But it would be just like the Department to
get suddenly galvanized, and hysterically head Satterlee off at Hamburg.
This would mean his ultimate return to Samoa, and a perpetual further
outlay of fifty-five dollars from a hard-earned salary. No, he wouldn't
worry the Department.... Let sleeping dogs lie. There were better ways
of spending fifty-five dollars a month.

That night the consul had champagne at dinner, and drank a silent toast:

"Good luck to him, poor old devil!"

FORTY YEARS BETWEEN

"What am I to enter in the log, sir?" asked Mr. Francis, the first
lieutenant.

"There's an old-fashioned word for it," said Captain Hadow grimly.

"Had it been my brother it couldn't have hurt me more," said Mr.
Francis.

"Everybody loved that boy."

"It will break his father's heart, sir."

"A deserter, by God!"

"He had everything in the world," said Francis, in the tone of a man who
himself had fought hard for every step. "He had influence, money of his
own, brains, a splendid professional future, everything!"

"All thrown away like that," said Captain Hadow, with a gesture of his
hand.

"And the handsomest fellow I believe I ever saw," said Mr. Francis.

"The pick of the basket," agreed Hadow.

"And to think," continued Mr. Francis, "that I must sit down at my desk
and write: 'Past Midshipman John de Vigne Garrard, Deserter.'"

The pair were pacing the quarter-deck of H.M.S. _Dauntless_ as she lay
at anchor within the reef. It was at Borabora, one of the Society
Islands, and the time forty years ago. The wonderful old rock, rising
sheer naked and frowning from the bluest water in the world, seemed to
those at its foot as though it were holding up the very sky itself.
Precipice upon precipice dizzily scaled the basaltic heights, giving
here and there, on little shelves and crannies, a foothold for a vivid
vegetation. The peak itself, a landmark at sea for ninety miles around,
was half-hidden in the gloom of squalls and scud, and sometimes, for a
moment, it would be altogether lost to view in the fierce murkiness of
driving rain. Below the mountain, on the flat shore of the lagoon, an
uninterrupted belt of palms concealed the little villages of the
islanders. Here, in idyllic peace, a population of extraordinary
attractiveness, gentleness, and beauty led their life of secluded ease.
Money was all but unknown; food could be had in abundance for the most
trifling labor; clothes could be stripped fr