right in him, even while bestowing him and all her riches upon another woman; and from the grave he turned away to wander to and fro through the earth for another year, and when it was over he came home, and-we all knew that he would do it, did we not ?-married Ruby Pynsent, who had patiently waited, sure, with the wisdom of even the weakest woman, that he would come at last.

Yes, they married, and Margaret's bedroom furniture was with remorseful care stowed away in a little locked chamber at the top of the house, where moth and rust and mould and rats soon made an end of nearly all except a few of the love-letters in her ebony writing

desk, one of which love-letters is already quoted; the portrait was better used, for it hung in the state drawing-room, the room where Miss Pulsifer's last will was read in presence of her dead body, and Ruby never entered the place without glancing first at the picture and then at the centre of the room; and though the great hearth might be heaped with logs and the sunshine stream in at the great south window, that room had always a chill for her, and perhaps for her husband also.

But there! Margaret Pulsifer forgave them, and blessed them, even after she knew herself dying to leave them alive and together: and if she could do it, why should not we?

Hedged round with the impenetrable screen of religious mystery, we thought that the most curious pursuit would not venture to trace us to this tabooed hiding-place; for though the more intelligent natives could hardly fail to suspect that we had endeavored to escape together, they would not suppose the priest's daughter capable of committing sacrilege by invading the sacred territory of the "Luve-na-wai."

Secure, therefore, from molestation, as we expected to be, at least until the time of the recurring annual visitation for sacrificing to the island deities, we set about making ourselves comfortable upon the island.

The previous visits of the sacrificing parties proved to be a source of immediate maintenance to us. The offerings of bananas, oranges, vi-apples, and breadfruit, that had been deposited during many past years upon the idol-shrines, had borne abundant fruit upon earth, if not in the heathen heaven; for their seeds had germinated in the light but rich soil, and the whole island had become a garden of fruit. A thousand cargoes of the most delicious tropical esculents could have been gathered upon this little island alone when Waimata and I landed upon it. The cocoanut and the date-palm already grew there in abundance, the tough nuts having been borne from afar upon the billows and cast upon the sandy shore, where the receding waves had left them to germinate. The spontaneous forces of nature and the solemnities of the Fijian religion had conspired to set forth our larder. The waves, the sea-birds, and the wilder worshippers of that wild region, had brought to us the seeds of a hundred fruit-bearing plants, and

rose.

I named it "Waimata's Garden." It was an atoll or ring-shaped coral island, about two miles in diameter, enclosing a mirror-like and perfectly circular sheet of salt-water that was rather more than a mile across. This, unlike the central basins of all other atolls that I have ever seen, had no apparent communication with the ocean; yet its surface rose and fell gently with the tides. A subterranean channel evidently joined it with the outer sea. Nothing I have ever seen impressed me more deeply with the mystery of Nature's mighty mechanics than the slow rise and fall of the surface of this imprisoned water, that seemed to inspire and expire the tides like some marine monster, so vast that it needed to draw its breath but twice in the day.

The shores of this salt-lake were lined with a sloping beach of the softest and whitest sand, the detritus of the fine tropical corals; the outer beach was broader, and composed of a darker and tougher sand that had been thrown up by the action of the billows. The circular and concentric outlines of both beaches were as perfect as if they had been traced by a pair of dividers with mile-long legs. Their curves were mathematically accurate.

"It is the eye of Kai, the sea-god," said Waimata, as, after beaching our canoe, we strolled to the highest point of the atoll to inspect our new kingdom. "This round lake in the middle is Kai's pupil; and the cocoanut-trees are the fringes of his eyelids."

I did not know, as she spoke, whether her language was that of poetical feeling or of a sincere superstition; nor did I care at the moment to inquire; I merely said:

"Do you think it would offend Kai if I should climb a cocoanut-tree and throw you down some of the niu" (green fruit)?"

"I am pretty hungry," she answered. So we had supper. I twisted into a firm thong a strip of hibiscus-bark that I peeled from a tree in the adjoining thicket, and fastened it to my ankles in such a way as to hold them about ten inches apart; then clasping the slender, cylindrical shaft of the tallest cocoanuttree with my arms, I made of my banded feet a step or fulcrum upon which I ascended the tree by means of a similar motion to that by which an inch-worm mounts a clover-stalk. More rapidly, if not more gracefully, than that insect, I climbed to the swaying and airy plume of the tree. The wind still blew freshly, and swung me about in my giddy perch; and I felt like the traveller who climbs Strasburgh spire during a gale, and clasps the rocking column as it wrestles with the storm.

