ack dismounted, and, hooking his arm through the bridle, he walked
beside the Maori girl.

"Why didn't you ride, Amiria?"

"My horse is turned out on the hills at the back of the _pa_, and it's
too much trouble to bring him in for so short a ride. Besides, the walk
won't hurt me: if I don't take exercise I shall lose my figure." She
burst into a merry laugh, for she knew that, as she was then dressed,
her beauty depended on elasticity of limb and sweetness of face rather
than upon shape and fashion.

"I'll show you the wreck," she said. "It lies between us and the _pa_.
It looks a very harmless place in calm weather with the sun shining on
the smooth sea. The tide is out, so we ought to be able to reach the
wreck without swimming."

They had come now to the edge of the "bush," and here Scarlett tied his
horse to the bough of a tree; and with Amiria he paced the soft and
sparkling sands, to which the road ran parallel.

The tide was low, as the girl had said, and the jagged rocks on which
the bones of the ship lay stranded, stood black and prominent above the
smooth water. The inner reefs were high and dry, and upon the slippery
corrugations of the rocks, covered with seaweed and encrusted with
shell-fish, the two walked; the Maori girl barefooted and agile, the
Englishman heavily shod and clumsy.

Seeing the difficulty of Scarlett's advance, Amiria held out her hand to
him, and so linked they approached the sea. A narrow belt of water
separated them from the reef on which the wreck lay, and to cross this
meant immersion.

"The tide is not as low as I thought," said Amiria. "At low spring-tide
you can walk, almost dry-shod, to the other side."

"I'm afraid we can't reach it without a ducking," said Scarlett.

"But you can swim?"

Scarlett laughed. "It's hardly good enough to ride home in wet clothes."
He divined Amiria's meaning, but pretended otherwise.

Then she laughed, too. "But I have a plan," she said. Without a word
more, she threw off her flax cape and dropped into the water. A few
strokes and she had reached the further reef. "It will be all right,"
she cried, "I think I can ferry you across on a raft."

She walked over the sharp rocks as though her feet were impervious, and
clambering through a great rent in the vessel's side, she disappeared.

When next Jack caught sight of her she was perched on the top of the
battered poop, whence she called, "I'll roll a cask over the rocks, and
get you acro