a

space of a yacht, friction had been inevitable. Miss Etherington at first made an attempt to avoid Mr Gale's society, but relinquished this on being taunted with "running away." So she changed her tactics, and treated Mr Gale with excessive sprightliness in public and cold disdain in private. Gale's flippant and philosophical detachment did not wear well. He maintained a careless and semi-humorous pose for about a week, and then one evening, under the baneful influence of full round moon, suddenly crumpled up and descended to sentimental entreaty. Miss Etherington, perceiving that he had delivered himself into her hands, let him run on for nearly ten minutes, and then gave free rein to a rather exceptional talent for biting sarcasm. Gale's amorous expansiveness collapsed like a punctured balloon at the first stab; and feeling hot and foolish and being a man, he lost his temper, and said things which should not be said to a lady, however provoking.

Then followed seven days of open hostility. Finally one night, when the indefatigable Mrs Arthur Denholm organised a dance on the deck under the awning, Leslie Gale, who hated feuds, summoned his entire entire stock of common-sense and courage and asked Miss Etherington for a waltz.

will do us both good," he added meaningly.

Without further entreaty he placed an arm round Miss Etherington's slim waist, and trundled her unresisting but unresponsive form twice round the deck. Then, a little blown by the considerable exertion involved, he paused, and

remarked cheerfully-
"That was splendid!"

Miss Etherington swiftly released her waist from his arm, and crossed the deck to where one Ommaney, a callow and cub-like member of the company, was lolling against a stanchion.

"Billy dear," she said, with an entrancing smile, "will you dance with me?"

Billy, much flattered, complied.

An hour later Miss Etherington, on her way to bed, found her path barred by Mr Leslie Gale, who was standing at the foot of the companion. His face was white, and his teeth chattered gently. but not with cold or fear.

"Let me pass, please," said Miss Etherington, rather nervously.

"I only wanted to say," answered Mr Gale in a voice which Miss Etherington had never heard before, "that I think you are the most ill-bred and detestable girl I have ever met. met. You may pass now."

He met with a flat refusal, for which he was fully prepared. He persisted.

"Nonsense!" he said. "Come on! Just a little turn!

seeming. She gazed round-at the horseshoe curve of the little bay; at the palm-covered slopes behind her; at the boiling surge outside the bar. Was she utterly alone? She was a plucky young woman, and declined to be frightened until she was sure.

She sprang resolutely to her feet and set out inland. Not far off uprose a little hill. From the summit of this she could survey her kingdom and take an inventory of its possibilities. She was not beaten yet. Her pulse beat high. Her small bare toes resolutely crimped the sand.

Meanwhile, behind an adjacent sandhill, following the movements of his beloved with breathless interest, lay Mr Leslie Gale. He chuckled gently. His chief asset in life-some people considered it a liability -was a strong if somewhat untimely sense of humour. Not even a recent escape from a watery grave could damp his enjoyment of the situation. He sat up in his rapidly drying pyjamas, and slapped himself feebly.

"My sainted aunt!" he murmured brokenly. "I shall have to get a flint axe!"

Miss Etherington, whitelipped and struggling gamely with the terrors of utter loneliness, lay face downward upon a patch of coral sand. She had completed her survey of the island, which was not much larger than a couple of fullsized golf-courses; and lo! it was her exclusive property. There were no habitations, and no inhabitants. She lay very still, holding herself in. Once or twice her shoulders heaved.

Suddenly, like music from heaven, the sound of a discreet and thoroughly British cough fell upon her ears, and in a moment the cobweb of terror which was beginning to enshroud her senses was swept away. Hardly believing her good fortune, she sprang up, tossed back her hair from her eyes-and found herself face to face with Mr Leslie Gale.

"Oh!" she gasped. "You?"

"Yes-just me!" he replied. "There is nobody else."

"Are all the others?” She pointed to the tumbling seas outside the bar.

"I don't know," replied Gale, interpreting the question. "Very likely most of them got away in the lifeboat. You were in the cutter, you know."

"If they escaped, wouldn't they have landed here?" said the girl doubtfully.

"I'm not so sure. That squall which struck us was the tail-end of a cyclone. They may have been swept out to sea. In fact," he added, covertly regarding Miss Etherington's white face and troubled eyes, "I am sure they were. saw them get clear away myself. Anyhow, they are not here. I have been all over the island to see."

I

"Are there any traces?" "Yes, but not of human

:

It was not, perhaps, a very happy way of putting it. Miss Etherington flushed and demanded

We

"What do you mean ?" "I mean what I say. may have to stay here for months. Are you an expert at household management? Can you tend the fireside, while I labour to keep the home together?"

"I can't live here alone with you for months," oried the girl desperately.

"I am afraid it can't be helped," said Mr Gale. "We may get taken off by some passing vessel, but for the present you must be content to live the life of a cavewoman."

Miss Etherington caught the allusion, and her spirit responded instantaneously to the implied challenge.

"First find your cave!" she replied disdainfully.

facing south. It ran back some fifteen feet into the heart of a lofty rock, and was floored with white coral sand, warm and dry beneath the rays of the noonday sun which streamed in through the doorway.

