but afloat

there ain't no more properer men to be found."

"I thought so. Well, I own a three-thousand-ton steam yacht, barkentine

rigged--the _Stephanie_--named after my daughter here. She will be due

in San Francisco in two weeks. We are contemplating an extended cruise

to the south seas. Have you ever been in steam, Mr. Gersey?"

"Most of my life, sir."

"There's a berth aboard her as bo's'n, or fourth officer, for you, and

I'll ship every man here at double pay before the mast. You can pick

one of them for bo's'n's mate. We've never had a bo's'n on the yacht,

but I've no doubt we can use one handily."

"Are you goin' to hunt for Beekman, sir, I makes bold to ask,"

questioned the boatswain, his face shining.

"I'm going to search the seas until I find him, or what became of him,

if possible; and, incidentally, Salver and the launch."

"We're with you, howsomever long that cruise," said the boatswain. "Am

I right, mates?"

"Right you are," came in deep-toned approval from the little group of

sailors.

*BOOK III*

*"*_*Where there aren't no Ten Commandments*_*"*

*CHAPTER XV*

*THE SPIRIT OF THE ISLAND*

Derrick Beekman was astonished beyond measure at the apparition which

flashed in view so suddenly far above his head and had almost

immediately disappeared. So far as he had been able to view the island,

he had not before discovered the slightest evidence of humanity.

Indeed, the whole deep cup of the bay was so desolate and forbidding

that it had not prepared him for human beings, scarcely for life, even.

If he had not yet thought about it at all, he had, nevertheless, a

subconsciousness that this was probably a bare and arid rock, volcanic

in origin, which the busy little toilers of the sea had surrounded with

a coral reef.

He came to believe afterward that this idea was correct, and that the

deep bay represented one of the craters of the volcano, one side of

which had been riven, by what cause he could not determine, giving

access to the ocean. In his terribly weak condition, for when he had

slaked his thirst, he was more acutely conscious of his hunger, not to

say his starvation, than before, he could only reflect vaguely upon

these matters. But one thing was really impressed upon his

consciousness; namely, that he had seen a human being; that being was a

woman, and that she was white!

He fell back on the sands supine, and lay staring upward. How long he

lay there, he could not tell. He had been too amazed even to cry out,

if he had possessed the power. And before he could decide upon

anything, she was gone. He hoped, of course, that the woman or some of

her companions, if she had any, would come again; but the dark, rugged,

desolate rock cut the skyline with iron precision, unbroken by anything

that had any suggestion of life, as before, when he had first looked

upon it. He soon awoke to the realization that there was nothing to be

gained by waiting. He must get something to eat to get back some of his

strength before he explored the harbor to find a way to the top of the

encircling cliffs.

He moved back to the spring and, thanking God for its sweetness, this

time drank deeper than before. He took off his salt-encrusted clothes,

held them under the falling water until they were clean of the sea

marks, and then he plunged his own body in the waterfall. As he

intended to swim back to the whaleboat, he laid his clothes out upon

some rocks which faced the rift-like opening and through which the

morning sun streamed with tropic intensity.

As he walked barefoot through the sand along the bank of the little

shallow brook by which the waters that fell from the crest made their

way to the sea, his foot struck something sharp that pricked him. He

bent over it at once, instantly curious. In the situation in which he

found himself, the slightest thing was of moment, or might be. He

laughed as he recognized it. He eagerly tore from its bed in the

sand--a pineapple!

Templin had replaced the sheath knife that had been taken from him by

the captain, and it hung in his belt on the rocks behind him where he

had left his clothes. To get it, to open it with nervous fingers, to

cut into the heart of the pineapple, to bury his face greedily in the

fragrant deliciousness of it, to eat it with almost animal-like

ferocity, was inevitable in so ravenous a man. When he had devoured it

to the last edible scrap, he searched the banks of the creek for other

fruit, possible flotsam and jetsam from the upland; but the search

produced nothing that met his fancy, for what he did find was decayed

and useless.

He was abundantly thankful, however, for the pineapple. Leaving his

clothing, except his shoes, which he put on again to protect his feet

from the sharp rock, he climbed over the broken stone at the base of the

rift and found himself once more on the stretch of sand opposite the

wrecked whaleboat. The tide was evidently on the ebb, for much that had

been covered before was now exposed. He gathered shellfish from the

rocks, broke them open, and, restraining his hunger, which was still

ravenous, partook sparingly of them.

Again making use of his boards, although he felt so much stronger that

he might have dispensed with them, he swam out to the barrier reef and

examined the whaleboat again. The lockers forward and aft were

practically empty. He did come upon a few scraps of salt meat, which he

had been unable to eat before in his consuming thirst; not enough for a

meal for an ordinary man, but still very welcome, and these he devoured.

There was not a crumb of hard bread left. That he had managed to eat,

in spite of his thirst. There was not another thing in the boat except

a boat hook, a stout pole with a brass hook on the end, and above the

hook a sharp pointed spike. This point had got wedged in the bulkhead

of the forward compartment, and the pole, lying under the thwarts, it

had not been swept out by the seas which had broken over him. The boat

itself was a hopeless wreck. The bottom had been torn out on the reef.

Everything that had been in her was gone. If he could break her up, she

would make good firewood if he should be able to compass a fire, and the

copper air tanks forward and aft, which were still intact, might be of

some service if he could ever get them off, which was improbable on

account of the lack of tools. Nor would the boat hook be of much use to

him. It would make a dangerous weapon in a hand-to-hand encounter, if

he should be so unfortunate as to require it, but that was all.

The heat of the sun beating upon him warned him that he would best get

back to the shelter of the cliffs and to his clothes. Taking the boat

hook, after a last search of the lockers which revealed nothing, he once

more swam the lagoon, by force of habit taking the planks which had

assisted him before, although now he felt no need of them.

