WHEN Sestrina, on the morning after the Catholot had sailed from Port-au-Prince, awoke and found that she was far out at sea, she felt greatly depressed. She could hardly believe her own ears when she heard the muffled thumping of the steamer’s screw and the pounding of the engine’s pistons. She immediately ran from her cabin and sought the skipper. He was a Yankee, and a kind-hearted man.

“Oh, I am so unhappy, I expected some one to come and see me last night or to-day; I quite understood that your ship was not leaving Port-au-Prince till to-night.”

“Did you, missy?” replied the skipper as he looked into Sestrina’s tearful eyes and explained to her that the Catholot had sailed before her time so that they might not be locked in the harbour through the blockade, for months. “It’s not my fault, missy,” he added, as he gazed in a sympathetic way at the distressed girl.

“Am I alone on board? Where’s my father and Claircine?”

“I guess there’s no Pa or Claircine on board here with you,” replied the skipper.

When Sestrina discovered that she was quite alone on board the Catholot her distress was deep indeed. But hope ever reigns in youthful hearts, and so Sestrina calmed herself by taking Clensy’s last two letters from the folds of her bodice and reading them over and over again. She felt quite certain that Clensy would hasten to follow her, and at once made up her mind to get to Honolulu as swiftly as possible. Then she clasped her hands across the hidden crucifix in the folds of her bodice, and thanked God that Royal Clensy had been thoughtful enough to make plans to meet the strait in which she found herself. Then she began to wonder if Clensy would be able to get safely away from Hayti.

In her mind she could still hear the furious cannonade in the hills round Port-au-Prince and see the entrenched soldiers round the palace. And, as she thought on, the terror and horror of it all became intensified; her imagination began to picture all kinds of dire disasters.

“He might be killed. Oh, Royal!” she murmured, and then she stole into her cabin again and wept.

Two of the saloon passengers, an elderly American and his wife, took compassion on Sestrina when they saw her grief, and did their best to cheer her up. Their interest in her deepened when they discovered that she was the daughter of the late President Gravelot of the Black Republic at Hayti. The American had belonged to the U.S.A. Consulate at Port-au-Prince, and had heard that President Gravelot had been shot; but he did not tell Sestrina about the disaster which had befallen her father. Sestrina became much happier when the American and his wife invited her into their cabin and promised to do their best to place her in good hands till such time as she could return to Hayti.

“The revolution won’t last for ever, you know,” said the American. But Sestrina soon let her new found friends know that she had no desire to return to Port-au-Prince again.

“Have you relations in Hawaii, mademoiselle?” queried the American, when Sestrina once more emphatically informed that gentleman and his wife that she wished to get to Honolulu with all speed.

“Yes, it is in Honolulu where I shall meet my best friends.”

It is almost needless to point that the pluralty of Sestrina’s “best friends” in Honolulu were comprised in the sole personality of Royal Clensy, who she expected to meet there.

When the American informed Sestrina that the Catholot was bound for Vera Cruz, in the Gulf of Mexico, and it was a fairly easy journey to the Pacific coast where she could get a ship that sailed for Hawaii, she was delighted. She went straight into her cabin and, falling on her knees, kissed the crucifix, and felt that God had listened to her heartfelt prayers at last. The outlook began to look quite rose-tinted to her sanguine eyes. She had a thousand dollars in her possession, which her father had thoughtfully provided her with. For, like a good many sinners in this world, President Gravelot had a better side to his nature, a side which was revealed when calamity came his way to remind him that the world was made for sweetness and not for the gratification of the passions alone.

So did Sestrina find friends when she became a refugee and fled from Hayti with only Royal Clensy’s memory and his love letters to comfort her.

When the Catholot arrived at Vera Cruz, the American and his wife went ashore with her and placed her under the care of the U.S.A. Consul at Plaza Mexo. This estimable gentleman made himself very busy on Sestrina’s behalf. He eventually advised her to leave Vera Cruz and go to the United States.

“You will be in direct communication with Hayti and will know exactly when to return, for the war may be over soon, or even now,” he said.

As can be imagined, Sestrina listened respectfully to the advice tendered on her behalf, but was still determined to follow the course of her prearranged plans, which agreed with all her hopes and sole ambition in life.

And so, about one week after Sestrina had arrived at Vera Cruz, the U.S.A. Consul called at the hotel where Sestrina was staying, and was somewhat surprised to find that she had gone, had vanished, leaving no trace whatever behind her! The fact is, that Sestrina had made inquiries, and had found out that by getting to Acapulco or Yucata, on the Pacific coast, she could get a passage to Honolulu on one of the many schooners that sailed for the South Sea Islands for cargoes of copra, pearls, etc.

It is a trite but true saying that “Man proposes and God disposes,” and equally true is it that “Coming events do not always cast their shadows before.” No prophetic hint of all the sorrow that lay before Sestrina’s sad path in the new world which she was entering, came to disturb her dreams as the winds stirred the palms just opposite her window at her lodgings at Yucata. She had only arrived at the ancient seaport town the day before and so was still feeling the fatigue of the long journey she had undertaken after giving the U.S. Consul at Vera Cruz the slip.

So often had the passionate, impulsive Haytian girl thought of Clensy, so often had her mind dwelt in the imaginary happiness of dreams that corresponded with all that her sanguine heart anticipated would happen when she met Clensy again, that her whole soul was centred on one burning ambition—the swiftest way to get to Honolulu.

She had been greatly upset when she first arrived at Yucata, for, when she tendered some of her notes as payment for her apartments, the tawny half-caste Spaniard, her landlord, informed her that half of her money was worthless paper, through the overthrow of the Haytian Government that issued it. However, she had a good sum of legitimate cash in hand and was greatly relieved to find that for about forty dollars she could get a passage to Honolulu, on the Belle Isle, a rakish-looking schooner that was due to sail for Hawaii in a day or two.

Though her Spanish landlord strongly advised her to wait till one of the larger steamers was leaving with mails for Honolulu, she would not wait. Her unthinking impulsive mind had begun to fear that Royal Clensy would arrive at Honolulu and, not finding her there, would leave again thinking she was not coming.

“Perhaps now that I’m far away from his sight he will cease to think so much of me, and even think that I’ve forgotten him,” she murmured, as her feverish imagination began to think over it all.

She looked into the mirror of the low-roofed hotel room and saw dark rings around her eyes, her face was drawn and haggard too. In the natural modesty of women that possess looks, she gazed with distress on her imaged, beautiful face. “I’m not beautiful at all! He only said those things to please me. I mustn’t wait! He might forget me! He might forget me!” she almost sobbed, as the shadows of night fell over Yucata and the drunken Mexican sailors passed below her window, singing strange words to ancient sounding melodies as they tinkled on their guitars.

Sestrina had been in Yucata for eight days when she found herself on board the Belle Isle. There was only one other passenger on board, and that was an extraordinary looking aged Chinaman.

Though the Belle Isle was called a schooner, she was a brigantine, a hermaphrodite, square-rigged schooner, that carried square sails on the foremast and the main. She was due to sail at any moment; was only waiting a favourable wind.

The Belle Isle looked as though she was off on some buccaneering voyage, that is, if the character of the crew was anything like the expression on their faces. The fact is, that Sestrina had entrusted an aged Mexican priest to arrange for her passage, also the choice of the boat. And it will not be defamation of character to positively assert that the aforesaid old priest had secured Sestrina the cheapest berth on the rottenest schooner he could find, so that he could put half of the money entrusted to him in his own pocket. And though the Mexican ecclesiastic had fallen on his sinful knees and prayed for Sestrina’s soul and a pleasant voyage when she bade him farewell, Sestrina was convinced that she had been swindled directly she set foot on the deck of the Belle Isle.

The skipper was a swarthy Mexican. He looked as though he wouldn’t die of remorse after cutting a man’s throat for the bribe of a dollar. However, he had gallant manners, for he bowed profusely when he saw Sestrina jump down on deck, and seemed to be quite elated to find that his saloon passenger was so prepossessing.

The crew were a mixed lot: two or three full-blooded Mexicans, a Chinese-Tahitian, two Yankee niggers, one old man who looked like a civilised Hottentot, and two Kanakas. There was also a tiny lad, Rajao, about nine years of age, he was the child of one of the Mexican sailors.

Sestrina’s dismay was very obvious when the nigger steward showed her into her mingy cabin that was situated in the schooner’s cuddy (saloon). But the Haytian girl accepted the situation with wonderful fortitude. “It’s not for long!” she thought as she looked up at the ancient-looking yellowish-hued hanging canvas aloft, and thought of how they would spread to the winds and bear her across the ocean to Honolulu and Clensy’s arms.

As she stood on deck that night and felt the breeze coming that would cause the skipper to up anchor and set sail, she became quite happy. “On a ship at last, bound for Honolulu!” she thought. “And where is he? Perhaps still in Hayti. I will wait till he comes and then we will meet again and remember the sweet nights and the grape-vine and be happy!” Ah, Sestrina!

All wise men agree that happiness is only a fleeting anticipation of some longed-for event which, in its best consummation, can only end in disillusionment. And so it was as well that Sestrina should dream her own happiness that night. It was to be brief enough, God knows.

She little dreamed the true nature of the schooner on which she had embarked, and why it took a ghastly cargo on by stealth at midnight. Alas, through being educated from French novels instead of realistic South Sea novels, Sestrina was quite ignorant of the terrible dramas of the Pacific seas and lonely island groups. Had she known more of the ways of the world and life and sorrow in those seas, she would never have placed herself in the most terrible position that a girl could well be in. Even wilful Sestrina began to wish she had listened to her Spanish landlord’s advice, to wait for one of the large steamers that went to Honolulu. For as she lay in her bunk that night, just before the Belle Isle sailed at dawn, she felt sure she heard strange groans and the clankings of iron chains!