The moon shone low in the horizon, and sent up a troubled reflection from the centre of the circular lake. It seemed the reproving glance of the god Kai, and for a moment I hesitated to pluck the sacred fruit. Waimata lay on the bank below me; unromantic maiden! she was eating oranges, and I saw her glance wistfully at a near banana-tree that offered its tempting spike of golden-yellow fruit.

"Have you not enough to eat already?" I inquired.

"I think you may as well throw down the niu, now that you have climbed the tree," answered Waimata, peeling another orange and throwing away that side of it which had ripened upon the southern or colder side; for in these abundant islands we ate only the sunny side of fruits.

I sacrilegiously twisted a sacred cocoanut from its stem. The tree did not blow over upon the commission of the deed; but a great gust of wind swayed it more violently than ever, and I feared that the god Matani, the Fijian Æolus or Boreas, was coming at once to vindicate the offended majesty of the Luve

na-wai. But clinging firmly to the long elastic boughs, or rather gigantic leaves, of the plume, I retained my seat securely and began to throw down the fruit.

Falling from a height of sixty or seventy feet from the ground, the toughestshelled cocoanut is liable to break and lose its delicious contents, unless care be taken to make it strike upon its point, the strongest part of the shell. This can be done only by a skilful and scientific manœuvre. Twirling the cocoanut forcibly from left to right, I let it fall point downward. It thus passed through the air rotating, as a rifled shell or conical ball is fired from a gun, and struck the earth, its target, upon the point. Armstrong or Parrot might have learned the theory of rifled projectiles from the practice of the South Sea islanders. But success in firing the cocoanut to the ground so adroitly that its shell shall not burst upon the concussion is attained only after long practice and the destruction of many good cocoanuts; as Liston spoiled a bushel of eyes in learning to operate for the cataract.

One by one I twirled the nuts to the ground; then gazed around the horizon, and endeavored to pierce the darkness in the direction of Lakemba. The light clouds dispersed as the moon set; and glowing through the haze of the horizon I saw the steady lurid flame of a beaconfire.

The islanders were making search for us. The beacon was lighted upon a hill that bore the name of the high-priest; it was his signal of alarm; and I knew that every corner of Lakemba would be rummaged to find the missing ones. Would the pursuers, divining my lack of reverence for this sacred place, follow us hither, and capture us in Waimata's Garden?

I slid rapidly down the trunk of the tree. Waimata was opening the cocoanuts, which contained the fresh and aromatic nectar that is known only in the tropics, for it never survives exportation-the milk of the unripe cocoanut. Possibly I remember it with the too enthusiastic palate of youth; but that exquisite flavor, as I certainly believe,

"O'erpassed the cream of your champagne, When o'er the brim the sparkling bumpers reach, That spring-dew of the spirit, the heart's rain."

And so under the clear starlight we supped for the first time in Waimata's Garden.

It was warm and clear, and the mild current of the trade-wind poured over the island, and sighed in the cocoanut plumes, a lulling, slumbrous sound.

this island," thought I; "and I never heard of a ghost that could strike out from the shoulder or break a cocoanutshell with his fist."

Waimata, taking with her one of the robes that we had used as sails for our canoe, slipped my bark thongs around her ankles, and mounted as easily as I had done to the top of the tree. There, bending the elastic leaves togethand securing one to another by means of the tough fibre of the central leaflets, which the islanders use instead of cord,

er,

"Nonsense! you will fall; and then what good of our coming away so far together?"

"I shall not fall. You shall see how I will manage it. You may sleep at the bottom of the tree."

"Why not in the nearest palm-tree to yours?"

elastic couch for herself at the height of at least fifty feet from the ground. I looked on with curious interest as I saw her thus ensconce herself in the upper air.

"When will you come down?" said I. "When the watch-fire on Lakemba grows pale."

And she nestled herself among the

one."

66 But you are not in danger now." "How do you know that?" said Waimata. "Something tells me that I am in more danger of being killed and eaten here than I ever was at home."

I had heard her express a similar foreboding in her father's house.

"Besides," continued she, "I want you to keep the luve-na-wai from coming up after me in the night."

The poor girl evidently feared equal danger from human enemies and from those ghostly visitors with which, an infinite multitude, the Fijian peoples land and sea. Had she any authentic premonitions in the matter? I saw no danger from men, and had experienced very little from spirits; yet the idea of being set upon guard, in good faith, against ghosts, gods, or wood-gnomes, was, I confess, somewhat staggering. What should I do in case a company of these Polynesian demons should make their appearance ?