If it had not been for the presence of that woman on the upland

indicating that the island was inhabited, he might have husbanded the

scraps of salt meat which he had devoured so voraciously, but he

reasoned as he ate them that there must be some way to the top, and that

once there he would find plenty to eat. That woman could not have

dropped from the clouds to the island. She or her forbears must have

come up from the sea. If there were a way, he would find it. Retracing

his steps, he presently regained the beach at the foot of the waterfall,

and finding his clothes dry and free from salt, he put them on again

with great comfort and gladness of heart.

Having taken his full meal of fruit, shellfish, and salt meat on the

installment plan, as it were, and having prudently refrained from

drinking his fill, contenting himself with frequent sips of water, he

felt immensely refreshed. He had moved slowly in his weakness and

exhaustion, and these various undertakings had used up most of the

morning. He could tell from the sun that it was about noon. Selecting a

spot on the warm, white sand which the sun had just left, which made a

warm and even a luxurious bed for a man who had lain for how many days

he could not tell on the hard planks and ribs of a boat in the tossing

sea, he threw himself down on his back to rest, intending to begin his

explorations in the afternoon. He instantly fell fast asleep.

When he awakened, the sun had set and, looking above and beyond the

rocks that circled above him, he could see the stars shining in tropic

brilliance in the quiet night sky. He was greatly refreshed by that

long, undisturbed sleep on the warm, yielding sand. He was also

ravenously hungry again, not famished, but just healthily hungry and

thirsty. It was cool in the great cylinder at the bottom of which he

lay. He concluded that it would be warmer on the ocean side where the

sun had beaten with full power against the rock cliffs all day long. He

would pass the night there. Drinking his fill, and drawing his belt a

notch or two tighter, he found a sheltered spot protected by an overhang

of rock and floored with clean, beautiful sand. He recalled whimsically

enough Sancho Panza's sage reflection that "he who sleeps dines."

Promising himself a day of exploration in the morning, he was soon

asleep again.

Before dawn he made his way back to the waterfall. He was about to

explore the harbor or cup when it occurred to him to wait until sunrise.

Perhaps she would come again--that spirit of the island. With the first

break of day as the splendor of the tropic morning streamed through the

rift, he saw again the same radiant, beautiful, golden figure. This time

he called. He shouted for help as loudly as he could, not because he

had any idea that his words would be understood, but he felt that

perhaps the appeal in his voice might be appreciated. He forgot that in

his blue clothes he was practically invisible to anyone looking down

into the gloom of the deep cup, especially as he stood against the foot

of the darkest wall. The distance was great, but the sound of his

voice--and it was the first time he had raised it or even spoken since

he had landed--sent wild echoes flying which were thrown from wall to

wall in almost maniacal ejaculations. Doubtless, they sounded much

louder to him than to the woman above, but she was conscious of

something unusual, for she started, and as he watched her closely he saw

her peer down into the depths. Her vision swept the enclosure, but

evidently she had not seen him, and although he called again and again,

he finally desisted as she stopped her search, perhaps concluding that

some wandering seabird with harsh cry might have sent those echoes

flying, for presently she disappeared as before.

Well, he would solve the mystery of her presence when he got to the top

of the rock, if he ever did. The first consideration was breakfast.

The problem remained unsolved. No kindly brook rolled to his feet

another pineapple. True, there were the mussels, but of these he ate

sparingly. Then he took his board and launched out into the waters of

the harbor. Here and there stretches of beach and piles of rock had

collected at the foot of the cliffs which, for a large part of their

extent, ran sheer down into the water, the blueness of which showed its

depth. The sea water was warmer than the air in the hollow, at least

until the sun had tempered it, and the bay was very still. He swam

easily through it, landing at each stretch of sand or rock, also

inspecting, as he progressed slowly, each fall of cliff that dropped

into the water without breaking. Here and there practical ways of

ascent seemed to open, but, when surveyed carefully or tried, they ended

at greater or less distance upward.

After a careful survey of the entire enclosure, which brought him back

finally to the beach of the waterfall where he had started on his little

voyage of discovery, he decided that the only possible way to get to the

top was by following the line of the waterfall. There was not a great

deal of promise in that; still, as it was the only way, it had to be

tried. Although he was in much better shape than when he landed, he was

not in good condition for violent efforts or exercise had it not been

for the impelling physical necessities behind him, to say nothing of the

stimulating appeals to his mind of what must be above him.

The boat hook, which he used as he might have an alpenstock, proved of

the greatest service. Indeed, he could scarcely have made the difficult

ascent without it. It was fortunate for him that he had some experience

in mountain climbing in various parts of the world, and that he rejoiced

in the possession of a cool head, a steady nerve, and a sure foot. Part

of the time he had to climb right through the waterfall. Fortunately,

its volume was not great enough to render that impossible, although in

the narrow places where the water was concentrated, its beat upon him

was tremendous. Sometimes he would stop on a jutting rock with the

swift waters roaring down on either side of him, again--in utter despair

wondering how it would be humanly possible to go any further.

Nevertheless, he persevered, his hope rising higher as he gradually

mounted the cliff and surmounted the difficulties. Finally, he lost

sense of time and almost everything else. His whole soul was centered

upon a desperate determination to get upward.

At last he reached the little rift in the rim through which the water

poured. Wet, bruised, cut, ineffably weary, he fell rather than lay

down upon a smooth rock in the narrow ravine through which the stream

flowed. He lay there a long time seeking to recover his breath, his

strength, his nerve. Finally, he got to his feet again and surveyed the

place. He was not yet at the top of the cliffs, but he was in a little

ravine which led to the top through which the brook ran and which

presented no difficulties compared to those he had surmounted.

