“I say, Shaw,” cried the beautiful youth enthusiastically, “Miss Harding’s the most ripping sport, you know!  Not the least nervous about the trip, I assure you.”

“I was,” I announced, moved to defiance by the neighborhood of Mr. Shaw.  “Before we started I was so afraid that if you had listened you might have heard my teeth chattering.  But I had at least the comforting thought that if I did go to my end it would not be simply in pursuit of sordid gain!”

“And indeed that was almost a waste of noble sentiment under the circumstances,” answered the dour Scot, with the fleeting shadow of an enraging smile.  “Such disappointingly calm weather as it is!  See that Miss Harding has some coffee, Bert.”

I promised myself, as I went with Mr. Vane toward the fire, that some day I would find the weapon that would penetrate the Scotchman’s armor—­and would use it mercilessly.

Cookie, in his white attire, and with his black shining face and ivory teeth gleaming in the ruddy firelight, looked like a converted cannibal—­perhaps won from his errors by one of Mr. Vane’s missionary Johnnies.  He received us with unctuous warmth.

“Well, now, ’clar to goodness if it ain’t the li’le lady!  How come you git ashore all dry lak you is?  Yes, sah, Cookie’ll git you-all some’n hot immejusly.”  He wafted me with stately gestures to a seat on an overturned iron kettle, and served my coffee with an air appropriate to mahogany and plate.  It was something to see him wait on Cuthbert Vane.  As Cookie told me later, in the course of our rapidly developing friendship, “dat young gemmun am sure one ob de quality.”  To indicate the certainty of Cookie’s instinct, Miss Higglesby-Browne was never more to him than “dat pusson.” and the cold aloofness of his manner toward her, which yet never sank to impertinence, would have done credit to a duke.

On the beach Mr. Shaw, Captain Magnus and the sailors were toiling, unloading and piling up stores.  Rather laggingly, Apollo joined them.  I was glad, for a heavy fatigue was stealing over me.  Cookie, taking note of my sagging head, brought me somebody’s dunnage bag for a pillow.  I felt him drawing a tarpaulin over me as I sank into bottomless depths of sleep.

I opened my eyes to the dying stars.  The moon had set.  Black shapes of tree and boulder loomed portentous through the ashen dimness that precedes the dawn.  I heard men shouting, “Here she comes!” “Stand by to lend a hand!” In haste I scrambled up and tore for the beach.  I must witness the landing of Aunt Jane.

“Where are they, where are they?” I demanded, rubbing my sleepy eyes.

“Why didn’t you stay by the fire and have your nap out?” asked Mr. Shaw, in a tone which seemed to have forgotten for the moment to be frigid—­perhaps because I hadn’t yet waked up enough to have my quills in good pricking order.

“Nap?  Do you think that for all the treasure ever buried by a pirate I would miss the spectacle of Aunt Jane and Miss Browne arriving?  I expect it to compensate me for all I have suffered on this trip so far.”