od up."

"Dick," said Emmeline, "who were the people?"

"I don't know; I went up the hill and saw their boats going away--far
away out. This was lying on the sand."

"Dick," said Emmeline, "do you remember the noise yesterday?"

"Yes," said Dick.

"I heard it in the night."

"When?"

"In the night before the moon went away."

"That was them," said Dick.

"Dick!"

"Yes?"

"Who were they?"

"I don't know," replied Dick.

"It was in the night, before the moon went away, and it went on and on
beating in the trees. I thought I was asleep, and then I knew I was
awake; you were asleep, and I pushed you to listen, but you couldn't
wake, you were so asleep; then the moon went away, and the noise went
on. How did they make the noise?"

"I don't know," replied Dick, "but it was them; and they left this on
the sand, and the sand was all trod up, and I saw their boats from the
hill, away out far."

"I thought I heard voices," said Emmeline, "but I was not sure."

She fell into meditation, watching her companion at work on the savage
and sinister-looking thing in his hands. He was splicing the two pieces
together with a strip of the brown cloth-like stuff which is wrapped
round the stalks of the cocoa-palm fronds. The thing seemed to have
been hurled here out of the blue by some unseen hand.

When he had spliced the pieces, doing so with marvellous dexterity, he
took the thing short down near the point, and began thrusting it into
the soft earth to clean it; then, with a bit of flannel, he polished it
till it shone. He felt a keen delight in it. It was useless as a
fish-spear, because it had no barb, but it was a weapon. It was useless
as a weapon, because there was no foe on the island to use it against;
still, it was a weapon.

When he had finished scrubbing at it, he rose, hitched his old trousers
up, tightened the belt of cocoa-cloth which Emmeline had made for him,
went into the house and got his fish-spear, and stalked off to the
boat, calling out to Emmeline to follow him. They crossed over to the
reef, where, as usual, he divested himself of clothing.

It was strange that out here he would go about stark naked, yet on the
island he always wore some covering. But not so strange, perhaps, after
all.

The sea is a great purifier, both of the mind and the body; before that
great sweet spirit people do not think in the same way as they think
far inland. What woman would appear in a town or on a country