ed shadows, shifting patches of moonlight, the
glimpsed abyss and silvered sea far down--these held no terrors. Sharp
danger and quick recovery, sliding moss and rasping rock, the clutch of
thorn and creeper--all the rude intricacies of wet earth and teeming
jungle seemed things accepted and accessory. She was tinglingly alive,
gloriously alert. This was her wonderful night, the great adventure that
somehow fulfilled a profound expectancy of her being.

Only at the chute she could not hope to aid. Motauri meant to find a
certain slanted fault beyond the last break that offered like a shelf.
If they could reach that, they might clamber under the very spout of the
hissing outfall, drenched but comparatively safe, for the rest was no
more than a scrubby staircase that bore away leftward to the gentler
slopes of the valley and the beach below. He told her his plan, then
swung her up again and took the whole task to himself, easing inch by
inch down the narrow channel. The water boiled and raved about his
knees; she could see the streak of its solid flood ahead, where it
straightened for a last rush, where the least misstep must dash them
down the glistening runaway into space.

But she would not look ahead. She looked at the dim, adorable face so
near her own, at the carven lip, the quivering, arched nostril, the
fine, proud carriage and dauntless glance of her godling. The flash of
their eyes met sidelong. With a deep-drawn sigh of content she
surrendered herself to him, drew her arms about his neck until she was
pillowed on his smooth shoulder....

"Strange there should be no boats at this end," said Motauri.

They paused by the outskirts of the village and peered toward its
clustered, ruddy firelights flickering out upon the shore. There was no
one abroad on that empty, nebulous expanse, but they could hear stir
and laughter among the huts and the shrill wailing of a child.

"It is still too early," he murmured, and led her back to the cover of a
thicket.

Miss Matilda was aware of a slackening from the keen excitement and
zested peril of their escape. She had a vague feeling that the boat
should have been ready to waft them miraculously over star-lit seas.

"How are you going to get one?" she asked.

"Any of these people would lend me a dugout, but I thought merely to
take the first at hand."

"I see none."

"No--they are gone. Perhaps the men are fishing on the reef to-night....
But that would be strange to