shaved past her. Another moment and they were alongside the
little craft, into which Dick nimbly leaped, with the rope's-end in his
hand, crying, as he did so--

"Down helm, dear, and put her round!" A moment later he added, under
his breath, "Hillo! here is a complication; a couple of naked savages in
her! I wonder whether the beggars are dead!"

That, however, was not the moment in which to enter upon an
investigation of the matter, for the two craft were on the very edge of
the surf, and if by any chance the catamaran should miss stays nothing
could save them. So Dick, with lightning-like rapidity, took a turn
with his rope and made it fast to a sort of broad thwart in the centre
of the canoe, and then, hauling quickly up alongside again, he regained
the deck of the catamaran just as she was paying-off on the right tack.

As Leslie took the helm from her, Flora exclaimed--

"Oh, Dick, what does it mean? How came those two men--I suppose they
_are_ men?--in the canoe; and where have they come from?"

"From one of those islands, away out there to the westward, that we saw
from the summit, without a doubt," answered Dick. "I suspect that they
were caught unawares and blown out to sea by that gale of the day before
yesterday. Once blown fairly away out of the lee of their own island
they would have no choice but to keep their cockle-shell of a canoe dead
before the sea, and to paddle for all they were worth, to avoid being
swamped. I take it that they paddled until they were absolutely
exhausted and could do no more, and then flung themselves down in the
bottom of the canoe and dropped into a kind of lethargy."

"You think that they are still alive, then?" asked Flora.

"I have very little doubt of it," answered Dick. "These South Sea
savages are pretty tough, I believe; and even were they not, it would
take something more than, say, forty hours' exposure, in this climate,
to kill them. Oh yes; they are alive, all right."

"And how will their presence on our island affect us, Dick?" asked the
girl.

That was precisely the question that was worrying Leslie at that moment.
He had no personal knowledge of the native inhabitants of the islands
of the Southern Pacific, but had a vague recollection of having either
heard or read that, while some of them were very gentle and inoffensive,
others were extremely treacherous and ferocious; some of them even being
addicted to cannibalism. He was not, however, go