They listened, but no answer came. A bright-hued bird flew across the
sand space, a lizard scuttled across the glistening sand, the reef
spoke, and the wind in the tree-tops; but Mr Button made no reply.

"Wait," said Dick.

He ran through the grove towards the aoa where the dinghy was moored;
then he returned.

"The dinghy is all right," he said. "Where on earth can he be?"

"I don't know," said Emmeline, upon whose heart a feeling of loneliness
had fallen.

"Let's go up the hill," said Dick; "perhaps we'll find him there."

They went uphill through the wood, past the water-course. Every now and
then Dick would call out, and echoes would answer--there were quaint,
moist-voiced echoes amidst the trees or a bevy of birds would take
flight. The little waterfall gurgled and whispered, and the great
banana leaves spread their shade.

"Come on," said Dick, when he had called again without receiving a
reply.

They found the hill-top, and the great boulder stood casting its shadow
in the sun. The morning breeze was blowing, the sea sparkling, the reef
flashing, the foliage of the island waving in the wind like the flames
of a green-flamed torch. A deep swell was spreading itself across the
bosom of the Pacific. Some hurricane away beyond the Navigators or
Gilberts had sent this message and was finding its echo here, a
thousand miles away, in the deeper thunder of the reef.

Nowhere else in the world could you get such a picture, such a
combination of splendour and summer, such a vision of freshness and
strength, and the delight of morning. It was the smallness of the
island, perhaps, that closed the charm and made it perfect. Just a
bunch of foliage and flowers set in the midst of the blowing wind and
sparkling blue.

Suddenly Dick, standing beside Emmeline on the rock, pointed with his
finger to the reef near the opening.

"There he is!" cried he.

CHAPTER XXI

THE GARLAND OF FLOWERS

You could just make the figure out lying on the reef near the little
cask, and comfortably sheltered from the sun by an upstanding lump of
coral.

"He's asleep," said Dick.

He had not thought to look towards the reef from the beach, or he might
have seen the figure before.

"Dicky!" said Emmeline.

"Well?"

"How did he get over, if you said the dinghy was tied to the tree?"

"I don't know," said Dick, who had not thought of this; "there he is,
anyhow. I'll tell you what, Em, we'll row across and wake him. I'l