from her waist to her knees.
Her long black hair was drawn back from the forehead, and tied behind
with a loop of the elastic vine. A scarlet blossom was stuck behind her
right ear, after the fashion of a clerk's pen. Her face was beautiful,
powdered with tiny freckles; especially under the eyes, which were of a
deep, tranquil blue-grey. She half sat, half lay on her left side;
whilst before her, quite close, strutted up and down on the grass, a
bird, with blue plumage, coral-red beak, and bright, watchful eyes.

The girl was Emmeline Lestrange. Just by her elbow stood a little bowl
made from half a cocoa-nut, and filled with some white substance with
which she was feeding the bird. Dick had found it in the woods two
years ago, quite small, deserted by its mother, and starving. They had
fed it and tamed it, and it was now one of the family, roosting on the
roof at night, and appearing regularly at meal times.

All at once she held out her hand; the bird flew into the air, lit on
her forefinger and balanced itself, sinking its head between its
shoulders, and uttering the sound which formed its entire vocabulary
and one means of vocal expression--a sound from which it had derived
its name.

"Koko," said Emmeline, "where is Dick?"

The bird turned his head about, as if he were searching for his master;
and the girl lay back lazily on the grass, laughing, and holding him up
poised on her finger, as if he were some enamelled jewel she wished to
admire at a little distance. They made a pretty picture under the
cave-like shadow of the breadfruit leaves; and it was difficult to
understand how this young girl, so perfectly formed, so fully
developed, and so beautiful, had evolved from plain little Emmeline
Lestrange. And the whole thing, as far as the beauty of her was
concerned, had happened during the last six months.

CHAPTER II

HALF CHILD--HALF SAVAGE

Five rainy seasons had passed and gone since the tragic occurrence on
the reef. Five long years the breakers had thundered, and the sea-gulls
had cried round the figure whose spell had drawn a mysterious barrier
across the lagoon.

The children had never returned to the old place. They had kept
entirely to the back of the island and the woods--the lagoon, down to a
certain point, and the reef; a wide enough and beautiful enough world,
but a hopeless world, as far as help from civilisation was concerned.
For, of the few ships that touched at the island in the c