recollecting what the seasons were in the Southern Ocean, that was what the time seemed like to her. She looked round at Mrs. Amos, who was sitting up and beginning to realise that she had done with the sea for the present.

"How do you do?" said Eleanor.

"I should feel better if I could get on something clean."

"Come, then!"

The two ladies disappeared down the companion way, into one of the most sorry tiring rooms, surely, that ever nicety used for that purpose. But it served two purposes with Eleanor just now; and the second was a hiding place. She did not want to be taken unawares, nor to be seen before she could see. So under the circumstances she made both Mrs. Amos and herself comfortable, and was as helpful as usual in a new line. Then she went to look out; but nobody was in sight yet, gentle or savage; all was safe; she went back to Mrs. Amos and fastened the door.

66

'Let us kneel down and pray together, will you?" she said. "I cannot get my breath freely till we have done that." Mrs. Amos's lips trembled as she knelt. And Eleanor and she joined in many petitions there, while the very stillness of their little cabin floor reminded them they were come to their desired haven, and the long sea journey was over. They rose up and kissed each other.

"I am so glad I have known you!" said Mrs. Amos.

"What

a blessing you have been to us! I wish we might be stationed somewhere together."

"I suppose that would be too good to hope for," said Eleanor. "I am going to reconnoitre again.'

Mrs. Amos half guessed why, and smiled to herself at Eleanor's blushing shyness. "Poor child, her hands were all trembling, too," she said in her thoughts. They were broken off by a low summons to the cabin door, which Eleanor held slightly ajar. Through the crack of the door they had a vision.

On the deck of the Queen Esther stood a specimen of the native inhabitants of the land. A man of tall stature, nobly developed in limbs and muscles, he looked in his native undress almost of giant proportions. His clothing was only a long piece of figured native cloth wound about his loins, one end falling like a train to the very sloop's deck. A thorough black skin was the only covering of the rest of his person, and showed his breadth of shoulder and strength of muscle to good advantage; as if carved in black marble only there was sufficient graceful mobility and dignified ease of carriage and attitude; no marble rigidity. Black he was, this savage, but not negro. The features were well cut and good. What the hair might be naturally could only be guessed at; the work of a skilful hairdresser had left it something for the uninitiated to marvel at. A band of three or four inches in breadth, completely white, bordered the face; the rest, a very luxuriant head, was jet black, and dressed into a perfectly regular and smooth roundish form, projecting everywhere beyond the white inner border. He had an

uncouth necklace, made of what it was impossible to say, except that part of it looked like shells and part like some animal's teeth; rings of one or two colours were on his fingers; he carried no weapon. But in his huge, powerful black frame, uncouth hairdressing, and strange uncoveredness, he was a sufficiently terrible object to unused eyes. In Tonga the ladies had seen no such sight.

"Do shut the door!" said Mrs. Amos. "He may come this way, and there is noboby who knows how to speak to him."

Eleanor shut the door, and looked round at her friend with a smile.

"I am foolish!" said Mrs. Amos, laughing; "but I don't want to see him just yet-till there is somebody to talk to him."

The door being fast, Eleanor applied herself to a somewhat large knot-hole she had long ago discovered in it; one which she strongly suspected the skipper had fostered, if not originated, for his own convenience of spying what was going on. Through this knot-hole Eleanor had a fair view of a good part of the deck, savage and all. He was gesticulating now and talking, evider.tly to the captain and Mr. Amos, the former of whom either did not understand or did not agree with him. Mr. Amos, of course, was in the former condition. Eleanor watched them with absorbed interest; when suddenly this vision was crossed by another, that looked to her eyes much as a white angel might, coming across a cloud of both moral and physical blackness. Mr. Rhys himself; his very self, and looking very much like it; only in a white dress literally, which in England she had never seen him wear. But the white dress alone did not make the impression to her eyes; there was that air of freshness and purity which some people always carry about with them, and which has to do with the clear look of temperance as well as with great particularity of personal care, and in part also grows out of the moral condition. In three breathless seconds Eleanor took note of it all, characteristics well known, but seen now with the novelty of long disuse and with the background of that huge black savage, to whom Mr. Rhys was addressing some words of explanation or exhortation -Eleanor could not tell which. She noticed the quiet pleasant manner of his speech, which certainly looked not as if Mrs. Amos had any reason for her fears; but he was speaking earnestly, and she observed too the unbending look of the savage in answer and a certain pleasant deference with which he appeared to be listening. Mr. Rhys had taken off his hat for a moment-it hung in his hand while the other brushed the hair from his forehead. Eleanor's eyes even in that moment fell to the hand which carried the hat; it was the same-she recognised it with a curious sense of bringing great and little things together-it was the same white and carefully looked-after hand that she remembered in England. Mr. Rhys's own personal civilisation went about with him.

