She nodded a childlike acquiescence, and her eyelids fell. It was only
that her eyes smarted dreadfully from the salt water, but the sailor
was sure that this was a premonition of a lapse to unconsciousness.

"Please try not to faint again," he said. "Don't you think I had better
loosen these things? You can breathe more easily."

A ghost of a smile flickered on her lips. "No--no," she murmured. "My
eyes hurt me--that is all. Is there--any--water?"

He laid her tenderly on the sand and rose to his feet. His first glance
was towards the sea. He saw something which made him blink with
astonishment. A heavy sea was still running over the barrier reef which
enclosed a small lagoon. The contrast between the fierce commotion
outside and the comparatively smooth surface of the protected pool was
very marked. At low tide the lagoon was almost completely isolated.
Indeed, he imagined that only a fierce gale blowing from the north-west
would enable the waves to leap the reef, save where a strip of broken
water, surging far into the small natural harbor, betrayed the position
of the tiny entrance.

Yet at this very point a fine cocoanut palm reared its stately column
high in air, and its long tremulous fronds were now swinging wildly
before the gale. From where he stood it appeared to be growing in the
midst of the sea, for huge breakers completely hid the coral
embankment. This sentinel of the land had a weirdly impressive effect.
It was the only fixed object in the waste of foam-capped waves. Not a
vestige of the _Sirdar_ remained seaward, but the sand was
littered with wreckage, and--mournful spectacle!--a considerable number
of inanimate human forms lay huddled up amidst the relics of the