s the use putting up little bits of telegraphs on the island? I'll
make a kite a hundred feet high, get five miles of rope ready against the
next hurricane; and then I'll rub it with phosphorus and fly it. But what
can I fasten it to? No tree would hold it. Dunce. To the island itself,
of course. And now go to Stantle, Magg, Milton, and Copestake for one
thousand yards of silk--_Money! Money! Money!_ Well, give them a mortgage
on the island, and a draft on the galleon. Now stop the pitch-fountain,
and bore a hole near it; fill fifty balloons with gas, inscribe them with
the latitude and longitude, fly them, and bring all the world about our
ears. The problem is solved. It is solved and I am destroyed. She leaves
me; she thinks no more of me. Her heart is in England."

Then he muttered for a long time unintelligibly; and Helen ventured near,
and actually laid her hand on his brow to soothe him. But suddenly his
muttering ceased, and he seemed to be puzzling hard over something.

The result came out in a clear articulate sentence, that made Helen
recoil, and, holding by the mast, cast an indescribable look of wonder
and dismay on the speaker.

The words that so staggered her were these to the letter:

"She says she hates reptiles. Yet she marries Arthur Wardlaw."

CHAPTER XXXIX.

THE very name of Arthur Wardlaw startled Helen, and made her realize how
completely her thoughts had been occupied with another.

But add to that the strange and bitter epigram! Or was it a mere
fortuitous concourse of words?

She was startled, amazed, confounded, puzzled. And, ere she could recover
her composure, Hazel was back to his problem again; but no longer with
the same energy.

He said in a faint and sleepy voice: "'He maketh the winds His
messengers, and flames of fire His ministers.' Ah! if I could do that!
Well, why not? I can do anything she bids me--

_Graeculus esuriens coelum jusseris ibit."_

And soon after this doughty declaration he dozed off, and forgot all his
trouble for a while.

The sun rose, and still he slept, and Helen watched him with undisguised
tenderness in her face; undisguised now that he could not see it. Ere
long she had companions in her care. Ponto came out of his den, and
sniffed about the boat; and then began to scratch it, and whimper for his
friend. Tommy swam out of the sea, came to the boat, discovered, Heaven
knows how, that his friend was there, and, in the way of noises, did
everythi