that, in the end, he must turn his back on these pleasant people, and
see, from a dizzy yardarm, their exquisite island sink forever behind
him. The place thus possessed for him the charm of something he was
destined soon to lose, and he clung to it as a man clings to his fading
youth, with a sense that it is slipping from him. He sighed as he
thought of the forecastle that he knew somewhere awaited him; how he
would recall those still nights in Oa when he would be roused by the
boatswain's handspike on the hatch, and the hoarse cry of "All hands on
deck!"

One day, when he was out in Faalelei's boat, an accident occurred that
came very near to being the end of Jack. They were pursuing a school of
bonito, and Pulu, the chief's brother, was standing in the bow with a
stick of dynamite and was in the nick of letting it fly when it exploded
prematurely in his hand. Pulu was killed, the rickety old boat parted
and sank, and Jack, with his shoulder laid open to the bone, was towed
in by a neighboring canoe, and carried up to the house. They laid him on
the floor, pale and groaning, while the children ran out screaming for
Fetuao. She came in like a whirlwind, still wet from the river, and
threw herself on her knees beside him. With passionate imperiousness she
made the rest of the household wait upon her bidding as she busied
herself in stanching the flow of blood and in picking the splinters from
the wound. Jack knew how wont she was, in common with all Samoans, to
shrink from disagreeable sights. It touched him to see how love had
conquered her repugnance; nor could he resist a smile when she began to
tear her little wardrobe into bandages, those chemises and _lavalavas_
that she used to iron under the trees, and put away with such care into
the camphor-wood chest with the bell lock.

For the better part of a fortnight Jack lay where they had placed him on
the mats, undergoing, with intermissions of fever and delirium, the
tedious stages of convalescence. Fetuao seemed never to leave him,
attending to his wants, brushing away the flies, feeding and washing him
with an anxious solemnity that at times almost awed the sailor. Her
brilliant eyes, as black and limpid as some wild animal's, watched him
with an unceasing stare. He often wondered what was passing in her
graceful head as he lay looking up at her, too weak to speak, the drowsy
hours succeeding one another in an unbroken silence. Once, when he ran
his hand over his