about, brushing them aside. It beguiled the weary hours, if nothing
more; and then she would return to her beads and her trinkets;
telling them all over again; murmuring forth her devotions, and
marking whether Samoa had been pilfering from her store.

Now, the escape from the shoal did much once again to heal the
differences of the good lady and her spouse. And keeping house, as
they did, all alone by themselves, in that lonely craft, a marvel it
is, that they should ever have quarreled. And then to divorce, and
yet dwell in the same tenement, was only aggravating the evil. So
Belisarius and Antonina again came together. But now, grown wise by
experience, they neither loved over-keenly, nor hated; but
took things as they were; found themselves joined, without hope of a
sundering, and did what they could to make a match of the mate.
Annatoo concluded that Samoa was not wholly to be enslaved; and Samoa
thought best to wink at Annatoo's foibles, and let her purloin when
she pleased.

But as in many cases, all this philosophy about wedlock is not proof
against the perpetual contact of the parties concerned; and as it is
far better to revive the old days of courtship, when men's mouths are
honey-combs: and, to make them still sweeter, the ladies the bees
which there store their sweets; when fathomless raptures glimmer far
down in the lover's fond eye; and best of all, when visits are
alternated by absence: so, like my dignified lord duke and his
duchess, Samoa and Annatoo, man and wife, dwelling in the same house,
still kept up their separate quarters. Marlborough visiting Sarah;
and Sarah, Marlborough, whenever the humor suggested.

CHAPTER XXVII
In Which The Past History Op The Parki Is Concluded

Still days, days, days sped by; and steering now this way, now that,
to avoid the green treacherous shores, which frequently rose into
view, the Parki went to and fro in the sea; till at last, it seemed
hard to tell, in what watery world she floated. Well knowing the
risks they ran, Samoa desponded. But blessed be ignorance. For in the
day of his despondency, the lively old lass his wife bade him be of
stout heart, cheer up, and steer away manfully for the setting sun;
following which, they must inevitably arrive at her own dear native
island, where all their cares would be over. So squaring their yards,
away they glided; far sloping down the liquid sphere.

Upon the afternoon of the day we caught sight of them in ou