six miles away, at the foot of the range, and do a long, last
day's work, returning to the house on the following day. Meanwhile a
message was to be sent to Harris and Totten to bring the vessel into the
creek as soon as the tide served, which would be in forty-eight hours.
Then, whilst she lay for a week in the fresh water, so as to kill the
suspected _teredo navalis_ worms, which Mallet feared had attacked her,
she was to be made ready for the short voyage of thirty miles over to a
cluster of islands enclosing a spacious lagoon, where Corwell intended
to beach her till the rainy season was over, when he would return to
work a very promising stream in another locality. Already he and his
men, aided by the natives, had, in the four months that had passed since
they arrived, won nearly five hundred ounces of gold, crude as were
their appliances.

"Jack," said his wife, "I think that, as you will be away all day and
night, to-morrow I shall go on board and see what I can do. I'll make
the men turn to and give the cabin a thorough overhauling. Marawa, the
chiefs wife, has given me a lot of sleeping-mats, and I shall throw
those old horrible flock mattresses overboard, and we shall have nice
clean mats instead to lie on."

* * * * *

At daylight Mallet aroused the natives who were to accompany him and the
captain, and then told off two of them to make the boat ready for Mrs.
Corwell. Then he returned to the house and called out--

"The boat is ready, sir."

"So am I, Mallet," replied Mary, tying on her old-fashioned sun-hood.
Then she turned to her husband. "Jack, darling, this will be the very
first time in our married life that I have ever slept away from you, and
it shall be the last, too. But I _do_ want to surprise you when you see
our cabin again."

She put her lips up to him and kissed him half a dozen times. "There,
that's a good-night and good morning three times over. Now I'm ready."

Corwell and Mallet walked down to the boat with her and saw her get in.
She kissed her hand to them and in a few minutes was out of sight.

IV

A light, cool breeze, which had set in at daylight, was blowing when
Mary Corwell boarded the _Ceres_. Totten and Harris met her at the
gangway, caps in hand. Poor Sam, their former shipmate, had died of
fever a month before. They were delighted to hear that she intended to
remain on board, and Harris at once told Miguel, the scoundrelly-faced
Manila cook, to get breakfast r