em is scarce, and this was in Ninia's mind.

They still kept hold of their paddles, and although afraid of the
sharks, waited patiently for the storm to cease, little thinking that
at that moment the ebbing tide and wind together had swept them into
the passage, and that they were quickly drifting away from their island
home.

All that night Ninia the widow and her four slaves sought along the
beach of Tugulu for the three girls, who they felt sure had landed
there. And when the day broke at last, and they saw that the gale had
not ceased and that the canoe had vanished, they ran all the way over to
the village, and Ninia threw herself at Sralik's feet.

"Thy granddaughter and my children have perished, O chief."

The chief came to the door of his house and looked out upon the wild
turmoil of waters.

"It is the will of the gods," he said, "else had not my whaleboat been
crushed in the night," and he pointed to the ruins of the boat-shed upon
which a huge cocoanut tree had fallen and smashed the boat.

Then he went back into his house and covered his face, for Ruvani was
dear to his savage old heart.

And Ninia went back to her lonely house and wept and mourned for her
lost ones as only mothers weep and mourn, be they of white skins or
brown.

*****

Away out into the ocean the canoe was swept along, and Ruvani and Ninia
still clung to her, one at the head and one at the stern. Once there
came a brief lull, and then they succeeded in partly freeing her from
water, and Tarita using her two hands like a scoop meanwhile, the canoe
at last became light enough for them to get in.

They were only just in time, for even then the wind freshened, and Ninia
and Ruvani let the canoe run before it, for they were too exhausted to
keep her head to the wind.

When daylight broke Ninia, with fear in her heart, stood up in the canoe
and looked all round her.

There was no land in sight! Poor children! Even then they could not have
been more than twenty miles away from the island, for Pingelap is very
low and not visible even from a ship's deck at more than twelve or
fifteen miles.

But she was a brave girl, although only fourteen, and when Tarita and
Ruvani wept she encouraged them.

"Sralik will come to seek us in the boat," she said, although she could
have wept with them.

The wind still carried them along to the westward, and Ninia knew that
every hour was taking them further and further away from Pingelap, but,