h girl as woman--dropped to the
sand and stretched herself out. Bentley looked about him for a
moment, just now realizing what he had been through. Then he dropped
down beside the girl, and put one arm over her protectively, an
instinctive movement. The two were alone in an alien world, and even
this slight contact gave Bentley a feeling of companionship he found
at the time peculiarly appealing.

The girl was in a drugged sort of sleep, but she stirred at the touch
of his arm, and her hand came up so that her fingertips touched his
cheek.

He slept heavily, while outside on the raging deep the storm swept on
along the coast, bearing with it the secret of the rest of those who
only last night had looked forward to a pleasant voyage aboard the
_Bengal Queen_.

The last thought in Bentley's mind was of that flickering light he had
seen. It was not important, but memory of it clung, and followed him
into his sleep with his dreams--in which he seemed to be following a
darting, erratic light through a jungle without end.

He wakened with the sun burning his face and torso, and turned on his
stomach with a groan. The heat ate into his back unbearably and he
finally sat up, rubbed his eyes and stared out to sea. Then it all
came back and he looked about him for the girl. She had disappeared.

He rose to his feet and shouted.

An answering cry came back to him, and after a moment the girl
appeared around a bend in a shoreline where she had been masked by a
wall of the jungle and came toward him. She was carrying something in
her hands. When she stood at last before him he noted that she carried
a bundle of cloth that was dripping wet.

"We need something to cover us," she said simply. "I was tempted to
garb myself, but I did not wish to seem like a simpering prudish
female, which I'm not at all. So I brought my findings here so that we
could get together and fix up something to protect us from the sun."

"You're a sensible woman," said Bentley. "I've never understood why
people should be so sensitive about their bodies. Mine isn't bad and
yours, if you'll pardon me, is superb. That's not a compliment, just a
statement of fact--which will help us to understand each other better.
I've a hunch we're going to be some time in each other's company and
we may as well know things about each other. My name's Lee Bentley."

"Mine is Ellen Estabrook."

Solemnly they shook hands. And their hands clung convulsively, for as
thou