hat stings like a
bed of nettles. There were also other dangers. Tropical shallows are
full of wild surprises in the way of life and death.

Dick had long ago marked out in his memory the soundings of the lagoon,
and it was fortunate that he possessed the special sense of location
which is the main stand-by of the hunter and the savage, for, from the
disposition of the coral in ribs, the water from the shore edge to the
reef ran in lanes. Only two of these lanes gave a clear, fair way from
the shore edge to the reef; had you followed the others, even in a boat
of such shallow draught as the dinghy, you would have found yourself
stranded half-way across, unless, indeed, it were a spring tide.

Half-way across the sound of the surf on the barrier became louder, and
the everlasting and monotonous cry of the gulls came on the breeze. It
was lonely out here, and, looking back, the shore seemed a great way
off. It was lonelier still on the reef.

Dick tied up the boat to a projection of coral, and helped Emmeline to
land. The sun was creeping down into the west, the tide was nearly half
out, and large pools of water lay glittering like burnished shields in
the sunlight. Dick, with his precious spear beside him, sat calmly down
on a ledge of coral, and began to divest himself of his one and only
garment.

Emmeline turned away her head and contemplated the distant shore, which
seemed thrice as far off as it was in reality. When she turned her head
again he was racing along the edge of the surf. He and his spear
silhouetted against the spindrift and dazzling foam formed a picture
savage enough, and well in keeping with the general desolation of the
background. She watched him lie down and cling to a piece of coral,
whilst the surf rushed round and over him, and then rise and shake
himself like a dog, and pursue his gambols, his body all glittering
with the wet.

Sometimes a whoop would come on the breeze, mixing with the sound of
the surf and the cry of the gulls, and she would see him plunge his
spear into a pool, and the next moment the spear would be held aloft
with something struggling and glittering at the end of it.

He was quite different out here on the reef to what he was ashore. The
surroundings here seemed to develop all that was savage in him, in a
startling way; and he would kill, and kill, just for the pleasure of
killing, destroying more fish than they could possibly use.

CHAPTER III

THE DEMON OF