then--then the steamer slipped back off the reef and went down."

"I say! Only the three of you left! The boat brought you safe ashore?"

"No, we were overturned in the breakers, but were washed up--flung up
--how, I cannot tell. The wind was frightful. It must have blown us
out of the surf and along with the water that was being driven up and
over into the lagoon. The first I knew, I was behind a little knoll with
Winthrope. Tom was near--in a pool. He--he crawled out. It was nearly
dark. We were all so beaten and exhausted that we slept until morning.
When we awoke, there was no sign of--of any one else, or of the boat--
nothing; only the top of the highest mast sticking up above the water,
out beside the reef. Tom swam out to it; but he couldn't get anything
--even he couldn't."

"Swam out, you say? These waters swarm with sharks. They're keen to
nip a swimmer!"

The girl's eyes flashed. "Do you believe he'd fear them?--that he'd
fear anything?"

"Not he! I fancy I ought to know, if any one. Knocked about with him,
half 'round the world. I dare say he's told you."

"Would it be like him to claim the credit of your friendship? No!
Before, on the steamer, we had mistaken him to be--to be what he
appears to strangers--rough, almost uncouth. Yet even that frightful
morning--it was among the swamps, ten miles or more up the coast. He
carried us safe out of them, me nearly all the way--out of the bog and
water, safe to the palms; and he as much tortured with thirst as were