ip!). Springing up, he strides out, and there,
slowly lumbering round the south-west end of the little island, under
cruising canvas only, he sees her. One quick glance shows her to be a
whaler.

In ten minutes Kennedy is in a canoe, flying over the reef, and in as
many more alongside and on deck. The captain is an old acquaintance, and
while the boats are sent ashore to buy pigs and poultry, Kennedy and
he have a long talk in the cabin. Then the skipper says, as he rises,
"Well, it's risky, but it's a smart way of earning five hundred dollars,
and I'll land you and the creature somewhere in the Carolines."

The whaler was to lie off and on all night, or until such time as
Kennedy and the girl came aboard in a canoe. To avert suspicion, the
captain was to remain ashore with his boat's crew to witness a dance,
and, if all went well, the white man was to be aboard before him with
Laumanu and stow her away, in case any canoes came off with the boat.

*****

The dance was in full swing when Kennedy, stripped to the waist, with
a heavy bag of money in his left hand and a knife in his right, took
a long farewell of his house and stepped out into the silent groves of
coco-palms. A short walk brought him to a salt lagoon. On the brink he
stood and waited, until a trembling, voiceless figure joined him from
out the depths of the thick mangroves. Hand-in-hand they fled along
the narrow, sandy path till they reached the beach, just where a few
untenanted thatched huts stood on the shingle. Between these, covered
over with cocoanut branches, lay a canoe. Deftly the two raised the
light craft and carried it down to the water that broke in tender,
rippling murmurs on the white sand. And with Laumanu seated for'ard,
gazing out beyond into the blackness before them, he urged the canoe
seawards with quick, nervous strokes. Far away to the westward he could
see the dull glimmer of the whaleship's lights.

*****

The mate of the _Essex_ was leaning over the rail, drowsily watching
the phosphorescence in the water as the ship rolled gently to the ocean
swell, when a cry came from for'ard: "A heavy squall coming down, sir,
from the land!" And it did come, with a swift, fierce rush, and so
strong that it nearly threw the old whaler over on her beam-ends. In
the midst of the hum and roar of the squall some one in the waist of
the ship called out something about a canoe being alongside. The mate's
comment was brief but vigorous, and the