shot!"

"Of course not," Mr. Storms hastened to say. "I don't know how many
arguments I have had with the captain to prove he was wrong, and that
this is Friday----"

And Fred threw back his head and roared louder than ever.

"It's a toss up between you. I don't wonder that you got muddled when
you were forced to stay in such an outlandish place as this so long. I
think I would have got mixed myself."

"Pray tell me what day of the week it is."

"This is Tuesday afternoon, with a half-dozen hours of daylight left
to you yet."

While this brief conversation was going on, the two natives were upon
the boat, waiting as if for permission to land. They sat as meekly as
children, in a partly crouching position, intently watching, with
their glittering black eyes, the three figures before them. They
appeared to listen with absorbing attention to the words, as if they
understood them--which they did not, excepting so far as they were
interpreted by the vigorous gestures.

Inez Hawthorne, as we have stated, had withdrawn to the house, when
requested to do so by her teacher, but her curiosity led her to step
forth and look upon the parties and listen to the conversation--the
distance being so short that she could hear all that was said. The
natives saw her, and so did Fred Sanders, who occasionally glanced
over the shoulders of the two men with whom he was talking, in a way
which they understood. The visitors could not fail to be greatly
interested in her, but Fred refrained for a time from referring to the
girl.

Mate Storms explained that the craft in which they came to this
portion of the world was wrecked, and that three of the crew were
lost, and the captain, mate and a single passenger saved. Since then
they had looked in vain for the coming of some friendly sail; plenty
enough, however, having appeared, only to depart again and leave them
in greater depths of gloom than before.

"Where are you from?" asked the captain, putting the question directly
to the young man.

"I'm an American, born in New England, and am seventeen years old, and
it is a long time since I have seen my home."

"How came you in this part of the world?"

"Why not here as well as anywhere else?" asked Fred Sanders, in reply.
"I left home when I was only ten years of age, and have knocked about
the world ever since."

"But you are now among the Paumotu Islands."

"Where I have been for a good while. Some time, perhaps, I will give
yo