We have a crowd on board, and to-day we had a birthday cake to tea, because it is a lady's birthday. As no one ever asks a lady how old she is--you remember us talking about that--well, they put 21 on the icing of the cake, but she is an old lady, and they made her funny presents, a little dolly, and a china pug dog with a tail that keeps wagging after you have touched it, and some beads. It was such fun. There is so little to do on board that every one gets wearied, and wants a bit of fun to pass the hours away.... And now, dear little friend, good-bye. Be good and brave, and hurry putting your pennies in the bank so that you can come to see us and stay a long time. Janie sends her compliments to you and to all, and says, "Do not forget us." So say I. Joyful days in Ratcliffe's life were these when letters arrived from Ma, "bang, bang from the wilds," as she said. In all she spoke of the mysterious secret. "Now, sonny," she would say, "do you remember our little secret treaty? I do, and keep it. There is a telephone and a telegraph, secret, wireless, swift, which never fails, and it carries to Canary _via_ the Kingdom of God." Or this, "Are you remembering our old secret? Dear old sweet-heart, so am I, and I get surer and surer than ever for the BEST. Keep on!" Sometimes Ratcliffe wrote in reply, sometimes his mother or auntie, but always there was a message to say that "the secret was being kept." Ratcliffe liked to hear about the children and their doings and about the teeming life of the forest, "cunning things among insects and beautiful flies and butterflies and small creatures among the bushes glistening like fine stones or flowers," but best of all he loved the snake stories like this: One night in the dark there came up to my ears small screams from below. Janie was jumping about and Annie and she were throwing things, and by the light of the fire it looked awful. Janie laughed back to my screams, "It is a snake, don't come," and she was lashing all she was able with a stick. Annie was making noise, and not much more. I got round in my slow way to the outside. Janie had forced it back till she and Annie and Maggie were all on the outside and could run, but Janie held on, and I threw her a machete and she hacked the things into bits. In the morning the bits were all gone, some other beast had eaten it, and there were only marks. Another day Janie was chasing with the others a horrid thing we call Asawuri. I don't know what it is in scientific English. It makes a long oo-o-oo-o of a note and lives in the bush in a hole. It is bigger than a lizard and marked handsomely like a snake, and has a deadly poison; that's why God has given it the note of warning, I suppose. Janie killed it.... I am always keeping my secret. Are you? Don't slacken! Don't tell. Ma always tried to cheer and help him: