When Faith answered him, the man's face broke in smiles; he told her laughingly: "If you're so familiar with the habits of the sun, you must be a real woman, and not a dream at all.... I'm awake.... I am, am I not?"

"I should think you would be," said Faith. "That water must be cold enough to wake any one...."

He shook his head. "No, indeed. Just pleasantly cool. Dip your hand in it...."

Something led her to obey him; she bent by the pool's sandy brink and dabbled her fingers, while the man, a hundred feet away at the very foot of the waterfall, held his place with the effortless ease of an accustomed swimmer, and watched her. "Wasn't I right?" he challenged.

She nodded. "It's delicious...."

He said quickly: "You being here means that a ship is in, of course."

"Yes."

"What ship?"

"The Sally Sims—whaler...."

"The Sally! I know the Sally," the man cried. "Is Noll Wing still captain?..."

"Of course."

His eyes were thoughtful. "I'm in luck, woman," he said. "Listen. Will you do a thing for me?""What do you want me to do?"

"I've a sort of a home, up on the hill above us here.... Observatory.... I've been waiting four months for a ship to come along, keeping a lookout from the top there.... Missed the Sally, somehow.... Must have come up after I came down...."

"We made the island a little before noon," she said.

He chuckled. "Ah, I was in my boudoir then.... I want to ship on the Sally. Does she need men?"

Her eyes clouded thoughtfully. "I—think so," she said. "They lost two, three days ago."

"What was it?" he asked quickly. "Fighting whale...."

She shook, her head. "Boat got lost ... and they were short of water. The jug wasn't fresh filled."

The man whistled softly. "That doesn't sound like one of Noll Wing's boats," he said. "Noll is a stickler on those things...."

Faith bowed her head, tracing a pattern in the sand with her forefinger. She said nothing. The man asked: "How long before they sail?"

"They're going to wait for me," she said.

His eyes lighted, and he chuckled. "Good. Now, listen.... If you'll be so kind as to turn your back.... You see, I've been running wild here for the past few months, and my clothes are all up at my place. I'll trot up there and get them and come back here.... Get a few things that I don't want to leave.... Will you turn your back?..." She had done so, and she heard the water stir as he raced for the shore and landed. "I'm going, now," he called.

"How long will you be?" she asked.

"Not over an hour," he told her. "About an hour."

"I'm afraid some one may come along this path.... Will they?... Should I hide from them?..."

He laughed. "Bless you, this is my private path; it's officially taboo to the natives, by special arrangement with the old witch doctor effect that runs their affairs. There won't be a soul along.... I'll be back in an hour...."

"I'll wait," she agreed softly. There was a light of mischief in her eyes. Still standing with her face down stream, she heard his bare feet pad the earth of the path for a moment before the sound was lost in the laughing of the waterfall.... A moment later, his shout: "I'm gone."

She sat down quickly on the sand, smiling to herself, sure of what she wished to do. She slipped off her shoes and her stockings with quick fingers; and she gathered her skirts high about her thighs and stepped with one foot and then another into the pleasant waters of the pool. They rippled around her ankles; she went deeper.... The waters played above her knees, while she balanced precariously in the swirling current and gathered her skirts high....

The water was soothing as Heaven itself, after the salt.... But she was not satisfied.... Merely wading.... She stood for a little, listening, gathering courage, striving to pierce the shadows of the bush about her with her eyes.... These first months of her marriage had driven a measure of her youth out of Faith; they had been sober days, and days more sober still were yet to come. But for this hour, a gay irresponsibility flooded her; she waded ashore, singing under her breath.... She began swiftly to loosen her skirt at the waist....

---

When the man came trotting down the trail at last, shouting ahead to her as he came, Faith was sitting demurely upon the sand, clothed and in her right mind.... She was trying to appear unconscious of the fact that around the back of her neck, and her pink little ears, wet tendrils of hair were curling.... When he came in sight, she rose gravely to meet him; and he looked at her with quick, keen eyes, and laughed.... She turned red as a flame....

"I don't blame you," he said. "It's a beautiful pool...."

She wanted to be angry with him; but she could not.... His laughter was infectious; she smiled at him. "I—couldn't resist it," she said....

She was studying the man. He wore, now, the accustomed garments of a seaman, the clothes which the men aboard the Sally wore. Harsh and awkward garments; yet they could not hide the graceful strength of the man. He was not so big as Noll, she thought; not quite as big as even Dan'l Tobey.... Yet there was such symmetry in his limbs and the breadth of his shoulders that he seemed a well-bulked man. His cheeks were lean and brown, and his lips met with a pleasant firmness.... A man naturally gay, she thought; yet with strength in him....

They started down the path toward the sea together. He carried a cloth-wrapped bundle, swinging in his hand. She looked at him sidewise; asked: "Who are you? How do you come to be here?"

"My name's Brander," he said. "I was third mate on the Thomas Morgan."

She tried to remember a whaler by that name. "New Bedford?" she asked.

"No.... Nantucketer."

Faith looked at him curiously. "But—what happened? Was she lost?..."

Brander's face was sober; he hesitated. "No, not lost," he said. He did not seem minded to go on; and Faith asked again:

"What happened?"

He laughed uneasily. "I left them," he said, and again seemed to wish to let the matter rest. But Faith would not.

"Is there any reason, why you should not tell me all about it?" she asked.

"No."

"Then tell me, please...."

He threw up his free hand in a gesture of surrender. "All right," he said....

They were following the narrow path down the stream's side toward the sea. Faith was ahead, Brander on her heels. After a moment, he went on....