The ravine twisted and turned as it ran upward, and he could yet see

nothing but rocks ahead of him. With the aid of the boat hook, he

followed the twisting, turning rift, or gorge, mounting on easy grades

until, at last, he saw the open entrance before him. To his great joy

and relief, he discovered that it was framed in the rich and vivid green

of the lush growths of the tropics. Trees, bushes, blossoms were there;

and, somewhere beyond, a woman! Light, life, humanity, Eden!

He was so overcome that he sank down again, but, with the certain goal

before him, he presently rose to his feet and broke into a staggering

run. He dashed through the undergrowth, which parted easily before him.

He burst his way through more tangled vegetation and finally stopped

breathless at the base of a noble palm tree. Ripe cocoanuts had fallen.

He had cruised in tropic waters, and the knowledge he had gained was of

service. He broke one open. Not even the pineapple he had found the

day before tasted so delicious. When he had consumed it, he looked

about him.

Yes, this was a paradise. All about him, the farther side being several

miles straight away, in a rough, circular shape rose huge walls of stone

enclosing the loveliest tropic landscape his eyes had ever looked upon.

The one rift in these encircling walls was that through which the brook

reached the sea. He could mark its line of silver winding about through

the open land before him. The country was not level. It was rolling.

Clumps of tall, graceful palms rose here and there.

Upon a tree-crowned little hillock, almost in the center of the vast

enclosure, around the foot of which the brook ran, he saw a little

cluster of houses, such buildings as he had never seen or heard of in

the south seas. Smoke curled out of a real chimney. The place had a

familiar look to him. It did not present the appearance of a Polynesian

settlement, yet it was not absolutely unlike such, after all. Here and

there he marked little stretches of cleared land at the foot of the

hillock that looked strangely like cultivated fields. Similar gardens

bordered the brook. He rubbed his eyes as he stared, because he seemed

to recognize grain and plants with which he was familiar.

As his vision, obscured by his emotions for the moment, cleared, he saw

in the distance men and women, brown-skinned people, but a little

lighter than the handsome Polynesians with which he was familiar. He

heard the bark of a dog.

If this were not the Garden of Eden, it was yet a paradise to that

shipwrecked sailor. Yes, a paradise, and lo, before him, even as Eve

might have stood before Adam, was the woman whom he had twice seen

bathed in the rays of the morning, staring seaward from the high cliff

where she had poised herself before his view as a vision--the Spirit of

the Island!

*CHAPTER XVI*

*THE SPEECH OF HIS FOREFATHERS*

The woman appeared suddenly before him from behind a clump of bushes.

She was more surprised than he, for, having seen her before, he had

hoped and expected to meet her. Nothing whatever had occurred to

suggest to her his presence on the island. Besides, he had seen many

women like her, and in the familiar dress of the south seas. She had

never seen a man like him; never a white man; never a clothed man. She

stopped and stared at him; not in any alarm, apparently, but in great

surprise and astonishment. She made no movement to approach nearer, and

he remained rooted to his place, as well. Each one had time to take in

every detail of the other, and this is what he saw:

A young woman obviously just passing out of girlhood. Her abundant hair

was beautifully golden, throwing back in daring brilliance the bright

light of the morning sun. It was not dressed after the manner of the

savage Polynesian, but was neatly plaited in thick braids which were

twisted around her head like an aureate crown. He was near enough for

the details, and he observed that her eyes were as blue as the tropic

sea, and filled with light. Her slender figure, practically entirely

revealed, for she wore nothing but a wide spreading petticoat of

pandanus leaves which came just short of her knees, was the very

perfection of native grace and beauty, albeit a trifle immature and, as

yet, somewhat undeveloped. There flashed into his mind a remembrance of

a day at the museum of the Capitol in Rome, and his first sight of the

marble girl, which has a high place there and which is supposed to

represent the very perfection of girlhood budding into womanhood. No

marble had the rich softness of texture underneath firmness and strength

that the skin of this wonderful girl-woman exhibited. Even the tropic

sun had only slightly mellowed the clear translucence of her complexion.

A great scarlet flower was placed behind her ear in her golden hair.

Otherwise, she was absolutely unadorned. She was entirely unconscious

of her inadequate attire, and he was unconscious of it, too. As an

ancient nymph of Greece of old, she fitted into the soft beauty of the

landscape so perfectly that in his eyes, as in her own, she lacked

nothing. No apparel could have made more obvious the sweetness, the

innocence, the youthful charm of this graceful, enchanting figure. That

is what he saw on the heaven-kissing hill on that island.

In her turn, she saw a man who was dark where she was fair, whose thin

and haggard face was covered with a short growth of new and thick beard

and mustache which, nevertheless, did not hide its fineness; whose

sodden, torn, blue denim clothing could not disguise the strong,

vigorous lines of his well-knit figure; one who was whiter where his

complexion showed, and taller and stronger than any man she had ever

looked upon; whose clothes were as unfamiliar to her as her lack was

unfamiliar to him; who stood erect, perhaps a head taller than she, and

she was counted as a tall woman on that island, and stared at her with

great interest and delight. She noticed that he carried a singular

looking staff, the bright brass top of which shone in the light. He was

like nothing she had ever seen. He had no advantage of her in that,

except in so far as that charming girl of the Capitol was concerned.

Obviously she found him distinctly pleasing.

Controlling his nerves as best he could, he stepped toward this radiant

wood nymph, amicably extending his hands. Then he brought his palm up to

his mouth, intending thus to convey to her that he was hungry. In

return, she broke the silence by addressing him. There was something

extraordinarily familiar in the language she used. He had been enough

in the South Seas to have picked up a smattering of dialect, enough to

pass; but her speech, while it was suggestive, was, nevertheless, unlike

any native tongue he had ever heard before. He could not account for

its familiarity, though he could not understand it. He only shook his

head, put his hand to his mouth again, and moved his jaws. Obviously,

she understood this simple sign language, for she at once nodded to him

as she walked toward him.