"Somewhere to sleep, at any rate," commented Mr Gale cheerfully. "But what chiefly concerns me at present is the discovery of something to eat. Come and find cocoa-nuts."

Once more the procession moved off, its order unaltered. A cocoa-nut palm was speedily found, and Mr Gale embarked upon a brief acrobatic display, which presently furnished them with a supply of solid and liquid refreshment, of which both our islanders stood in considerable need.

"This landscape," said Gale, as he sat contentedly sunning himself after the fashion of man when fed, "reminds me of North Berwick Links, with a few palms dotted about and no tourists. There is Point Garry." He indicated the little promontory in which their cave was situated.

"Have you climbed to the top yet, partner?" he continued.

"No," said Miss Etherington shortly; "I have not."

"Well, you shall," said Mr Gale kindly. "We may see things from there which have hitherto escaped our notice. No good sitting here moping!"

With great energy he led the way to Point Garry and scaled the heights, assisting his companion from time to time.

B

"We will now horizon," he announced, when they reached the top. "I think that is what Robinson Crusoe would have done under the circumstances. No-nothing! Nothing to be seen but those big rocks jutting up out of the water over there. I noticed them this morning. They look like a row of teeth, don't they?" he inquired chattily.

"I fail to observe any resemblance," replied Miss Etherington.

"No? Well, I always was quick at noticing things from a child," said Mr Gale, with unimpaired bonhomie. "We are not all blessed with a good imagin Hallo! what's that?" He seized the girl's arm in unaffected excitement, and pointed.

"You are holding my arm," said Miss Etherington coldly. "Let go, please!"

Mr Gale had already done so, in order to make a pair of binoculars of his hands.

"Do you see something projecting up between the two middle teeth?" he asked. "I think-I think-yes it is-the bow of a ship! It must be the yacht. It is the yacht! I can see the top of her funnel. She must have grounded there. I was right. It was a cyclone. The wind has been playing a perfect game of rounders with itself."

"I doubt it, but I will see," said Mr Gale. "How?"

"I am going to swim out." "All that way?" "Yes; not more than half a mile, I fancy."

"Supposing there are" Miss Etherington paused, suddenly remembering that the man beside her was unworthy of solicitude.

"Sharks eh? Perhaps, but I must risk it. If I meet one, I will make a noise like a company promoter, and he won't touch me. Do you know what that old hull means to us? Blankets, tools, food! Perhaps they have left a boat on board."

"Can you swim half a mile?" inquired Miss Etherington.

"It is just about my limit," confessed Mr Gale frankly, "but I can try."

"Would you"-Miss Etherington wavered between common humanity and a feminine desire not to offer anything which could be construed into encouragement-"care to have my cork-jacket?"

"If you are quite sure you won't catch a chill without it,' replied Mr Gale tenderly.

He proceeded to buckle on the jacket, apparently oblivious to a look which to a thinnerskinned man would have made drowning seem an easy death, and scrambled over the rocks to the water's edge. He poised himself upon a convenient taking-off place.

"Back to tea!" he cried, and disappeared with a splash.

It

is not easy to dive cleanly in a cork jacket.

Presently he reappeared, and struck out boldly in the direction of Double - Tooth Islet. Miss Etherington, seated upon the summit of Point Garry, her round chin resting on her hands, followed the course of his black head as it slowly forged its way across the limpid channel. Many thoughts passed through her mind. On the one hand, she hated Mr Leslie Gale to the fullest extent of a nature more than usually well endowed for the purpose. On the other, she knew that there were sharks in these seas-she had seen them. Even now she could descry in the

wake of Mr Gale a tiny black dot which might or might not be the dreaded triangular fin. She closed her eyes, and kept them tightly shut for more than half an hour.

When she opened them, a figure, silhouetted against the sky-line upon the summit of Double-Tooth Islet, was triumphantly semaphoring safe arrival. Miss Etherington did not reply. Instead, she rolled gently over on to her side in a dead faint.

After all, as she argued to herself when she came to, she had had a most exhausting twenty-four hours, and her sole diet had been a portion of cocoa-nut.

Mr Gale returned more expeditiously than he had set out, adequately clothed and propelling the yacht's dinghy, which was loaded to the water's edge with miscellaneous stores.

Help me to unload these things, quickly," he called to Miss Etherington, "and carry them up to the cave. I must go out to the yacht again before she slips off."

"Will you take me with you this time?" asked Miss Etherington. "Why?"

"I want some things out of my cabin," was the prim reply. "I'm afraid you haven't got a cabin any more," said Gale. "The stern half of the ship is under water, and I'm saving all I can from the forward part. However, I will select a

wardrobe for you from what is available. I always had great natural taste."

He paddled away so quickly that Miss Etherington had no time effectively to ignore this last pleasantry. When Mr Gale returned an hour later he found her still sitting beside the heap of stores on the shore.

"The yacht is lifting with the swell," he announced. "She is just hanging on by her eyebrows now. Rolled over fifteen degrees a minute ago. Gave me a nasty turn, I can tell you, down in the lazarette grubbing for tinned sardines

for you. They are rather a favourite delicacy of yours, aren't they? Hallo! Why haven't you carried up some of these stores? Tired?"

Miss Etherington, who had