n forty-eight hours it had run him as low as ten days of fever would have done when he was in condition. But the dysentery had been swept away from Berande. A score of convalescen

had taken thirty grains of quinine, and the drug was buzzing in his ears like a nest of hornets, making his hands and knees tremble, and causing a sickening palpitation of the stomach. Once, opening his eyes, he saw what he took to be an hallucination. Not far out, and coming in across the Jessie's anchorage,

overhanging wall of white, a man who stood erect, gigantic, swaying with his weight on the steering-sweep. This he saw, and an eighth man who crouched in the bow and gazed shoreward. But what startled Sheldon was the sight of a woman in the s

, he could plainly see, was white. Who she was, and what she was doing there, were thoughts that drifted vaguely through his consciousness. He was too sick to be vitally interested, and, besi

g its nose to the gate-posts. Sheldon had called vainly to the house-boys, who, at the moment, were dosing the remaining patients in the hospital. He knew he was unable to rise up and go down the path to meet the newcomers, so he lay back in the steamer-chair, and watched for ages while they cared for the boat. The woman s

loomed like giants behind her. Both were six-footers, and they were heavy in proportion. He had never seen islanders like them.

uivering. That she had a temper, was his thought. But the eyes were striking. He decided that they were not gray after all, or, at least, not all gray. They were large and wide apart, and they looked at him from under level bro

was her greeting, "letting strange

ammered, by a supreme effort

of a feeble gratification as he saw solicitude leap into her eyes; then blackness smote him, and at the

pened. Then on the wall he saw a Stetson hat hanging, and beneath it a full cartridge-belt and a long-barrelled 38 Colt's revolver. The slender girth of the belt told its feminine story, and he remembered the whale-boat of the day before and the gray eyes that flashed beneath the level brows. She it must

ht down again,

e same time one hand pressed him back toward the pillow w

charge. When I say the word you'll get up, and not until then. Now, what medicine

madame,"

rrupted, "that is, in protes

e plant

, just through my first shipwreck; and here are you, not the least bit curious, talking about your mise

e said it-the whimsical expression of her face, the laughter in her eyes, and the several tiny lines of

ell me,

not have to be asked. Also, I want information. I managed to find out what time to ring the bell to turn the hand

-go on aga

where do you keep the key to the

nned goods! No, no. Let them

before, and he saw again the im

atoes! Nothing but potatoes! No salt! Nothing! Only potatoes! I may have been mistaken, but I thought I

nod

at for a single day, much less

t clothes-hook

ut as she was reaching down

rs and tinne

gry. The blood was in her c

for all they eat. Please don't worry about that. Worry is not good for you in your condition. And I won't stay any longer

, aren't you?" h

sconcerted her

safed, with a de

I merely t

ing fu

ok his

" he

t you might have somet

don," he said, with direct rele

ked. "My name is Lackland, Joan Lackland."

e otherwise-" h

all the tinned goods

g her own lightness, then adding, "that is, to Be

im coldly w

joke?" sh

I thought it was, but t

aren't you?" wa

r a sick man," he cried. "You

d absently, "

lips, then burst into laug

d. "I shouldn't have baited you.

and I'll see about breakfast. I

ok his

ng. Your fever has burned out, and

n, tripped at the door in a pair of sandals several sizes

"The girl hasn't a thing to wear except what she landed