rd, and north of that the rocky spur of which I
have made mention. The sun was setting behind us in a sky of orange and
crimson, and it was wonderful to see the playful lights now giving
veins of gold to the dark mass of the higher rocks, or washing over the
shadows as a running water of flame. I have seen many beautiful sights
upon the sea, in storm or tempest, God's weather or the devil's; but I
shall never forget that sunset which brought me to Ken's Island on as
strange an errand as ever commissioned a ship. The deep blue of the
sky, the vastness of the horizon, the setting sun, the island's shaping
out of the deep: these, and the curiosity which kept the glass ever at
my eye, made an hour which a man might fear to tell of. True, I have
sighted many a strange land in my time and have put up my glass for
many an unknown shore; but yonder lay the home of Ruth Bellenden, and
to-morrow's sun would tell me how it fared with her. I had sailed from
England to learn as much.

Now, Mr. Jacob, the first officer, had come up to the bridge while I
was searching the shore for an anchorage, and he, who always was a
prudent man, spoke up at once for laying to and leaving our business,
whatever it was, until the morning.

"You'll lose the light in ten minutes, and yon's a port I do not like
the look of," said he. "Better go about, sir. Reefs don't get out of
the way, even for a lady."

"Mister Jacob," said I, for, little man that he was, he had a big wit
in his own way, "the lady would be very glad to get out of the way of
the reef, I'm thinking. However, that's for the morning. Here's Peter
Bligh as pleased as any school-boy at the sight of land. Tell him that
he isn't going ashore to-night, and he'll thank you nicely. Eh, Peter,
are you, too, of Jacob's mind? Is it sea or shore, a glass in my cabin
or what the natives will sell you in the log-cabins over yonder?" Peter
Bligh shut up his glass with a snap.

"I know the liquor, Mr. Begg," said he; "as the night is good to me,
I'm of Mister Jacob's way of thinking. A sound bed and a clear head,
and a fair wind for the morning--you'll see little of any woman, black
or white, on yonder rock to-night."

Jacob--his little eyes twinkling, as they always did at his own
jokes--muttered the old proverb about choosing a wife by candle-light;
but before any one could hear him a beacon shone out across the sea
from some reef behind the main island I had noticed, and all eyes were
turned