It was such a storm as this, undoubtedly, that had struck us on July 4th. This time, crouched in the shelter of the near-by trees, clinging to the matted _haro_, we were free to watch a stupendous spectacle. Triplett alone went aboard and lashed himself to the improvised steering post. Our sail had been stretched and rigged with hundreds of yards of _eva-eva_, in addition to which four large _taa-taas_ were lashed along the scuppers. In less time than it takes to tell, the wind had risen to super-hurricane force. Suddenly Baa-haabaa let out a yell of warning and pointed seaward. Rushing toward us at lightning speed was a wall of white water, sixty feet high! In a trice we were all in the treetops, my wife hauling me after her with praiseworthy devotion. All, did I say? All but Triplett. He was sublime. Then for the first time I knew that he was, in truth, our chief. Waving his free arm at the advancing maelstrom, he yelled defiance. Then this towering seawall hit him square in the stern. I caught one fleeting glimpse of the Kawa gallantly riding the foam. An instant later she was flung with a tremendous crash far down the leafy lane. Fully half the distance she must have gone in that first onslaught. The last eighth-of-a-mile she ground her way through a torrent of sea and cocoanuts. The forest rang with the bellowing wind, the snapping coral branches and the screams of the whistling-trout fighting vainly against the current. What a plan was Triplett's! The cocoanuts, being movable, rolled with the flood and actually acted as ball bearings. Without them our craft must certainly have burst asunder. The storm passed as quickly as it had come and by the time we had clambered to the ground and rushed across the atoll there lay our tight little darling, peacefully at anchor in the still waters of the lagoon, with Triplett on her quarter-deck immersed in the New Bedford "Argus." CHAPTER VI Marital memories. A pillow-fight on the beach. A deep-sea devil. The opening in the atoll. Swank paints a portrait. The fatu-liva bird and its curious gift. My adventure with the wak-wak. Saved! I shall never forget a day when my bride and I sat on the edge of the lagoon after our matinal dip in its pellucid waters. It was a perfect September morn. So was she. "My dear," I said suddenly, "Hatiaa Kappa eppe taue." It sounds like a college fraternity but really means, "My woodlark, what is your name?" I had been married over a week and I did not know my wife's name. "Kippiputuonaa," she murmured musically. "Taro ititi aa moieha ephaa lihaha?" I questioned, which, freely translated, is "What?" "Kippiputuonaa." Then, throwing back her head with its superb aureole of hair she softly crooned the words and music of the choral which the community chorus had sung on our wedding night. Hooio-hooio uku hai unio Kippiputunonaa aaa titi huti O tefi tapu, O eio hoki Hooio-hooio, one naani-tui