he northward, and had to run the coast down.

By supper time we had fixed ourselves up comfortably for the night. The
rain now only fell at long intervals, the wind had fallen to a strong,
steady breeze, and we made up a fire, and cooked some more fish, of
which there were still numbers to be had on the beach merely for the
trouble of picking them up. Then we ate our supper, smoked a pipeful of
our precious tobacco between us, and discussed our plans for the morrow,
Yorke listening to my suggestions as if they were put forward by a man
of his own age and experience, instead of by one who was as yet but a
young seaman, and a poor navigator.

"I am quite sure," he said in his slow, quiet way, as he passed me
the pipe, "that you and I will get along here all right for weeks,
months--years even, if it has pleased the Almighty to take our
shipmates, and we have to live here till we are taken off by some ship,
or can build a boat. Your knowledge of ways and means of getting food,
and living in such a place as this, is of more value than my seamanship
and knowledge of navigation. Come, let us get out to the beach and take
a look at the weather."

He placed his hand on my shoulder in such a kindly manner, as his bright
blue eyes looked into mine, that, with the impulsiveness of youth,
together with my intense admiration for the character of the man
himself, I could not help saying:

"Captain Yorke! Please don't think I was boasting of what I could do in
the way of getting food for us--and all that. You see, I have been in
the South Seas ever since I was a kid--and by nature I'm half a Kanaka.
I've lived among natives so long, and----"

He held up his hand, smiling the while: "I'm glad to have such a good
comrade as you, Drake. You have the makings of a good sailorman in
you, but you're too quick and excitable, and want an old wooden-headed,
stolid buffer like me to steady you. Now let us start."

We walked across the narrow strip of land to the weather side, and sat
down upon a creeper-covered boulder of coral rock. Before us the
ocean still heaved tumultuously, and the long, white-crested breakers
thundered heavily on the short, fringing reef; but overhead was a
wondrous sky of myriad stars, set in a vault of cloudless blue.

"The gale is blowing itself out," said my companion. "We shall see a
fine day in the morning. And, Drake, we shall see the brigantine back in
three days."

"I hope so," I said, laughingly, "but I