, perhaps, but fifty yards in width, and the
thick matted undergrowth of creepers that prevail in the wider parts
of the island gives place to a barren expanse of wind-swept sand, which
yet, however, supports some scattered thousand-rooted palms against the
sweeping gusts from the westward in the rainy season, and the steady
strain of the southeast trades for the rest of the year.

In such spots as these, where the wild surf on the windward side of the
island sometimes leaps over the short, black reef, shelving out abruptly
from the shore, and sweeps through the scanty groves of palm and
pandanus trees, and, in a frothy, roaring flood, pours across the narrow
landbelt into the smooth waters of the lagoon, a permanent channel is
made, dry at low water, but running with a swift current when the tide
is at flood.

*****

Within an hour's walk from the old trader's house there were many such
places, for although Drummond's Island--or Taputeauea, as its wild
people call it--is full forty miles in length, it is for the most part
so narrow that one can, in a few minutes, walk across from the ceaseless
roar and tumult of the surf on the ocean reef to the smooth, sandy inner
beach of the lagoon.

Unlike other islands of the group, Drummond's is not circular in
its formation, but is merely a long, narrow palm-clad strip of sand,
protected from the sea on its leeward side, not by land, but by a
continuous sweep of reef, contracted to the shore at the northern end,
and widening out to a distance of ten or more miles at its southern
extremity. Within this reef the water is placid as a mill-pond.

The day had been very hot, and as the fierce yellow sun blazed westward
into the tumbling blue of the sailless ocean, a girl came out from the
thick undergrowth fringing the weather-bank of the island, and, walking
quietly over the loose slabs of coral covering the shore, made her way
towards a narrow channel through which the flowing tide was swiftly
sweeping.

Just where the incoming swell of the foaming little breakers from the
outer reef plashed up against the sides of the rocky channel, stood a
huge coral boulder, and here the girl stopped, and clambering up its
rough and jagged face sat down and began to roll a cigarette.

The name of the girl was Ema. She was the half-caste daughter of the old
trader. She had come to bathe, but meant to wait awhile and see if some
of the native girls from the nearest village, who might be pas