The singers, the dancers, the painters and poets made life very lively in that summer sea; it was a case of sweet idleness with wine, women and wits, and all the world before them where to choose. It must be confessed that Clitheroe had enjoyed himself in the society of these old comrades—you would recognize most of them were he to name them; but tonight, or rather this early morning he had begun to moralize, as he peered down the transom upon the half-shadowy forms of those feasters who had fallen by the way. He was asking himself if it paid—this high-pressure happiness that knew no respite save temporary insensibility? He began to think that it did not, and with a shrug of his shoulders and a faint sigh, he turned away. He was about to resume his solitary watch, for he could not sleep on such a night, when his eye was attracted by a flitting shadow weaving to and fro astern; it seemed to be soaring upon the face of the waters; was it some broad-winged sea-bird following in their wake? He watched it as it drew near, growing larger and larger every moment. No! it was not a bird; but it was the next thing to one.
Out of the darkness was evolved the slender hull of a canoe, the wide, many ribbed sail, and the dusky forms of three naked islanders. They had not yet taken note of him; with a sudden impulse, he stole up to the transom, and standing over it so that the lights from the cabin-lamps shone full upon him, he waved a signal to the savages, enjoining silence, and bidding them approach with caution.
In a few moments they had wafted themselves noiselessly up under the companion ladder, and there, with suppressed excitement, he was recognized. Old friends these, pals in the past, young chiefs from an island he had loved and mourned.
There was a moment of passionate greeting, and but a moment, in the silence under the stars, then, with a sudden resolve, and with never a glance backward, Clitheroe, descending the ladder, entered the canoe and it swung off into the night.
Two hours later, the "Waring," having run clear of the labyrinthine reefs, steamed up and was out of sight before daybreak.
"And what is left? Dust and Ash and a Tale—or not even a Tale!"
MARCUS AURELIUS.
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