omersetshire--and as soon as
the big sea took her up on its crest, what does Thurstan go and do, but
he ups on the taffrail, and, before you could say Jack Robinson, jumps
over to save her."

"But he didn't succeed?" the passenger asked, with languid interest.

"Succeed, my dear sir? and with a sea running twelve feet high like that?
Why, it was pitch dark, and such a surf on that the gig could hardly go
through it." The captain smiled, and puffed away pensively. "Drowned,"
he said, after a brief pause, with complacent composure. "Drowned.
Drowned. Drowned. Went to the bottom, both of 'em. Davy Jones's locker.
But unavoidable, quite. These accidents _will_ happen, even on the
best-regulated liners. Why, there was my brother Tom, in the Cunard
service--same that boast they never lost a passenger; there was my
brother Tom, he was out one day off the Newfoundland banks, heavy swell
setting in from the nor'-nor'-east, icebergs ahead, passengers battened
down--Bless my soul, how that light seems to come and go, don't it?"

It was a reflected light, flashing from the island straight in the
captain's eyes, small and insignificant as to size, but strong for all
that in the full tropical sunshine, and glittering like a diamond from a
vague elevation near the centre of the island.

"Seems to come and go in regular order," the passenger observed,
reflectively, withdrawing his cigar. "Looks for all the world just like
naval signalling."

The captain paused, and shaded his eyes a moment. "Hanged if that isn't
just what it _is_," he answered, slowly. "It's a rigged-up heliograph,
and they're using the Morse code; dash my eyes if they aren't. Well, this
_is_ civilization! What the dickens can have come to the island of
Boupari? There isn't a darned European soul in the place, nor ever has
been. Anchorage unsafe; no harbor; bad reef; too small for missionaries
to make a living, and natives got nothing worth speaking of to trade in."

"What do they say?" the passenger asked, with suddenly quickened
interest.

"How the devil should I tell you yet, sir?" the captain retorted with
choleric grumpiness. "Don't you see I'm spelling it out, letter by
letter? O, r, e, s, c, u, e, u, s, c, o, m, e, w, e, l, l, a, r, m, e,
d--Yes. yes, I twig it." And the captain jotted it down in his note-book
for some seconds, silently.

"Run up the flag there," he shouted, a moment later, rushing hastily
forward. "Stop her at once, Walker. Easy, easy.