erected on a shelving point of land, his portly form, costumed

generally in a white shirt and trousers (he had a confirmed habit
of taking off his alpaca jacket on the slightest provocation), his

round blue eyes, his straggly, sandy-white moustache sticking out
all ways like the quills of the fretfulporcupine, his propensity

to sit down suddenly and fan himself with his hat. But there's no
use concealing the fact that what one remembered really was his

daughter, who at that time came out to live with him - and be a
sort of Lady of the Isles.

Freya Nelson (or Nielsen) was the kind of girl one remembers. The
oval of her face was perfect; and within that fascinating frame the

most happy disposition of line and feature, with an admirable
complexion, gave an impression of health, strength, and what I

might call unconscious self-confidence - a most pleasant and, as it
were, whimsical determination. I will not compare her eyes to

violets, because the real shade of their colour was peculiar, not
so dark and more lustrous. They were of the wide-open kind, and

looked at one frankly in every mood. I never did see the long,
dark eyelashes lowered - I dare say Jasper Allen did, being a

privileged person - but I have no doubt that the expression must
have been charming in a complex way. She could - Jasper told me

once with a touchingly imbecile exultation - sit on her hair. I
dare say, I dare say. It was not for me to behold these wonders; I

was content to admire the neat and becoming way she used to do it
up so as not to conceal the good shape of her head. And this

wealth of hair was so glossy that when the screens of the west
verandah were down, making a pleasant twilight there, or in the

shade of the grove of fruit-trees near the house, it seemed to give
out a golden light of its own.

She dressed generally in a white frock, with a skirt of walking
length, showing her neat, laced, brown boots. If there was any

colour about her costume it was just a bit of blue perhaps. No
exertion seemed to distress her. I have seen her land from the

dinghy after a long pull in the sun (she rowed herself about a good
deal) with no quickened breath and not a single hair out of its

place. In the morning when she came out on the verandah for the
first look westward, Sumatra way, over the sea, she seemed as fresh

and sparkling as a dewdrop. But a dewdrop is evanescent, and there
was nothing evanescent about Freya. I remember her round, solid

arms with the fine wrists, and her broad, capable hands with
tapering fingers.

I don't know whether she was actually" target="_blank" title="ad.事实上；实际上">actually born at sea, but I do know
that up to twelve years of age she sailed about with her parents in

various ships. After old Nelson lost his wife it became a matter
of serious concern for him what to do with the girl. A kind lady

in Singapore, touched by his dumb grief and deplorable perplexity,
offered to take charge of Freya. This arrangement lasted some six

years, during which old Nelson (or Nielsen) "retired" and
established, himself on his island, and then it was settled (the

kind lady going away to Europe) that his daughter should join him.
As the first and most important preparation for that event the old

fellow ordered from his Singapore agent a Steyn and Ebhart's
"upright grand." I was then commanding a little steamer in the

island trade, and it fell to my lot to take it out to him, so I
know something of Freya's "upright grand." We landed the enormous

packing-case with difficulty on a flat piece of rock amongst some
bushes, nearly knocking the bottom out of one of my boats in the

course of that nautical operation. Then, all my crew assisting,
engineers and firemen included, by the exercise of much anxious

ingenuity, and by means of rollers, levers, tackles, and inclined
planes of soaped planks, toiling in the sun like ancient Egyptians

at the building of a pyramid, we got it as far as the house and up
on to the edge of the west verandah - which was the actual drawing-

room of the bungalow. There, the case being ripped off cautiously,
the beautiful rosewood monster stood revealed at last. In reverent

excitement we coaxed it against the wall and drew the first free
breath of the day. It was certainly the heaviest movable object on

that islet since the creation of the world. The volume of sound it
gave out in that bungalow (which acted as a sounding-board) was

really astonishing. It thundered sweetly right over the sea.
Jasper Allen told me that early of a morning on the deck of the

Bonito (his wonderfully fast and pretty brig) he could hear Freya
playing her scales quite distinctly. But the fellow always

anchored foolishly close to the point, as I told him more than
once. Of course, these seas are almost uniformlyserene, and the

Seven Isles is a particularly calm and cloudless spot as a rule.
But still, now and again, an afternoon thunderstorm over Banka, or

even one of these vicious thick squalls, from the distant Sumatra
coast, would make a sudden sally upon the group, enveloping it for

a couple of hours in whirlwinds and bluish-black murk of a
particularly sinisteraspect. Then, with the lowered rattan-

screens rattling desperately in the wind and the bungalow shaking
all over, Freya would sit down to the piano and play fierce Wagner

music in the flicker of blinding flashes, with thunderbolts falling
all round, enough to make your hair stand on end; and Jasper would

remain stock still on the verandah, adoring the back view of her
supple, swaying figure, the miraculous sheen of her fair head, the

rapid hands on the keys, the white nape of her neck - while the
brig, down at the point there, surged at her cables within a

hundred yards of nasty, shiny, black rock-heads. Ugh!
And this, if you please, for no reason but that, when he went on

board at night and laid his head on the pillow, he should feel that
he was as near as he could conveniently get to his Freya slumbering

in the bungalow. Did you ever! And, mind, this brig was the home
to be - their home - the floating paradise which he was gradually

fitting out like a yacht to sail his life blissfully away in with
Freya. Imbecile! But the fellow was always taking chances.

One day, I remember I watched with Freya on the verandah the brig
approaching the point from the northward. I suppose Jasper made

the girl out with his long glass. What does he do? Instead of
standing on for another mile and a half along the shoals and then

tacking for the anchorage" target="_blank" title="n.停泊地点；抛锚地点">anchorage in a proper and seamanlike manner, he
spies a gap between two disgusting old jagged reefs, puts the helm

down suddenly, and shoots the brig through, with all her sails
shaking and rattling, so that we could hear the racket on the

verandah. I drew my breath through my teeth, I can tell you, and
Freya swore. Yes! She clenched her capable fists and stamped with

her pretty brown boot and said "Damn!" Then, looking at me with a
little heightened colour - not much - she remarked, "I forgot you

were there," and laughed. To be sure, to be sure. When Jasper was
in sight she was not likely to remember that anybody else in the

world was there. In my concern at this mad trick I couldn't help
appealing to her sympathetic common sense.

"Isn't he a fool?" I said with feeling.
"Perfect idiot," she agreed warmly, looking at me straight with her

wide-open, earnest eyes and the dimple of a smile on her cheek.
"And that," I pointed out to her, "just to save twenty minutes or

so in meeting you."
We heard the anchor go down, and then she became very resolute and

threatening.
"Wait a bit. I'll teach him."

She went into her own room and shut the door, leaving me alone on
the verandah with my instructions. Long before the brig's sails

were furled, Jasper came up three steps at a time, forgetting to
say how d'ye do, and looking right and left eagerly.

"Where's Freya? Wasn't she here just now?"
When I explained to him that he was to be deprived of Miss Freya's

presence for a whole hour, "just to teach him," he said I had put
her up to it, no doubt, and that he feared he would have yet to

shoot me some day. She and I were getting too thick together.
Then he flung himself into a chair, and tried to talk to me about