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It was a wild March day, and the rising wind sang in the rigging of the ships. The weather horizon, dark and brilliant, in ominous alternations showed a sky of piled-up cloud interspersed with inky patches where squalls were bursting. To leeward, the broad lagoon, stretching for a dozen miles to the tree-topped rim of reef, smoked with the haze of an impending gale. Ashore, the palms bent like grass in the succeeding gusts, and the ocean beaches reverberated with a furious surf. The great atoll of Makin, no higher than a man, no wider than a couple of furlongs, but in circumference a sinuous giant of ninety miles or more, lay like a snake on the boisterous waters of the equator and defied the sea and storm.

Within the lagoon, and not far off the settlement, two ships rocked at anchor. One, the Northern Light, was a powerful topsail schooner of a hundred tons; straight bowed, low in the water, built on fine lines and yet sparred for safety, the sort of vessel that does well under plain sail, and when pressed can fly. The other, the Edelweiss, was a miniature fore and after of about twenty tons, a toy of delicacy and grace, betraying at a glance that she had been designed a yacht, and, in spite of fallen fortunes, was still sailed as one. The man that laid her lee rail under would get danger as well as speed for his pains, and in time would be likely to satisfy a taste for both by making a swift trip to the bottom.

The deck of the Northern Light was empty save for the single tall figure of Gregory Cole, captain and owner, who was leaning over the rail gazing at the Edelweiss. He was a man of about thirty, his tanned, handsome face overcast and somber, his eyes, with their characteristic hunted look, fixed in an uneasy stare on his smaller neighbor.

He had never known how passionately he had loved Madge Blanchard until he had lost her; until after that wild quarrel on Nonootch, when her father had called him a slaver to his face, and they had parted on either side in anger; until he had beaten up from westward to find her the month-old wife of Joe Horble. Somehow, in the course of those long, miserable months, he had never thought of her marrying; he felt so confident of that fierce love she had so often confessed for him; he had come back repentant, ashamed of the burning offense he had then taken, determined to let bygones be bygones, and to begin, if need be, a new and a more blameless way of life. It was natural for the girl to side with her father; to resent her lover’s violence and temper; to show a face as cold as his own when he said he would up anchor and to sea. Fool that he had been to keep his word! fool that he had been to tear his heart to pieces out of pride! fool that he had been to let it stand between him and the woman he loved! His pride! with Madge now in Joe Horble’s arms!

He cursed the fate that had brought him into the same lagoon with the Edelweiss ; that had laid his ship side by side with Joe’s dainty schooner; that shamed and mocked him with the unceasing thought that Madge–his Madge–was aboard of her. He paced up and down the quarter-deck. He had more than a mind to get to sea, but the gloom to windward daunted him, and he ordered out the kedge instead and bade the mate strip the awnings off her. By Jove! if things grew blacker he’d house his topmasts. Then he looked again at the little Edelweiss, and tried to keep back the thought of Horble sitting there below with Madge.