Carr. But I'll find out all about _you_
by and by. You'll have to just tell me _everything_. Now guess again."

"The captain of the _Lafayette_. He asked each of your sisters to marry
him, I know, and I suppose you followed in turn as soon as you began to
wear long dresses."

"That horrible man! We all hated him. No, indeed, it was somebody better
than the captain of a whaler."

"Don't be so superior, Tess. Your brother Ned hopes to be skipper of a
whaler some day."

"But Ned is very good-looking, and----"

"So was old Ayton before he lost his teeth, and one eye, and began 'ter
chaw terbacker' and drink Bourbon by the gallon.... Beauty is only skin
deep, my child."

"Oh, you, you--I don't know what to call you, but I do know that I have
a round turn of your moustache in my hand, and could make you go on your
knees if I liked. Now guess again; you're getting 'warmer,' because
it--_he_ I mean--is a captain. Quick, and don't struggle so. I mean to
keep you here just as long as I please."

"Well, then, old Freeman. He's a captain, or was one about a hundred
years ago, when he was much younger than he is now." (Freeman was a
nonogenerian settler on Ponape and a neighbour of Tessa's father.)

"Don't be so silly! I've a great mind not to tell you at all, but as
you haven't whimpered when I pulled your moustache I _shall_ tell
you--it--he, I mean--was Captain Reade, of the United States ship
_Narrangansett_. Now!"

Then all her raillery vanished in a moment. "He was a great friend of
father's, you know, Harvey; and first he asked father, and father said
I was too young, and then when I was leaving school in San Francisco to
come home he wrote to me and asked me if he could come and see me. And
he did come, and asked me to marry him."

"And you really didn't care for him, Tessa?"

"Not a bit. How could I? Harvey, I never, never thought about anybody in
the world but you," and she looked into his face with swimming eyes as
he pressed his lips to hers. "There, I'll let you go now, dear. I can
hear Huka and the others coming for you. But Harvey dear, don't stay
away for two whole days."

*****

An hour after leaving the village the canoes turned aside into a small
narrow bay on one of the larger islands. The water was of great depth,
from sixty to seventy fathoms, though the bay itself was in no part
wider than a hundred yards. A solid wall of coral enclosed it on three
sides, rising sheer up from the deep blue, a