Part 25 (2/2)

For a long tis: a curiosity of which he was di to it It was, perhaps, the ele the unknown that ive way to it

He had rowed, perhaps, a hundred yards when he turned the boat's head and made for the reef It was more than five years since that day when he rowed across the lagoon, E in the stern, with her wreath of flowers in her hand Itseeulls, the blinding sunlight, and the salt, fresh soon still bent gazing into the water, and round the projection of coral to which he had last ment of the rope which he had cut in his hurry to escape

shi+ps had co the five years, but no one had noticed anything on the reef, for it was only from the hill-top that a full vieas there could be seen, and then only by eyes knohere to look Froht have been, perhaps, a bit of old wreckage flung there by a wave in soe that had been tossed hither and thither for years, and had at last found a place of rest

dick tied the boat up, and stepped on to the reef It was high tide just as before; the breeze was blowing strongly, and overhead a man-of-war's bird, black as ebony, with a blood-red bill, cas He circled in the air, and cried out fiercely, as if resenting the presence of the intruder, then he passed away, let hioon, wheeled, circled, and passed out to sea

dick approached the place he knew, and there lay the little old barrel all warped by the powerful sun; the staves stood apart, and the hooping was rusted and broken, and whatever it had contained in the way of spirit and conviviality had long ago drained away

Beside the barrel lay a skeleton, round which lay a few rags of cloth

The skull had fallen to one side, and the lower jaw had fallen from the skull; the bones of the hands and feet were still articulated, and the ribs had not fallen in It was all white and bleached, and the sun shone on it as indifferently as on the coral, this shell and fra dreadful about it, but a whole world of wonder

To dick, who had not been broken into the idea of death, who had not learned to associate it with graves and funerals, sorrow, eternity, and hell, the thing spoke as it never could have spoken to you or ether in his mind: the skeletons of birds he had found in the woods, the fish he had slain, even trees lying dead and rotten--even the shells of crabs

If you had asked him what lay before hiht in his e”

All the philosophy in the world could not have told him more than he knew just then about death--he, who even did not know its name

He was held spellbound by the hts that suddenly crowded his mind like a host of spectres for whom a door has just been opened

Just as a child by unanswerable logic knows that a fire which has burned hiain, or will burn another person, he knew that just as the form before him was, his forue question which is born not of the brain, but the heart, and which is the basis of all religions--where shall I be then?

His mind was not of an introspective nature, and the question just strayed across it and was gone And still the wonder of the thing held him He was for the first time in his life in a reverie; the corpse that had shocked and terrified hiers upon his ht them to maturity The full fact of universal death suddenly appeared before hi tih turned to the boat and pushed off without once looking back at the reef He crossed the lagoon and rowed slowly ho in the shelter of the tree shadows asat hiht have noticed a difference in hilancing about hih he be lazy as a cat and sleeps half the day, awake he is all ears and eyes--a creature reacting to the least external impression

dick, as he rowed back, did not look about hie in him had received a check As he turned the little cape where the wild cocoanut blazed, he looked over his shoulder A figure was standing on the sward by the edge of the water

It was Emmeline

CHAPTER VII

THE SCHOONER

They carried the bananas up to the house, and hung them from a branch of the artu Then dick, on his knees, lit the fire to prepare the evening meal When it was over he went down to where the boat wasin his hand It was the javelin with the iron point or, rather, the two pieces of it He had said nothing of what he had seen to the girl

E strip of the striped flannel stuff about her, worn like a scarf, and she had another piece in her hand which she was he at a banana which they had thrown to hiht breeze rass, and the serrated leaves of the breadfruit to patter one on the other with the sound of rain-drops falling upon glass

”Where did you get it?” asked E at the piece of the javelin which dick had flung down almost beside her whilst he went into the house to fetch the knife

”It was on the beach over there,” he replied, taking his seat and exaether

Eether in her : so keen and savage, and stained dark a foot and more from the point