hung like a mantle. Her sarong, the kilt-like garment which both sexes
wear, had the national check of grey and red, but she had not completed
her attire by the belt, scarves, the loose upper wrappings, and the
head-covering of a woman. A black silk jacket, like that of a man of
rank, was buttoned over her bust and fitted closely to her slender
waist. The edge of a stand-up collar, stiff with gold embroidery,
rubbed her cheek. She had no bracelets, no anklets, and although dressed
practically in man's clothes, had about her person no weapon of any
sort. Her arms hung down in exceedingly tight sleeves slit a little way
up from the wrist, gold-braided and with a row of small gold buttons.
She walked, brown and alert, all of a piece, with short steps, the eyes
lively in an impassive little face, the arched mouth closed firmly; and
her whole person breathed in its rigid grace the fiery gravity of youth
at the beginning of the task of life--at the beginning of beliefs and
hopes.

This was the day of Lingard's arrival upon the coast, but, as is known,
the brig, delayed by the calm, did not appear in sight of the shallows
till the morning was far advanced. Disappointed in their hope to see the
expected sail shining in the first rays of the rising sun, the man and
the woman, without attempting to relight the fire, lounged on their
sleeping mats. At their feet a common canoe, hauled out of the water,
was, for more security, moored by a grass rope to the shaft of a long
spear planted firmly on the white beach, and the incoming tide lapped
monotonously against its stern.

The girl, twisting up her black hair, fastened it with slender wooden
pins. The man, reclining at full length, had made room on his mat for
the gun--as one would do for a friend--and, supported on his elbow,
looked toward the yacht with eyes whose fixed dreaminess like a