again, bent northward, working toward that maze of tiny
islands which dots the wide South Seas.

Their water was getting stale, and running somewhat low; and they needed
fresh foodstuffs. Joel planned to touch at the first land that offered.
Tubuai, that would be. He marked their progress on the chart.

On the evening before they would reach the island, when Joel and Priss
were preparing for sleep, Priss burst out furiously, like a teapot that
boils over. The storm came without warning, and--so far as Joel could
see--without provocation. She was sick, she said, of the endless wastes
of blue. She wanted to see land. To step on it. If she were not allowed
to do so very soon, she would die.

Joel, at first, was minded to tell her they would sight land in the
morning; then, with one of the blundering impulses to which husbands fall
victim at such moments, he decided to wait and surprise her. So, instead
of telling her, he chuckled as though at some secret jest, and tried to
quiet her by patting her dark head.

She fell silent at his caress; and Joel thought she was appeased. As a
matter of fact, she was hating him for having laughed at her; and her
calm was ferocious. He discovered this, too late....

He had just kissed her good night. She turned her cheek to his lips; and
he was faintly hurt at this. But he only said cheerfully: "There,
Priss.... You'll be all right in the morning...."

He yawned in mid-sentence, so that the last two or three words sounded as
though he were trying to swallow a large and hot potato while he uttered
them. Priss could stand no more of that. Positively. So she slapped his
face.

He was amazed; and he stood, looking at her helplessly, while the slapped
cheek grew red and red. Priss burst into tears, stamped her foot, called
him names she did not mean, and as a climax, darted into her own cabin,
and swung the door, and snapped the latch.

Joel did not in the least understand; and he went to his bunk at last,
profoundly troubled.

An hour after they anchored, the next day, at Tubuai, a boat came out
from shore and ran alongside, and Mark Shore swung across the rail,
aboard the _Nathan Ross_.

VI

Joel was below, in the cabin with Priss, when his brother boarded the
ship. Varde and Dick Morrell had gone ashore for water and supplies, and
Priss was to go that afternoon, with Joel. She was sewing a ribbon
rosette upon the hat she would wear, when she and Joel heard the sound of