She stretched out her hand to him, as she drew near, in a gesture that

was somehow singularly European, and when his greater palm met her own

daintier hand, to his great astonishment she shook it vigorously in a

way totally different from that of any Polynesian of whom he had ever

heard. Indeed, although the Polynesians are among the handsomest and

best proportioned people on earth, there was nothing whatever that

suggested a denizen of the South Sea about the girl, except her costume,

or lack of it.

She said something more to him that sounded as familiar as her first

address, but which was as puzzling and unintelligible as her other

speech. Then she withdrew her hand, turned, and walked across the grass

toward the clump of trees. She beckoned him to follow. Walk, of

course, is the word that must be used to describe her progress; that

monosyllable in this instance covers a multitude of graceful movements.

To his fancy she seemed to dance across the sward; to float across it;

her small, white feet skimming the grass; her slender, exquisitely

proportioned limbs flashing in the very poetry of free and unhampered

motion. He found her back view equally beautiful in its symmetry and

slender grace as the face-to-face impression.

Forgetful of his needs for the moment in his surprise and pleasure, in

the sheer joy of contemplating a thing so beautiful--a purely esthetic

pleasure, without thought of anything but the sweet innocence and purity

of the girl, which made it impossible to entertain any profaning

thoughts, at least for a clean, decent, young man like Beekman--he

followed her gladly. Behind the clump of palm trees ran a path through

thick growths of tropic fern and cane and blooming leafage. She turned

into it, and he had some difficulty in keeping up with her rapid

progress. She looked back from time to time to see that he was

following, but otherwise pursued her way without stopping.

After a walk of perhaps a mile, which led through groves of palm or

thickets of undergrowth, or across opens in which he noticed plants

under cultivation that had a singularly familiar look, although he could

not stop to examine them in that rapid progress, they reached the

settlement which he had observed when he came out of the cleft where the

brook pierced the wall. Their approach had been marked for some time,

and the whole population apparently had assembled to welcome them.

There were perhaps forty souls gathered under the palm trees in front of

the curious houses. As near as he could estimate, one-third of them

were men, mainly old; one-third of them were women, the most of them

past their youth; and the rest were small, quiet, anaemic looking

children. The women were clad like his guide. The men wore breech

clouts or loin cloths. They ranged in color from a whiteness that

nearly but not quite matched that of the girl to the rich, golden brown

of the Polynesian. Most of them were distinctly undersized, not to say

stunted. Old men and women predominated. The children were weak

looking, decadent. There was a listlessness about them; a languor

greater than that ordinarily to be found in the tropics. Even to his

first superficial investigation they presented the appearance of a

degenerate race of people that was dying out. There was no look of

vigor even about the young, but in nearly every face a physical and a

mental indifference. Surely here was an arrival to have raised the

wildest excitement in normal people, but these islanders were almost

passive in their scrutiny, albeit they were deeply interested.

Two figures detached themselves from the group as they approached, and

stood forth prominently. The first was a man of great age, venerable,

white bearded, white haired, hoary, wrinkled, bent with many years and

the infirmities consequent thereon. He walked with difficulty, leaning

upon a staff. His fellow was the tallest and most vigorous of the rest

of the men. He appeared to be the most intelligent of them all. This

is not saying that his intelligence would have been marked to a

European, or that his vigor would have been noticed elsewhere in the

world, but in that assemblage there was enough difference between him

and the rest to awaken instant attention. The others were quite

hopeless. The old man would have aroused interest and curiosity

anywhere. The young man would have passed in a crowd of Europeans

without notice one way or the other.

As they approached, Beekman's glance went from the girl who led him to

the young man. The two, he observed, looked at each other with a

certain familiarity which bespoke some sort of relationship. They

exchanged eloquent glances. He noted that the young man was as much

ahead of the rest of the islanders as he was below the girl. The old

man who had stepped to the front and stood leaning upon a twisted sort

of staff was the first to speak.

Again Beekman had that strange sense of familiarity with the words in

spite of the fact that he could make nothing of them. The girl answered

briefly. The young man joined in the conversation. The rest, slowly

drawing nearer, spoke in brief ejaculations from time to time. Finally,

the gentle tumult subsided, and the old man turned to Beekman and

addressed him directly. The American shook his head. The old man,

whose eyes were wonderfully bright and piercing, stared at him,

evidently nonplussed by the situation. Beekman made the same sign as

before, putting his hand to his mouth and moving his jaws, stretching

out his arms, and then, as an after-thought, he patted his lean and

empty stomach. It was obvious to the most backward that he was hungry.

The old man nodded his head vigorously. He turned and spoke a few

words. Some of the younger women walked off in the direction of the

huts. Meanwhile, with a gesture singularly graceful, the old man

beckoned to Beekman to sit down upon a rude rock bench under a giant

palm.

Beekman was a man of great intrepidity, but even if he had been an

arrant coward, there was nothing to cause him the least alarm. For one

thing, not a single one of the group had a weapon of any sort, so far as

he could see. He divined that they had gone to get him something to

eat, and he took his seat readily. The old man squatted on the grass at

his feet, and the others disposed themselves comfortably farther away.

Only the young girl and the young man remained standing near him, and

side by side.

Evidently something had seriously displeased the young man, for he spoke

sharply and shortly to the amazed girl, who waved him away with a look

of haughty disdain. When the women appeared bearing wooden platters

upon which food was piled, the young woman, who seemed a person in

authority among them, took the first platter and, approaching Beekman,

dropped on one knee with a singularly graceful movement and extended it

to him. He took it without hesitation, examined it quickly, discovered

it to be some kind of roast meat, tasted it, striving to remember that

he was a gentleman and must eat as such in the presence of these people

who, whatever their origin, were obviously so gentle themselves.

