"Is he the geezer with the curly whiskers and the merry-go-round rings in his ears?"
"That's the one. He's over there now. You can see him through the trees."
"Well, you'd better believe him, all right. But bye, bye, girlie, I've gotta beat it."
Sally watched her go, a bright bit of swaying colour against the green background. On the beach she joined the unpromising trio waiting with the boat,—the tall, dark man with the staring eyes she did not like, the heavy set husky with the bundles of muscles, glistening pink and oily with sweat, under his sparse flannel undershirt, and the chipper old man with the bleary eyes, the tobacco-stained beard, and the wicked saw mouth that cursed so constantly.
At four bells that night, Sally and Ben were watching the new moon over the rail of the North Star.
"It's just like a slice of ripe melon, isn't it?"
"And just like that night when I sent you the note, and you climbed down the trellis, and we went to the Lighthouse."
Her hand rested on his for a moment with a slight pressure, which he answered with one far stronger:
"If you hadn't come and given me your promise, I couldn't have stood it on the island," he went on in his shy boy's way.
"It's funny, but to tell the truth, I used to be jealous of Phil Huntington. I was all kinds of a chump, but I couldn't help it.
"There he is now."
The lights on the lee rail of the yacht were rising and