"A man named Marks was the skipper of the Thomas Morgan. I shipped aboard her as a seaman. I'd had one cruise before.... Not with him. I shipped with him.... And I found out, within two days, that I'd made a mistake.

"Not that they were hard on me. I knew my job, after a fashion; and ... they let me alone. But the men had a tough time of it. It was a tough ship, through and through. Marks; and his mate.... Mate's name was Trant, and I'd not like to meet that man on a dark night. There was murder in him.... The sheer love of it.... He was the sort of man that will catch a shark just for the fun of spiking the creature's jaws and turning him loose again.... I was in Taku once.... Saw a little China boy catch a dragon fly and tie a twig to its tail and let it go. The twig overbalanced the dragon fly—It went straight up into the air, fast as it could wing.... May be going yet.... That was the sort of trick Trant would have liked.

"Not that he ever actually killed a man on this cruise. Better if he had, for the men. But he didn't.

"A big fellow. Heavy fisted; but he wasn't satisfied with the fist. The boot for him...."

They were climbing a little knoll in the path; he fell silent while they climbed; and Faith thought of Noll Wing and Mauger....

"Well," said Brander. "Well, you know how things drag along.... We dragged along.... Then, one day, we touched.... We'd gone around into the Japan Sea. Marks and Trant walked up to the second mate and took him, between them, into a boat, and took him ashore.... They came back without him. He was a man as big as Trant, but he had crossed Trant, more than once.... Trant had a face that was cut to ribbons when he came back aboard; but the other man did not come back at all. I never knew what the particular quarrel was....

"They shoved the third mate up to the second, and put me in as third. I said to myself: 'All right.... But don't go to sleep, Brander.' And I didn't. It didn't pay.... I couldn't."

He waved his hand as though to dismiss what followed with a word.... Nevertheless, he went on:

"There was a man in my boat.... He was called 'Lead-Foot' by every one, because he was a slow-moving man. He was not good for much. He was very much afraid of every one. Especially Trant. He was bigger than Trant, so Trant took a certain satisfaction from abusing him. I decided to interfere with this. I told this big coward who was in my boat to keep out of Trant's way; and I told Trant, jokingly, one day, to leave my men alone. He was huffed at that; growled at me." Brander chuckled. "So I swelled up my chest like a fighting cock and told him to keep hands off. Oh, I threw a great bluff, I can tell you. But Trant was not a coward. He waited his time; and I knew he was waiting....

"And while he waited, he talked to the captain; and I could see them both whispering together. They whispered about me. They did not like to have me about; and once Marks threatened to put me back in the fo'c's'le; but he changed his mind.

"So matters were till we came past an island to the north of here, forty or fifty miles. We made that island at dusk, and worked nearer it after darkness had fallen. It came on cloudy and dark....

"I met Trant on the deck; and I said to him: 'Do we go ashore here?' He grinned at me with his teeth and bade me wait till morning and see. And that was enough for me. I knew what was coming. I thought I would hurry it a little; but luck hurried it for me, in a way that worked out very well.

"This lead-footed man was at the wheel. When the anchor went down, he started forward and brushed against Trant. Trant may have meant it to be so. Anyway, Trant knocked the lead-foot flying, and went after him with the boot, jumping, as lumbermen do. There happened to be a belaying pin handy. So I took it and cracked Trant, and he dropped in mid-leap.... Then Marks jumped me; and I managed to wriggle out from under him, and he fell and banged his head. And he lay still; but Trant was up, by then, and at me.

"The lead-footed man was yelling in my ear. I told him to go overboard and swim for it; and he did. And just then Trant got in the way of the belaying pin again, and this time he did not seem to want to get up.

"There was some confusion, you understand. I did not stay to straighten things out. I went over, after Lead-Foot.... He could swim like a porpoise. He was ahead of me, but half way in he met a shark, and came clamoring back to me to be saved. So I got out of his way for fear he would drag us both under, and then I kicked at the shark, and it went about its business, and we swam on.... They were too busy sluicing the Old Man and Trant to come after us in a boat.... They could have knocked us in the head with an oar.... But they didn't....

"However, Lead-Foot took the shark so seriously that he swam too fast. Or something of the sort.... Anyway, he keeled when we touched sand, and I felt him and found that he was dead with heart failure or the like. I didn't stop to work over him. I could hear Trant bellowing. He had come to life; and a boat was racing after me.

"So I went into the bush and stayed there till the Thomas Morgan took herself off. After that, not liking the island, which was low and marshy, I borrowed a native canoe and came over here.... And I've been here, since."

They were within sound of the rollers on the beach when he finished. Faith was silent for a little; then she asked: "Were there other white men here? Why didn't you stay at the village?"

"There was too much society there," said Brander, grinning amiably. "I'm a solitary man, by nature. So I went up into the hills. Besides, I could watch for ships, there.... I'd no notion of staying here indefinitely, you understand...."

Faith was filling out the gaps in his narrative from her own understanding of the life aboard a whaler. She could guess what Brander must have endured; she thought he had done well to come through it and still smile.... She thought he was a man....

They could see the surf, through the thinning bush, when he said: "You haven't told me how you happen to be aboard the Sally Sims...."Faith had almost forgotten, herself. She remembered, and something like a chill of sorrow struck down upon her. But: "I am Noll Wing's wife," she said.

They came out, abruptly, into the white glare of the beach, Mr. Ham's boat was drawn up, a quarter-mile away. Brander looked toward it, looked at Faith.

"Ah," he said quietly. "Then yonder is your husband's boat, waiting.... Noll Wing is an able skipper...."

Faith said nothing. They went on, side by side, toward Mr. Ham.

---