en reward you!"

The sergeant again saluted, and without another word turned on his heel
and walked leisurely back to the boat.

An hour before sunset, Adair, from his hiding-place in the mountains,
saw the great ship fill her sails and stand away round the northern
point. Terry had left him to watch the movements of the landing party,
and Adair but waited his return. Soon through the growing stillness of
the mountain forest he heard a footfall, and then the woman he loved
stood before him.

"Thank God!" she cried, as she clasped her hands together; "they have
gone."

"Yes," he answered huskily, "but... why have you not gone with them? It
is a King's ship,... and I hoped--oh! why did you stay?"

She raised her dark eyes to his, and answered him with a sob that told
him why.

Sitting beside him with her head on his shoulder, she told him how that
morning she had accompanied a party of native women to a village some
miles distant on a fishing excursion, and knew nothing of the ship till
she was returning and met Sergeant Matthews.

"And now," she said, with a soft laugh, "neither King's ship nor
whale-ship shall ever part us."

*****

Another month went by all too swiftly now for their new-found happiness,
and then the lumbering old _Manhattan_ came at last, and that night her
captain and Adair sat smoking in the latter's thatched hut.

"That," said the American, pointing to a heavy box being borne past
the open door by two natives, "that box is for Mrs. Clinton. I just
ransacked the Dutchmen's stores at Amboyna, and bought all the woman's
gear I could get. How is she? Old Terry says she's doing 'foine.'"

"She is well, thank you," said Adair, with a happy smile, and then
rising he placed his hand on the seaman's shoulder, while his face
reddened and glowed like a boy's.

"Oh, that's it, is it?" said the American with a good-natured laugh.
"Well, I'm right pleased to hear it. Now look here. The _Manhattan_ is
a full ship, and I'm not going to Port Jackson to sell my oil this time.
I'm just going right straight home to Salem. And you and she are coming
with me; and old Parson Barrow is going to marry you in my house; and in
my house you and your wife are going to stay until you settle down and
become a citizen of the best country on the earth."

*****

And the merry chorus of the sailors, as they raised the anchor from its
coral bed, was borne across the bay to old Terry, who sat watching the
ship from t