he told him exultingly. "Heaven on earth, put
out that pipe and pack. We leave for Yaque to-night!"

CHAPTER VII

DUSK, AND SO ON

Dusk on the tropic seas is a ceremony performed with reverence, as
if the rising moon were a priestess come among her silver vessels.
Shadows like phantom sails dip through the dark and lie idle where
unseen crafts with unexplained cargoes weigh anchor in mid-air. One
almost hears the water cunningly lap upon their invisible sides.

To Little Cawthorne, lying luxuriously in a hammock on the deck of
_The Aloha_, fancies like these crowded pleasantly, and slipped away
or were merged in snatches of remembered songs. His hands were
clasped behind his head, one foot was tapping the deck to keep the
hammock in motion while strange compounds of tune and time broke
aimlessly from his lips.

"Meet me by moonlight alone,
And then I will tell you a tale.
Must be told in the moonlight alone
In the grove at the end of the vale"

he caroled contentedly.

Amory, the light of his pipe cheerfully glowing, lay at full length
in a steamer chair. _The Aloha_ was bounding briskly forward, a
solitary speck on the bosom of darkening purple, and the men sitting
in the companionship of silence, which all the world praises and
seldom attains, had been engaging in that most entertaining of
pastimes, the comparison of present comfort with past toil. Little
Cawthorne's satisfaction flowered in speech.

"Two weeks ago to-night," he said, running his hands through his
grey curls, "I took the night desk when Ellis was knocked out. And
two weeks ago to-morrow morning we were the only paper to be beaten
on the Fownes will story. Hi--you."

"Happy, Cawthorne?" Amory removed his pipe to inquire with idle
indulgence.

"Am I happy?" affirmed Little Cawthorne ecstatically in four tones,
and went on with his song:

"The daylight may do for the gay,
The thoughtless, the heartless, the free,
But there's something about the moon's ray
That is sweeter to you and to me."

"Did you make that up?" inquired Amory with polite interest.

"I did if I want to," responded Little Cawthorne. "Everything's true
out here--go on, tell everything you like. I'll believe you."

St. George came out of the dark and leaned on the rail without
speaking. Sometimes he wondered if he were he at all, and he liked
the doubt. He felt pleasantly as