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"We will now scan the horizon," he announced, when they reached the top. "I think that is what Robinson Crusoe would have done under the circumstances. No-nothing! Nothing to be seen but those big rocks jutting up out of the water over there. I noticed them this morning. They look like a row of teeth, don't they?" he inquired chattily.

"I fail to observe any resemblance," replied Miss Etherington.

"No? Well, I always was quick at noticing things from a child," said Mr Gale, with unimpaired bonhomie. "We are not all blessed with a good imaginHallo! what's that?" He seized the girl's arm in unaffected excitement, and pointed.

"You are holding my arm," said Miss Etherington coldly. "Let go, please!"

Mr Gale had already done so, in order to make a pair of binoculars of his hands.

"Do you see something projecting up between the two middle teeth?" he asked. "I think-I think-yes it is-the bow of a ship! It must be the yacht. It is the yacht! I can see the top of her funnel. She must have grounded there. I was right. It was a cyclone. The wind has been playing a perfect game of rounders with itself."

"Do you think there is any one on board?" asked Miss Etherington, suddenly hopeful. After all, a steward or a coaltrimmer would be something with which to dilute Mr Gale.

Another woman seemed too much to expect.

"I doubt it, but I will see," said Mr Gale.

"How?"

"I am going to swim out." "All that way?" "Yes; not more than half a mile, I fancy."

"Supposing there are" Miss Etherington paused, suddenly remembering that the man beside her was unworthy of solicitude.

"Sharks eh? Perhaps, but I must risk it. If I meet one, I will make a noise like a company promoter, and he won't touch me. Do you know what that old hull means to us? Blankets, tools, food! Perhaps they have left a boat on board."

"Can you swim half a mile?" inquired Miss Etherington.

"It is just about my limit," confessed Mr Gale frankly, "but I can try."

"Would you"-Miss Etherington wavered between common humanity and a feminine desire not to offer anything which could be construed into encouragement-"care to have my cork-jacket?"

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"If you are quite sure you won't catch a chill without it, replied Mr Gale tenderly.

He proceeded to buckle on the jacket, apparently oblivious to a look which to a thinnerskinned man would have made drowning seem an easy death, and scrambled over the rocks to the water's edge. He poised himself upon a convenient taking-off place.

"Back to tea!" he cried, and disappeared with a splash. It

is not easy to dive cleanly in a cork jacket.

Presently he reappeared, and struck out boldly in the direction of Double-Tooth Islet. Miss Etherington, seated upon the summit of Point Garry, her round chin resting on her hands, followed the course of his black head as it slowly forged its way across the limpid channel. Many thoughts passed through her mind. On the one hand, she hated Mr Leslie Gale to the fullest extent of a nature more than usually well endowed for the purpose. On the other, she knew that there were sharks in these seas—she had seen them. Even now she could descry in the

wake of Mr Gale a tiny black dot which might or might not be the dreaded triangular fin. She closed her eyes, and kept them tightly shut for more than half an hour.

When she opened them, a figure, silhouetted against the sky-line upon the summit of Double-Tooth Islet, was triumphantly semaphoring safe arrival. Miss Etherington did not reply. Instead, she rolled gently over on to her side in a dead faint.

After all, as she argued to herself when she came to, she had had a most exhausting twenty-four hours, and her sole diet had been a portion of cocoa-nut.

Mr Gale returned more expeditiously than he had set out, adequately clothed and propelling the yacht's dinghy, which was loaded to the water's edge with miscellaneous stores. "Help me to unload these things, quickly," he called to Miss Etherington, "and carry them up to the cave. I must go out to the yacht again before she slips off."

"Will you take me with you this time?" asked Miss Etherington. "Why?"

"I want some things out of my cabin," was the prim reply. "I'm afraid you haven't got a cabin any more," said Gale. "The stern half of the ship is under water, and I'm saving all I can from the forward part. However, I will select a

III.

wardrobe for you from what is available. I always had great natural taste."

He paddled away so quickly that Miss Etherington had no time effectively to ignore this last pleasantry. When Mr Gale returned an hour later he found her still sitting beside the heap of stores on the shore.

"The yacht is lifting with the swell," he announced. "She is just hanging on by her eyebrows now. Rolled over fifteen degrees a minute ago. Gave me a nasty turn, I can tell you, down in the lazarette grubbing for tinned sardines

for you. They are rather a favourite delicacy of yours, aren't they? Hallo! Why haven't you carried up some of these stores? Tired?"

Miss Etherington, who had

been rehearsing her part for this scene for the past hour, replied icily

"I am not accustomed to be ordered about."

Gale, who was lifting a heavy box out of the boat-the carpenter's tool-chest-laid down his burden and sat on it.

"Insubordination? H'm-a serious matter!" he observed. "We must hold a court-martial this evening." He rose, and continued: "As you don't appear inclined to assist me to furnish the Home, perhaps you will kindly repair to the Home itself. I will carry this case up for you, and you shall unpack it. Then you can make the place snug with a few deft feminine touches. When I have finished my day's work I shall expect to find my slippers toasting at the fender. is always done, I believe. Do not butter them, though, or Darby will have a few words to address to Joan. You will a fearful domestic

find me

tyrant."

That

Miss Etherington, dimly wondering whether this excursion into the realms of humour masked a threat or merely indicated mental vacuity of the hollowest type, rose from her seat and departed in the direction of the cave. But she did not halt there. Instead, she climbed to the summit of Point Garry, and there sat for a full hour surveying the sunset with an expression upon her features for which a competent under-nurse would have prescribed just one remedy.