The first bite told him what it was. A piece of roast pig on an island

in the South Seas! And the next platter was heaped with such vegetables

of Europe as would grow in tropic lands. How could these things be

there? The oasis cup in which he was, like the enclosed bay whence he

had climbed, was more convincingly than ever of volcanic origin. Shut

off for how many years God only knew from all connection with the rest

of the world, peopled by a nondescript race whose course was almost

run--the girl and the young man evidently throw-backs or freaks of

nature which had reproduced types of the past, much more perfect in the

girl than in the man--what was the explanation of these mysteries?

Pork--how came it there? And whence these vegetables of Europe? those

cakes of wheat? This white girl, these half- and quarter-breeds--how

came they to be? It was amazing. In spite of his hunger, he could

hardly eat at first confronted by such a problem.

A little clicking sound suddenly attracted his attention from the food

as the last bearer presented herself, her hands full of fruits. He

looked down and discovered that the noise was made by a pair of wooden

shoes which she was wearing, which had struck against a stone. A white

woman, wooden shoes, the food of Europe! He almost stopped eating, and

might have done so had he not been so desperately hungry. Well, the

mystery would add zest to the monotonous life of the tropics. He would

solve it somehow; the key must be somewhere on the island; meanwhile

there was breakfast. The food was delicious. It was somewhat

embarrassing to eat with his fingers; he could cut the meat with his

sheath knife, but he made unpleasant weather of it, as a sailor would

say.

When he had finished, and he played the dual part of Jack Sprat and his

wife, so far as the meat was concerned, for he cleaned the platter, the

old man produced a rudely fashioned pipe made from some wood unfamiliar

to him. With the pipe came a wooden box filled with tobacco, and one of

the children, at a word, brought him a stick, the end of which was a

glowing ember, from a fire in some kind of a stone and clay furnace or

oven before the circle of houses. He could not believe his eyes at

first, and not until he had lighted the pipe and inhaled the fragrant

contents did he know that it was very good tobacco--the last miracle of

that morning, he thought, but no. As he leaned back against the palm

tree, smoking in perfect content, the girl herself handed him a cocoanut

shell filled with, very tolerable native wine. All he needed for

absolute happiness was a book of verses, her presence, and the

withdrawal of the rest of the crowd, he reflected whimsically,

remembering Omar Khayyam. And in all this he had not once thought of

Stephanie Maynard.

His material wants having been thus attended to, the old man spoke to

the rest, and they slowly withdrew, going about their several vocations.

It was yet early in the morning, and he noticed that some of the men and

women proceeded in various directions, carrying what seemed to him to be

rude primitive agricultural implements. It flashed upon Beekman that

they were going to till the fields, which were, after all, only garden

patches. No great area under cultivation was required to support that

little handful. The dogs, whose bark he had heard, were as friendly as

the rest. Such a thing as passion or anger or hatred seemed out of place

and as foreign to the spot as they might have seemed in Eden before Eve

ate the apple.

The old man, the young girl, and the young man alone remained with him.

They spoke to one another now and then, but conversation with him was

impossible. They could only express their interest by eager and intense

staring. The old man finally came close to him and examined him. He

felt of the cloth of his shirt and trousers, looked critically at his

stout leather shoes, expressed great interest in the sheath knife,

broad-bladed and sharp, which he handed to the young man, who also

examined it and who was also much taken with the bright, brass-headed

boat hook. Beekman wished that he had some trinket or jewel, something

which he could have given to the girl, but, alas, he had nothing; not

even a finger ring.

While they were examining him, his eyes were roving about the

settlement. In the first place, he noticed that instead of being houses

of wood, the dwellings were built of stone, obviously the volcanic rock

of the island. There were more houses than such a number of people

would require. He counted a score of huts placed in an irregular way

under the trees. They were different from any South Sea island houses

he had ever seen or heard of, their only point of resemblance being the

roofs thatched with palm leaves. One house in the center of the

settlement was much larger than any of the rest. Its gable of stone was

surmounted by what appeared to him to be the remains of a tower. It was

a perfect parallelogram. He recalled, as he looked at it lazily, that

it was like the Noah's Ark toys of his childhood. In the front was a

doorway, closed by a worm-eaten wooden door. This building, like many

of the others, was overgrown with vines, creepers of which he did not

know the name, some of them brilliant with gorgeous blossoms. The

doorways of all the other buildings held no doors. Woven-grass curtains

depended from some of them, but even they were generally drawn back.

Each house was provided with a small, roofless, stone porch, a stoop, he

called it, in default of a better name, and there was a singular

European look about them, but a European look of the past.

Refreshed by his meal and his smoke, and tired of sitting, he rose to

his feet and, followed by the trio, he strolled off in the direction of

the nearest house. When he would have entered it, the old man

interposed, shook his head gently, took him by the hand and led him

through the village to a house exactly like the others, but on the

outskirts of the settlement. He pointed inward, and Beekman divined

that here was the place allotted to him. He entered. Plenty of light

came through the windows on either side, although, they were screened

with creepers. The place was stone floored, the flooring covered with

sand. It was absolutely bare of furniture and spotlessly clean. There

was nothing to be seen, and so he tarried not at all therein.

He turned and, no one opposing, retraced his steps, the others still

following until he reached the little platform in front of the largest

house with the wooden door. They were all watching him keenly, and when

he stepped up on the platform and laid his hand on the door, the old

man, with astonishing agility, climbed up beside him, thrust himself

between Beekman and the door, and with rapid speech and almost fierce

gesticulation barred the way. The young man joined him also, and,

frowning angrily, in spite of a cry of protest from the girl, who

watched them with alarm, he thrust Beekman back rather violently. The

American could have handled them both without difficulty; indeed, given

back his strength and vigor, he almost felt he could handle the whole

village, but he had no desire to incur the animosity of his kindly

hosts, and so he stepped back at once, smiling and bowing as if to

apologize for the mistake.

The little outbreak or struggle was over almost as soon as it had begun.

The only person who seemed very much annoyed by it was the girl.

