because Heemskirk, with old Nelson in attendance at his elbow, was

coming up the steps of the verandah. Directly his head came above
the level of the floor his ill-natured black eyes shot glances here

and there.
"Where's your girl, Nelson?" he asked, in a tone as if every soul

in the world belonged to him. And then to me: "The goddess has
flown, eh?"

Nelson's Cove - as we used to call it - was crowded with shipping
that day. There was first my steamer, then the Neptun gunboat

further out, and the Bonito, brig, anchored as usual so close
inshore that it looked as if, with a little skill and judgment, one

could shy a hat from the verandah on to her scrupulously holystoned
quarter-deck. Her brasses flashed like gold, her white body-paint

had a sheen like a satin robe. The rake of her varnished spars and
the big yards, squared to a hair, gave her a sort of martial

elegance. She was a beauty. No wonder that in possession of a
craft like that and the promise of a girl like Freya, Jasper lived

in a state of perpetual elation fit, perhaps, for the seventh
heaven, but not exactly safe in a world like ours.

I remarked politely to Heemskirk that, with three guests in the
house, Miss Freya had no doubt domestic matters to attend to. I

knew, of course, that she had gone to meet Jasper at a certain
cleared spot on the banks of the only stream on Nelson's little

island. The commander of the Neptun gave me a dubious black look,
and began to make himself at home, flinging his thick, cylindrical

carcass into a rocking-chair, and unbuttoning his coat. Old Nelson
sat down opposite him in a most unassuming manner, staring

anxiously with his round eyes and fanning himself with his hat. I
tried to make conversation to while the time away; not an easy task

with a morose, enamoured Dutchman constantly looking from one door
to another and answering one's advances either with a jeer or a

grunt.
However, the evening passed off all right. Luckily, there is a

degree of bliss too intense for elation. Jasper was quiet and
concentrated silently in watching Freya. As we went on board our

respective ships I offered to give his brig a tow out next morning.
I did it on purpose to get him away at the earliest possible

moment. So in the first cold light of the dawn we passed by the
gunboat lying black and still without a sound in her at the mouth

of the glassy cove. But with tropicalswiftness the sun had
climbed twice its diameter above the horizon before we had rounded

the reef and got abreast of the point. On the biggest boulder
there stood Freya, all in white and, in her helmet, like a feminine

and martialstatue with a rosy face, as I could see very well with
my glasses. She fluttered an expressivehandkerchief, and Jasper,

running up the main rigging of the white and warlike brig, waved
his hat in response. Shortly afterwards we parted, I to the

northward and Jasper heading east with a light wind on the quarter,
for Banjermassin and two other ports, I believe it was, that trip.

This peaceful occasion was the last on which I saw all these people
assembled together; the charmingly fresh and resolute Freya, the

innocently round-eyed old Nelson, Jasper, keen, long limbed, lean
faced, admirably self-contained, in his manner, because

inconceivably happy under the eyes of his Freya; all three tall,
fair, and blue-eyed in varied shades, and amongst them the swarthy,

arrogant, black-haired Dutchman, shorter nearly by a head, and so
much thicker than any of them that he seemed to be a creature

capable of inflating itself, a grotesquespecimen of mankind from
some other planet.

The contrast struck me all at once as we stood in the lighted
verandah, after rising from the dinner-table. I was fascinated by

it for the rest of the evening, and I remember the impression of
something funny and ill-omened at the same time in it to this day.

CHAPTER III
A few weeks later, coming early one morning into Singapore, from a

journey to the southward, I saw the brig lying at anchor in all her
usual symmetry and splendour of aspect as though she had been taken

out of a glass case and put delicately into the water that very
moment.

She was well out in the roadstead, but I steamed in and took up my
habitual berth close in front of the town. Before we had finished

breakfast a quarter-master came to tell me that Captain Allen's
boat was coming our way.

His smart gig dashed alongside, and in two bounds he was up our
accommodation-ladder and shaking me by the hand with his nervous

grip, his eyes snapping inquisitively, for he supposed I had called
at the Seven Isles group on my way. I reached into my pocket for a

nicely folded little note, which he grabbed out of my hand without
ceremony and carried off on the bridge to read by himself. After a

decent interval I followed him up there, and found him pacing to
and fro; for the nature of his emotions made him restless even in

his most thoughtful moments.
He shook his head at me triumphantly.

"Well, my dear boy," he said, "I shall be counting the days now."
I understood what he meant. I knew that those young people had

settled already on a runaway match without official preliminaries.
This was really a logical decision. Old Nelson (or Nielsen) would

never have agreed to give up Freya peaceably to this compromising
Jasper. Heavens! What would the Dutch authorities say to such a

match! It sounds too ridiculous for words. But there's nothing in
the world more selfishly hard than a timorous man in a fright about

his "little estate," as old Nelson used to call it in apologetic
accents. A heart permeated by a particular sort of funk is proof

against sense, feeling, and ridicule. It's a flint.
Jasper would have made his request all the same and then taken his

own way; but it was Freya who decided that nothing should be said,
on the ground that, "Papa would only worry himself to distraction."

He was capable of making himself ill, and then she wouldn't have
the heart to leave him. Here you have the sanity of feminine

outlook and the frankness of femininereasoning. And for the rest,
Miss Freya could read "poor dear papa" in the way a woman reads a

man - like an open book. His daughter once gone, old Nelson would
not worry himself. He would raise a great outcry, and make no end

of lamentable fuss, but that's not the same thing. The real
agonies of indecision, the anguish of conflicting feelings would be

spared to him. And as he was too unassuming to rage, he would,
after a period of lamentation, devote himself to his "little

estate," and to keeping on good terms with the authorities.
Time would do the rest. And Freya thought she could afford to

wait, while ruling over her own home in the beautiful brig and over
the man who loved her. This was the life for her who had learned

to walk on a ship's deck. She was a ship-child, a sea-girl if ever
there was one. And of course she loved Jasper and trusted him; but

there was a shade of anxiety in her pride. It is very fine and
romantic to possess for your very own a finely tempered and trusty

sword-blade, but whether it is the best weapon to counter with the
common cudgel-play of Fate - that's another question.

She knew that she had the more substance of the two - you needn't
try any cheap jokes, I am not talking of their weights. She was

just a little anxious while he was away, and she had me who, being
a tried confidant, took the liberty to whisper frequently "The

sooner the better." But there was a peculiar vein of obstinacy in
Miss Freya, and her reason for delay was characteristic. "Not

before my twenty-first birthday; so that there shall be no mistake
in people's minds as to me being old enough to know what I am

doing."
Jasper's feelings were in such subjection that he had never even

remonstrated against the decree. She was just splendid, whatever
she did or said, and there was an end of it for him. I believe

that he was subtle enough to be even flattered at bottom - at
times. And then to console him he had the brig which seemed

pervaded by the spirit of Freya, since whatever he did on board was
always done under the supremesanction of his love.

"Yes. I'll soon begin to count the days," he repeated. "Eleven
months more. I'll have to crowd three trips into that."

"Mind you don't come to grief trying to do too much," I admonished
him. But he dismissed my caution with a laugh and an elated