bles taking iridescent form and bursting on the
surface of the sea. Froth and foam it was, quick-vanishing as he awoke,
non-existent as Skipper, Skipper's head on the withered knees of Bashti
in the lofty grass house. Malaita the real, Malaita the concrete and
ponderable, vanished and vanished for ever, as Meringe had vanished, as
Skipper had vanished, into the nothingness.

From Malaita the _Ariel_ steered west of north to Ongtong Java and to
Tasman--great atolls that sweltered under the Line not quite awash in the
vast waste of the West South Pacific. After Tasman was another wide sea-
stretch to the high island of Bougainville. Thence, bearing generally
south-east and making slow progress in the dead beat to windward, the
_Ariel_ dropped anchor in nearly every harbour of the Solomons, from
Choiseul and Ronongo islands, to the islands of Kulambangra, Vangunu,
Pavuvu, and New Georgia. Even did she ride to anchor, desolately lonely,
in the Bay of a Thousand Ships.

Last of all, so far as concerned the Solomons, her anchor rumbled down
and bit into the coral-sanded bottom of the harbour of Tulagi, where,
ashore on Florida Island, lived and ruled the Resident Commissioner.

To the Commissioner, Harley Kennan duly turned over Makawao, who was
committed to a grass-house jail, well guarded, to sit in leg-irons
against the time of trial for his many crimes. And Johnny, the pilot,
ere he returned to the service of the Commissioner, received a fair
portion of the twenty pounds of head money that Kennan divided among the
members of the launch crew who had raced through the jungle to the rescue
the day Jerry had taken Makawao by the back of the neck and startled him
into pulling the trigger of his unaimed rifle.

"I'll tell you his name," the Commissioner said, as they sat on the wide
veranda of his bungalow. "It's one of Haggin's terriers--Haggin of
Meringe Lagoon. The dog's father is Terrence, the mother is Biddy. The
dog's own name is Jerry, for I was present at the christening before ever
his eyes were open. Better yet, I'll show you his brother. His
brother's name is Michael. He's nigger-chaser on the _Eugenie_, the two-
topmast schooner that rides abreast of you. Captain Kellar is the
skipper. I'll have him bring Michael ashore. Beyond all doubt, this
Jerry is the sole survivor of the _Arangi_."

"When I get the time, and a sufficient margin of funds, I shall pay a
visit to Chief Bashti--oh, no British cr