r's second boat draw up
on the beach. The sailors rested on the oars, advertising haste to be
gone. The first mate of the Aorai sprang ashore, exchanged a word with
the one-armed native, then hurried toward Raoul. The day grew suddenly
dark, as a squall obscured the face of the sun. Across the lagoon Raoul
could see approaching the ominous line of the puff of wind.

"Captain Raffy says you've got to get to hell outa here," was the mate's
greeting. "If there's any shell, we've got to run the risk of
picking it up later on--so he says. The barometer's dropped to
twenty-nine-seventy."

The gust of wind struck the pandanus tree overhead and tore through the
palms beyond, flinging half a dozen ripe cocoanuts with heavy thuds to
the ground. Then came the rain out of the distance, advancing with the
roar of a gale of wind and causing the water of the lagoon to smoke in
driven windrows. The sharp rattle of the first drops was on the leaves
when Raoul sprang to his feet.

"A thousand Chili dollars, cash down, Mapuhi," he said. "And two hundred
Chili dollars in trade."

"I want a house--" the other began.

"Mapuhi!" Raoul yelled, in order to make himself heard. "You are a
fool!"

He flung out of the house, and, side by side with the mate, fought his
way down the beach toward the boat. They could not see the boat. The
tropic rain sheeted about them so that they could see only the beach
under their feet and the spiteful little waves from the lagoon that
snapped and bit at the sand. A figure appeared through the deluge. It
was Huru-Huru, the man with the one arm.

"Did you get the pearl?" he yelled in Raoul's ear.

"Mapuhi is a fool!" was the answering yell, and the next moment they
were lost to each other in the descending water.

Half an hour later, Huru-Huru, watching from the seaward side of the
atoll, saw the two boats hoisted in and the Aorai pointing her nose
out to sea. And near her, just come in from the sea on the wings of the
squall, he saw another schooner hove to and dropping a boat into the
water. He knew her. It was the OROHENA, owned by Toriki, the half-caste
trader, who served as his own supercargo and who doubtlessly was even
then in the stern sheets of the boat. Huru-Huru chuckled. He knew that
Mapuhi owed Toriki for trade goods advanced the year before.

The squall had passed. The hot sun was blazing down, and the lagoon was
once more a mirror. But the air was sticky like mucilage, and the weight
of