Aunt Jannet believed firmly that decency as well as cleanliness were first steps towards godliness, and she was too recent an arrival in the equatorials, and perhaps also too conservative in her own ideas, to understand that decency of attire is after all purely matter of custom. To her, a girl dressed, or undressed, only in a ridi fringe which clung precariously to her hips and fell half-way to her knee, was practically unclothed. She did not know that it was death for a man to touch that scant, precarious garment. Strange anomaly of the cannibal isles--a dangling fringe of smoked coco-nut fibre a more stringent safeguard than the multitudinous garments of civilisation! When Aunt Jannet did learn that fact she thought considerably, and thereafter took a somewhat wider view of things. Meanwhile, in the mistaken goodness of her heart, she had insisted on arraying the newcomer in garments of her own, the most visible of which was a light print dress, in which the poor creature looked almost as uncomfortable as she felt. At sight of her transformation the brown man stared hard, and then grinned vigorously, and the girl hotched and wriggled in disgustful discomfort. She came up to the man and fingered his soft towels wistfully. She spoke to him, and he instantly handed her the one he had over his shoulder. She tore at the neck of her dress with evident intention, and Blair begged Jean to take her away and provide her with what towels she wished. "Well, I never!" began Aunt Jannet remonstratively. "That is a mistake that has wrought infinite mischief, dear Aunt Jannet," he said. "Our work must begin inside, not outside. Meddle as little as possible with manners and customs or you do more harm than good." "My goodness me! It's absolutely indecent for a woman to go about with nothing on but a towel. Don't tell me you allow them to eat one another, Kenneth!" "Well, we break them off that as soon as we can. But in all these matters we have learned that it is highest wisdom to hasten slowly." "Well, I----" But here the brown girl came back, all smiles and modest grace, clad in red-fringed towels like the man, and even Aunt Jannet, in her heart, could find no fault with her appearance. Then Blair called Matti, and, sitting on the deck by the new arrivals, he quietly commenced his approaches towards the conquest of the Dark Islands. Briefly--in the telling, though very much otherwise in the extracting--this was what they learned. The man's name was Ha'o--which he pronounced Hacho, the ch as in loch--and the woman's Nai or Na-ee. He was, he asserted, chief of that one of the Dark Islands which had been raided by the brig. A number of the islanders had been enticed on board with soft words and presents and then suddenly made prisoners. The ship had then apparently sailed, but that same night the village was burnt and he and the rest carried off.