The Ranatonga on a level keel, and spilling the wind from her sails, came round in a great curve on the dazzling water, her great shadow following her across the coral gardens of the lagoon floor. Then the rumble of the anchor chain echoed and passed away in the woods, and ship and shadow swung slowly to the tide and came to rest.

To port lay the reef booming to the blue and to starboard the island beach of white coral sand, answering the reef with a thudding song, whilst north and south the two arms of the lagoon, curving, lost themselves beyond capes where the banyans and palms trooped to the very water.

Away beyond the hill-borne trees of the island a flight of coloured birds passed like a scarf across the brilliant sky and vanished. Other sign of life there was none.

Stanistreet, having given his last orders, stood for a moment looking around him, the men, grouped forward, stood without a word, some gazing overside at the coral gardens and flights of fish, others with their faces turned shorewards to the groves of cocoanuts and the coloured gloom where the great bread-fruit leaves waved to the wind and the yellow of cassia and scarlet of hibiscus fought for the eye through the foliage shadows.

The schooner and all on board her seemed for a moment waiting, silent, expectant. Lestrange, leaning on the rail, had not turned his head; one might have fancied them waiting for the shore people to put off, watching the canoes taking to the water. But shore people there were none, nor canoes; neither voices of men nor the forms of women, nor the laughter of children; nothing but the untrodden sands and the foliage, fresh as when the world was young.

Stanistreet moved beside Lestrange, who turned, his face lit as if with the reflection of all the beauty around.

“Well, sir,” said the captain, “we’re in harbour at last. Shall I order the shore boat out?”

“Yes,” said the other, turning again to the rail. “Yes—but look, Stanistreet, look!”

“It’s fine,” said the sailor. “I never struck a prettier bit of beach—ay, it’s grand!”

“It is the Garden of God,” said Lestrange. “He made it and He has kept it, in all the wide world the one spot undefiled. He made it and He kept it for my children, and now He has led me to it that I should meet them once again and, dying, praise His name.”

The idea that the God who made the great world to receive man should make a tiny island to receive and protect two innocent children, should furnish it with beauty and hide it with sea, might not seem strange to a true believer in the omniscience of a benevolent deity, but to Stanistreet the words of Lestrange brought back the dread of a few hours ago—what would happen on landing?

He went forward a bit and gave Bowers the order for the boat. The whaler was dropped and, leaving Bowers in charge of the deck, Stanistreet got in, following Lestrange.

Lestrange was of the nervous type that does not show its age. Dying of consumption years ago, his spirit had triumphed over disease; he had said to himself, “I will not die till I have found my children.” The mental strength that had defied disease refused age. Though well over sixty, he did not look it, and since yesterday a decade seemed to have fallen from his shoulders.

The boat pushed off and again, just as on passing the break, dreamland cast its magic upon them. The Ranatonga on whose solid decks they had trod a moment ago, showed now as a ship floating on air, air liquid and tinted with emerald and aquamarine. So clear was the lagoon water, they could see her copper and the weeds upon it and the anchor chain, now slack with the turn of the tide and lying like a conger on the coral. As the oars drove them shoreward the illusion held, for, glancing over-side, the brains of coral and sand patches, though fathoms deep, seemed likely to scrape the keel.

The boat touched the sand where wavelets were breaking scarce a foot high, and Stanistreet, getting out, helped Lestrange over the gunnel.

“Take her back,” said the captain to the fellow who had been rowing stern oar. “You can stream her on a line. I’ll signal when I want you.”

The boat put back and the two men stood watching it.

Here on the beach was a new prospect and a new enchantment. Fair as the vision of the island seemed from the water, who could say that this was not fairer? For distance stood on the far reef beyond the lonely and unutterable blue of the broad lagoon, and beyond the reef break distance led the eye to the rim of an almost purple sea. There was nothing to break the charm or fetter the eye, not even the Ranatonga mirroring herself near the reef, nor the boat, the creak of whose oars came lazily across the water; they had become, in some way, part and parcel of the desolation.

Stanistreet, turning from the sea, cast his eyes about. The extraordinary thing was that the mind of the sailor was perturbed, anxious, eager for any traces of the children, whilst the mind of Lestrange seemed absolutely at peace. Stanistreet had dreaded some outbreak on landing, he had dreaded trouble should they discover traces, some instinct told him that this quietude might mean something graver than any outburst could foreshadow.

But Lestrange, despite his placidity and brightness of eye, showed no sign of alienation from the normal. Having gazed his fill, he turned and took his companion’s arm as one might take the arm of a brother. They walked towards the trees.