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The beach shone white under the moonlight, and dotting it were large shellfish and moving crabs that scuttled away from them. Bordering the beach were forest and undergrowth with interlacery of flowering vines. A ridge of rocks near by disclosed caves and hollows, some filled by the water of tinkling cascades. Oranges snowed in the branches of trees, and cocoa-palms lifted their heads high in the distance. A small deer arose, looked at them, and lay down, while a rabbit inspected them from another direction and began nibbling.

“An earthly paradise, I should say,” he observed, as he hauled the boat up the beach. “Plenty of food and water, at any rate.”

“It is Ilio Island,” she answered, with that same dreamy voice. “It is uninhabited and never visited.”

“But surely, Freda, something will come along and take us off.”

“No; if I am taken off I must be married, of course; and I will never be married.”

“Who to, Freda? Whom must you marry if we are rescued?”

“The mate–Mr. Adams. Not you, John Owen–not you. I do not like you.”

She was unbalanced, of course; but the speech pained him immeasurably, and he made no answer. He searched the clean-cut horizon for a moment, and when he looked back she was close to him, with the infantile smile on her face, candor and sanity in her gray eyes. Involuntarily he extended his arms, and she nestled within them.

“You will be married, Freda,” he said; “you will be married, and to me.”

He held her tightly and kissed her lips; but the kiss ended in a crashing sound, and a shock of pain in his whole body which expelled the breath from his lungs. The moonlit island, sandy beach, blue sea and sky were swallowed in a blaze of light, which gave way to pitchy darkness, with rain on his face and whistling wind in his ears, while he clung with both arms, not to a girl, but to a hard, wet, and cold mizzentopgallant-yard whose iron jack-stay had bumped him severely between the eyes. Below him in the darkness a scream rang out, followed by the roar of the mate: “Are you all right up there? Want any help?”

He had fallen four feet.

When he could speak he answered: “I’m all right, sir.” And catching the royal foot-rope dangling from the end of the yard above him, he brought it to its place, passed the seizing, and finished furling the royal. But it was a long job; his movements were uncertain, for every nerve in his body was jumping in its own inharmonious key.

“What’s the matter wi’ you up there?” demanded the mate when he reached the deck; and a yellow-clad figure drew near to listen.

“It was nothing, sir; I forgot about the foot-rope.”

“You’re a bigger lunkhead than I thought. Go forrard.”

He went, and when he came aft at four bells to take his trick at the wheel, the girl was still on deck, standing near the companionway, facing forward. The mate stood at the other side of the binnacle, looking at her, with one elbow resting on the house. There was just light enough from the cabin skylight for Owen to see the expression which came over his face as he watched the graceful figure balancing to the heave of the ship. It took on the same evil look which he had seen in his fall, while there was no mistaking the thought behind the gleam in his eyes. The mate looked up,–into Owen’s face,–and saw something there which he must have understood; for he dropped his glance to the compass, snarled out, “Keep her on the course,” and stepped into the lee alleyway, where the dinghy, lashed upside down on the house, hid him from view.

The girl approached the man at the wheel.

“I saw you fall, Mr. Owen,” she said in a trembling voice, “and I could not help screaming. Were you hurt much?”

“No, Miss Folsom,” he answered in a low though not a steady tone; “but I was sadly disappointed.”

“I confess I was nervous–very nervous–when you went aloft,” she said; “and I cleared away the life-buoy. Then, when you fell, it slipped out of my hand and went overboard. Mr. Adams scolded me. Wasn’t it ridiculous?” There were tears and laughter in the speech.

“Not at all,” he said gravely; “it saved my life–for which I thank you.”

“How–why—-“

“Who in Sam Hill’s been casting off these gripe-lashings?” growled the voice of the mate behind the dinghy.

The girl tittered hysterically, and stepped beside Owen at the wheel, where she patted the moving spokes, pretending to assist him in steering.

“Miss Freda,” said the officer, sternly, as he came around the corner of the house, “I must ask you plainly to let things alone; and another thing, please don’t talk to the man at the wheel.”

“Will you please mind your own business?” she almost screamed; and then, crying and laughing together: “If you paid as much attention to your work as you do to–to–me, men wouldn’t fall from aloft on account of rotten foot-ropes.”

The abashed officer went forward, grumbling about “discipline” and “women aboard ship.” When he was well out of sight in the darkness, the girl turned suddenly, passed both arms around Owen’s neck, exerted a very slight pressure, patted him playfully on the shoulder as she withdrew them, and sped down the companionway.

He steered a wild course during that trick, and well deserved the profane criticism which he received from the mate.