“What did it all mean? Was that a smothered groan and then a farewell as some one wailed ‘Talofa! Aue! O Langi!’? Why had the skipper shut the cuddy’s door tight, as though he wished to keep those moans and murmurs on the deck that night from the ears of his fair passenger? Was that a phantom bay that the Belle Isle lay anchored in as the red tropic moon bathed the palm-clad shores by Yucata with ghostly gleams. What nightmare could it be where chained men, with bulged, vacant eyes, were being carried and helped on deck of the Belle Isle, and then secretly dropped down into the fetid hold? The Belle Isle was not a blackbirding schooner (slave ship), for King Hammerehai of Hawaii had issued an edict that all persons found dealing in slave traffic were to be ‘shot at sight.’ And the Belle Isle was bound for Hawaii. So what was the mystery of that dark hold’s cargo?”

Sestrina awoke in the morning and half fancied that she must have dreamed the terror that had haunted her during the early night hours.

Before the sun was well up on the horizon the Belle Isle, with every stitch of her old-fashioned canvas spread, was fast leaving the Pacific coast. Sestrina was very ill for the first two days, then her languor left her. As she stood on deck, the boundless loneliness of the tropic seas depressed her. She stared over the bulwark side, the dim blue horizon seemed as far away, as illusive as her own hopes and dreams. The noise of the half-filled canvas sails depressed her, as they filled out to the lazy hot wind and then collapsed with a muffled rumble.

Only two members of the crew were visible as she stood on deck, and they were stalwart ferocious-looking men, who wore strange tasselled caps, and somehow reminded her of the pictures of the pirates of the Spanish Main which she had seen on the walls of the British Consul’s residence at Petionville, Port-au-Prince. One of the men seemed to be busy over an endless coil of rope. The other man stood like an inanimate figure, some fixture amidships, by the hatchway. Only the tobacco smoke issuing from between his blackened teeth destroyed the statuesque effect as he stood sentinel at that spot.

“Noa come dis way, miss,” the man muttered as he put forth his skinny hand and warned Sestrina away as she started to walk forward.

Finding she was even denied the freedom of walking about the schooner as she pleased the girl’s heart became heavy with dim forebodings. She began to realise that something was being hidden from her.

Hoping to find some one congenial to speak to, she strolled aft, then concluded that her own reflections were the better company.

The man at the wheel was a wrinkled, weird looking Mongolian. As he stood there, his hands gripping the spokes of the wheel, his pigtail, moving to the rolling of the schooner, swung to and fro like a pendulum, and to Sestrina’s overwrought brain, seemed to be ticking off the slow minutes of the hours to pass, ere something dreadful happened! The aged Chinaman, Sestrina’s fellow passenger in the cuddy, had been the more congenial to Sestrina had he never come on board: he lay in his bunk day and night chanting weird words as his yellow-skinned hand clutched an ivory idol, some heathenish symbol of his religion. It was only little Rajao, the Mexican boatswain’s child of nine years of age, who Sestrina felt inclined to welcome. Once he came running up to the girl, and after staring into her face curiously, he said, “You nice, SeÑorita, I like you.” Then he ran away forward.

“Morning, SeÑorita, nicer day.” Sestrina turned round and saw the Mexican skipper. “You speak Englesse?” he said.

Sestrina nodded. For a moment she could not speak. There was something sinister-looking about the man’s face. His small, brilliant eyes and thin, cruel-looking lips made her heart quake. He had stepped forward and had touched Sestrina under the chin, giving her a vulgar leer. The next moment the Haytian girl had swiftly brought her hand up and knocked his arm aside. So did Sestrina let the Mexican skipper of the Belle Isle see the quality of her mettle. After that incident, she made up her mind to keep severely to herself. She had scanned each member of the crew and had come to the conclusion that she had never seen such a pack of cut-throats before. Only the negro steward seemed human. He did have the grace to say, “Marning, missa,” and waited on her at the cuddy’s table without giving lascivious leers. Sestrina’s heart resented the weird music that accompanied her meals, for the Chinese passenger, who was suffering from some mortal disease, intensified the gloom of the cuddy as he chanted continuously to his ivory idol.

When the skipper discovered that Sestrina would allow no undue familiarities, he tried to redeem his lost character by giving her dainty dishes: tinned Californian pears, mangoes, yams, pineapples, and sweet scented preserves and candies adorned the mingy cuddy’s table.

Sestrina discovered that every time she went out on deck, she was shadowed by one of the crew, who would not allow her to go beyond the galley which was situated just abaft the hatchway. This restraint placed on her movements irritated her, as well as filling her already worried mind with apprehension. Though she thought and thought, she could not guess what the mystery could be. Why was the hatchway always open during the sweltering heat of the tropic days, while the Belle Isle rolled becalmed on the glassy sea, and guarded by at least one member of the crew day and night? Who was down there in that fetid hold? Sestrina was certain that she could hear strange mumblings and faint wails, and sometimes a sorrowful-sounding song being hummed in the Belle Isle’s hold during the vast silence of the tropic nights. Perhaps they were prisoners, convicts being transported from South America to some penal settlement away in the Pacific Islands, or refugees, like herself, and afraid to show their faces by the light of day?

As Sestrina reflected over the mystery of the schooner a nervous fright seized her heart. She began to dread the cramped cuddy, and so she stood on deck each night, watching the hot zephyrs drift across the glassy sea and ruffle the mirroring water, shattering the crowds of imaged stars. As the days went by, the plomp of the yellow canvas overhead and the interminable moan and mystery of the beings down in the hold began to tell on the Haytian girl’s brain. At last she would sit on deck all night, too terrified and miserable to stay in the cuddy.

The aged Celestial passenger was dying, and in his delirium would incessantly put his withered yellow-skinned hand through his cabin porthole—which faced the cuddy’s table—and, clutching the ivory idol, would moan and chant strange words to it. Sestrina felt like screaming in her horror over that heathenish, but sad sight.

One night the Mexican skipper knocked the skinny, yellowish hand back and gave a terrible oath as the sight got on his nerves too.

“E fitu, padre meando,” he said as he touched his brow significantly and gave Sestrina a sympathetic look.

But Sestrina hated the man. She knew that he had deceived her; had placed her in that precarious position with his cut-throat crew so that he could make a few extra dollars by securing her as a passenger.

On the second week out from Yucata, the Chinese passenger died, and the ivory idol and the withered, yellowish hand disappeared from the porthole; the chanting was over for ever. But strange enough, Sestrina felt terribly lonely when she heard that the Celestial was dead. The skipper, seeing her nervous state, had the grace to attempt to keep the Chinaman’s death from her. But Sestrina knew what had happened at once, for she saw two of the crew go into the silent cabin and pull in yards of sailcloth. Then she saw the crew collect on deck at sunset, ready to commit the body to the deep. The Mexican captain, for all his villainy, became religious in the presence of death.

Whether it was carelessness, or had been done deliberately, she did not know, but the hammock-shroud was sewn down so that the skinny, yellow hands were still visible, protruding about four inches through the canvas. In a few moments the skipper had murmured the solemn sea burial service as the crew stood in a row, their strange tasselled caps held respectfully in their hands. The sight of it all fascinated Sestrina. And as the weighted shroud softly splashed, alighted on the waters, she half fancied she saw the yellow fingers move, as though they, at that last moment in the world of the sun, sought to clutch the ivory idol. Then she saw the coffin-shroud slowly sink, and, like some sad symbol of all the universe of mortal desire, one bubble came to the calm surface—and burst!

After seeing that sight Sestrina hurried into the cuddy, in some strange fright seeking to hide from the memory of that sorrow which she had just seen. But, in the great irony of accidental things, the first thing that caught her eyes was the ivory idol lying on the cuddy’s table. She stared on it, fascinated, picked it up, and then dropped it in fright. Little did Sestrina dream that a day would come when she too would kneel in humble pagan faith before that tiny carven ivory god.

On the third week out from Yucata, the barometer began to fall.

“SeÑorita, ze wind is gwing to blow, big waves come over deck, savvy?” said the skipper.

“I don’t mind,” replied Sestrina as she gazed up at the deep blue of the tropic sky and noticed flocks of strange birds travelling out of the dim horizons. On, on they came, speeding across the sky, travelling south-west on their migrating flight from some distant land, outbound for another continent. Those winged travellers of the sky, voyaging onward, had read their wonderful compass, instinct, and so had unerring knowledge of the coming hurricane. Many of them had long necks and peculiar loose hanging legs, and as they passed swiftly over the lonely Belle Isle, Sestrina heard the faint rattle and whir of their ungainly wings and legs rushing through space.

“Big winds blow, birds they know, and so fly fast,” said the captain as he too followed Sestrina’s gaze and watched the flight of those migrating birds.

“No, SeÑorita,” said the skipper when Sestrina attempted to pass out of the cuddy and go on deck that night.

Perhaps it was as well that Sestrina obeyed the Mexican skipper, for the first stars had hardly pierced the velvet blue of the evening skies when the typhoon struck the Belle Isle. The sound of the storm’s first breath came like the massed trampling of infinite cavalry and low mutterings of mighty guns that fired the thunders and lightnings of the heavens.

Sestrina, who had never been to sea in real bad weather, thought the schooner was sinking.

“Rip! rppppppppp!” the stays and jib were torn to ribbons, were flapping like mighty wings, making a noise which could be heard above the universal clash and clamour of the thundering seas. The skipper helped the crew put fresh sail out to steady the schooner that lay over as though about to turn turtle. The crew worked with a will, for they well knew that their lives were at stake.

“Let me out! I don’t want to be shut in this dismal place,” said Sestrina, in an appealing voice to the skipper who had just entered the cuddy. The schooner was rolling and pitching furiously. The girl had to hold on to the iron stanchions of the cuddy to stay herself from being violently flung to the deck. The skipper, who had rushed into the cuddy for some rope and tackle, tried to soothe Sestrina’s fears. She noticed that his manner had completely changed; he looked serious more manly. But this fact did not ease Sestrina’s mind, since she knew the change in his demeanour was because he saw danger ahead. Nor was the girl wrong in her surmise. The skipper well knew that if the typhoon lasted much longer, the Belle Isle was likely to get broadside on to the great seas and would possibly turn turtle, or the seas would sweep everything on deck away.

“You stay, no fright, SeÑorita,” he said.

Then the man ran out on deck again.

At this moment little Rajao, the boatswain’s child, rushed into the cuddy and clung to Sestrina’s skirt.

