A year had elapsed since Waldo Emerson Smith-Jones had departed from the Back Bay home of his aristocratic parents to seek in a long sea voyage a cure for the hacking cough and hectic cheeks which had in themselves proclaimed the almost incurable. Two months later had come the first meager press notices of the narrow escape of the steamer, upon which Waldo Emerson had been touring the south seas, from utter destruction by a huge tidal wave. The dispatch read: The captain reports that the great wave swept entirely over the steamer, momentarily submerging her. Two members of the crew, the officer upon the bridge, and one passenger were washed away. The latter was an American traveling for his health, Waldo E. Smith-Jones, son of John Alden Smith-Jones of Boston. The steamer came about, cruising back and forth for some time, but as the wave had washed her perilously close to a dangerous shore, it seemed unsafe to remain longer in the vicinity, for fear of a recurrence of the tidal wave which would have meant the utter annihilation of the vessel upon the nearby beach. No sign of any of the poor unfortunates was seen. Mrs. Smith-Jones is prostrated. Immediately John Alden Smith-Jones had fitted out his yacht, _Priscilla_, despatching her under Captain Burlinghame, a retired naval officer, and an old friend of Mr. Smith-Jones, to the far distant coast in search of the body of his son, which the captain of the steamer was of the opinion might very possibly have been washed upon the beach. And now Burlinghame was back to report the failure of his mission. The two men were sitting in the John Alden Smith-Jones library. Mrs. Smith-Jones was with them. "We searched the beach diligently at the point opposite which the tidal wave struck the steamer," Captain Burlinghame was saying. "For miles up and down the coast we patrolled every inch of the sand. "We found, at one spot upon the edge of the jungle and above the beach, the body of one of the sailors. It was not and could not have been Waldo's. The clothing was that of a seaman, the frame was much shorter and stockier than your son's. There was no sign of any other body along that entire coast. "Thinking it possible one of the men might have been washed ashore alive we sent parties into the interior. Here we found a wild and savage country, and on two occasions met with fierce, white savages, who hurled rocks at us and fled at the first report of our firearms. "We continued our search all around the island, which is of considerable extent. Upon the east coast I found this," and here the captain handed Mr. Smith-Jones the bag of jewels which Nadara had forgotten as she fled from Thandar. Briefly he narrated what he knew of the history of the poor woman to whom it had belonged.