Eleanor did not hear any of Mrs. Amos's words to her, which were several; and though Mrs. Amos, half alarmed by her deafness, did not know but she might be witnessing something dreadful on deck, and spoke with some importunity. Eleanor was thinking she

had not a minute to lose. Beyond the time of Mr. Rhys's talking to the other visitor on the schooner's deck, there could be but small interval before he would learn all about her being on board; two words to the skipper or Mr. Amos would bring it out; and if she wished to gain that first minute's testimony of look and word, she must be beforehand with them. She thought of all that with a beating heart in one instant's flash of thought, hastily caught up her ship cloak without daring to stop to put it on, slipped back the bolt of the door, and noiselessly passed out upon the deck. She neither heard nor saw anybody else; she was conscious of an intense and pitiful shame at being there and at thus presenting herself; but everything else was second to that necessity, to know from Mr. Rhys's look, with an absolute certainty, where he stood. She was not at that moment much afraid; yet the look she must see. She went forward while he was yet speaking to his black neighbour, she stood still a little behind him, and waited. She longed to hide her eyes. yet she looked steadfastly. How she looked, neither she nor perhaps anybody else knew. There was short opportunity for observation.

Mr. Rhys had no sooner finished his business with his sable friend, when he turned the other way; and of course the motionless figure standing so near his elbow, the woman's bonnet and drapery, caught his first glance. Eleanor was watching, with eyes that were strained already with the effort; they got leave to go down now. The flash of joy in those she had been looking at, the deep tone of the low uttered, "Oh, Eleanor!" which burst from him, made her feel on the instant as if she were paid to the full, not only for all she had done, but for all that life might have of disagreeable in store for her. Her eyes fell; she stood still in a sudden trance of contentment which made her as blind and deaf as another feeling had made her just before. Those two words-there had been such a depth in them, of tenderness and gladness; and somehow she felt in them too an appreciation of all she had done and gone through. Eleanor was satisfied. She felt it as well in the hold of her hand, which was taken and kept in a clasp as who should say, This is mine.

Perhaps it was out of consideration for her state, that without any farther reference to her he turned to Mr. Amos and claimed acquaintance and brotherhood with him; and for a little while talked, informing himself of various particulars of their journey and welfare; never all the while loosing his hold of that hand, though not bringing her into the conversation, and indeed standing so as to somewhat shield her. The question of landing came up and was discussed. The skipper objected to send the schooner's boat, on the score that it would leave too few men on board to take care of the vessel. Mr. Rhys had only a small canoe with him, manned by a single native. So he decided forthwith to return to the village and despatch boats large enough to bring the missionaries and their effects to land; but about that there might be some delay. Then for the first time he bent down and spoke to Eleanor; again that subdued, tender tone. "Are you ready to go ashore ?

"Yes."

"I will take you with me. Do you want anything out of this big ship? The canoes may not be immediately obtained, for anything but the live freight."

He took the grey ship cloak from Eleanor's arm and put it round her shoulders. She felt that she was alone and forlorn no more; she had got home. She was a different creature that went into the cabin to kiss Mrs. Amos, from the Eleanor that had come out. "I've seen him!" whispered Mrs. Amos. "Eleanor! you will not be married till we come, will you?"

"I hope not-I don't know," said Eleanor hurriedly seizing her bag and passing out again. Another minute, and it and she were taken down the side of the schooner and lodged in the canoe; and their dark oarsman paddled off,

E'

CHAPTER XXXVI.

AT DINNER.

Nor did she lift an eye nor speak a word,

Rapt in the fear and in the wonder of it.

LEANOR'S shamefacedness was upon her in full force when she found herself in the canoe, pushing off from the schooner and her friends there. She felt exceedingly shy and strange, and with that a feeling very like awe of her companion. A feeling not quite unknown to her in former days with the same person, and in tenfold force now. There was no doubt to be sure of the secret mind of them both towards each other; nevertheless, he had never spoken to her of his affection, nor given her the least sign of it, except on paper, up to that day; and now he sat for all she could see as cool and grave as ever by her side. The old and new state of things it was hard to reconcile all at once. To do Eleanor justice, she saw as one sees without looking; she was too shamefaced to look; she bent her outward attention upon their boatman. He was another native, of course, but attired in somewhat more civilised style, though in no costume of civilised lands. What he wore was more like a carman's frock at home than anything else it could be likened to. He was of pleasant countenance, and paddled along with great activity and skill.

They had been silent for the first few minutes since leaving the schooner, till at length Mr. Rhys asked her, with a little of the sweet arch smile she remembered so well, "how she had liked the first sight of a Fijian ? " It brought such a rush upon Eleanor of past things and present, old times and changes, that it was with the utmost difficulty she could make any answer at all.

"I was too much interested to think of liking or disliking." "You were not startled?"

"No."

"That was a heathen chief, of the opposite village."

"He wanted something, did he not?'

"Yes; that the captain of the schooner should accommodate him in something he thought would be for his advantage. It was impos. sible, and so I told him."

Eleanor looked again towards the oarsman.

"This is one of our Christian brethren.

"Are there many?" she asked, though feeling as if she had no breath to ask.

"Yes. And we have cause to be thankful every day at hearing of more. We want ten times as many hands as we have got. How has the long voyage been to you?"

Eleanor answered briefly; but then she was obliged to go on and