to the unspeakable insults of these man-eating
Polynesians? If only he had the courage to release her by one blow, as
she lay there, from the coming ill! But he hadn't; he hadn't. Even on
board the Australasian he had been vaguely aware that he was getting very
fond of that pretty little Miss Ellis. And now that he sat there, after
that desperate struggle for life with the pounding waves, mounting guard
over her through the livelong night, his own heart told him plainly, in
tones he could not disobey, he loved her too well to dare what he thought
best in the end for her.

Still, even so, he was brave enough to feel he must never let the very
worst of all befall her. He bethought him, in his doubt and agony, of how
his uncle, Major Thurstan, during the great Indian mutiny, had held his
lonely bungalow, with his wife and daughter by his side, for three long
hours against a howling mob of native insurgents; and how, when further
resistance was hopeless, and that great black wave of angry humanity
burst in upon them at last, the brave soldier had drawn his revolver,
shot his wife and daughter with unerring aim, to prevent their falling
alive into the hands of the natives, and then blown his own brains out
with his last remaining cartridge. As his uncle had done at Jhansi,
thirty years before, so he himself would do on that nameless Pacific
island--for he didn't know even now on what shore he had landed. If the
savages bore down upon them with hostile intent, and threatened Muriel,
he would plunge his knife first into that innocent woman's heart; and
then bury it deep in his own, and die beside her.

So the long night wore on--Muriel pillowed on loose cocoanut husk, dozing
now and again, and waking with a start to gaze round about her wildly,
and realize once more in what plight she found herself; Felix crouching
by her feet, and keeping watch with eager eyes and ears on every side for
the least sign of a noiseless, naked footfall through the tangled growth
of that dense tropical under-bush. Time after time he clapped his hand to
his ear, shell-wise, and listened and peered, with knitted brow,
suspecting some sudden swoop from an ambush in the jungle of creepers
behind the little plantain patch. Time after time he grasped his knife
hard, and puckered his eyebrows resolutely, and stood still with bated
breath for a fierce, wild leap upon his fancied assailant. But the night
wore away by degrees, a minute at a time, and no ma