rne with no one to talk to excepting Fred
Sanders, who seemed in better spirits than usual. When they had
discussed the voyage, and he had given her as good an account as he
could of the island toward which they were hastening, and after she
had answered all his questions as best she could, she turned upon him
and asked:

"How long did you say you had spent in these islands?"

"As nearly as I can recollect, it is about five years."

"And, as you are now seventeen, you must have been only twelve years
old when you first came here."

"That agrees with my figuring," said Sanders, with a nod of his head.
"You can't be far out of the way."

"Where did you live before that?"

"Well, I lived in a good many places--that is, for two years. I was on
the Atlantic and on the Pacific and--well, it would take me a good
long while to tell of all that I passed through. I may as well own up
to you, Inez, that it was a wild, rough life for a man, even without
taking into account the fact that I was a boy."

"Then you went to sea when you were only ten years old?"

"That also coincides with my mathematical calculations," replied
Sanders, somewhat embarrassed, for he saw they were approaching
delicate ground.

"Then before you were ten years of age?"

"I lived at home, of course."

"And where was that?"

"You will excuse me, Inez, from answering that question. I have
reasons for doing so. Let me say that I stayed at home for the first
ten years of my existence, and was as bad a boy as can be imagined. I
fell into the worst kind of habits, and it was through the two
men--Redvignez and Brazzier--whom I've heard you speak of, that I was
persuaded to go to sea with them, when I ought to have been at home
with my father."

"Is your mother living, Mr. Sanders?"

The youth turned his head away, so she could not see his face, and
when he moved it back and spoke again there was a tear on his cheek,
and he replied, in a voice of sadness:

"My mother is in heaven, where her son will never be."

Inez was inexpressibly shocked.

"Why, Mr. Sanders, what do you mean by that?"

"A better woman than she never lived, nor a worse boy than I. You
can't understand, Inez. You are too young and too good yourself to
realize what a wretch I was. I deliberately ran away from home seven
years ago, and have never been within a thousand miles of it since,
and I never expected to do so, until within the last day or so;
somehow or other, I've fa