ions I awoke suddenly to a rhythmic
heave and throb which pervaded the ship. Dropping Aunt Jane's hand
I rushed on deck. There lay the various pieces of my baggage, and
in the distance the boat with the two brown rowers was skipping
shoreward over the ripples.

As for the _Rufus Smith_, she was under weigh, and heading out of
the roadstead for the open sea.

I dashed aft to the captain, who stood issuing orders in the voice
of an aggrieved fog-horn.

"Captain!" I cried, "wait; turn around! You must put my aunt and
me ashore!"

He whirled on me, showing a crimson angry face. "Turn around, is
it, turn around ?" he shouted. "Do you suppose I can loaf about
the harbor here a-waitin' on your aunt's fits? You come aboard
without me askin'. Now you can go along with the rest. This here
ship has got her course set for Frisco, pickin' up Leeward Island
on the way, and anybody that ain't goin' in that direction is
welcome to jump overboard."

That is how I happened to go to Leeward Island.

II

APOLLO AND SOME OTHERS

The _Rufus Smith_, tramp freighter, had been chartered to convey
the Harding-Browne expedition to Leeward Island, which lies about
three hundred miles west of Panama, and could be picked up by the
freighter in her course. She was a little dingy boat with such
small accommodation that I can not imagine where the majority of
her passengers stowed themselves away. My aunt and Miss Browne had
a stateroom between them the size of a packing-box, and somebody
turned out and resigned another to me. I retired there to dress
for dinner after several dismal hours spent in attendance on Aunt
Jane, who had passed from great imaginary suffering into the quite
genuine anguish of seasickness. In the haste of my departure from
San Francisco I had not brought a trunk, so the best I was able to
produce in the way of a crusher for Miss Higglesby-Browne and her
fellow-passengers was a cool little white gown, which would shine
at least by contrast with Miss Browne's severely utilitarian
costume. White is becoming to my hair, which narrow-minded persons
term red, but which has been known to cause the more discriminating
to draw heavily on the dictionary for adjectives. My face is small
and heart-shaped, with features strictly for use and not for
ornament, but fortunately inconspicuous. As for my eyes, I think
tawny quite the nicest word, though Aunt Jane calls them hazel and
I have even heard whispers of