hat he lied to me. Teloma was
it who first mocked, and said: ''Tis his wife from Beretania who hath
come to seek him;' and then other girls laughed and mocked also, and
said: 'AH-HE! Luita, this fair-faced girl who sayeth she is thy
husband's sister, AH-HE!' ... and their words and looks stung
me ... So at night I took my child and swam to the boat.... My child,
see, it is here," and she touched a little mound in the soil beside her.

There was a low murmur of sympathy, and then the brown men went outside
and covered their faces with their hands, after the manner of their
race when death is near, and waited in silence.

* * * * *

Night had fallen on the lonely island, and the far-off muffled boom of
the breakers as they dashed on the black ledges of the weather reef
would now and then be borne into the darkness of the little hut.

"Put thy face to mine, Paranili," she whispered; "I grow cold now."

As the bearded face of the man bent over her, one thin, weak arm rose
waveringly in the air, and then fell softly round his neck, and
Brantley, with his hand upon her bosom, felt that her heart had ceased
to beat.

* * * * *

The next day he sailed the schooner into the lagoon, and Doris pressed
her lips on the dead forehead of the native girl ere she was laid to
rest. Something that Doris had said to him as they walked away from her
grave filled Brantley's heart with a deadly fear, and as he took her in
his arms his voice shook.

"Don't say that, Doris. It cannot be so soon as that. I was never a
good man; but surely God will spare you to me a little longer."

But it came very soon--on the morning of the day that he intended
sailing out of the lagoon again, Doris died in his arms on board the
schooner, and Brantley laid her to rest under the shade of a giant
puka-tree that overshadowed the stones of the old MARAE.

* * * * *

That night he called Rua Manu into the cabin and asked him if he could
beat his way back to Vahitahi in the schooner.

"'Tis an easy matter, Paranili. So that the sky be clear and I can see
the stars, then shall I find Vahitahi in three days."

"Good. Then to-morrow take the schooner there, and tell such of the
people as desire to be with me to come here, and bring with them all
things that are in my house. It is my mind to live here at Tatakoto."

As the schooner slipped through the narrow passage, he stood on the
low, sandy point, and waved his hand in farewell.

* * * * *

A wee