don warned, as the first blast of the squall
shrieked through the palms. They joined hands and staggered up the path,
with the ripe cocoanuts thudding in a monstrous rain all around them.
They gained the veranda, where they sat in silence over their whisky,
each man staring straight out to sea, where the wildly swinging riding-
light of the _Minerva_ could be seen in the lulls of the driving rain.

Somewhere out there, Sheldon reflected, was Joan Lackland, the girl who
had not grown up, the woman good to look upon, with only a boy's mind and
a boy's desires, leaving Berande amid storm and conflict in much the same
manner that she had first arrived, in the stern-sheets of her whale-boat,
Adamu Adam steering, her savage crew bending to the oars. And she was
taking her Stetson hat with her, along with the cartridge-belt and the
long-barrelled revolver. He suddenly discovered an immense affection for
those fripperies of hers at which he had secretly laughed when first he
saw them. He became aware of the sentimental direction in which his
fancy was leading him, and felt inclined to laugh. But he did not laugh.
The next moment he was busy visioning the hat, and belt, and revolver.
Undoubtedly this was love, he thought, and he felt a tiny glow of pride
in him in that the Solomons had not succeeded in killing all his
sentiment.

An hour later, Christian Young stood up, knocked out his pipe, and
prepared to go aboard and get under way.

"She's all right," he said, apropos of nothing spoken, and yet distinctly
relevant to what was in each of their minds. "She's got a good boat's-
crew, and she's a sailor herself. Good-night, Mr. Sheldon. Anything I
can do for you down Marau-way?" He turned and pointed to a widening
space of starry sky. "It's going to be a fine night after all. With
this favouring bit of breeze she has sail on already, and she'll make
Guvutu by daylight. Good-night."

"I guess I'll turn in, old man," Tudor said, rising and placing his glass
on the table. "I'll start the first thing in the morning. It's been
disgraceful the way I've been hanging on here. Good-night."

Sheldon, sitting on alone, wondered if the other man would have decided
to pull out in the morning had Joan not sailed away. Well, there was one
bit of consolation in it: Joan had certainly lingered at Berande for no
man, not even Tudor. "I start in an hour"--her words rang in his brain,
and under his eyelids he could see her as s