“Ze wins blow! SeÑorita,” wailed the child, a terrified look in his eyes, as he stared up into her face.

“It’s all right, don’t be frightened, Rajao,” she said.

Sestrina laid the boy down in her bunk and left the cabin door open so that he would not be frightened. Seeing by Rajao’s sudden appearance that the skipper in his haste had left the cuddy’s door unfastened, Sestrina immediately rushed towards it, and opening the door, stared out into the night. By the flashing light of the stars, that seemed to flicker to the force of the typhoon’s breath, she saw the great seas rising up! up! They looked like travelling mountains, foaming liquid ranges and multitudinous ridges lit with phosphorescent foams, that were tossed and swept into tremendous cataracts of glittering sprays as the typhoon’s breath swept the world of water like a huge unseen knife.

Crash! The schooner stopped, seemed to sink by the stern, then giving a shivery jerk, fell before the dead weight of the onrushing seas that crashed over her. The scene the lonely girl saw was as though God again held the oceans in the hollows of His hands, as though the universe of water had been re-thrown into the infinite; majestic liquid mountains tossing mighty arms that resembled promontories of fiery foams, triumphantly travelling through boundless space, bound for new regions, taking the millions of marching stars with them, as like a lone ark, with its little terrified mortality, the Belle Isle flapped its broken wings, bravely struggling in some effort to survive the chaos of a new creation!

In her fright Sestrina shut the cuddy’s door, bang! and then stared in terror through the porthole. She knew that something terrible had happened. She distinctly heard faint wails, like the despairing cries of helpless children calling from somewhere out in the infinity of dark and wind. The square-rigged foremast had been snapped off just above the mainyard—it had gone! The whole crew who had been aloft had disappeared, washed overboard. Sestrina and little Rajao, the child, out of all the crew, were left alone. The Haytian girl stood at the porthole, horrified by the catastrophe which she knew had overtaken the Belle Isle’s crew. Like most women of her type, she revealed true pluck in a great emergency. She rushed to the child Rajao. He had given a terrified scream.

“It’s all right, Rajao, I’m near you,” she said as she clutched the child in her arms, then standing him on the cuddy’s floor exhorted him not to move. Then she stood waiting. An eternity of apprehensive terror passed ere she felt the heavy rolling and pitching of the vessel subside. The distant wails out in the night, the silence on the deck, where a few moments before she had heard loudly shouted oaths, made her realise that all the crew had gone. She knew that no human beings could live in the chaotic crash of the charging seas that loomed before her terror-stricken eyes like mountainous, glittering icebergs travelling triumphant across the world! In the first realisation of her own terrible loneliness, her thoughts flew to the imprisoned beings who, she knew, were down in the hold of the Belle Isle. Looking out on deck, she anxiously awaited her chance; the seas were still leaping over the side, great liquid masses washing to and fro as the schooner pitched and rolled. An opportunity presented itself; she ran out on deck and reached the main hatchway. Inclining her head, she could distinctly hear above the clamour of the charging seas muffled groans and wild cries coming from below the hatchway. The crew had battened the hatch down just before the typhoon had burst over the Belle Isle. As she stood there and listened in terror, wondering what to do, a small shadowy figure ran towards her. It was the child Rajao. He was wringing his hands and calling for his father.

“Go back! get into the cuddy, quick,” cried Sestrina. The next moment a tremendous sea crashed on board. The girl gripped a rope that was hanging from the ratlines near the galley, and so saved herself from being washed away. She let go and was immediately washed into the scuppers on the windward side. In her horror at the terrible cry that came to her ears, she ran to the side, and, careless of her own life, stared over at the great seas—little Rajao had gone to his father! A faint cry came out of the waters; then nothing more to tell of Rajao’s existence. This new disaster upset Sestrina more than anything else that had happened that night. She rushed back into the cuddy, and throwing herself on the floor beat her hands and moaned like one demented. After a while she calmed down. She had wisdom enough to realise that it was no good grieving. Then she sought comfort by kneeling, and with the crucifix in her hand prayed. And never did girl pray more fervently than did Sestrina Gravelot that night on the storm-tossed Belle Isle. She called Clensy’s name aloud in her prayers so that the word “Royal” might bring comfort and companionship to her loneliness. Remembering the appealing cry which she had heard when she had stood by the hatchway, she calmed herself and longed to release the prisoners.

“Thank God that I’m not alone, there is some one near me,” she cried, as she once more went to the cuddy’s door and anxiously waited a favourable moment to get to the main hatch again. The first wild breath of the typhoon had passed, but the seas were still running high. Seizing the first opportunity she once more ran along the deck. Directly she came to the main hatch she gripped a long piece of rope, and making one end fast round her waist, tied the other end into the bolt at the bottom of the mainmast. The whole time that she stood there she could hear muffled wailings and voices speaking in a strange language, beseeching her to release them from their perilous position.

Sestrina strove to lift the hatchway, but found it quite impossible to do so with her delicate hands. Placing her face close to the cracks in the hatch, she shouted, “Who are you? I’m all alone, the storm has washed all the crew of this ship overboard!”

Then she listened. At first she heard a lot of mumbling, as though insane men were gabbling in an unintelligible manner; then to her immense relief a voice said:

“Wahine! Oh save us or we die!” It was a musical, clear voice and sounded strangely calm in the midst of the hubbub of other voices that gabbled incessantly.

“I cannot lift the hatch; I’m not strong enough,” she shouted back as the wind swept her hair streaming behind her. A sea crashed on board. She was only saved through her forethought in lashing herself to the bolt in the mainmast. As soon as the water had subsided the schooner ceased to roll.

Again she placed her mouth to the chink in the hatch and shouted once more, “The crew have been washed overboard; I’m a woman, all alone up here; and who are you?”

“All gone, wash way?” replied the melancholy voice, the only voice that spoke in English. Then the voice continued, “You woman’s all alone?”

“Yes, I’m quite alone.”

“Getter hammer or lump of iron and knock lumps of wood, bolts, out of the sides of the hatch so that we stricken men, O Wahine, may open it,” said the voice in pathetic appeal.

The next moment Sestrina was groping about the dark deck seeking something that would enable her to knock the large bolts from the hatchway. At last she found an iron bar in the galley. Risking the danger of the heavy seas that still leapt on board every time the Belle Isle rolled and lay over to windward, she lifted the bar and smashed away at the bolts with all her might.

“I cannot move the bolts!” she cried when she had struck away till her fingers bled.

“Oh, try again, Wahine, for the sake of dying men,” replied the voice as the gabbling ceased.

“Who are you? and why are you locked down there?” replied Sestrina as she stood breathless on the deck and for the first time realised her position. There were evidently many men locked up in that fetid hold, and she was there, a woman alone, about to release them. Her natural instincts had begun to warn her.

“Ah papalagi, kind Wahine, we are only poor men who have been taken away from our homes because we be ill.” There was an appealing, earnest note in the voice that said this, that sounded unerringly true.

Sestrina’s fears vanished. “Ill!” she cried, as the winds swept the deck and slashed her mass of wildly blown hair about her face. “Is that the only reason that you have been locked up down there?” she called back.

“’Tis all that is the matter with us, and by the light of truth and the great Kuahilo, PelÊ, and the White God, I say this, O Wahine,” replied the voice in a trembling way.

Sestrina’s heart was touched. The next moment she had once again begun to deliver direct blows at the hatch bolts. Then she discovered that she had been knocking them the wrong way. Crash! out came the first bolt; crash! out came another. In a few minutes she stood still again; all the bolts were out except two, one bolt on either side. Dawn was stealing across the storm-tossed seas.

Though the first passion of the typhoon had blown itself out, a steady wind of hurricane force was still blowing. Up! up! rose the tremendous hills of water and the Belle Isle creaked and groaned as she lifted and the great seas passed safely under her! For a moment the lonely Haytian girl stared seaward. It was a terrible, yet grand scene from the derelict schooner’s deck as the battered wreck laboured like a brave, conscious thing and the torn sails flapped and the seas leapt on board and romped about her like hungry monsters.

Sestrina had opened the hatchway, and had at once hastily retreated towards the cuddy’s doorway. As she stood there watching by the dim light of the breaking dawn, which had barely extinguished the stars to the west, she fancied she could hear the thumping of her own heart.

“Who had she rescued from the fetid depths of the schooner’s hold?” Her eyes were fixed on the opened hatchway. First one head appeared; just for a moment it wobbled and then sank back, as though from extreme exhaustion through climbing the ladder that led from the schooner’s bottom up to the deck. In another moment the head had reappeared. Sestrina saw the face! She stared like one paralysed at that terrible, ghastly sight. It was a skeleton of death, and the face noseless, disease eaten; the head wobbled and swayed helplessly; the fleshless lips grinned as the bony forehead turned and the face stared towards the dawn of the far skyline with blind eyes! Then another head appeared; it was white and blotched with snowy patches, hairless. The face might have been some symbol of all sorrow and misery under the sun, so pathetic looking was it, as it, too, shifted about, staring first to port and then to starboard, as though it would scan the dim horizons of the grey dawn-lit seas for help! Then came up another head. It was apparently the head of the one who had stood below, behind the others, assisting them, helping them ascend the ladder. There was no sign of disease on the head or face of this one. He was a tall, handsome man with fine bright eyes. Sestrina stared in surprise. She began to seek comfort in the thought that all she saw was only some terrible nightmare of her afflicted brain. The tall Hawaiian, for such he was, was attired in picturesque costume, a tappa-cloth girdle and flowing robe, such as Hawaiian chiefs wear. The man’s alert eyes at once espied Sestrina’s form as she stood in the shadows, just inside the cuddy’s doorway. He had leapt on to the deck and was moving in a hesitating way towards her. Sestrina gripped the door handle, quite prepared to rush in the saloon and shut it; then she stared hard in the soft grey light of the tropic dawn, and saw something in the man’s face that told her he deserved her deepest sympathy and not her fear!

