blown away by last night's gale?"

"Of course not. There's no hurry, Dom," answered Otto, who, if truth
must be told, was not very anxious to escape too soon from his present
romantic position, and thought that it would be time enough to attract
the attention of any passing vessel when they grew tired of their
solitude. "Besides," he continued, with that tendency to self-defence
which is so natural to fallen humanity, "I'm not a squirrel to run up
the straight stem of a branchless tree, fifty feet high or more."

"No, my boy, you're not a squirrel, but, as I have often told you, you
are a monkey--at least, monkey enough to accomplish your ends when you
have a mind to."

"Now, really you are too hard," returned Otto, who was busily employed
as he spoke in boring a hole through a cocoa-nut to get at the milk,
"you know very well that the branch of the neighbouring tree by which we
managed to reach the branches of the signal-tree has been blown away, so
that the thing is impossible, for the stem is far too big to be climbed
in the same way as I get up the cocoa-nut trees."

"That has nothing to do with the question," retorted Dominick, "you
_said_ you would try."

Otto looked with an injured expression at his sister and asked what she
thought of a man being required to attempt impossibilities.

"Not a man--a monkey," interjected his brother.

"Whether man or monkey," said Pauline, in her quiet but decided way, "if
you promised to attempt the thing, you are bound to try."

"Well, then, I will try, and here, I drink success to the trial." Otto
applied the cocoa-nut to his lips, and took a long pull. "Come along,
now, the sooner I prove the impossibility the better."

Rising at once, with an injured expression, the boy led the way towards
a little eminence close at hand, on the top of which grew a few trees of
various kinds, the tallest of these being the signal-tree, to which
Dominick had fixed one of the half-burnt pieces of sheeting, brought
from the wreck. The stem was perfectly straight and seemingly smooth,
and as they stood at its foot gazing up to the fluttering little piece
of rag that still adhered to it, the impossibility of the ascent became
indeed very obvious.

"Now, sir, are you convinced?" said Otto.

"No, sir, I am not convinced," returned Dominick.

"You said you would try."

Without another word Otto grasped the stem of the tree with arms and
legs, and did his best to ascend it. He had,