a man
of sense and quick resolution, he packed his traps and at sunset went
aboard the cutter. As they rippled along with the first puffs of the
land-breeze, he glanced back but once at the lights of Nairai Viwa
village that illumined the cutter's wake, and then, like a wise man, the
hopes and dreams of the past drifted astern too.

And then for the next two years he drifted about from one group to
another till he found an island that suited him well--no other white man
lived there.

*****

II.

The laughing, merry-voiced native children who, with speedy feet, ran to
the house of Iliati, the trader, to tell him that a visitor was coming
from the man-of-war, had gathered with panting breath and hushed
expectancy at the door as the figure of the naval officer turned a bend
in the path, his right hand clasped with a proud air of proprietorship
by that or the ten-year-old son of Alberti the Chief.

Iliati with a half-angry, half-pleased look, held out his hand.
"Lamington!"

"Hilliard! old fellow. Why didn't you come on board i Are all your old
friends forgotten?"

*****

"Pretty nearly, Lamington. Since I came a cropper over that accursed
cotton swindle I've not had any inclination to meet any one I
knew--especially any one in the Service, but"--and his voice rang
honestly, "I always wondered whether you and I would ever meet again."

"Hilliard," and Lamington placed his hand on the trader's shoulder, "I
know all about it. And look here, old man. I saw her only two months
ago--at her especial request. She sent for me to talk about you."

"Ah!" and the trader's voice sounded coldly, "I thought, long ago, that
she had reconsidered her foolish decision of other days and had long
since become Mrs. Lamington. But it doesn't interest me, old fellow. Can
you drink Fiji rum, Lamington? Haven't anything better to offer you."

"I'll drink anything you've got, old fellow, even liquid Tophet boiled
down to a small half-pint; but I want you to listen to me first. I've
been a bit of a scoundrel to you, but, by God, old man, I exchanged into
the beastly old _Petrel_ for this cruise expressly to find you and make
a clean breast of it. I promised her I would."

"Confound it all, Lamington, don't harrow your feelings needlessly, and
let us have the rum and talk about anything else."

"No, we won't. Look here, Hilliard, it sounds beastly low, but I must
get it out. We met again--at a ball in Sydney more than two years