Obviously, to the surprise of the young man, she appeared to be scolding

him vehemently, and in her reprehension the old man was also included.

Of course, Beekman decided that he would get into that building as soon

as possible. He was growing more intensely curious as to the whole

situation with every moment, and it flashed upon him that perhaps the

solution of the mystery was to be found therein.

In the course of the day, during which he was left entirely to his own

devices by the rest of the people, although vigilantly accompanied

everywhere by the three, he tried his smattering of South Sea _lingua

franca_, but without making himself understood at all. At noon he was

fed again, and in the afternoon he was glad to go to his own house to

take a siesta, where he now found grass and leaves piled in the corner

with native cloth robes thrown over them. He slept until he was

awakened by a touch.

The girl bending over him in the faint light of the evening seemed like

an angel or vision. He rose and followed her without, discovering that

the sun had set and that the community was about to partake of its

evening meal, which apparently they had in common. They were standing

around platters of food when he came, and what was his surprise to see

the old man straighten up, stretch out his hands, and say something

which sounded like an appeal to God, or the gods, while the rest stood

with bowed heads.

In the old man's words there was something more familiar than in any

others which had been employed, and as he stared at the strange scene,

the clue to the speech of the people flashed into his mind. Among other

things in which old Derrick Beekman had caused his son to be well

instructed had been the language of his forebears. He had been

thoroughly taught to read and speak Dutch, and, although it was an

accomplishment of which he had made little use, he had been too well

grounded to have lost much of his acquired facility in the years since

he had left college.

The old man was certainly saying some sort of grace-before-meat in a

language which sounded like Dutch, or as Dutch might have sounded two

hundred years ago, and which bore the same relation to the modern

language that English of that period might have borne to current speech.

No, it bore less relation, because it was debased by an admixture of

some other language which he did not know, but he was certain that Dutch

was at the basis of the speech. Never imagining such a thing, he had

not made the discovery until that prayer. He at once sought to avail

himself of his new discovery. Carefully choosing his words, he turned

to the girl, who hovered very near him, to the growing disquiet of the

young man, and thus addressed her:

"I know your speech. It is that my fathers spoke long ago."

He spoke slowly and with the utmost precision. At the first word the

girl clapped her hands, broke into a smile that was as beautiful as the

features that formed it. He saw the flash of her white teeth behind her

red lips in the twilight and her eyes shone brighter than ever. She

clasped his hand and drew it to her breast in her rapture.

"It is wonderful," she cried. "You speak as I."

As his hand touched her, as he felt the quickened beat of her heart, he

was thrilled as he had never been thrilled before. It needed but the

rough gesture of the jealous young man who tore his hand from hers to

complete a thralldom and an enchantment which had begun, although he

knew it not, when he had seen her poised upon the cliff above him in the

light of the morning.

*CHAPTER XVII*

*THE HOUSE THAT WAS TABOO*

Conversation between the islanders and their visitor was practicable and

possible, but at first neither easy nor fluent. It would not have been

such, even to a Hollander, but when on the one side there was a certain

unfamiliarity with a language not native to the user, unfamiliarity

added to by the time that had elapsed since he had made use of it, and

on the other side a language which had been largely forgotten in its

nicer usages, and which had been materially changed by a large admixture

of Polynesian, the interchange of ideas was at first hard. Still,

communication was possible and not too difficult; indeed, it became

increasingly easy with practice.

The islanders, the monotony of whose sequestered lives could scarcely be

imagined, welcomed the new arrival with the greatest satisfaction.

However they came there and whatever the length of their stay, and to

neither of these questions could they give him the slightest answer,

Beekman soon discovered that they had completely forgotten even such

civilization as the world had attained to when they had left it. The

only traditions they possessed were first of all a vague and indefinite

knowledge of God, whom they regarded as a species of Great Spirit or

Deity, who looked after them and to whom they must render a certain

amount of respect. They had no idea of the meaning of the jargon into

which their prayers had degenerated. Only the idea of some Spirit as a

power to be prayed to and propitiated remained. This spirit they called

Tangaroa--a purely Polynesian name.

The only religious observance he noted was that strange performance

before the evening meal. The sunrise visits of the girl to the cliff

opposite the rift in the harbor whence she had a view of the sea through

the opening for miles, and in which she never failed, perhaps had some

religious significance, although the girl could not tell him why she did

it or what was meant by it. Nevertheless, so strangely had the

necessity for the routine been impressed upon the consciousness of these

people that she, being appointed to the task, followed it without rhyme

or reason. Beekman suspected that originally it had been a fruitless

watch for some rescuing ship, the meaning of which, like the hope, had

faded out of recollection with the passing years.

The second tradition that remained was that many, many years ago--how

many they could not express---their forebears had landed on that island.

Where they had come from, why they had elected that place, why they had

never departed from it, they knew not.

The island and everything on it, with one exception, was free to

Beekman, who wandered whither he would without let or hindrance. There

was but one spot that was tabooed to him. Indeed, they used the

Polynesian word "taboo" when he sought to enter it, and that was the

largest building with the worm-eaten door.

Several times Beekman had left his hut in the night, intending to gain

an entrance to that building surreptitiously, in the hope of solving the

mystery, but at first, to his great surprise, he had found that his own

hut was under observation of one of the older men or women, who, indeed,

could not have prevented him from doing what he pleased, but who served

as a bar to action, nevertheless, because Beekman did not want to

involve himself in difficulties or to wound the sensibilities of those

who had received him so hospitably and entreated him so kindly.

Thereupon after the exchange of a few words, he had invariably returned

to his house, deferring the attempt to some more convenient season.

The mystery of the dwelling houses was, of course, explained just as

soon as he got the clue to the language of the people. They were Dutch

houses. He could reconstruct some of the story with reasonable

certainty. A party of Hollanders, accompanied by the natives, had

landed on that island in some long distant period. The time of their

landing had to be removed far back to account for the present

degeneration through continuous intermarriage.

