irst
rush of the hurricane caught them.

Karaki himself was reduced to a rattle of bones in a dried skin, and
Pellett could scarce lift a hand. But Karaki fought for Pellett among
the waves that leaped up like sheets of fire on the reef. Why or how
they got through neither could have said. Perhaps because it was written
that after drink, illness, madness, and starvation the white man should
be saved by the black man again and a last time from ravening waters.
When they came ashore on the islet they were both nearly flayed, but
they were alive, and Karaki still gripped Pellett's shirt....

For a week they stayed while Pellett fattened on unlimited coconut and
Karaki tinkered the proa. It had landed in a water-logged tangle, but
Karaki's treasures were safe. He got his bearings from a passing native
fisherman, and then he knew that _all_ his treasures were safe. His home
island lay across Bougainville Strait, the stretch of water just
beyond....

"Balbi over there?" asked Pellett.

"Yes," said Karaki.

"And a mighty good thing too," cried Pellett heartily. "This is the
limit of British authority, old boy. Big fella mahster b'long Beretani
stop'm here, no can go that side."

Karaki was quite aware of it. If he feared one thing in the world, he
feared the Fiji High Court and its Resident Commissioner for the
Southern Solomons, who did sure justice upon all who transgressed in its
jurisdiction. Once beyond the Strait he might still be liable for the
stolen goods and the broken contract. But never--this was the
point--never could he be punished for anything he might choose to do
over there in Bougainville.

So Karaki was content.

And so was Christopher Alexander Pellett. His body had been wrung and
swept and scoured, and he had downed his devils. Sweet air and sunshine
were on his lips and in his heart. His bones were sweet in him. As his
vigor returned he swam the lagoon or helped Karaki at the proa. He would
spend hours hugging the warm sand or rejoicing in the delicate tracery
of some tiny sea shell, singing softly to himself while the ground swell
hushed along the beach, savoring life as he never had done.

"Oh, this is good--good!" he said.

Karaki puzzled him. Not that he vexed himself, for a smiling wonder at
everything, almost childlike, filled him these days. But he thought of
this taciturn savage, how he had capped thankless service with rarest
sacrifice.

And now that he could consider soberly, the