nds, laughing and joyous, a whole family together;
and you often saw a group of girls, dappled by the sun shining through
the trees, with the half-castes among them, splashing about the shallows
of the stream. It looked as though there were in this pool some secret
which attracted Ethel against her will.

Now the night had fallen, mysterious and silent, and he let himself down
in the water softly, in order to make no sound, and swam lazily in the
warm darkness. The water seemed fragrant still from her slender body. He
rode back to the town under the starry sky. He felt at peace with the
world.

Now he went every evening to the pool and every evening he saw Ethel.
Presently he overcame her timidity. She became playful and friendly.
They sat together on the rocks above the pool, where the water ran fast,
and they lay side by side on the ledge that overlooked it, watching the
gathering dusk envelop it with mystery. It was inevitable that their
meetings should become known--in the South Seas everyone seems to know
everyone's business--and he was subjected to much rude chaff by the men
at the hotel. He smiled and let them talk. It was not even worth while
to deny their coarse suggestions. His feelings were absolutely pure. He
loved Ethel as a poet might love the moon. He thought of her not as a
woman but as something not of this earth. She was the spirit of the
pool.

One day at the hotel, passing through the bar, he saw that old Brevald,
as ever in his shabby blue overalls, was standing there. Because he was
Ethel's father he had a desire to speak to him, so he went in, nodded
and, ordering his own drink, casually turned and invited the old man to
have one with him. They chatted for a few minutes of local affairs, and
Lawson was uneasily conscious that the Norwegian was scrutinising him
with sly blue eyes. His manner was not agreeable. It was sycophantic,
and yet behind the cringing air of an old man who had been worsted in
his struggle with fate was a shadow of old truculence. Lawson remembered
that he had once been captain of a schooner engaged in the slave trade,
a blackbirder they call it in the Pacific, and he had a large hernia in
the chest which was the result of a wound received in a scrap with
Solomon Islanders. The bell rang for luncheon.

"Well, I must be off," said Lawson.

"Why don't you come along to my place one time?" said Brevald, in his
wheezy voice. "It's not very grand, but you'll be welcome. You kn