e said gruffly:

"I'm fairly well soaked myself. While you're changing I'll go and take a
run along the sands and dry my clothes in the sun. Before I go I'll
light a fire for you to dry your clothes on."

He produced from his pocket a small box wrapped in oilskin. Opening it,
he held up three lucifer matches, and, grimly, he said:

"These are worth more to us than your pearls. See--there are only three
left, and they're as dry as when I left the ship. I'm going to light a
fire just outside there, at the foot of the cliff. Once lighted, the
fire must never be allowed to go out. It must burn night and day. It
will keep us warm and cook our food. I'll start the fire; you'll keep it
going with what small pieces of wood you can gather. Do you understand?"

Grace was taken aback. For a moment she was speechless with indignation.
This man, this common sailor, was actually giving her a command, telling
her to do menial work, and admonishing her to do it properly, as if she
were a domestic servant. Her first impulse was to rebel and order him
angrily from her presence. On second thoughts, she said nothing. After
all, he was right. She ought to be willing to do her share. They were no
longer on the ship where she had only to touch a button and a dozen
maids and stewards ran to obey her slightest whim. Although reared in
luxury, and petted and indulged since her birth, she was not a fool. She
was quick to realize that conditions had changed and that their
respective social positions--hers and this sailor's--were now completely
reversed. She was dependent on him, not he on her. If she were to be
saved, it would be thanks to his resourcefulness, his courage. Her money
would be of no use here. He alone could protect and save her, so why,
quarrel with him. Docilely, therefore, she replied:

"Yes--I understand."

Armitage left her alone in the cave, and, proceeding along the silvery
sands, set hastily to work to gather together the scattered driftwood.
The beach was strewn for miles with the flotsam and jetsam of countless
tides, an accumulation that apparently had been undisturbed for
centuries. Much of it was moldy with age and, well protected from the
rains by overhanging rocks, was dry as tinder.

"This stuff'll make a bully blaze," he muttered cheerfully to himself.

He toiled with a will, glad of the brisk exercise to take the kinks out
of his numbed limbs. The sun was now high above the horizon, and its
warm rays felt gr