. And I
shall always paraphrase the familiar line to read: "When wild in
woods the noble porker ran."

Aunt Jane had been dreadfully alarmed by the pigs, and wanted to
keep me immured in the cabin o' nights so that I should not be
eaten. But nothing less than a Bengal tiger would have driven me
to such extremity.

"Though if a pig should eat me," I suggested, "you might mark him
to avoid becoming a cannibal at second hand. I should hate to
think of you, Aunt Jane, as the family tomb!"

"Virginia, you are most unfeeling," said Aunt Jane, getting pink
about the eyelids.

"Ah, I didn't know you Americans went in much for family tombs?"
remarked the beautiful youth interestedly.

"No, we do our best to keep out of them," I assured him, and he
walked off meditatively revolving this.

If the beautiful youth had been beautiful on shipboard, in the
informal costume he affected on the island he was more splendid
still. His white cotton shirt and trousers showed him lithe and
lean and muscular. His bared arms and chest were like cream
solidified to flesh. Instead of his nose peeling like common noses
in the hot salt air, every kiss of the sun only gave his skin a
warmer, richer glow. With his striped silk sash of red and blue
about his waist, and his crown of ambrosial chestnut curls--a
development due to the absence of a barber--the Honorable Cuthbert
would certainly have been hailed by the natives, if there had been
any, as the island's god.

Camp was made in the early hours of the day. Then came luncheon,
prepared with skill by Cookie, and eaten from a table of
packing-cases laid in the shade. Afterward every one, hot and
weary, retired for a siesta. It was now the cool as well as the
dry season on the island, yet the heat of the sun at midday was
terrific. But the temperature brought us neither illness nor even
any great degree of lassitude. Always around the island blew the
faint cooling breath of the sea. No marsh or stagnant water bred
insect pests or fever. Every day while we were there the men
worked hard, and grew lean and sun-browned, and thrived on it.
Every afternoon with unfailing regularity a light shower fell, but
in twenty minutes it was over and the sun shone again, greedily
lapping up the moisture that glittered on the leaves. And forever
the sea sang a low muttering bass to the faint threnody of the wind
in the palms.

On this first day we gathered in the cool of the afternoon about