the South
Seas quite well enough already to have all the possibilities of
misfortune floating vividly before his eyes. He realized at once from his
own previous experience the full loneliness and terror of their unarmed
condition.

For Boupari was one of those rare remote islets where the very rumor of
our European civilization has hardly yet penetrated.

As for Muriel, though she was alarmed enough, of course, and intensely
shaken by the sudden shock she had received, the whole surroundings were
too wholly unlike any world she had ever yet known to enable her to take
in at once the utter horror of the situation. She only knew they were
alone, wet, bruised, and terribly battered; and the Australasian had gone
on, leaving them there to their fate on an unknown island. That, for the
moment, was more than enough for her of accumulated misfortune. She come
to herself but slowly, and as her torn clothes dried by degrees before
the fire and the heat of the tropical night, she was so far from fully
realizing the dangers of their position that her first and principal fear
for the moment was lest she might take cold from her wet things drying
upon her. She ate a little of the plantain that Felix picked for her; and
at times, toward morning, she dozed off into an uneasy sleep, from pure
fatigue and excess of weariness. As she slept, Felix, bending over her,
with the biggest blade of his knife open in case of attack, watched with
profound emotion the rise and fall of her bosom, and hesitated with
himself, if the worst should come to the worst, as to what he ought to do
with her.

It would be impossible to let a pure young English girl like that fall
helplessly into the hands of such bloodthirsty wretches as he knew the
islanders were almost certain to be. Who could tell what nameless
indignities, what incredible tortures they might wantonly inflict upon
her innocent soul? Was it right of him to have let her come ashore at
all? Ought he not rather to have allowed the more merciful sea to take
her life easily, without the chance or possibility of such additional
horrors?

And now--as she slept--so calm and pure and maidenly--what was his
duty that minute, just there to her? He felt the blade of his knife
with his finger cautiously, and almost doubted. If only she could tell
what things might be in store for her, would she not, herself, prefer
death, an honorable death, at the friendly hands of a tenderhearted
fellow-countryman,