ands you've searched."

"You can have my marked chart; I've got a spare one. Brace up, old man!
you'll see your sister in a minute. She is terribly cut up over poor
Luita--more so than I knew you would be. But she was a grand little
woman, Brantley, although she was only a native."

"Yes," he answered, in the same slow, dazed manner, "she was a good
little girl to me, although she----" The words stuck in his throat.

* * * * *

Latham showed him into the brig's cabin, and then a door opened, and
Doris threw herself weeping into his arms.

"Oh, Doris," he whispered, "why did you not tell me you were ill? I
would have come to you long ago. I feel a brute----"

She placed her hand on his lips. "Never mind about me, Fred. Has
Captain Latham told you about----"

"Yes," he replied; and then suddenly: "Doris, I am going to look for
her; I think I know the place to which she has gone. It is not far from
here. Doris, will you go on back to Vahitahi with Latham and wait for me?"

"Fred," she whispered, "let me come with you. It will not be long,
dear, before I am gone, and it was hard to die away from you--that is
why I came; and perhaps we may find her."

He kissed her silently, and then in five minutes more they had said
farewell to Latham, and were on their way to the schooner.

The crew soon knew from him what had happened, and Rua Manu, with his
big eyes filled with a wondering pity as he looked at the frail body
and white face of Doris lying on the skylight, wore the schooner's head
round to the south-west at a sign from Brantley.

"Aye, Paranili," he said, in his deep, guttural tones, "it is to
Tatakoto she hath gone--'tis her mother's land."

* * * * *

That night, as she lay on the skylight with her hand in his, Doris told
him all she knew:--

"They were all kind to me when I went ashore to your house, Fred, but
Luita looked so fiercely at me.... Her eyes frightened me--they had
a look of death in them.

"In the morning your little child was taken ill with what they call
TATARU, and I wanted to give it medicine. Luita pushed my hand away and
hugged the child to her bosom; and then the other women came and made
signs for me to go away. And that night she and the child were missing,
and one of your boats was gone."

"Poor Luita," said Brantley, stroking Doris's pale cheek, "she did not
know you were my sister. I never told her, Doris."

"She is a very beautiful woman, Fred. They told me at Tahiti that