“Who are you, and who are they? What’s the matter with them?” she asked of the handsome Hawaiian, as she pointed towards the deck by the main hatchway. Ten terrible-looking beings stood swaying like skeletons in their ragged shrouds, drinking in the fresh air of the fast-breaking dawn, as dying castaways might drink in water. What more terrible sight could the whole world present than that lonely, wrecked, waterlogged schooner, and on its deck those wobbling heads with half-blind eyes, the rags of the skeleton frames flapping in the wind, their forms falling to the deck as the schooner rolled and pitched on the storm-tossed seas. The fallen figures were on their knees, with lifted hands, praying feverishly in some musical tongue to the skies where the first deep blue of the tropic day was stealing.

“Are you quite alone, Wahine?” said the Hawaiian, who had sadly watched Sestrina’s terrified gaze on that dreadful sight of his fellows.

For a moment the girl looked steadily into the man’s eyes, then replied, “I am quite alone; the crew were all washed away last night.”

It was then that the tall Hawaiian stood erect with bowed head, as though lowered before the girl’s eyes in some shame, and said, “Wahine, we got kilia (leprosy), and this ship was taking us to the leper settlement, Molokai.” Saying this to the girl, the tall, melancholy-looking man seemed relieved. He raised his head and said softly, in the biblical style of the Hawaiians who have learnt their English from the missionaries, “And Wahine, who art thou?”

Sestrina was speechless. She could not reply, for in her despair and horror she forgot who she was. “Lepers!” was the only word that escaped from her lips when the great mist left her brain, and once more the Belle Isle’s deck became a solid something being beaten by the chaotic waters of an infinite sea. She had suddenly turned, as though she were about to flee from that terrible presence, a scourge that made the living dead still stand in the light of the sun, that they might watch their bodies dissolve before the ravages, the canker of a loathsome pollution, a malignant scourge that made its victims bless the blindness of their afflicted eyes as the third stage arrived, the stage when they could no longer see their disease-eaten limbs, the polluted flesh, and the peeping, whitened bones of their own unburied skeletons. Where could Sestrina fly to? Where? Already a faint odour from the pestilence of those swaying, moaning lepers came floating to her nostrils. What had she done that she should be cast away on a world of waters, alone on a living tomb where the dead clamoured in their shrouds, put forth bony fingers, and with half-blind eyes sought with pathetic indecision to locate her whereabouts, as they appealed for water and food! Food for the dead! Nourishment to sustain the loathsome body in that hellish purgatory where men hated and feared men, where pain and misery came as a blessing divine to stay memories of past love and homes, the anguished thoughts that haunt the living grave! “Food! wai (water!)” they cried. Such is the love of life in mortals who have once dwelt alive under the sun!

The intermittent sounds, the beseeching mumblings of their parched, almost fleshless lips, told Sestrina of their hunger and thirst. The language they wailed was unintelligible to her, but the appeal of the shrivelled outstretched hands and the stare in the bulged glassy eyes spoke in that language which is intelligible to all mortals who dwell under the sun. The horror that had partially paralysed Sestrina’s senses vanished. She was a woman. The slumbering instincts of divine motherhood, the sympathy and self-denial which springs into the hearts of most women when they are put to the supreme test by some heart-rending catastrophe, or when despairing men appeal, awoke in her soul. The inscrutable will of Providence, that so often stabs the heart with one hand and with the other soothes with sweetest balm, had given Sestrina the divine faculty which enables one to forget one’s own sorrow when in the presence of a greater grief. And so Sestrina’s fragile form was enabled to bear the weight of grief at that moment in her life, grief of a nature which was surely about the cruellest that the fates could devise. Her desire to flee from the presence of those afflicted men was swept away by a flood of sympathy and a feverish desire to help to alleviate their sufferings. She looked into the eyes of the tall, almost dignified-looking, handsome Hawaiian who stood before her. No sign of the scourge was visible on his countenance. Seeing the girl’s hasty glance at his face and over his form, and divining the reason why she had stared so, he at once pulled up the sleeve of his native jerkin, and, pointing to his arm, just under the muscles by the shoulder, said, “See, Wahine?”

A small bluish patch, not larger than a penny piece, was visible. The Hawaiian’s earnest, simple manner and the thought that he was still strong and possibly a doughty protector if trouble came, acted like magic on Sestrina’s stricken nerves.

“Come on!” she said.

The next moment she had dodged the green seas that were leaping over the side, and had entered the silent cuddy. The Hawaiian had followed her. Grasping the iron posts in the cuddy to save herself from falling, for the schooner was still rolling very heavily, she opened the small lockers and brought forth tinned meats, tinned fruits, bread, jam, and all the table delicacies she could lay her hands on. She looked up, sorrow and surprise in her eyes as the Hawaiian stood devouring a lump of the bread. Yes, so great was his hunger.

“Come on!” she said.

Then she ran out on deck. Seeing the lepers huddled by the starboard scupper, all clinging to the bolts and ropes as they swayed on their knees in their helplessness, she held the food up and beckoned the tall Hawaiian to take it to them. In a moment Hawahee, for such was the tall Hawaiian’s name, approached his stricken comrades and gave them bread.

“Here, quick!” said Sestrina, as she saw him trying to burst the lid of one of the tins of meat open. She had handed him a strong ship’s clasp-knife. In a second he had wrenched the lid off. As the lepers crawled about the deck, picking up the scattered crumbs and bits, Sestrina could hear them murmuring, “O Jesu, Maki, kola, se moaa Langi.” She knew that they were thanking her and the gods of their own creed and her own Saviour.

Such was Sestrina’s experience on the Belle Isle when the crew were washed overboard. Daylight and the bright tropic sun shining over the ocean eased her first terrors. Strange as it may seem, the sight of the stricken lepers, and her knowledge that she could help them, made her accept the tragical position with a strange feeling of calmful fear and happiness. The Hawaiian, Hawahee, had an intellectual countenance, and his manner was reserved and gentle. Sestrina thanked God on her knees when she discovered that he had the scourge only in its first stage, and very slight. She trembled when she thought of what her position would have been had she found herself alone on those tropic seas with stricken lepers who were nearly all in an advanced stage. Four of them were quite blind, the rest were able to walk about and help Hawahee put things ship-shape on board as the days went by. Hawahee spoke little to her, but his sad demeanour, and the little he did say when he spoke to her, convinced Sestrina that he was a true friend.

Two or three days after she had rescued the lepers from the fetid hold, they nearly all showed signs of improvement. Even the four blind men would stand out on deck and bathe in the hot sunlight. It was a terrible sight, though. Sestrina would turn her eyes away as they put forth their withered, almost fleshless hands and chanted strange prayers to the skies. On the fourth night after the typhoon, one of the blind lepers rushed out of the forecastle and jumped overboard. Sestrina and Hawahee, who were standing aft by the cuddy with an oil-lamp, sorting out tinned fruits that they had found in the lazaretto, heard a cry and at once rushed forward. The swell was still heavy, causing the schooner to roll at times in an alarming way. As Hawahee and Sestrina stared over the side they heard the cry again, a faint cry like the wail of a child, but they could see nothing. Then the moon, which had been concealed by a wrack of cloud, seemingly floated into the blue space and sent a great silver radiance over the waters.

“Look! there he is!” cried Sestrina, as she pointed away towards the rolling, glassy waters.

True enough, as Hawahee and the three stronger lepers, Lupo, Rohana, and Steno, stared over the side they could see their comrade’s struggling form. For a moment the moon once more disappeared behind a dark cloud, and the sad watchers on the wrecked Belle Isle only heard a faint cry as they stared into the darkness. Then a long shaft of moonlight fell slantwise, down to where they had seen the struggling form, and touched the waters. And as Sestrina watched, it seemed to her that a door in Heaven had suddenly been opened by the Hand of divine sympathy. They saw the dying man’s hands toss for the last time from his watery grave, as though in some pathetic appeal to the heavens. Though the seas still rolled on and the tangled ropes and torn sails flapped aloft and the schooner’s deck creaked and moaned to the eternal roll, it seemed that a great silence followed that last sad moment. Hawahee sighed and Sestrina’s form trembled as she stood there, her hair outstreaming to the wind. Yet they both knew that their dead comrade had at last found rest and peace.

Sestrina’s brain became strangely etherealised through sorrow. Grief had the effect of strengthening her mind. Even Hawahee gazed on the lonely girl in calm admiration as she ran about attending his stricken comrades with unremitting solicitude.

“Here are pillows and blankets,” she said, as she handed Hawahee all the bedclothes she had found in the cuddy’s cabins.

“Aloah, Wahine,” murmured the Hawaiian, as he bowed and took them from the girl’s arms and at once went forward to make comfortable beds for his leper fellows. For the Hawaiian also was a good man, his heart full of tenderness and religious sorrow for those who suffered around him. Sestrina would sit in the cuddy alone by night, unable to sleep as the schooner rolled helpless on the tropic seas. A dim, dream-like kaleidoscopic glimpse of Royal Clensy sitting in some room in far-away Honolulu, awaiting her presence, would flash through her brain. Her feelings at such moments were wonderfully intense; her past, her life itself and future hopes seemed to be suddenly crystallised into one magic diamond-flash of the mind as she saw the shadowy form and face of her awaiting lover. Her soul, winged by the mystery of the unexplainable, crossed those tropic seas and went wandering amongst strange people in strange places, searching to find the one who would think she had forgotten him. Then the boundless reality of the surrounding ocean would return and bring the darkest despair to her heart.

In a few days the swell of the ocean had subsided enough to make it possible to walk about the Belle Isle without holding on to the fixtures. It was then that Hawahee set about clearing the deck of the wreckage, fallen spars and tackle, etc. The Hawaiian had been a sailor, and so he knew that it would be wise to get the fallen spars of the mainmast and the dÉbris of the foremast overboard so as to ease the schooner’s list. The clearance, by the help of Rohana and Lupo and Steno, was accomplished in one day. Then Hawahee made Lupo take the helm, so that he could attempt to keep the vessel’s head before the swell; but the way of the schooner was not sufficient, and so she drifted broadside. A few nights after that it came on to blow again. Things began to look serious. Sestrina asked the Hawaiian to stay aft with her in the cuddy. The thundering seas had once more begun to lift the schooner as though it were a tiny boat. The seas swept right over her deck as she drifted away, away into the vast unknown regions of the Pacific Ocean.