After a little reflection, however, I summoned up my courage and promised to defend the foot of the tree against all invasion until the morning.

"At any rate, there are no men upon

down at its bell-like bole, and fell away into troubled dreams, in which the Lakemban watch-fires blazed luridly all night, and Waimata was carried away from me to be sacrificed by howling savages to the offended deities of the island.

It seemed but a moment before I woke. The sea was perfectly quiet; the soft murmur of the surf was the only sound. The southern cross shone out brightly; but there was a vague hint of the morning-rose beyond the islands that lay upon the eastern horizon. A column of smoke rose straight into the air from the expiring watch-fire in Lakemba, and a meteor fell behind it as I looked. The palmtree by my side stood motionless as a marble stalagmite. I glanced upward into its plume.

Waimata was not there!

I leaped to my feet and called her name, but there was no answer. A flock of tropic-birds, disturbed by the unfamiliar sound, rose and sailed away from the neighboring thicket. I looked around, and saw faint traces in the grass. My eye, practised in woodcraft, told me that they were the imprints of a sandal. The diverging toes revealed

the fact that a Polynesian foot had made them. But they were not Waimata's; they were the imprints of a sandal larger than either she or I could wear.

But the most mysterious circumstance of all was, that though Waimata had disappeared, her own footsteps were nowhere to be found.

Distracted with fear, I climbed to the top of the palm-tree. The couch of braided leaves was precisely as she might have left it peacefully. I almost fancied that it retained her warmth.

I slid rapidly down the trunk and followed the footsteps. The length of their stride convinced me that I was likely to meet in the person of him who made them a powerful enemy.

The steps led seaward. Half distracted, I followed them rapidly. There were no other traces. It seemed as if Waimata must have been rapt away bodily from the top of the palm-tree, since no vestige of her appeared upon the earth. I was now firmly convinced of the presence of gods as well as of men upon the island, which evidently merited the epithet of Enchanted. I remembered her dark fancies of the night before, and my own troubled dreams.

Suddenly the track left the turf and struck the white sand of the outer beach. I noticed that it seemed unusually deep, too deep for even the gigantic weight of the person whose foot must have made it.

Midway across the beach a single scarlet flower lay beside the track. It was unlike any that I had seen in " Waimata's Garden." But it was identical with those which she had tossed to me on the day of the cannibal feast, a few weeks before. It was the brilliant corolla of the ohia-blossom (Eugenia malaccensis).

I picked it up. It is not a fragrant flower; but this diffused the perfume of the noni, a favorite cosmetic of Waimata's.

I remembered, too well, that I had given her such a flower but yesterday, as we came out to see the battle of the canoes. I had not seen it since, but

she must have hidden it in her hair; and now it reappeared as a last token from her upon her mysterious disappearance. Had it fallen from her as she was spiriting through the air? And I glanced upward, half expecting to see her who was dearest to me borne onward upon the vans of the luve-na-wai, and dropping to me this treasured memento at a parting which was destined to be eternal.

I saw nothing but the fast-fading stars. I pressed rapidly onward, following the dreadful footprints that might belong to a demon, for all that I knew, and that seemed certainly connected with the same mysterious agency that had caused Waimata's disappearance.

The east was now flooded with red light, that shone through the cocoanuttrees. The tide was coming in rapidly, and would soon obliterate the steps that I had traced, by this time, to the very margin of the waters. They led me to the foot of a gentle hillock that rose upon the bank; then, turning suddenly seaward, they were lost in the ocean. The last trace of Waimata was gone, and I was left, not alone, upon this haunted island, but seemingly in the power of malign and gigantic beings. How soon I, too, should be rapt away, whether by land, or air, or sea, I knew not. Would it be to rejoin Waimata ?

I fell upon the sand at the point where the last footsteps were obliterated, and prayed to the Fijian god Kai to take me. The tides crawled slowly up toward my feet. I regretted that I was able to swim; I wished that they might wash me away and draw me down into their depths. The sea-birds came wheeling over me, uttering loud cries and brushing me with their wings, as if to scare away the intruder upon their solitudes.

I lay half-stupefied. The sun rose, and the trade-wind began to come in gently from the sea. A vast aerial bridge of cirri reared itself between the Enchanted Island and Lakemba, its abutments the two distant islands, its roussoirs countless flakes of fretted cloud that lay motionless against each