little
caulking which we did with grass fibre and pitch from the stores. After
this with the help of the Orofenans who worked hard in their desperate
desire to be rid of us, we drew the boat into the sea, and provisioned
her with stores from the ship, and with an ample supply of water.
Everything being ready at last, we waited for the evening wind which
always blew off shore, to start. As it was not due for half an hour or
more, I walked back to the tree under which we had slept and tried to
find the hole whence we had emerged from the tunnel on to the face of
the cliff.

My hurried search proved useless. The declivity of the cliff was covered
with tropical growth, and the heavy rain had washed away every trace of
our descent, and very likely filled the hole itself with earth. At any
rate, of it I could discover nothing. Then as the breeze began to blow
I returned to the boat and here bade adieu to Marama, who gave me his
feather cloak as a farewell gift.

"Good-bye, Friend-from-the-Sea," he said to me. "We are glad to have
seen you and thank you for many things. But we do not wish to see you
any more."

"Good-bye, Marama," I answered. "What you say, we echo. At least you
have now no great lump upon your neck and we have rid you of your
wizards. But beware of the god Oro who dwells in the mountain, for if
you anger him he will sink your island beneath the sea."

"And remember all that I have taught you," shouted Bastin.

Marama shivered, though whether at the mention of the god Oro, of whose
powers the Orofenans had so painful a recollection, or at the result of
Bastin's teachings, I do not know. And that was the last we shall ever
see of each other in this world.

The island faded behind us and, sore at heart because of all that we had
found and lost again, for three days we sailed northward with a fair
and steady wind. On the fourth evening by an extraordinary stroke of
fortune, we fell in with an American tramp steamer, trading from the
South Sea Islands to San Francisco. To the captain, who treated us very
kindly, we said simply that we were a party of Englishmen whose yacht
had been wrecked on a small island several hundreds of miles away, of
which we knew neither the name, if it had one, nor the position.

This story was accepted without question, for such things often happen
in those latitudes, and in due course we were landed at San Francisco,
where we made certain depositions before the British Consul a