So far as he could tell, there was no evidence of Polynesian blood in

two of the inhabitants of the island; old Kobo, the patriarch, and

Truda, the young girl. These were the names they bore, and Beekman made

no difficulty about identifying them with Jacobus and Gertrude. As far

as he could tell, they were pure-blooded Dutch. Kobo, the chief, was

the grandfather of Truda. There was less Polynesian blood in Hano, the

young man who was destined to be the husband of Truda, than in any of

the rest, but that there was some was obvious.

There was character, personality, individuality about these three in

varying degrees. The rest of the islanders simply filled in and made,

as it were, a fading human background. They counted for little or

nothing. They were industrious people in the fashion of the tropics.

They had evidently brought with them the products of Holland, even

including tulips; and such of them as would grow in the tropics they had

cultivated and continued to cultivate. They had not failed to

perpetuate all that had ministered to their human daily needs, even as

they had not altogether forgotten God and things spiritual and mental.

They would not allow Beekman to do any work. He more than paid for his

board by the wonderful stories he told them, gathered after the evening

meal, when men and women alike smoked their curious pipes. There were

no books on the island. They had completely forgotten how to read. They

had lost all memory of the outside world. They were circumscribed, shut

in, by the towering walls of the crater, and their lives had grown

correspondingly narrow and monotonous. Beekman had to adapt his remarks

as if he were talking to children, and backward children, at that; yet

two at least of his auditors manifested a quick comprehension and one

far surpassed the rest. The old man and the young man easily

understood, the girl even anticipated.

Kobo was too old to move about much. Hano had his work to do with the

rest, but by a sort of universal consent Truda was a free agent. She

and Derrick, at the latter's suggestion, thoroughly explored the island.

It was due to him that certain things were rediscovered that had been

forgotten, or, if remembered, considered of no moment.

With the girl as his guide and attendant he made a careful survey of the

vast cup in which they lived. He was not much of a geologist, but it

was easy to decide that here was the crest of a volcano, with a double

cone, one being the great cylinder that formed the harbor; this, the

smaller, the narrower, possibly the deeper entrance to the subterranean

fires of long ago, had been filled with water from the sea through the

rift. Into the other, the greater and shallower orifice, the earth had

come, birds had dropped seeds, vegetation had sprung up and the oasis

resulted.

There was but one source of fresh water on the island, the great spring

that bubbled from a low cone in front of the palm-covered hillock where

the houses were placed. The water was fresh, slightly mineral, slightly

effervescent at its exit. It ran through tortuous channels until it

pierced the encircling wall of rock through a rift, finally falling over

the high cliff to the gulf beneath. So near as he could determine, that

spring had never failed them.

The surrounding rock walls of the oasis were unsurmountable, both

outside and in, in most places, like the walls of the harbor. There

were two or three exceptions, however. There was an easy and practicable

path to the place where he had first seen the girl performing that

strange and mysterious ceremony of greeting, as it were, to the rising

sun. There had been some objection to his going there. It seemed to be

the custom that she and she alone should make that trip, but he had

insisted and had soon acquired the habit of going with her every

morning.

Through the rift a vast expanse of sea could be seen to the south and

eastward. They could peer down into the gulf and mark the white water

breaking on the barriers and the stretch of tossing sea beyond.

"Have you ever seen anything there?" he asked Truda.

"A few times, yes."

"What was it?"

"Smoke as from afar."

"And did you never think what it might mean?"

"How should I?"

"Have you never wanted to get away from this island?"

"What is there beyond?"

"The world."

"What is the world?"

"Love and hate, victory and defeat, failure and success--life is there!"

"I know not what you mean."

"Yet you are going to marry Hano?"

The girl looked at him curiously.

"When I am ready I must go to his house. Grandfather will join our

hands. I shall be his woman."

"Do you like the idea?"

"He was the best before you came. What else was there for me?"

"But now that I have come?"

"It is different here," said the girl, laying her hand upon her heart.

"That is love," said the man.

"And do you feel it?"

This was a question indeed, which, had she been a modern woman, he might

have answered lightly. There was something different about this girl.

He hesitated. He was not quite sure. They had retraced their steps and

were returning to the settlement. In the path suddenly appeared Hano,

his face was black with jealous rage. He did not lack courage, for he

stopped the two and faced the man.

"I will not have you go with her," he cried.

"I am not yours yet," said the girl, pushing forward and waving him

aside. "You shall not speak so to my friend."

Beekman had said and done nothing. With a low, passionate cry Hano

turned and fled. His time was not yet.

"That is hate," said the man; "jealousy."

"I understand. He likes you not because I like you and you like me."

"Yes."

The maiden walked along silent and thoughtful.

"It is a pity that you came," she said at last.

"Why?"

"I was content before."

"And now!"

"It is trouble here," she answered, laying her hand on her heart again.

"That is life," said the man, but this time she could not quite

comprehend.

She appealed to him as a wild bird might have appealed to its destined

mate in the forest glade ere the nest was builded. Indeed, she appealed

to him as no woman on earth ever had appealed to him. Stephanie Maynard

was not a girl to be disdained by any one, but there, in that idyllic

oasis of the sea, his remembrance of her was as of an artificial

creature, subject to conventions, hampered with clothes, fettered by

circumstances. And her dark beauty faded into insignificance compared

to the radiant gold of this child of nature, of innocence, of freedom.

