Emmeline fell asleep. Dick stole out of the hut when he
had assured himself from her regular breathing that she was asleep,
and, pushing the tendrils and the branches of the mammee apples aside,
found the beach. The dawn was just breaking, and the morning breeze was
coming in from the sea.

When he had beached the dinghy the day before, the tide was just at the
flood, and it had left her stranded. The tide was coming in now, and in
a short time it would be far enough up to push her off.

Emmeline in the night had implored him to take her away. Take her away
somewhere from there, and he had promised, without knowing in the least
how he was to perform his promise. As he stood looking at the beach, so
desolate and strangely different now from what it was the day before,
an idea of how he could fulfil his promise came to him. He ran down to
where the little boat lay on the shelving sand, with the ripples of the
incoming tide just washing the rudder, which was still shipped. He
unshipped the rudder and came back.

Under a tree, covered with the stay-sail they had brought from the
Shenandoah, lay most of their treasures: old clothes and boots, and all
the other odds and ends. The precious tobacco stitched up in a piece of
canvas was there, and the housewife with the needles and threads. A
hole had been dug in the sand as a sort of cache for them, and the
stay-sail put over them to protect them from the dew.

The sun was now looking over the sealine, and the tall cocoa-nut trees
were singing and whispering together under the strengthening breeze.

CHAPTER XXIII

THEY MOVE AWAY

He began to collect the things, and carry them to the dinghy. He took
the stay-sail and everything that might be useful; and when he had
stowed them in the boat, he took the breaker and filled it with water
at the water source in the wood; he collected some bananas and
breadfruit, and stowed them in the dinghy with the breaker. Then he
found the remains of yesterday's breakfast, which he had hidden between
two palmetto leaves, and placed it also in the boat.

The water was now so high that a strong push would float her. He turned
back to the hut for Emmeline. She was still asleep: so soundly asleep,
that when he lifted her up in his arms she made no movement. He placed
her carefully in the stern-sheets with her head on the sail rolled up,
and then standing in the bow pushed off with a scull. Then, taking the
sculls, he turned the boat's