f the atoll, making short tacks in to
the surf-pounded coral rock and out again. From the masthead, across
the palm-fringe, a Kanaka announced the lagoon and a small island in the
middle.

"I know what you're thinking," Grief said to his mate.

Snow, who had been muttering and shaking his head, looked up with quick
and challenging incredulity.

"You're thinking the entrance will be on the northwest." Grief went on,
as if reciting.

"Two cable lengths wide, marked on the north by three separated
cocoanuts, and on the south by pandanus trees. Eight miles in diameter,
a perfect circle, with an island in the dead centre."

"I _was_ thinking that," Snow acknowledged.

"And there's the entrance opening up just where it ought to be----"

"And the three palms," Snow almost whispered, "and the pandanus trees.
If there's a windmill on the island, it's it--Swithin Hall's island. But
it can't be. Everybody's been looking for it for the last ten years."

"Hall played you a dirty trick once, didn't he?" Grief queried.

Snow nodded. "That's why I'm working for you. He broke me flat. It was
downright robbery. I bought the wreck of the _Cascade_, down in Sydney,
out of a first instalment of a legacy from home."

"She went on Christmas Island, didn't she?"

"Yes, full tilt, high and dry, in the night. They saved the passengers
and mails. Then I bought a little island schooner, which took the rest
of my money, and I had to wait the final payment by the executors to fit
her out. What did Swithin Hall do--he was at Honolulu at the time--but
make a straightaway run for Christmas Island. Neither right nor title
did he have. When I got there, the hull and engines were all that was
left of the _Cascade_. She had had a fair shipment of silk on board,
too. And it wasn't even damaged. I got it afterward pretty straight from
his supercargo. He cleared something like sixty thousand dollars."

Snow shrugged his shoulders and gazed bleakly at the smooth surface of
the lagoon, where tiny wavelets danced in the afternoon sun.

"The wreck was mine. I bought her at public auction. I'd gambled big,
and I'd lost. When I got back to Sydney, the crew, and some of the
tradesmen who'd extended me credit, libelled the schooner. I pawned
my watch and sextant, and shovelled coal one spell, and finally got a
billet in the New Hebrides on a screw of eight pounds a month. Then I
tried my luck as independent trader, went broke, took a mate's billet on
a