How it all came back to me! Leaning towards her, I gently pressed the lobe of her ear with my chin, the native method of expressing deep affection. Her dusky cheeks flushed and with infinite shyness she lifted her left foot and placed it on my knee. Tattooed the length of the roseleaf sole in the graceful ideographic lettering of the islands I read-- "Kippiputuonaa," (Daughter of Pearl and Coral). "What an exquisite name!" I murmured, "and so unusual!" I was awed. I felt as if this superb creature, my mate, had revealed to me the last, the most hidden of her secrets. I had heard of Mother of Pearl,--but of the Daughter--never...and I was married to her! "And you," she whispered, "are Naani-Tui, Face-of-the-Moon!" I liked that. Frankly I was a bit set up about it. It sounded so much better than Moon-face. I thrust out my left foot, bare of any inscription, and she tickled it playfully with a blade of _haro_. Radiant Kippiputuonaa--whom I soon called "Kippy" for short--your name shall ever remain a blessed memory, the deepest and dearest wound in my heart. Kippy proposed that I should be marked for identification in the usual manner, but I shuddered at the thought. I was far too ticklish; I should have died under the needle! What days of joyous romping we had! One morning a little crowd of us, just the Swanks, Whinneys and ourselves, met on the beach for a pillow-fight. It was a rare sport, and, as the pillows were eighteen-inch logs of _rapiti-wood_, not without its element of danger. A half-hour of this and we lay bruised and panting on the beach listening to the hoarse bellowing of the _wak-waks_. The _wak-wak_ is without exception the most outrageous creature that ploughs the deep in fishy guise. For man-eating qualities he had the shark skinned a nautical mile. Whinney made a true remark to me one night,--one of the few he ever made. The ocean was particularly audible that evening. [Illustration: Watchful Waiting] [Illustration Note: WATCHFUL WAITING There was something about the unfamiliar appearance of Dr. Traprock's yawl, the Kawa, which filled the beautiful native women with a wonder not unmixed with apprehension. This was particularly true of the lovely creatures who married the three intrepid explorers. The strange object which had brought to the islands these wonderful white men might some day carry them away again! In view of the tragic subsequent events there is something infinitely pathetic in this charming beach-study where Kippiputuonaa is seen anxiously watching "the tree-with-wings" (as she naively called the yawl), where her husband, Dr. Traprock, is at work rigging a new yard-arm. The Kawa, unfortunately, is just out of the picture.] "Listen to that surf," I remarked. "I never heard it grumble like that before." "You'd grumble, if you were full of _wak-waks_," he said.