more haste, and set pearl _there_ as
well."

"What does that matter?" said Helen, looking down.

"Not much, indeed," replied he, sadly. "I am a fool to utter such
childish regrets; and, more than that, I am a mean selfish cur to _have_
a regret. Come, come, we can't eat; let us go round the Point and see the
waves reddened by the beacon that gives you back to the world you were
born to embellish."

Helen said she would go directly. And her languid reply contrasted
strangely with his excitement. She played with her supper, and wasted
time in a very unusual way, until he told her plump she was not really
eating, and he could wait no longer, he must go and see how the beacon
was burning.

"Oh, very well," said she; and they went down to the beach.

She took his crutch and gave it to him. This little thing cut him to the
heart. It was the first time she had accompanied him so far as that
without offering herself to be his crutch. He sighed deeply, as he put
the crutch under his arm; but he was too proud to complain, only he laid
it all on the approaching steamboat.

The subtle creature by his side heard the sigh, and smiled sadly at being
misunderstood--but what man could understand her? They hardly spoke till
they reached the Point. The waves glittered in the moonlight; there was
no red light on the water.

"Why, what is this?" said Hazel. "You can't have lighted the bonfire in
eight places, as I told you."

She folded her arms and stood before him in an attitude of defiance; all
but her melting eye.

"I have not lighted it at all," said she.

Hazel stood aghast. "What have I done?" he cried. "Duty, manhood,
everything demanded that I should light that beacon, and I trusted it to
you."

Then Helen's attitude of defiance melted away. She began to cower, and
hid her blushing face in her hands. Then she looked up imploringly. Then
she uttered a wild and eloquent cry, and fled from him like the wind.

CHAPTER XLVII.

THAT cloud was really the smoke of the _Springbok,_ which had mounted
into air so thin that it could rise no higher. The boat herself was many
miles to the northward, returning full of heavy hearts from a fruitless
search. She came back in a higher parallel of latitude, intending
afterward to steer N.W. to Easter Island. The life was gone out of the
ship; the father was deeply dejected, and the crew could no longer feign
the hope they did not feel. Having pursued the above course to within
f