Seeing that nothing could be done to bring the Belle Isle under control, Hawahee told the lepers to keep in the forecastle. Then he looked kindly at Sestrina, and said, “Wahine, for your sake I will stay aft.”

“Yes, do stay here with me!” cried Sestrina in dread as the darkness came over the seas and the thundering seas crashed intermittently against the schooner. It was a terrible night. The cargo shifted in the hold, making the Belle Isle take a worse list than ever. It was almost impossible to keep a footing on deck without holding on to something. Hawahee fell on his knees in the cuddy and prayed first to the great White God, and then to his own gods. It all seemed like some terrible nightmare to Sestrina as she lay in an exhausted state on the cuddy’s settee, her sleepless eyes watching the Hawaiian on his knees appealing to his gods with deep religious fervour. So often did Sestrina feel the mountainous waters bear down on the wreck and lift it up on the travelling hills, that she knew exactly when to expect the crash and shiver of the schooner as the seas struck her.

“Where are we going to, where?” moaned Sestrina.

The Hawaiian, who had risen to his feet, gazed on the girl with melancholy eyes, and then shook his head. He well knew that the Belle Isle was drifting far away from the track of the trading vessels, away into the unknown seas.

Daylight came. Sestrina had lashed herself to the cuddy’s table and, with her head on it, had fallen into a subconscious state. She thanked her Maker on her knees when she woke and peered through the porthole. She saw the dim eastern horizon slowly brighten from grey to saffron and deep orange. Then she watched the crimson streaks burst out of the glowing dawn’s first magnificent thrill, dawn’s first splendid pang as the birth of the sunrise flooded the eastern skyline with a wealth of golden and crimson splendour.

“O Langi, O le sao va moana,” said Hawahee, as he gazed on the rosy eternity of the east. Then, folding his hands across his breast, he prayed in his native tongue. And still the Belle Isle drifted on, drifting like some frightened conscious thing as the everlasting seas charged her helplessness. She was loaded with timber, and so, as far as sinking was concerned, they were safe.

“We shall not sink; Langi (heaven) is good to us,” murmured Hawahee as he walked softly into the cuddy after examining the Belle Isle’s cargo.

When the seas had calmed down, Sestrina and Hawahee stood on deck and scanned the horizon to see if land or a sail was in sight.

“Fear not, Wahine, Langi and your great White God are with us.” So spake Hawahee as, with his hand arched over his eyes, he carefully scanned the boundless skylines. Sestrina did not gaze across the seas, but she scanned Hawahee’s face, and knew by its expression and by his eyes that no sail was in sight. And still Sestrina hoped on. And did Hawahee hope on? No! It was only for the girl’s sake that he would wish to sight a sail on those solitary tropic seas. He well knew that should a passing vessel come to rescue him and his comrades, the crew would, on discovering that they were lepers, flee from the Belle Isle in terror. And so it was for Sestrina’s sake only that he watched the skylines with hope.

The Belle Isle had been drifting exactly twelve days when something happened that lessened the tenor of their position. Hawahee was staring seaward. The wild splendour of sunset’s burnished light along the western horizon had subdued the brilliance of the tropic day, so that the skyline to the south-west was visible to the ocean’s apparent remotest rim. Hawahee suddenly startled Sestrina by shouting, “Look, Wahine!”

Sestrina stared over the side, her hair blowing wildly about her shoulders as the steady breeze slashed her form.

“What is it? quick, tell me,” she said as she still gazed eagerly, her hand arched over her eyes as she stared and stared. Again Hawahee pointed to the south-west. It was then that Sestrina caught the first glimpse of a bluish blotch that looked like a tiny cloud on the remote skyline. It was land! The Haytian girl’s pulses leapt with joy. She burst into tears, so intense was her delight in the thought that she would see the solid earth again and the faces of men and women, with happy eyes, beings who enjoyed the air they breathed in the glorious thrill of healthy life. Such were the half-formed thoughts that swept through Sestrina’s excited mind. But why did a shadow creep over Hawahee’s face? Why did he fear the sight of strong, health-loving men who thanked God for the health and liberty which they shared in common with the insects of the air. Ah, why? Hawahee and his comrades well knew that they were loathsome outcasts of creation. He knew that, were there civilised men on the isle (for such was the land towards which the schooner was fast drifting), he and his comrades would be captured and chained like felons so that they could be safely re-shipped and sent away to the terrible lazaretto, the dread Leper Isle—Molokai.

As Hawahee watched, the shadow passed from his face; his eyes re-brightened. There was yet hope for him and his comrades. It was quite possible that the isle they saw was one of the hundreds of uninhabited isles of the South Pacific Ocean. Hawahee did not fear the savages who might inhabit such an isle. He knew that they would be quite ignorant of the contagious nature of the scourge from which he and his companions suffered. Sestrina heard him give a sigh of relief as he stood there and watched. She guessed not why he sighed so. Sestrina was only an inexperienced girl after all. In the first thrill of excitement and hope over sighting that little blue blotch on the skyline, she had wondered if it might not be the shores of Hawaii—Honolulu! Poor Sestrina!

Ere the eastern stars had begun to bespangle the heavens, Hawahee lifted his hands and murmured a hasty prayer to Kuahilo and the great Hawaiian goddess PelÉ. For he had distinctly made out a lonely isle. There it was, far away to the south-west, the foams of the beating seas that swept over its coral reefs distinctly visible. He was saved! The hands of wrathful men would not grip him and his comrades and place gyves on their limbs. He would yet enjoy the freedom of the hills before the pollution of his mortal tenement made him cry to God out of the greatest sorrow that can well come to men in this world. And, as the Hawaiian reflected, he beckoned to Sestrina.

“Yes, Hawahee?” she said timidly, as she gazed up into his handsome face in wonder, watching his eyes from some dread of her own mind. The fact is, that she knew not whether the proximity of the isle was a blessing to Hawahee, or whether he would attempt to alter the course of the schooner so that he and his comrades could risk the horrors of the ocean rather than fall into the hands of their fellow-men again.

To the girl’s delight, he looked kindly upon her, and said, “Go thou, my child, into the cuddy, and bring unto me all those old ropes that we have stored in readiness for such a pass as this.”

The ocean swell was still heavy, so heavy that it often lifted the schooner up on her beam ends. Hawahee knew that if the Belle Isle struck the reefs of that far-away isle’s shore and so became solid with the land, the seas would dash over her and sweep them all away.

“Wahine, keep near me,” he said, as he ran about, making hasty preparations for the coming shock. All the while Hawahee was making these preparations, the stricken lepers were standing by the bulwark side, beating their hands and chanting in a strange way. Two of the blind men seemed to be demented, for they began to jump about and dance in a grotesque manner on the deck.

“Rohana, Steno and Lupo!” called Hawahee.

In a moment the three men stood by his side.

“Go thou to the helm and do your best to keep the ship’s course so that she might run ashore on the low sands of the isle, where the waters do not send up such cataracts of spray, see?”

Saying this, he pointed to the far-away isle. And there, true enough, Rohana and Sestrina stared and saw that one part of the shore was quite visible, even the palms just inland in clear relief, because no showers of flying spray dimmed the atmosphere. The Belle Isle was so near the land that they could plainly see the white lines of the rolling surfs as the big ocean swell rolled up the shores, caught the barrier reefs, and rebounded in mighty showers that glittered in the dusk. Then a pale radiance swept right across the Pacific Ocean and dispelled the deeper night shadows.

“’Tis good; the moon is up. Langi has sent light for us,” murmured Hawahee, as he stared seaward, where the swollen moonrise looked like a big haggard face peering in some anxiety over the horizon of the hot tropic night sea. The lepers had already constructed a large raft, making it out of the wooden gratings and the doors of the galley and the cuddy. By the side of this raft stood the more helpless lepers waiting to be lashed on to it so that they would not be washed away when the final crash came. It was strange how those afflicted men clung to each other and went to an infinite amount of trouble to help their more helpless fellows. But still, they did go to the trouble, and it must be supposed that the love of men for one another is a greater virtue in sorrow than in the flush of perfect joy and health.

“All is ready, Wahine; do not fear,” whispered Hawahee as he approached Sestrina, and then crept back into the shadows to watch. The wonder and mystery of it all almost drowned Sestrina’s fears as she stared over the bulwark. She saw the lonely isle, distant palm-clad hills, and all the silvered waves tumbling, as though silently, in the moonlight as they broke over the shore reefs and sent up glimmering fountains of spray. Rohana, who had black shaggy hair, and looked like some handsome wild man, crept near the girl and stared over the side as Hawahee stood in prayer in the shadows.

“Listen, Wahine!” he said. And as Rohana inclined his head, Sestrina inclined her head also. They could both distinctly hear the far-off boom and low monotone made by the big white-ridged combers as they met the shore of the isle and rebounded on the outer reefs. It was then that Hawahee approached Sestrina again.

“Keep near me, Wahine,” he said, as he put on an old glove (he had found it in the cuddy), so that he might grip hold of Sestrina without fear of the contagion of the leprosy reaching her. Hawahee’s eyes were full of tenderness as he gazed on the lonely girl as she stood there, hope shining in her eyes, her unkempt mass of hair streaming out to the wind. Hawahee saw that she did not realise the approaching danger. It was a picture full of beauty and tragedy as she stood there. The fluttering dishevelment of her torn dress and the dark rings formed by worry round her eyes, the lines of sorrow on her brow, intensified the girl’s beauty, and touched the Hawaiian’s heart. Sestrina heard him sigh.

“Don’t move,” said Hawahee; “keep quite near me, Sestra,” for so he had called her since she had told him her name that day.

As they stood on deck, the moon, low on the horizon, was just behind them. They could distinctly see the shore’s outline and the showers of foam rise and curl, and disappear in the gloom.

“Hark!” said Sestrina; and as she and Hawahee listened they distinctly heard the sea winds moan as they swept through the rows of shore palms.

“Aue! Lo mao sapola!” said Hawahee, as he beckoned to Rohana and Lupo.

