But Captain Cathie was staring through his glasses at the distant white beach for signs of occupation, and found none. It was still early, however, and the village might be round the bend of the island. He carried the _Torch_ in as far as he deemed safe, and then, at the word, the anchor plunged and the chain ran merrily out, and the little ship rode at rest for the first time in many days. "Who is for the shore?" cried Blair, in the voice and manner of a jolly schoolboy offering treats. They were all for the shore. After three weeks of continuous sailing the feel of solid ground under one's feet would be a novelty. "Though I expect," said Aunt Jannet Harvey, "it'll be as hard to walk straight at first as it was not to walk crooked on the ship. I've got so used to walking on the sides of my feet, and balancing to the rolling, that I've almost forgotten what it feels like to walk any other way." In ten minutes they were all speeding shorewards in one of the white whale-boats, and when Aunt Jannet Harvey cumbrously made the close acquaintance of the white beach, she found her feet no whit behind those of her younger companions in their eager activity. They all stamped up the crunching coral with merry talk and laughter. Aunt Jannet Harvey stood at the foot of her first really intimate coco-nut tree, and gazed up the slim spire to the great benignant fronds and hanging fruit, with such intention of longing, that Jean, in a convulsion of laughter, cried-- "Do try it, auntie! I'm sure you could manage it if you tried hard." "And if at first you don't succeed, try, try again, Aunt Jannet!" laughed Blair. They left her still gazing, and scattered, Jean and Mary Stuart and Alison Evans diving into the undergrowth after armfuls of greenery and trailing vines, and twittering like escaped birds when, now and again, they came on treasure-trove of scarlet hibiscus blooms glowing on the green like fiery stars--or splashes of blood. The men pressed on at once up the ridge to get a general view of their surroundings, and Captain Cathie, with a couple of his men, pulled slowly down the lagoon in search of the village. He heard the merry calls of the explorers, and wondered at the absence of any sign of life on the island. The very sight of an approaching ship used, in his time, to bring the population to the beach. But things had changed of course since then, and byways had become highways. The white boat jerked slowly along round the bend, and the voices ashore grew less distinct. And suddenly his lips pinched and his brow crumpled, and he gazed ahead with a fixed, angry glare which set his men wondering what they were coming to, and carried their chins to their shoulders unconsciously. A stretch of white beach, a bristle of black posts jutting out of the cleared ground above--that was all. But Cathie's experience read them like three-feet letters on a city hoarding. He threw up one hand and jammed the tiller hard down with the other.