"You cannot do better than go ashore here," the captain had said to
Adair a few hours before. "I know the natives well. They are a
kind, amiable race of people, and many of the men, having sailed in
whale-ships, can speak English. The women will take good care of Mrs.
Clinton" (Adair had long since told him hers and his own true story);
"have no fear of that. In five months I ought to be back here on my way
to Port Jackson, and I'll give her a passage there. If she remains on
board she will most likely die; the weather is getting hotter every day
as we go north, and she is as weak as an infant still. As for yourself
and old Michael, you will both be safe here on Rotumah. No King's ship
has ever touched here yet; and if one should come the natives will hide
you."

That evening, as the warm-hearted, pitying native women attended to Mrs.
Clinton in the chiefs house, Adair and Terry watched the _Manhattan's_
sails disappear below the horizon.

*****

There for six months they lived, and with returning health and strength
Marion Clinton learned to partly forget her grief, and to take interest
in her strange surroundings. Ever since they had landed Adair and old
Michael Terry had devoted themselves to her, and as the months went by
she grew, if not happy, at least resigned. To the natives, who had never
before had a white woman living among them, she was as a being from
another world, and they were her veriest slaves, happy to obey her
slightest wish. At first she had counted the days as they passed; then,
as the sense of her utter loneliness in the world beyond would come to
her, the thought of Adair and his unswerving care for and devotion to
her would fill her heart with quiet thankfulness. She knew that it
was for her sake alone he had remained on the island, and when the six
months had passed, her woman's heart told her that she cared for him,
and that "goodbye" would be hard to say.

But how much she really did care for him she did not know, till one
day she saw him being carried into the village with a white face and
blood-stained garments. He had been out turtle-fishing, the canoe had
capsized on the reef, and Adair had been picked up insensible by his
native companions, with a broken arm and a deep jagged cut at the back
of his head.

Day by day she watched by his couch of mats, and felt a thrill of joy
when she knew that all danger was past.

One afternoon while Adair, still too weak to walk, lay outside