The next moment the lepers had rushed to the raft. Then the crash came. The Belle Isle had struck broadside on the reefs in rather deep water. In a second the great seas came ramping over the side like huge monsters with slashing mains, crashed on deck and then leapt right over to the port side. The lepers had just managed to cling on to the raft when it was washed away over the side, going with ease over the rail, which was level with the seas. Sestrina, who had expected the schooner to run softly on the beach and so allow them all to paddle safely ashore, or at least go in the schooner’s broken boat, gave a scream in her fright as the seas crashed on board. The terrific tumult, the swaying and moaning and snapping of the spars, and the chaotic ramping of the foaming waters around her, made Sestrina think that a typhoon had struck the Belle Isle without the slightest warning. The next minute Hawahee had clutched the frightened girl in his arms. A tremendous swell wave struck the Belle Isle—they were both washed away.

“Have no fear, Wahine,” said Hawahee, as he recovered his breath, and held the girl’s head above the water, placing one arm under her body. “Let go, quick, Wahine!” he gasped, as Sestrina in her terror gripped his swimming arm. Again they were engulfed, a sea passing right over their heads. Sestrina thought her last moment had come. She gave a despairing cry as she came to the surface, and then prepared to go under again. It seemed to her that Hawahee had let go his hold as a great wave engulfed them, and she fell down, down, into the blackness of the ocean. Her consciousness began to fade. She felt herself being slowly dragged along. She imagined that she was at the bottom of the Pacific and that some dark, terrible, silent form was dragging her along, and at the same time placing soft arms round her throat in an attempt to strangle her. Sestrina’s delight can be imagined when she opened her eyes and discovered Hawahee frantically pulling her up the wave-ridden beach. She was saved! Sestrina, who had swallowed a deal of sea-water, immediately lost consciousness. Hawahee lifted her in his arms and carried her up the beach. In a few moments he had gathered a heap of the dry, soft, drift seaweed scattered about the higher shore, and had placed her on a soft couch under the palms. For a long time he rubbed her hands and did all he could to revive the insensible girl.

“O Kuahilo! O PelÉ!” he cried as he appealed to his old gods, and then stared again on the girl’s pallid face that looked pathetically beautiful lying there upturned, just visible in the moonlight which streamed through the palms.

In his despair he unloosed her bodice. “Ora li Jesu!” he cried, as be appealed to the new God of the mission-rooms, and softly rubbed away at the girl’s bosom, just above the heart. Just as he was thinking that Sestrina had succumbed to her long submersion in the water, she opened her eyes. In his delight, Hawahee rose from his knees, and lifting his hands towards the sky, mumbled some strange chant-like prayer to his heathen deities. For, as is often the case with the Hawaiians who have been converted to Christianity, Hawahee in his sorrow and great joy had instinctively fallen back to the older faith, had appealed to the gods of his childhood. With infinite care and tenderness Hawahee pulled the folds of the girl’s bodice together again and arranged her clothing. Sestrina’s wakeful brain noticed these things, and she looked into Hawahee’s face and smiled.

“All is well; you are safe, Wahine,” he muttered. Then he left her and hurried down to the beach to see how it fared with his comrades. No sooner was he out of sight than Sestrina sat up and stared around her. Her brain was the swift-seeing, imaginative kind. As she looked towards the distant moonlit seas and heard the palms sighing over her head, a cruel flash of intense realisation came to her.

“’Tis an isle where no one lives. I am cast away, lost for ever. I will never see him or those I love again. Royal! come to me! Claircine, dear old Claircine, where are you?” In the bitterness of her thoughts her mind reverted to PÈre Chaco. “O PÈre Chaco, what have I done that this should happen to me? ‘As we sow, so shall we reap,’ you said to me. O PÈre Chaco, have mercy on me! What have I sown?” And as the miserable girl wailed and reflected, she stared over her shoulder in fright at the seas as they rushed up the beach. Then a great weariness came to her brain. In the misery and confusion of her senses she began to think that she was haunting the realms of some nightmare from which she must soon awaken. But the terrors of reality soon presented themselves to her. For she looked along the shore and saw a tall figure dragging helpless bodies out of reach of the waves. It was Hawahee doing his best to save his comrades from the ocean. Out of the nine lepers only five were saved—Rohana, Lupo, Steno, and two blind men. Hawahee had found them huddled on the shore, quite exhausted. He had swiftly dragged them higher up the beach and placed them in a comfortable spot in the thick grass and fern by the shore’s sheltering palms. The bodies which Sestrina had seen Hawahee dragging from the sea were dead. In a few moments the Hawaiian had placed them in a silent spot by the high reefs ready for burial. Then he came back to Sestrina’s side.

“Wahine, you have sorrow on your face, and there is nothing to grieve over now if you have true faith in your White God, the same as I have in my country’s gods.” So spoke Hawahee, but for all his kind words and great mental effort to cheer Sestrina, he was weak and ill and, giving way to his sorrow, prostrated himself on the shore and wept.

“I will be brave since you have been so good and brave yourself,” whispered Sestrina, as she gazed on the bowed head of the strange semi-savage man beside her. Hawahee at once recovered his composure. He hung his head like a big child for a moment as though he felt shame that Sestrina should have seen his tears.

“See, I do not worry, Hawahee,” said Sestrina, as she smiled, and then, taking a comb from her pocket, she began to comb the tangled folds of her damp tresses.

“Ah, wahine, thou art brave and deserve a better fate than this,” murmured Hawahee as, with his chin resting on his hand, he watched the girl. And still Sestrina combed away at her shining tresses, as they fell like a magical glossy tent over her shoulders, while she sang an old Haytian melody.

Neither Hawahee or Sestrina remembered the moment when sleep lulled their exhausted mind and body to rest. They must have slept two or three hours, for when Sestrina opened her eyes the stars had begun to take flight. The terrors of the night had been too cruel to make her think she had awakened from a dream. In a moment she had realised everything. She even gazed calmly upward and tried to see the birds that sang so weirdly sweet in the palms overhead. Dawn was stealing over the ocean. For a moment she stared at the ocean skyline. Out beyond the just visible reefs lay the wreck of the Belle Isle. The hull lay right over, the broken masts and spars pointed or leaning shoreward. In the calm waters that were surrounded by reefs, she saw two floating dark forms. She saw the ghastly death-stricken face of one of the forms as the head bobbed about, the body turning round and round to the slight swell of the water that heaved against the barrier reef beyond.

“Come away, wahine. I will place the dead to rest.”

It was Hawahee who spoke. He had suddenly awakened and found Sestrina standing beside him, staring at the dead bodies of the lepers. They had drifted in during the night.

“Come on, Sestra,” said the man. His voice was full of tenderness. The weeping girl followed him up the beach. In a few minutes they found a comfortable spot under the shades of the thick groves of breadfruit trees. “Here will do, wahine,” said Hawahee, as he looked up at the beautiful trees that spread their wealth of yellowing fruit amongst the rich glossy leaves. It was a beautiful spot. Even the bright-plumaged birds that haunted them seemed to welcome those sad strangers from the seas. “Chir-rip! cheer-up!” they seemed to say, as Hawahee and Sestrina gazed up at the fruit-loaded boughs that hung over them, so green and bright in the infinite loveliness of Dame Nature’s unostentatious hospitality.

“Here is food, wahine, and there is drink,” said Hawahee, as he gazed first on the yellowing breadfruit and then at the tall palms, on which hung tawny clusters of ripening coco-nuts.

“Wait, wahine, till I return,” said the Hawaiian. In a few moments he returned with a great armful of soft seaweed and moss. “Lie there and rest,” he said to Sestrina. Then the Hawaiian went down to the beach and, wading out to the deep water, dragged the bodies of the two dead lepers ashore. In a few moments he had dug a deep hole in the soft sand where the waters rolled up the beach by the promontory. When he had placed the bodies in the hollow he got several large lumps of coral rock and dropped them over the spot, so that when the tides were high the waters would not wash the sands away. Then he bathed himself in the cool sea water. After that he gathered fruits and coco-nut and took them to the lepers, but they took no notice of him, being fast asleep, exhausted. Hawahee was delighted when he found a large slope whereon grew wild feis (bananas). Gathering the luscious fruit, he hastened back to Sestrina, and told her to eat and drink. The shipwrecked girl felt greatly revived when she had eaten the wild feis and had drunk refreshing coco-nut milk. As the sun climbed high in the heaven and blazed over the tropic seas and the innumerable birds of the isle shrieked and sang, Sestrina felt less depressed. It was only when she followed Hawahee across the valley and caught sight of the huddled forms of the poor lepers, that her mind became darkened again. Lupo and Rohana stirred in their slumber, and then suddenly sat up.

“Aloah, wahine,” they murmured, as they caught sight of the girl, and smiled.

Sestrina nodded, and wondered why the stricken men should look so cheerful in such a pass. She could not realise how thankful the lepers felt to their gods in having the freedom of that little island world before them.

“Come away,” said Hawahee. Then he led Sestrina back to the shelter beneath the breadfruits. “You lie down here and rest, Sestra, and I will watch over you,” he said, as he gazed sorrowfully on the girl’s haggard face. Though Sestrina did not feel like sleeping, she did as the man bade her. Lying down on the soft moss couch that he had prepared, she soon fell asleep. While she lay there Hawahee sat by her side in deep meditation, making plans as to the best thing to do.

“If there is no one on this isle to interfere with us, we can easily build a dwelling-place under these trees,” he thought. Then he too fell asleep. The sun was sinking when Sestrina awoke. The dismal mutterings of the cockatoos in the boughs around swiftly called her to her senses. She felt so wretched and lonely that she touched Hawahee, who still lay fast asleep beside her, on the arm. In a moment he sat up, and, rubbing his eyes, stared in sorrow on the girl.

“Let us go and see how big this isle is, and find out if we are quite alone here, wahine,” he said. Hawahee’s suggestion that they should explore the isle together pleased Sestrina.

“Perhaps, after all, there are other human beings here,” she thought.

