opponent got the upper hand,
and, holding him suspended for the moment, began to laugh at his
calamity. The laugh grew louder, until it awoke the startled sleeper,
who, opening wide his eyes, saw the veritable figure of Fred Sanders
before him, laughing as heartily as he had been doing in the struggle
in sleep.

"Mercy! where's the valise?" gasped the bewildered Storms, clutching
at the receptacle which lay at his side. "I thought you had stolen
it----"

Just then the quick-witted sailor recalled his situation, and he, too,
broke into mirth, in which there was not much heartiness.

"What a curious dream I had, Sanders! I really believe I have been
asleep!"

"And what is strange about that, since a full night has passed since
we last met? I hope you have had a good rest, even though your awaking
was not so pleasant."

Abe Storms was excessively chagrined, for his very action, when
aroused so unexpectedly, would, of itself, have turned suspicion to
the satchel, which he snatched up like a startled miser. This action,
united with what Captain Bergen had said, and with what the young man
himself had witnessed the preceding night, could not have failed to
tell him that that rusty-looking valise--about which the owner was so
careful--contained a great amount of wealth in some form.

But what of it?

This was the question Storms put to himself as he sprang up and called
to Inez--who immediately appeared--and began the preparation for the
last meal they expected to eat upon the detested island.

Captain Bergen was quiet and thoughtful, but the others were in high
spirits.

The two natives made their meal on board the proa, where they stolidly
awaited the coming of the passengers, the "baggage" having been
transferred the day before. And the sun was no more than fairly above
the horizon when the proa started on her eventful voyage to Wauparmur
Island--a voyage destined to be marked by events of which no one on
board dreamed.

CHAPTER XXX

ON THE FLYING PROA

At last the friends who had been left on Pearl Island three years
before, and whose hearts had been bowed with despair more than once,
saw the atoll gradually fade from view, until the top of the tallest
palm-tree dipped out of sight in the blue Pacific and vanished from
view forever.

"It seems hardly possible," said Abe Storms, when at last his
straining vision could detect no shadow of the spot, "that we have
been rescued. I'm so full of joy an