The dining saloon was done in mahogany and sandalwood, with eight cabins, four to port and four to starboard.  The bed-and table-linen were of the finest texture.  From the centre of the ceiling hung a replica of the temple lamp in the Taj Mahal.  The odour of coconut prevailed, delicately but abidingly; for, save for the occasioned pleasure junket, The Tigress was a copra carrier, shell and fibre.

McClintock’s was a plantation of ten thousand palms, yielding him annually about half a million nuts.  Natives brought him an equal amount from the neighbouring islands.  As the palm bears nuts perennially, there were always coconut-laden proas making the beach.  Thus, McClintock carried to Copeley’s press about half a million pounds of copra.  There was a very substantial profit in the transaction, for he paid the natives in commodities—­coloured cotton cloths, pipes and tobacco, guns and ammunition, household utensils, cutlery and glass gewgaws.  It was perfectly legitimate.  Money was not necessary; indeed, it would have embarrassed all concerned..  A native sold his supply of nuts in exchange for cloth, tobacco and so forth.  In the South Seas, money is the eliminated middleman.

Where the islands are grouped, men discard the use of geographical names and simply refer to “McClintock’s” or “Copeley’s,” to the logical dictator of this or that island.

* * * * *

At sundown Spurlock was brought aboard and put into cabin 2, while Ruth was assigned to cabin 4, adjoining.  From the Sha-mien to the yacht, Spurlock had uttered no word; though, even in the semi-darkness, no gesture or word of Ruth’s escaped him.

Now that she was his, to make or mar, she presented an extraordinary fascination.  She had suddenly become as the jewels of the Madonna, as the idol’s eye, infinitely beyond his reach, sacred.  He could not pull her soul apart now to satisfy that queer absorbing, delving thing which was his literary curiosity; he had put her outside that circle.  His lawful wife; but nothing more; beyond that she was only an idea, a trust.

An incredible road he had elected to travel; he granted that it was incredible; and along this road somewhere would be Desire.  There were menacing possibilities; the thought of them set him a-tremble.  What would happen when confronted by the actual?  He was young; she was also young and physically beautiful—­his lawful wife.  He had put himself before the threshold of damnation; for Ruth was now a vestal in the temple.  Such was the condition of his mind that the danger exhilarated rather than depressed him.  Here would be the true test of his strength.  Upon this island whither he was bound there would be no diversions, breathing spells; the battle would be constant.

All at once it came to him what a fool he was to worry over this phase which was wholly suppositional.  He did not love Ruth.  They would be partners only in loneliness.  He would provide the necessities of life and protect her.  He would teach her all he knew of life so that if the Hand should ever reach his shoulder, she would be able to defend herself.  He was always anticipating, stepping into the future, torturing himself with non-existent troubles.  These cogitations were interrupted by the entrance of the doctor.