of days I made shift to please her
with a wooden slab. We went over and set it up about an hour before we
sailed, and for all I know it may be there yet. Some folks might kick at
the inscription, but he had always been mighty good and kind and
free-handed to us, and you must take a man as you find him. This was how
it run:

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF RUNYON RUFE BANKER AND
PHILANTHROPIST ERECTED BY HIS SORROWING FRIENDS

THE LABOR CAPTAIN

It was a wild March day, and the rising wind sang in the rigging of the
ships. The weather horizon, dark and brilliant, in ominous alternations
showed a sky of piled-up cloud interspersed with inky patches where
squalls were bursting. To leeward, the broad lagoon, stretching for a
dozen miles to the tree-topped rim of reef, smoked with the haze of an
impending gale. Ashore, the palms bent like grass in the succeeding
gusts, and the ocean beaches reverberated with a furious surf. The great
atoll of Makin, no higher than a man, no wider than a couple of
furlongs, but in circumference a sinuous giant of ninety miles or more,
lay like a snake on the boisterous waters of the equator and defied the
sea and storm.

Within the lagoon, and not far off the settlement, two ships rocked at
anchor. One, the _Northern Light_, was a powerful topsail schooner of a
hundred tons; straight bowed, low in the water, built on fine lines and
yet sparred for safety, the sort of vessel that does well under plain
sail, and when pressed can fly. The other, the _Edelweiss_, was a
miniature fore and after of about twenty tons, a toy of delicacy and
grace, betraying at a glance that she had been designed a yacht, and,
in spite of fallen fortunes, was still sailed as one. The man that laid
her lee rail under would get danger as well as speed for his pains, and
in time would be likely to satisfy a taste for both by making a swift
trip to the bottom.

The deck of the _Northern Light_ was empty save for the single tall
figure of Gregory Cole, captain and owner, who was leaning over the rail
gazing at the _Edelweiss_. He was a man of about thirty, his tanned,
handsome face overcast and somber, his eyes, with their characteristic
hunted look, fixed in an uneasy stare on his smaller neighbor.

He had never known how passionately he had loved Madge Blanchard until
he had lost her; until after that wild quarrel on Nonootch, when her
father had called him a slaver to his face, and they had parted on