helmets, and were clumping about in tremendous hobnailed boots. I
could not hope to rival this severely military get-up, but I had a
blue linen skirt and a white middy, and trusted that my small stock
of similar garments would last out our time on the island. All the
luggage I was allowed to take was in a traveling bag and a
gunny-sack, obligingly donated by the cook. Speaking of cooks, I
found we had one of our own along, a coal-black negro with grizzled
wool, an unctuous voice, and the manners of an old-school family
retainer. So far as I know, his name was Cookie. I suppose he had
received another once from his sponsors in baptism, but if so, it
was buried in oblivion.

Now a narrow gleaming gap appeared in the wall of cliffs, and the
freighter whistled and lay to. There began a bustle at the davits,
and shouts of "Lower away!" and for the first time it swept over me
that we were to be put ashore in boats. Simultaneously this fact
swept over Aunt Jane, and I think also over Miss Browne, for I saw
her fling one wild glance around, as though in search of some
impossible means of retreat. But she took the blow in a grim
silence, while Aunt Jane burst out in lamentation. She would not,
could not go in a boat. She had heard all her life that small
boats were most unsafe. A little girl had been drowned in a lake
near where she was visiting once through going in a boat. Why
didn't the captain sail right up to the island as she had expected
and put us ashore? Even at Panama with only a little way to go she
had felt it suicidal--here it was not to be thought of.

But the preparations for this desperate step went on apace, and no
one heeded Aunt Jane but Mr. Tubbs, who had hastened to succor
beauty in distress, and mingled broken exhortations to courage with