tree-tops and tossing the ocean white. As they skirted the plain of the
dead, the priest saw a strange sight. The wind had become a gale. It
caught up great armfuls of sand from the low dunes, and hurled them upon
the skeletons, covering them from sight. Sometimes a gust would snatch
the blanket from one to bury another more deeply; and for a moment the
old bones would gleam again, to be enveloped in the on-rushing pillar of
whirling sand. Through the storm leaped the wild dogs, yelping dismally.

When the party reached the stretch beyond the banana grove, they saw the
schooner tossing and pulling at her anchor. The captain shouted to them
to hurry. The boat awaiting them at the beach was obliged to make three
trips. Father Carillo went in the first boat; Dorthe remained for the
last. She was the last, also, to ascend the ladder at the ship's side.
As she put her foot on deck, and confronted again the pale face and
shining robes of the young priest, she screamed, and leapt from the
vessel into the waves. The chief and his tribe shouted their entreaties
to return. But she had disappeared, and the sky was black. The captain
refused to lower the boat again. He had already weighed anchor, and he
hurriedly represented that to remain longer in the little bay, with its
reefs and rocks, its chopping waves, would mean death to all. The priest
was obliged to sacrifice the girl to the many lives in his keep.


II

Dorthe darted through the hissing waves, undismayed by the darkness or
the screaming wind; she and the ocean had been friends since her baby
days. When a breaker finally tossed her on the shore, she scrambled to
the bank, then stood long endeavouring to pierce the rain for sight of
the vessel. But it was far out in the dark. Dorthe was alone on the