The red-hot coppery ball of the sun dropped into the sea

so suddenly that one almost expected to hear it sizzle, and the warm darkness of a tropical night rushed down from the heavens. Stars sprang out upon the velvety sky.

"Partner!" called a voice from below.

"I won't-I won't!" muttered the girl to herself between her clenched teeth.

There was a pause, and then she heard the feet of Mr Gale climbing the rocky path which led to her eyrie. Presently his head appeared above the edge.

"Shall I bring your supper up to you, or will you come down to it?" he inquired. “I may mention that there is an extra charge for serving meals above stairs. Your food will cost you more, so to speak."

Miss Etherington was in no mood for badinage of this kind.

"I will come," she said stonily.

A bright fire was burning at the mouth of the cave, and a stew of a primitive but inviting character was bubbling in an iron pot hung over the blaze. Crates and cases had been piled into a neat rampart round their demesne. Over the cave mouth itself Mr Gale had hung a stout curtain of sailcloth.

"Be seated, Miss Etherington," said Mr Gale. "That is your place."

He pointed to a seat upon the sand, fashioned out of boat cushions propped against the base of the rock.

Miss Etherington obeyed.

"This is a one-course dinner," continued Mr Gale in deprecat

ing tones, "but I have no doubt that when you take matters in hand you will be able to turn out something more pretentious. What will you drink? I have a bottle of brandy, which had better be reserved for medicinal purposes, and a dozen stone ginger, which I have retrieved from the wreck at great personal risk, knowing it to be a weakness of yours. We must not be reckless about it. An occasional bottle on special occasions - birthdays and Christmases. I think tonight comes under the head of special occasions. Say when!" Babbling in this light-hearted strain, Mr Gale proceeded to do the honours of the feast, incidentally making a hearty meal himself. Miss Etherington ate nothing to speak of.

When he had finished, Leslie Gale punctiliously asked for permission to smoke, and lit his pipe,

"I wonder how long half a pound of tobacco will last me?" he mused, puffing comfortably. "A month, perhaps, with care. How ripping the

moon looks on the water !"

Miss Etherington did not reply. Her eyes were set. Gale stood up.

"Bed-time," he announced. "You are tired. Come and see your room.'

He lit a candle and screwed it into the neck of a bottle. The flame hardly flickered in the soft air.

"Please walk in," he said, holding back the sail - cloth flap. Miss Etherington obeyed, mechanically.

In one corner of the cave Gale had constructed a sleeping-place of blankets and boatcushions. On a convenient ledge lay a tin basin; beside it stood a bucket of fair water. Even soap was there. A deal chest served for chair and wardrobe.

Leslie Gale held the candle aloft.

"What do you think of me as an upholsterer?" he asked with pride. "I will see about electric bells and a hot-water tap in the morning."

Miss Etherington made no reply.

Gale set down the candle on the ledge.

"Is there anything else I can do for you in here?" he asked.

"No, thank you."

"Quite sure? It is the last time of asking."

Struck by a curious note in his voice, the girl looked up suddenly.

"Why?" she said.

Their eyes met. Mr Gale's, which were usually remarkable only for a self-satisfied twinkle, were grey and steely.

"Because," he said slowly, "I do not intend to invade your privacy again. Hereafter this cave is yours-utterly and absolutely to withdraw to whenever again you feel inolined, as you did to-day, to doubt my ability to behave like a gentleman. Good night!"

He turned towards the curtained doorway.

"Where where are you going to shelter?" inquired a

low voice behind him.

"On the beach-in an empty sardine tin," he replied. "Good night!"

A childish and flippant rejoinder, the reader will admit, utterly spoiling what might

have been a dignified-nay, heroic-exit from the cave. But Leslie Gale was never one to let the sun go down upon his wrath, or at any rate to let the moon rise upon it.

Miss Etherington awoke next morning to find the sun beating upon the sail - cloth curtain. Half-dazed, and failing for a moment to realise her surroundings, she uttered a stifled

cry.

IV.

quested not to throw the waiters out of the window, but to enter all complaints upon the backs of their bills, which will be considered by the Committee at its next session. But I am sorry you

A shadow fell upon the don't like cocoa. I will try

curtain.

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have enough tinned stuff to last us for months; but tinned turkey and tinned plum-pudding both taste very much alike after a few weeks; so these little fellows"-he helped himself to another fish-"will serve to drive away monotony. Have some cocoa?"

"I hate cocoa," replied Miss Etherington, with a return of her old petulance. Gale's assumption that they were settled upon the island for life angered her, as usual.

"Members," gabbled the incorrigible Mr Gale, "are re

and find some coffee for you. I am going to make a final trip to the yacht after breakfast."

"Is she still there, then?"

"Yes, I have been out already this morning. I don't think the old thing will hang on much longer, though. There is a heavy swell outside. By the way, do you know why Robinson Crusoe was not alone when he landed on his island? Give it up? Because he found a heavy swell on the beach and a little cove running up the sand... No?"-as Miss Etherington remained quite impervious to this outrage"Well, perhaps not! It might go better with a larger audience. It used to be received with rapture in the nursery at home. I thought perhaps

however, to resume. Is there anything else you require before the yacht goes under?"

"Yes-hairpins," said Miss Etherington unexpectedly.

"I'm afraid not," said Gale. "The only cabins not under

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