CHAPTER II
THE GIRL ON TAO TAO
A GIRL stood on a veranda, scanning the sea with a tense, anxious expression. Her long hair hung in two heavy, braided ropes, which gleamed like burnished copper in the early morning sun. Her dress was white and loose, of the simplest cut, while her feet, innocent of stockings, were thrust into sandals.
She was undeniably beautiful, from the top of the high forehead on which a loose strand stirred in the gentle breeze, to the graceful curves of her neck. Her brown eyes were clear and steady, and her figure was straight and lithe. For the moment, at any rate, she looked all of her twenty-three summers. There was a tinge of something akin to grief stamped on her face—grief, or bewilderment, perhaps, but not fear. The girl's eyes, the set of her square little chin, and her very poise indicated clearly enough that fear, such as one may reasonably associate with her sex, had no part in her composition. And yet there were more than the elements of danger in her position. At best the lonely isles of
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