When they had reached the top of the hill, which was the highest elevation of the isle, they scanned the shore lines and saw that they were indeed alone, no sign of human habitation anywhere. It was a small isle, not more than a mile across, and two miles in length. Sestrina could not help but gaze in admiration on the loveliness of the scene around her. All along the shores stood clusters of feathery-leafed palms that leaned over small lagoons that shone like mirrors in the shadowy distances. Tiny waves, creeping in from the ocean’s calm expanse, ran up the silvery sands, tossed their snowy arms and faded. On all the higher slopes, about fifty yards inland, stood the picturesque breadfruit trees. And when the hot, soft sea wind drifted inland and touched their heights, the rich, dark green leaves stirred and revealed the paler hues underneath as they were softly blown aside. As Sestrina and Hawahee stood up there and scanned the dim blue horizons, they felt the vast loneliness of the Pacific enter their hearts. To the left, far beyond the promontory, north of the island, lay the wreck of the Belle Isle. The sight of the torn sails and rigging, which was still flapping softly in the breeze, intensified the loneliness of the surroundings.

“Wait, Sestra, let us be sure,” said Hawahee, then he climbed the nearest breadfruit tree.

For a long time he stood up in the leafy heights clinging to the boughs, scanning the isle, and staring out to sea. Then he climbed down, and standing by Sestrina, said: “We are safe, and there is no other land in sight.”

In one sad mental flash Sestrina realised her terrible position to the full. She realised that the greater the solitude of the isle the greater security it afforded the hunted lepers.

Hawahee noticed the despairing look on Sestrina’s face; and swiftly divining her thoughts, said: “Wahine, a ship may pass some day, and then, believe me, ’tis we can hide, my comrades and I. And those who come and rescue you will not know that we are here, savvy, wahine?”

“Yes, I understand what you mean,” murmured Sestrina as she stared out to sea, and let her eyes roam over the vast solitude of waters. Tears dimmed her yearning gaze. She instinctively knew that it might be months, even years before a ship sighted the isle and sent men ashore to search.

Seeing the girl’s grief, Hawahee gazed mournfully upon her and said: “Have no fear, Sestra, I will be a friend to thee.”

Then they both walked back to the sheltered spot which Hawahee had chosen by the shore.

The next day, Hawahee and his comrades, Rohana, Lupo, and Steno, made many journeys over the reefs, and then swam out to the wreck of the Belle Isle.

The sea had calmed down, and only a few waves dashed against the seaward hulk as the swell came in. In a very little while they had fashioned a substantial raft from the wreckage on the shore. And all day long they worked feverishly as they salvaged cases of tin meats, fruits and biscuits, and all the useful commodities that they could get hold of before the Belle Isle broke up. Two or three hours before the tropic sun dropped, Hawahee and his comrades searched the shore for a suitable spot, and then decided to build a dwelling by the caves, not far from the place where they had been washed ashore. And so they at once extemporised a rough dwelling for themselves. And while the stronger lepers were busy, Hawahee walked inland, and chose a shady place, about one hundred yards inland, for Sestrina’s home.

“’Tis a lovely spot, Sestra,” said Hawahee as he put in the first posts, and gazed on the sheltering palms and the sylvan beauty of the valley which ran half way down the centre of the isle. This valley had rugged sides and caves which showed that the isle was of volcanic formation. Between the spot which Hawahee had chosen for Sestrina’s home, and the dwelling place of the lepers was a wide hollow in which grew huge cacti and prickly pear. Hawahee had carefully chosen this spot so that the girl should be quite apart from the lepers. “Is it not a lovely spot, wahine?” said he.

“Yes, it is,” murmured Sestrina as she sighed, yet trying hard to appear enthusiastic over the rich loveliness of the tropical flowers, and palms and breadfruits that surrounded her new home.

In about a week, they were all settled in their rough habitations, and as comfortable as could be under the circumstances, Sestrina’s abode was all which could be desired, for Hawahee had fashioned a soft bed of fern, seaweed and scented moss. He had fashioned a door to her habitation out of the cuddy’s door of the Belle Isle. He had made strong hinges out of the twisted sennet so that the door could swing and be closed just as Sestrina desired. A few yards from the Haytian girl’s homestead stood Hawahee’s dwelling.

“’Tis best, Sestra, that I should dwell near to you,” said he, as Sestrina became quite industrious, and kept arriving by the busy Hawaiian, her arms full of stiff grass and weed that he was thatching his roof with. He had thatched her dwelling very carefully. Hawahee knew that a strong thatch was necessary, for typhoons and heavy rains often swept those sailless seas.

Sestrina would often lie sleepless by night in her primitive chamber and weep. She would listen to the voices of the night, the winds sighing in the palms, and in strange fancies imagine that Royal Clensy’s spirit called to her. Sometimes the rustling of the leaves would bring back memories of the grape-vine that grew below her chamber’s window at Port-au-Prince. The haunting idea that her English lover might think that she had made no attempt to get to Honolulu brought great distress to her.

“Ah, if he only knew the truth, I could bear all this,” she moaned as the great tropic starry nights of sleepless memory divided the hot, blue tropic days, and brought intense loneliness to her heart. In her sorrow she reverted to the pure religion of her childhood, and reaped much consolation therefrom. It was quite possible that the Hawaiian, Hawahee, had inspired her to seek comfort in prayer. For Hawahee was a fanatic in his devotion to his heathen gods. For though he had been converted to the Christian faith, he had greater faith in the deities of the olden times. Like many of the native lepers, he had become very devout through the sure knowledge that his days were numbered. He would kneel under the palms and sometimes pray to the sunset, singing weird, sweet melodies as he still remained on his knees. Sestrina would sit by him on these occasions, her hand under her chin, watching him like some wondering, wide-eyed child.

One evening as the sunset swept ineffable hues across the great storied remote window of Hawahee’s vast heathen cathedral—the western sea sky line—Sestrina opened her eyes in unbounded astonishment. “What’s that?” she cried as he put his arm forth, and muttered weird words to an image which he held in his hand.

“’Tis a vassal of the great goddess, PelÉ!” replied Hawahee, as he held the image close to Sestrina’s horrified looking eyes—she was staring on the ivory idol which the aged, dying Chinaman on the Belle Isle had worshipped so fervently!

The sight of that heathenish relic, and of Hawahee’s reverent attitude before its wonderfully carved little face, strangely impressed the Haytian girl’s mind. A weird, uncanny kind of atmosphere seemed to fall over her life, filling her mind with superstitious thoughts. The strange, long-necked birds that perched at dawn on the palms by her little homestead, no longer sang cheerful notes, but muttered dismal chants that made her frightened—of she knew not what! But in a day or two she regained the cheerful confidence that had so helped her in her castaway loneliness, and once more sang as she toiled over her primitive domestic duties.

One day, Hawahee suddenly approached Sestrina, and said, “Wahine, do not roam about the isle unless I am near you.” He looked troubled as he placed his hand to his brow, undecided as to how to continue.

Sestrina wondered why he should fear for her since they were castaways on an uninhabited isle. “Is there a sail in sight?” she said, a great hope springing into her heart.

“No, wahine,” murmured Hawahee, still gazing intently at the girl’s face, an expression in his eyes as though his heart wished to say something which his lips dare not express.

Then he said: “My comrades are not as I am; they have forgotten the virtues of the great goddess PelÉ, and of Kauhilo, and Atua of Langi, and so, ’tis best that you should keep from their path.”

Sestrina, who had seldom seen the lepers, because the sight of their afflicted forms made her feel miserable, gazed in wonder up at Hawahee’s face. The five lepers were, to her, poor helpless, cursed, pathetic beings, who calmly awaited the second death of their mortal existence. Though they dwelt within five hundred yards of her homestead, she had spoken only twice to them as they sat in the wattled shelter, and as the two blind lepers gazed with pathetic indecision towards her, a great wave of pain and sympathy had come to her heart.

Then Lupo, Rohana, and Steno had fallen on their knees, and, with their hands lifted, had gazed upon her as though she were some goddess. And as they wailed and wailed in their strange but musical tongue she imagined they were thanking her for her timely rescue of them all from the Belle Isle’s stifling hold.

“They look upon me as their benefactress; perhaps in the delirium of their fevered illness, they really think I am some heathen goddess?” she thought as Rohana and Lupo continued to wail, and crawling a little nearer, pointed to her shining tresses, murmured, “Aloah! wahine, makoa, maikai!” Then the lepers had placed their hands to their swollen mouths, making signs as they blew kisses to her, and cried “Maika! maikai!” (thank you). For she had taken a flower from the folds of her hair, and had thrown it towards them. Seeing the flower lying on the silver sands, Lupo, Rohana and Steno had rushed forward, had started struggling in a frantic way to secure the fading blossom. When Lupo placed the blossom to his lips, the others had crowded round him, had sought to place their lips against the faded petals. Such had been Sestrina’s experiences with the lepers during three months of isolation on that Pacific isle. When Hawahee stood before Sestrina and gave her the second warning, she still remained ignorant of the meaning of it all.

Three nights after, Sestrina was suddenly awakened by hearing a distant hubbub that sounded as though men were singing rollicking songs. “What can it mean?” she thought as she leaped from her couch. Her heart thumped as she listened and wondered. “’Tis a ship arrived off the isle, and the sailors are ashore, singing!”

“Keep near me,” said a stern voice, as she rushed from her dwelling to ascertain if her surmises were true. It was Hawahee who had spoken.

Sestrina gazed at him, and was alarmed at the expression of his eyes.

“’Tis Lupo, Rohana and the rest, they have been out to the wreck, and found barrels of devil-water (rum); they are demented, wahine.”

“Rum! demented!” replied Sestrina as her heart sank within her. No ship at all, but rum and demented! What did Hawahee mean? The girl did not realise the serious import of the Hawaian’s remarks. She had no familiar knowledge of men, and the demoralising influence of drink on their natures. And so she dreamed not of her danger, she, a lonely woman, on that solitary isle.

During the lepers stay on the isle their health had improved. The abundance of shell fish, the fruit and tinned meats, saved from the wreck, had renovated their wasted frames. Lupo and Rohana had even made flesh, and so their smouldering passions had burst into flame again! Indeed, but a day or two before, Rohana and Lupo had crept round the shore, and spied Sestrina bathing in a lagoon.

