course,
and gave it to Helen. It was open to the same strictures she had passed
on the other. Hazel was no chartographer. Yet this time she had nothing
but praise for it. How was that?

To the reader it is now presented, not as a specimen of chartographic
art, but as a little curiosity in its way, being a _fac-simile_ of the
map John Hazel drew for Helen Rolleston with such out-of-the-way
materials as that out-of-the-way island afforded.

Above all, it will enable the reader to follow our personages in their
little excursions past and future, and also to trace the course of a
mysterious event we have to record.

Relieved of other immediate cares, Hazel's mind had time to dwell upon
the problem. Helen had set him; and one fine day a conviction struck him
that he had taken a narrow and puerile view of it, and that, after all,
there must be in the nature of things some way to attract ships from a
distance. Possessed with this thought, he went up to Telegraph Point,
abstracted his mind from all external objects, and fixed it on this
idea--but came down as he went. He descended by some steps he had cut
zigzag for Helen's use, and as he put his foot on the fifth
step--whoo--whirr--whiz--came nine ducks, cooling his head, they whizzed
so close; and made right for the lagoons.

"Hum!" thought Hazel; "I never see you ducks fly in any other direction
but that."

This speculation rankled in him all night, and he told Helen he should
reconnoiter at daybreak, but should not take her, as there might be
snakes. He made the boat ready at daybreak, and certain gannets,
pintadoes, boobies, and noddies, and divers with eyes in their heads like
fiery jewels--birds whose greedy maws he had often gratified--chose to
fancy he must be going a-fishing, and were on the alert, and rather
troublesome. However, he got adrift, and ran out through North Gate, with
a light westerly breeze, followed by a whole fleet of birds. These were
joined in due course by another of his satellites, a young seal he called
Tommy, also fond of fishing.

The feathered convoy soon tailed off; but Tommy stuck to him for about
eight miles. He ran that distance to have a nearer look at a small island
which lay due north of Telegraph Point. He satisfied himself it was
little more than a very long, large reef, the neighborhood of which ought
to be avoided by ships of burden, and, resolving to set some beacon or
other on it ere long, he christened it White Water Is