ng with in his
hand fast asleep, a happy expression on his face, as if his mind were
pursuing its earthly avocations on some fortunate beach in dreamland.

Dick had plucked a huge breadfruit leaf and given it to her as a
shelter from the sun, and she sat holding it over her, and gazing
straight before her, over the white, sunlit sands.

The flight of the mind in reverie is not in a direct line. To her,
dreaming as she sat, came all sorts of coloured pictures, recalled by
the scene before her: the green water under the stern of a ship, and
the word Shenandoah vaguely reflected on it; their landing, and the
little tea-set spread out on the white sand--she could still see the
pansies painted on the plates, and she counted in memory the lead
spoons; the great stars that burned over the reef at nights; the
Cluricaunes and fairies; the cask by the well where the convolvulus
blossomed, and the wind-blown trees seen from the summit of the
hill--all these pictures drifted before her, dissolving and replacing
each other as they went.

There was sadness in the contemplation of them, but pleasure too. She
felt at peace with the world. All trouble seemed far behind her. It was
as if the great storm that had left them unharmed had been an
ambassador from the powers above to assure her of their forbearance,
protection, and love.

All at once she noticed that between the boat's bow and the sand there
lay a broad, blue, sparkling line. The dinghy was afloat.

CHAPTER XX

THE KEEPER OF THE LAGOON

The woods here had been less affected by the cyclone than those upon
the other side of the island, but there had been destruction enough. To
reach the place he wanted, Dick had to climb over felled trees and
fight his way through a tangle of vines that had once hung overhead.

The banana trees had not suffered at all; as if by some special
dispensation of Providence even the great bunches of fruit had been
scarcely injured, and he proceeded to climb and cut them. He cut two
bunches, and with one across his shoulder came back down through the
trees.

He had got half across the sands, his head bent under the load, when a
distant call came to him, and, raising his head, he saw the boat adrift
in the middle of the lagoon, and the figure of the girl in the bow of
it waving to him with her arm. He saw a scull floating on the water
half-way between the boat and the shore, which she had no doubt lost in
an attempt to paddle the boat