* * * * *


With slow, languid step, Sera, the wife of Macy O'Shea, comes to the
open door and looks out upon the placid lagoon, now just rippling
beneath the first breath of the trade-wind, and longs for courage to go
out there--there to the point of the reef--and spring over among the
sharks. The girl--she is hardly yet a woman--shudders a moment and
passes her white hand before her eyes, and then, with a sudden gust of
passion, the hand clenches. "I would kill him--kill him, if there was
but a ship here in which I could get away! I would sell myself over and
over again to the worst whaler's crew that ever sailed the Pacific if
it would bring me freedom from this cruel, cold-blooded devil!"


* * * * *


A heavy tread on the matted floor of the inner room and her face pales
to the hue of death. But Macy O'Shea is somewhat shy of his two years'
wife this morning, and she hears the heavy steps recede as he walks
over to his oil-shed. A flock of GOGO cast their shadow over the lagoon
as they fly westward, and the woman's eyes follow them--"Kill him, yes.
I am afraid to die, but not to kill. And I am a stranger here, and if I
ran a knife into his fat throat, these natives would make me work in
the taro-fields, unless one wanted me for himself." Then the heavy step
returns, and she slowly faces round to the blood-shot eyes and
drink-distorted face of the man she hates, and raises one hand to her
lips to hide a blue and swollen bruise.