ave you to yourself. I _must_ have
a look at the barque, and find out her name. Wrecks have always had an
attraction for me; and, besides that, I want to get a sheet or two of
copper to nail over our stem, which was badly hurt when we ran ashore in
Apamama Lagoon."

In another minute or two Niabon and I started, she sitting for'ard and I
aft. The wind had died away, and the surface of the lagoon was as smooth
as glass, and, through the crystal-clear water, we could discern the
glories of the gorgeously-hued coral forest below. Is there such another
sight in all the world as is revealed when you look down upon the bottom
of a South Sea atoll.

*****

Ah, no, there cannot be! And here as I write, there is before me the
cold German Ocean, heaving and tumbling; grey, grim, and sullen under a
dulled and leaden sky, and snowflakes beat and beat incessantly upon
the opened windows of my room. Out upon the moor there is a flock of
snow-white seagulls, driven to land by the wild weather, and as I gaze
at them, fluttering to and fro, their presence seems to creep into my
heart, and their wild, piping notes to say, "You will go back, you will
go back, and see some of us again; not here, under cold skies, but where
the bright sun for ever shines upon a sea of deepest blue."

*****

For half an hour or more we paddled in silence over the smooth waters
of that sweet lagoon, the bow of the canoe kept steadily on towards the
wrecked barque; and as I looked at the graceful figure of my companion,
with her dark, glossy hair flowing over her back and swaying to and
fro with every stroke, and saw the graceful poise of her head, and the
backward sweep of her two little hands as she plunged her paddle into
the water, and withdrew it swiftly and noiselessly, I felt that I could
not, I must not delay in asking her to be my wife. Not that her physical
beauty had so wrought upon my feelings--I was above that, I thank God,
and a level brain--but because I felt that I loved her, ay, honestly
_loved_ her, and that she was a good and true woman, and our union would
be a happy one.

It took us much longer than we anticipated in coming up to the stranded
ship, or rather to the inside edge of the reef on which she lay, high
and dry, half a mile further to seaward. Taking my hammer and a blunt
chisel--to prize off a sheet of copper--we made the canoe fast to a
coral boulder, and set off across the reef, which gave forth a
strong but sickly odour