tried to climb a rope. But, like any circusathlete, you trained
yourself out of the face-making period. You trained your face to

hide your feelings, to hide the exhausting effort your muscles were
making. It was, to quote Mr. Tudor, a subtler exhibition of

physical prowess. And that is all our English reserve is--a mere
matter of training. Certainly we are proud inside of the things we

do and have done, proud as Lucifer--yes, and prouder. But we have
grown up, and no longer talk about such things."

"I surrender," Joan cried. "You are not so stupid after all."
"Yes, you have us there," Tudor admitted. "But you wouldn't have

had us if you hadn't broken your training rules."
"How do you mean?"

"By talking about it."
Joan clapped her hands in approval. Tudor lighted a fresh

cigarette, while Sheldon sat on, imperturbably silent.
"He got you there," Joan challenged. "Why don't you crush him?"

"Really, I can't think of anything to say," Sheldon said. "I know
my position is sound, and that is satisfactory enough."

"You might retort," she suggested, "that when an adult is with
kindergarten children he must descend to kindergarten idioms in

order to make himself intelligible. That was why you broke
training rules. It was the only way to make us children

understand."
"You've deserted in the heat of the battle, Miss Lackland, and gone

over to the enemy," Tudor said plaintively.
But she was not listening. Instead, she was looking intently

across the compound and out to sea. They followed her gaze, and
saw a green light and the loom of a vessel's sails.

"I wonder if it's the Martha come back," Tudor hazarded.
"No, the sidelight is too low," Joan answered. "Besides, they've

got the sweeps out. Don't you hear them? They wouldn't be
sweeping a big vessel like the Martha."

"Besides, the Martha has a gasoline engine--twenty-five horse-
power," Tudor added.

"Just the sort of a craft for us," Joan said wistfully to Sheldon.
"I really must see if I can't get a schooner with an engine. I

might get a second-hand engine put in."
"That would mean the additional expense of an engineer's wages," he

objected.
"But it would pay for itself by quicker passages," she argued; "and

it would be as good as insurance. I know. I've knocked about
amongst reefs myself. Besides, if you weren't so mediaeval, I

could be skipper and save more than the engineer's wages."
He did not reply to her thrust, and she glanced at him. He was

looking out over the water, and in the lantern light she noted the
lines of his face--strong, stern, dogged, the mouth almost chaste

but firmer and thinner-lipped than Tudor's. For the first time she
realized the quality of his strength, the calm and quiet of it, its

simple integrity and reposeful determination. She glanced quickly
at Tudor on the other side of her. It was a handsomer face, one

that was more immediately pleasing. But she did not like the
mouth. It was made for kissing, and she abhorred kisses. This was

not a deliberately achieved concept; it came to her in the form of
a faint and vaguely intangible repulsion. For the moment she knew

a fleeting doubt of the man. Perhaps Sheldon was right in his
judgment of the other. She did not know, and it concerned her

little; for boats, and the sea, and the things and happenings of
the sea were of far more vital interest to her than men, and the

next moment she was staring through the warm tropic darkness at the
loom of the sails and the steady green of the moving sidelight, and

listening eagerly to the click of the sweeps in the rowlocks. In
her mind's eye she could see the straining naked forms of black men

bending rhythmically to the work, and somewhere on that strange
deck she knew was the inevitable master-man, conning the vessel in

to its anchorage" target="_blank" title="n.停泊地点；抛锚地点">anchorage, peering at the dim tree-line of the shore,
judging the deceitful night-distances, feeling on his cheek the

first fans of the land breeze that was even then beginning to blow,
weighing, thinking, measuring, gauging the score or more of ever-

shifting forces, through which, by which, and in spite of which he
directed the steady equilibrium of his course. She knew it because

she loved it, and she was alive to it as only a sailor could be.
Twice she heard the splash of the lead, and listened intently for

the cry that followed. Once a man's voice spoke, low, imperative,
issuing an order, and she thrilled with the delight of it. It was

only a direction to the man at the wheel to port his helm. She
watched the slight altering of the course, and knew that it was for

the purpose of enabling the flat-hauled sails to catch those first
fans of the land breeze, and she waited for the same low voice to

utter the one word "Steady!" And again she thrilled when it did
utter it. Once more the lead splashed, and "Eleven fadom" was the

resulting cry. "Let go!" the low voice came to her through the
darkness, followed by the surging rumble of the anchor-chain. The

clicking of the sheaves in the blocks as the sails ran down, head-
sails first, was music to her; and she detected on the instant the

jamming of a jib-downhaul, and almost saw the impatient jerk with
which the sailor must have cleared it. Nor did she take interest

in the two men beside her till both lights, red and green, came
into view as the anchor checked the onward way.

Sheldon was wondering as to the identity of the craft, while Tudor
persisted in believing it might be the Martha.

"It's the Minerva," Joan said decidedly.
"How do you know?" Sheldon asked, sceptical of her certitude.

"It's a ketch to begin with. And besides, I could tell anywhere
the rattle of her main peak-blocks--they're too large for the

halyard."
A dark figure crossed the compound diagonally from the beach gate,

where whoever it was had been watching the vessel.
"Is that you, Utami?" Joan called.

"No, Missie; me Matapuu," was the answer.
"What vessel is it?"

"Me t'ink Minerva."
Joan looked triumphantly at Sheldon, who bowed.

"If Matapuu says so it must be so," he murmured.
"But when Joan Lackland says so, you doubt," she cried, "just as

you doubt her ability as a skipper. But never mind, you'll be
sorry some day for all your unkindness. There's the boat lowering

now, and in five minutes we'll be shaking hands with Christian
Young."

Lalaperu brought out the glasses and cigarettes and the eternal
whisky and soda, and before the five minutes were past the gate

clicked and Christian Young, tawny and golden, gentle of voice and
look and hand, came up the bungalow steps and joined them.

CHAPTER XVI--THE GIRL WHO HAD NOT GROWN UP
News, as usual, Christian Young brought--news of the drinking at

Guvutu, where the men boasted that they drank between drinks; news
of the new rifles adrift on Ysabel, of the latest murders on

Malaita, of Tom Butler's sickness on Santa Ana; and last and most
important, news that the Matambo had gone on a reef in the

Shortlands and would be laid off one run for repairs.
"That means five weeks more before you can sail for Sydney,"

Sheldon said to Joan.
"And that we are losing precious time," she added ruefully.

"If you want to go to Sydney, the Upolu sails from Tulagi to-morrow
afternoon," Young said.

"But I thought she was running recruits for the Germans in Samoa,"
she objected. "At any rate, I could catch her to Samoa, and change