Beekman had no idea where that island lay. That it had been unvisited,

indeed avoided, by ships was obvious, and the reason was easy to

discover. From the decks of a ship, if one by chance passed near it,

nothing but arid rock, surrounded by dangerous reefs, could be seen. He

had climbed, attended by the faithful Truda, the few other points

whereby one could reach the top of the wall. There was no gulf or

harbor on any other side. The walls ran down sharply to the sea,

sloping here and there, but never practicable, and about all was flung

the great encircling barrier reef upon which assaulting waves ever

surrounded the desolate looking peak of rock with a ring of white foam

and spray, as marked and as beautiful in the cobalt sea as it was

dangerous to a ship. He doubted if even a great beacon fire upon the

wall would attract a ship. If it were seen it might be deemed only a

recrudescence of volcanic fires. It seemed to him that he might perhaps

pass the rest of his life there. Certainly he would, unless he could

devise some way to get off unaided. He did not reflect that perhaps he

might eventually be sought if the boatswain ever got word to New York.

Even if a ship were sent to find him, the chances of success would be so

faint as to be negligible. The prospect was appalling, would have been

insupportable but for Truda.

Why should he not take her for his own, willing or unwilling though the

islanders might be, pleased or displeased though Hano might show

himself? Although she could not describe it, the girl had grown

passionately devoted to him in that brief but most familiar intercourse

and intimacy, that was as close as could obtain. He felt sorry for Hano

in a way, the only man on the island who might have aspired to this

beautiful maiden, when he found himself suddenly thrust back, his place

taken by this stranger; for Hano life, which had been so fair, became

horrible.

With fiery energy Hano paid more direct court to Truda. He protested

vehemently to Kobo. He sought to enlist the sympathies of the other men

and women on the island and perhaps succeeded to some extent, but not to

the point of open resistance. The islanders looked up to Hano, but they

looked up much more to Truda herself, whose beauty and purity of blood

particularly appealed to them, and they were mightily afraid of stern

old Kobo, who seemed to have the determination of matters in hand, and

who was much attracted to this new inhabitant cast up by the sea upon

their shores.

As the days slipped by, as his association with the maiden revealed more

and more a simplicity of mind, a tractability of soul, a brightness of

spirit, a quickness of intellect, that accorded with her absolute

physical perfection, Beekman became more and more in love with her. He

set himself to teach her to speak English, and she learned with the

facility of a child. He could not teach her to read or write. He had

no material for either, but he opened to her his well-stored mind.

There was little else to do, in fact, and the two sat together for

hours, the woman receiving, the man giving. The fact that she soon

learned to speak in English added to the awe in which most of the

islanders held the girl, increased the hatred of Hano, and at last

aroused the suspicion of the patriarch.

Beekman was careful of the feelings of his new friends, but when it came

to a question between their feelings and the woman he loved it was not

difficult to see that everything else must give way. In all these

idyllic days the American had held fast to his purpose of getting into

that building, which was the only spot from which he was barred, in

order that he might solve the mystery of the presence of this people on

the island, the key to which he was sure would be found there.

One circumstance whetted his curiosity more than any other thing. On

the night of the full moon every month old Kobo disappeared.

Questioning Truda, he discovered that always at that period in the month

old Kobo spent the day alone in the tabooed building. Truda did not

know why. She could not tell what he did there, but it was the custom,

and when Kobo died the next oldest man would do the same. The rest of

the people were not allowed in the building during the day, but before

nightfall the door was thrown open. Kobo stood in the doorway and

beckoned. The people had been waiting and they all, down to the smallest

child, walked in. Truda came last, but when Beekman would have

followed, Hano shut the door in his face. Whatever the rite that was

being observed, it was evidently not meet that he, a stranger, should

see it, much less participate in it.

They stayed in the building a long time, long after nightfall, and their

supper that night was something in the nature of a feast. It was late

when they retired. It seemed to Beekman that they would be heavy with

sleep and that perhaps such a night would afford him an opportunity to

get into that building. He bided his time. He was careful to say

nothing whatever which would arouse any suspicions. He did not even ask

the meaning of the strange ceremony when he bade Truda good night and

went into his own house some months after his arrival at the island.

*CHAPTER XVIII*

*MOONLIGHT MIDNIGHT MADNESS*

In order effectively to lull suspicion, after the first few weeks on the

island, Beekman had made no attempt at all to approach the forbidden

building, not even by day. He rightly judged that the listless people of

the island would presently tire of their unwonted night duty and the

watch would be abandoned eventually. Nevertheless, he neglected no

precaution on that particular night as he stole out of his house. The

tropic moon filled the sky with splendor and the island with light. It

was easy for him, however, to keep in the dark shadow of the palm trees.

Walking with the utmost circumspection and care and looking about him

constantly for any possible watcher, he at last reached the platform

whence he had been so violently thrust on the day of his arrival. The

building was placed in such a way that the platform was in deep shadow.

He stepped up on it and tried the door. It did not give to his

pressure, and although he finally thrust against it with all his

strength, which was considerable now that he was completely restored to

health and bodily vigor, it remained immovable.

He had examined the door carefully as he had passed it many times, and

he now decided that it must be secured inside by bars of wood in slots.

There was no latch or lock outside of it. Only old Kobo knew its

secret.

Balked there, he stole around the building, taking care to keep on the

side away from the moon. He hoped that there might be another entrance

at the back. If he could find one it would be better for him to get in

that way, rather than by climbing through one of the windows, which were

much higher from the ground than those of the ordinary houses of the

settlement. That method of entrance indeed presented no difficulty to

an active man, especially as he would be aided by the creepers, but to

attempt it was apt to attract attention and, therefore, it must only be

resorted to in default of any better plan.

He followed the wall carefully, turned the rear corner of the building

and discovered, what he had half suspected, beneath a screen of vines

and leafage an opening set low down near the ground. He parted the

vines and peered into the thick darkness within. There was, of course,

absolutely nothing to be seen. He had no means of making a light. For

a moment he had an idea of going back to the oven, a Dutch oven, he

called it now, where a fire was constantly kept burning, to kindle a

torch. He decided that would be too risky and had just made up his mind

to venture into the black pit that yawned before him, not a single

detail of which was visible, when a hand fell lightly on his shoulder.