During the evening Dolly strolled casually from the camp and the society of the fuming Charley, and disappeared.  Tom had quite a trousseau, new and bright, for his sweetheart, when she clambered on board, naked, wet, and with shining eyes.  Next morning Charley tracked her along the beach.  An old and soiled dress—­his gift—­on a little promontory of rocks about a mile from the anchorage of the schooner completed the love-story.

This intrigue took place many years ago, but Charley was so deeply mortified that he hates Tom to this day, and Tom is an uncomfortable fellow for anyone disposed to resentfulness.

We know, because he says so, that Tom fought for her, and that Nelly gladly accepted the protection of the staunchest man of the district.  Tom, in his surly moments, is exquisitely cruel; but Nelly’s devotion is unaffected.  Her vanity led her to flaunt her gaudy hat in the hut.  Tom reproved such flashness—­he invariably selects the gayest shirts himself—­by burning the hat and all the newly-acquired finery.  Nelly struck back, and Tom, as her eyes were big and ablaze with fury, threw—­at the cost of burnt fingers—­a handful of hot sand and ashes into her face.  From Tom’s point of view it was a splendid feat—­one of those bold and effective master-strokes that only a ready and determined sportsman could conceive and on the instant carry into effect.  Nelly’s eyes were closed for weeks—­well-nigh for ever—­and the skin peeled off her face; but she consented to the cruel punishment without a murmur after the first shriek of agony, and won Tom to good temper and tolerance of her vanity by all sorts of happy concessions.

How many such tiffs—­tough and smart—­has poor Nelly borne?  Her grief has been so sore that she has torn her hair out by the roots in frenzy and stamped upon it; but Tom, surly and impassive Tom, is her lord as well as her most exacting master, and in their own way they are devoted to one another.

The roughest cross Nelly was called upon to bear was the presence of Tom’s third wife—­“Little Jinny”—­the manner of whose wooing and home-coming is to be told.

News came from Lucinda Point to Clump Point—­passed from one to another—­that Tom’s half-brother (a purely fictional relationship) had died, leaving a young widow.  According to Tom’s rendering of the matrimonial laws, he was the rightful heir.  The widow was all that his half-brother had left that was of the slightest consequence.

Tom, telling the circumstances, asked for a holiday that he might personally lay claim to his inheritance.  Reminded that he had one wife, he frankly declared in Nelly’s presence, and she seemed to acquiesce, that she was no good; but that the other one was a “good fella” in every respect, even to washing plates and scrubbing floors.

His holiday was granted.  He went away with money in his pockets, blankets, several changes of raiment—­among them Nelly’s best dress and hat, dilly-bags brightly coloured, and weapons—­boomerang, two black palm spears, a great wooden sword, a shield decorated with a complicated pattern in red and white earth, and a flashing new tomahawk.