Part 8 (1/2)

She took his hands and looked up into his face with such poignant longing and tenderness, that Jack's coh, were quite overborne by the scene Tough old Hatch snuffled audibly, and Brady could hardly speak

”Coer!”

Jack unclasped the girl's hands and suffered hiainst one another in the dark, they made shi+ft to find the uncertain path, Winterslea, in the lead, coo-eeing like a bushfellow for thee, and pressed on to the beach beyond, where their boat was already afloat on the inco tide They took their places without a word and pulled out in the direction of the shi+p In the pass, rising and falling in the heavy swell, they burned a blue light, which the _Dauntless_ answered with another, and ran up a uide them A few minutes later they clambered up the ladder, the boat was hoisted in, and the boatswain's whistle was rousing the watch on deck:

”Mainsail haul!”

Byon the dizzy main-royal yard with one ar but a little cloud on the horizon

At sixty, John Garrard was a post captain, a Knight Co rank and the couished, and he had won his way to the front as ood judgh professional attainments He had earned the character of atact, temper, and diplomatic skill; and no captain in the navy was more confidently ordered to those scenes of international tension, which, in spite of statesmen, so often arise in some distant place to menace the peace of the world

He had never married, and when rallied on the subject ont to say with a laugh that the sea was his only mistress No one had ever ventured to question hih his friends were often piqued, especially the women, as to an implied romance in the captain's earlier life It was known he supported two old-hters of his first commander; but in view of his considerable private fortune this drain on his resources seemed scarcely the reason of his renunciation Nor did it seem to his admirers that any woman could have had the heart to refuse him, for even at sixty he was a noticeably handsoe of good looks, a charallantry that made him everywhere a favorite

He was in command of the _Inflexible_ battleshi+p, one of the Australian squadron, when she developed soear and was ordered hoe Howard for overhaul The captain's heart beat a little faster as he realized his course would take him south of the Societies He spread out the chart on his cabin table and sighed as he laid his finger on Borabora He shut his eyes, and saw the basaltic cliffs, the white and foaotten island He was a boy oncebeneath the pal all these years; the years that had left hiray and old; the years that had carried hiers in every quarter of the world! For hiirlhood, untouched by ti by the shore for his return It shocked him to remember she was not far short of sixty--a fat old wo chief, and, rown children of her own! How incredible it seeht land and see her But a word, and the questions of forty years ht yet be answered--answered, yes, to shatter, as like as not, with pitiless realities the tender figment of a dream No, he said, he dared not expose himself to a possible disillusion, to play into the hands of sardonic nature, everat man No; but he would carry his shi+p close inshore and watch fro bays and tiny settle to his vanished youth, he would sink over the horizon, his memory thrilled and his sentiland

Daas breaking as he slowed down to leeward of the island and watched the shadows melt away It was Sunday, a day of heavenly calm, fresh yet windless, with a sea so smooth that the barrier reefs for once were silent, and one could hear, far across the hushed and shi+ning water, the coo of pigeons in the forest Under bare steerage ith the leadsed the shore and steae, high above the wondering faces of his command, the white-haired captain, in of those inner eht of the battleshi+p brought out here and there a startled figure or a group; a couple of laughing girls, astride on ponies, raced the _Inflexible_ for ain a precipice, threw kisses with their saucy hands; little children ran out into the lagoon, shouting with joy; old men, in Sunday _parius_ and with black Bibles under their arot for a moment the road to church A whitecoffee on the veranda of his little house He darted inside, and reappeared with a azine rifle which he e and lowering a Union Jack the size of a handkerchief The battleshi+p dipped her stately white ensign in acknowledght salute a fly, and swept on with majesty

With every ly familiar as Sir John was borne toward Lihua, the scene of his boyish folly He looked ashore in wonder, surprised at the vividness and exactness of his recollection He h those tangled, scented paths with no other guide butfalls; there, the ti'a a Peau where he had shot his first goat; yonder, the ht in the clouds in an air of English cold It was like a ho out before him He looked at his hands, his thin, veined, wrinkled hands, and it came over him with a sort of wonder that he was an old o,” he said to hio!”

And yet, by God! it all seemed like yesterday

As Lihua opened out and he perceived, with an inexpressible pang, the thatched houses set deep in the shade of palms and breadfruit trees, he felt hie and painful indecision He paced up and down the bridge; he lit a cigar and threw it away again; he twice approached Captain Stillwell as though to give an order, and then, still in doubt, turned shamefacedly on his heel

”By the deep nine!” came the hoarse murmur of the leadsman

It lay with him to stop the shi+p or not; a word, and she would co to a standstill; a word, and the boatsould pipe away his gig and the creould be running to their places His heart ached with the desire to land, but so, he knew not what, withheld the order on his lips Let him remain silent, and the opportunity would pass away forever; it was passing noith every turn of the propeller Had he not told her he would return? Had he not whispered it that night when they were torn apart? Did he not owe it to her to keep the proiven in the flush of youth and hope, and sealed with scalding tears?

His resolution was taken He ordered Captain Stillwell to stop the shi+p and lower a boat

”I a to treat myself to a run ashore,” he said by way of explanation

The vessel slowly stopped The covers hipped off the gig She was hoisted out and lowered, the crew dropping down the ladder into their places at the peep-peep-peep of the whistle

”I leave the shi+p,” said Sir John, not to convey a fact patently obvious, but in obedience to a naval forone days he had often whiled away an hour waiting in charge of Hadow's boat It gave hiainst the shi+ngle, and to find hi foot in Lihua He drew a deep breath as he looked about and noticed how unchanged it all was There were sorass on the sites of others that were endeared to him in recollection; but it was Lihua, after all, the Lihua of his boyhood, the Lihua of his drea with the phanto their faces, recalling a thousand things he had forgotten

It cae was empty Then he remembered it was Sunday, and they were all in church Thank God, there was none to watch hihts

But they would soon be out again, and it behooved hiht He struck inland, his heart beating with a curious expectancy; at every sound he held his breath, and he would turn quickly and look back with a haunting sense that Tehea was near hih the trees He approached his old horown plantations It awed hi nearer at every step to the only house he had ever called his own As he heard the splashi+ng waterfall he stopped, not daring for the o on When at last he did so, andbut ferns and weeds, h He moved about here and there, up to the ar it gone

His foot struck against a boulder