They had watched, and then hastened back to their comrades and cried in this wise: “Oh makaia, le sola!” and then the three stronger men had crept back into the jungle on the shore, and had watched. That same night they had talked about what they had seen, till even the blind lepers had listened in ecstasy as their comrades spoke of the girl’s beauty, the glory of her wet tresses as they sparkled in the warm sunlight.

Hawahee, who knew these things, attempted to calm Sestrina’s fears by saying, “Do not be alarmed by the singing of my brothers, I will protect you.”

And then she had gone back into her hut, and had lain sleepless, weeping bitterly, for her hopes had been cruelly dispelled. The next night she was awakened again by hearing a wild song. Again she jumped from her bed, and went outside, but this time she trembled in the thought of some nameless fear. As she stood under the palms by her lonely homestead doorway, she saw a great red glow on the sky over the sea.

“’Tis the wreck on fire,” said Hawahee as he stood beside her. For he was ever wakeful.

“Why have they set the ship on fire?” said Sestrina as she stood watching the sparks and the lurid smoke go skyward.

“They are mad with drink, and care only for themselves while the devil-gods and te rom (rum) revel in their souls,” said Hawahee in a bitter voice. Then he told Sestrina that they had fired the wreck so that no passing vessel could sight it, and wonder if any of its late crew were castaways on the isle.

Next day, Sestrina, thinking that all was well since the lepers had burnt the wreck, and so destroyed the rum, crept down to the lagoon by her homestead, wherein she bathed every morning. This lagoon was far away from that part of the isle where Lupo and the rest dwelt. Letting her hair down, she walked into the cool, shallow depths, and paddled about. She behaved like a child. Lifting her torn skirt, which she had patched up with pieces of the red table-cloth of the Belle Isle cuddy, she splashed about in the sparkling water and threw pebbles at the green-winged parrots that perched on the palms that leaned over the lagoon. Suddenly she stood perfectly still; she had observed a movement in the thick jungle fern which grew a little way up the shore. She stared again, and saw two burning eyes staring between the dark green leaves. She gave a startled cry and let her dress drop—it was Lupo who had spied upon her. Seeing her terror he stepped out of the jungle, lifting his hands in an appealing manner.

Sestrina immediately felt ashamed of her fright. Noticing that he had calmed the girl’s evident fear of him, Lupo moved towards her. As he approached her she fancied she saw a terrible look in his eyes. The instinct of womanhood made her realise—she knew not what. In a flash she recalled all that Hawahee had said.

The next second Lupo had fallen on his knees, and with his hands lifted in some appeal, said: “Aloah, wero, kawa, ma PelÉ,” as he greedily drank in the beauty of her face and form. He plucked a flower from the bush, and held it towards the girl.

“No! no!” said Sestrina as she shook her head to intimate that neither his gift nor his presence was required. In a moment Lupo’s manner had changed. He glanced hastily around, then rose and staggered towards her. Sestrina, on seeing the wild look in the leper’s eyes, fled.

Returning to her primitive homestead with a flushed face, and the sea-water still sparkling on her tresses, she arrived before Hawahee in a breathless state.

“Wahine, what is the matter?” he said as he stared at her.

“Nothing, only I felt frightened at seeing Lupo come out of the jungle whilst I bathed.”

“Have I not warned thee to keep near to me, and not wander about the isle, wahine?”

“Yes, I know,” gasped Sestrina, her breath still laboured through running so fast.

“Hawahee, what do the lepers want with me?” she said quietly in sudden wonder over all she had experienced.

The tall, handsome Hawaiian gazed steadily into the childlike, wide-open eyes, and seeing that the girl was innocent in heart and soul, made no reply to her query, but said: “Wahine, I shall be angry if you stray from here again. Mind that you keep on this side of the valley, and bathe no more at present.”

“I will do as you wish,” replied Sestrina, who put Hawahee’s fears down to some dread in his mind that she might be contaminated by the terrible scourge.

That same night Hawahee came across the slope and sat by Sestrina’s homestead, telling her many of his own sorrows, and how it was he had become incarcerated down in the hold of the Belle Isle. It was a sad story that Sestrina listened to as the Hawaiian spoke on, telling her many things about the horrors of leprosy on his native isles. Maybe he did not wish Sestrina to think too ill of his comrades, the lepers on the isle, whose sad lot was cast on the unknown waters with his own. And be it known that of all the races of mankind, the Hawaiians are the most sympathetic and lovable towards each other in sorrow or illness, their hearts being endowed with a love passing the love of woman. Indeed, many Hawaiians have been known to risk the contagion of leprosy in their efforts to hide their relatives, wives, children, lovers and comrades, from the relentless hands of the leper-hunters, who were ever on the look-out for the victims of the hideous scourge.

Sestrina’s eyes filled with tears as the sad man sat before her and told her of the terrors of Molokai, the leper isle, the sufferings of the banished victims and of the heroic priest and martyr, Damien, and the few Catholic missionaries who devoted their days and sacrificed their lives for the sake of the stricken lepers.

“And how did you know all these things about the terrible isle where poor lepers are banished to, since you yourself escaped and fled successfully from the leper-hunters?”

Then Hawahee told Sestrina that he had once been a resident on Molokai in the capacity of a missionary at Kalawao, and it was there that he had contracted the complaint, as well as becoming only too familiar with the horror of the dreadful lazaretto. Sitting there smoking by the lonely girl, he continued his story, and told how the Hawaiian officials hired brutal men to hunt and deliver up all men who showed the least sign of the dreaded plague, so that they could be banished to the lazaretto on Molokai.

From all that Hawahee said, it appeared that even the unafflicted were in danger of being captured by the merciless hunters and sent away to the dreaded isle. For leprosy develops slowly, the first symptom being extremely faint, taking months, and even years, before becoming externally evident. Consequently the brutal hunters, who sought to secure the reward offered by the authorities, were only too eager to pronounce the slightest bruise as evidence of incipient leprosy.

“Since your leprosy is hardly to be seen now, how is it that the authorities knew anything about it, Hawahee?” said Sestrina.

“Ah, wahine, it must have been noticed when I was bathing in the lagoons by my home. You must know, wahine, that there are always half-caste men on my isle willing to sacrifice the lives of others for the sake of getting the reward which is paid by the great council chiefs, and so I too was betrayed. And when the leper-hunters did come one night through the forest with masks over their faces, for they do not wish their faces seen since my people would kill such perfidious betrayers were they to recognise them, I did escape into the mountains by Kaulea. For a long, long time I did roam homeless alone, then I met more lepers who were hiding from the hunters in the mountains. We were all near to dying of hunger when we at last sighted a schooner lying just off the shore by the feet of the mountains near Sakaboa. With much stealth we did manage to secure a large canoe so that we could paddle by night out to the ship. It was by the mercy of Atua and Kuahilo that the night was dark and hid our forms as we stole on board and crept down into the ship’s hold. Next day the ship sailed. We were near to death when we did find ourselves anchored off the South American coast, where we were discovered by the crew and recaptured. Then the white papalagis tied our legs and hands in thongs and placed as on a ship’s hulk off the coast, as men unclean. For many weeks we were prisoners, awaiting to be retransported back to Hawaii so that we might be sent to Molokai. Then one night some men did come and place our limbs in chains. And when we were helpless and could not move more than enough for our feet to move slowly one before the other, we were taken round the coast to Acapulco. There we found a boat awaiting our arrival, and we were at once taken out to a schooner, which we knew was to take us back to Hawaii, and to Molokai and death.” Saying the foregoing, the Hawaiian sighed, then, looking sorrowfully into Sestrina’s face, he added: “It was the Belle Isle, wahine, which we were taken to and imprisoned down in the hold; and, to thy great sorrow, thou knowest the rest.” Relighting his cigarette by the embers of the small cooking fire, Hawahee placed his hand meditatively to his chin and continued: “I tell thee, wahine, I would sooner meet the gods in death than risk capture by the merciless papalagi or my own countryman and be banished to the lazaretto. True enough, the ‘kaukas’ (doctors) are good to the stricken, and kind men make coffins by night for the dying, but still, ’tis more than a living death. Still, in my dreams, I do often see the skeletons of the dead lepers walking and crawling by night along the craggy beach and under the dark pandanus and palms by Kalawao.”

As Hawahee spoke on and Sestrina listened, the ocean’s monotone, resounding on the reefs below, seemed to moan in sympathy with all he told her.

“Ah, wahine, thou knowest not the sorrow of my people,” he murmured; then he once more lapsed into pidgin English, which he usually did when speaking under the stress of deep emotion. “Sestra, when I was once a helper of the afflicted on Molokai, I did often see some beautiful wahine with flying hair and starry eyes, running along the beach by moonlight, wringing her hands, as she cried and answered the moaning voice of the winds in the palms that sighed to her dying ears, like to the dead laughter and the memories of lost children, lovers and husband; I know not which. Then she would jump into the sea. And the waves, closing over her head, did bring the peace of Atua, PelÉ, and the great White God, whichever may be the most merciful.”

Such were the incidents connected with Hawahee’s history, and which he deigned to tell Sestrina that night and the next night as she sat by the kitchen cooking-fire of her solitary home on their lone isle of the vast Pacific. And often, when Hawahee had crossed the hollow and entered his hut for sleep, the imaginative castaway girl would lie in her own chamber and fancy she could hear the dead laughter of children and the calling voices of the dying lepers, shrieking and calling somewhere out in the wind swept palms, that sighed fitfully on the valley’s ridge by her homestead. In these dreams Sestrina fully realised that, to the lepers at least, her lonely desert isle was a haven of refuge, an oasis in the desert of their life’s misery. For not in all the world was sorrow so heart-rending, so hideous and intense as on Molokai. Yes, notwithstanding that missionaries devoted their days as ministering angels to the stricken exiles, and that the heroic martyr-priest Damien, the lepers’ Christ, and Father Albert the good dwelt in their midst. For who can stay the dead from dreaming in their living tombs, or from leaping from the grave to run along the dark, beetling crags of the moonlit beach, listening to the memories of the wind swept palms and calling to the skies for mercy?