He stood up, hatless, in his battered tweed suit, and surveyed the scene of their present and future adventures.  It took but a glance to show him that the whole ground-plan of the island was entirely circular.  In the midst of all rose the central atoll itself, a tiny mountain-peak, just projecting with its hills and gorges to a few hundred feet above the surface of the ocean.  Outside it came the lagoon, with its placid ring of glassy water surrounding the circular island, and separated from the sea by an equally circular belt of fringing reef, covered thick with waving stems of picturesque cocoanut.  It was on the reef they had landed, and from it they now looked across the calm lagoon with doubtful eyes toward the central island.

As soon as the sun rose, their doubts were quickly resolved into fears or certainties.  Scarcely had its rim begun to show itself distinctly above the eastern horizon, when a great bustle and confusion was noticeable at once on the opposite shore.  Brown-skinned savages were collecting in eager groups by a white patch of beach, and putting out rude but well-manned canoes into the calm waters of the lagoon.  At sight of their naked arms and bustling gestures, Muriel’s heart sank suddenly within her.  “Oh, Mr. Thurstan,” she cried, clinging to his arm in her terror, “what does it all mean?  Are they going to hurt us?  Are these savages coming over?  Are they coming to kill us?”

Felix grasped his trusty knife hard in his right hand, and swallowed a groan, as he looked tenderly down upon her.  “Muriel,” he said, forgetting in the excitement of the moment the little conventionalities and courtesies of civilized life, “if they are, trust me, you never shall fall alive into their cruel hands.  Sooner than that—­” he held up the knife significantly, with its open blade before her.

The poor girl clung to him harder still, with a ghastly shudder.  “Oh, it’s terrible, terrible,” she cried, turning deadly pale.  Then, after a short pause, she added, “But I would rather have it so.  Do as you say.  I could bear it from you.  Promise me that, rather than that those creatures should kill me.”

“I promise,” Felix answered, clasping her hand hard, and paused, with the knife ever ready in his right, awaiting the approach of the half-naked savages.

The boats glided fast across the lagoon, propelled by the paddles of the stalwart Polynesians who manned them, and crowded to the water’s edge with groups of grinning and shouting warriors.  They were dressed in aprons of dracaena leaves only, with necklets and armlets of sharks’ teeth and cowrie shells.  A dozen canoes at least were making toward the reef at full speed, all bristling with spears and alive with noisy and boisterous savages.  Muriel shrank back terror-stricken at the sight, as they drew nearer and nearer.  But Felix, holding his breath hard, grew somewhat less nervous as the men approached the reef.  He had seen enough of Polynesian life before