How long they endured that black agony of suffering he knew not. By common consent none of them ever spoke of it again.
Three months after they had drifted ashore, a passing sperm whaler, cruising through the group, took away the two seamen, and then Brantley, after bidding them a silent farewell, had, with bitter despair gnawing at his heart, turned his face away from the ship, and walked back into the palm-shaded village.
"I will never go back again," he had said to himself. And perhaps he was right; for when the DORIS went to pieces on Tuanake his hope and fortunes went with her, and, save for that other Doris, there was no one in the world who cared for him. He was not the man to face the world again with: "Why, he lost his first ship!" whispered among his acquaintances.
And this is how Brantley—young, handsome, and as smart a seaman (save for that one fatal mistake) as ever trod a deck—became Paranili the PAPALAGI, and was living out his life among the people of solitary Vahitahi.
Ere a year had passed a trading captain bound to the Gambier Islands had given him a small stock of trade goods, and the thought of Doris had been his salvation. Only for her he would have sunk to the life of a mere idle, gin-drinking, and dissolute beach-comber. As it was, his steady, straightforward life among the people of the island was a big factor to his business success. And so every year he sent money to Doris by some passing whaler or Tahitian trading schooner, but twice only had he got letters from her; and each time she had said: "Let me come to you, Fred. We are alone in the world, and may never meet again else. Sometimes I awake in the night with a sudden fear. Let me come; my heart is breaking with the loneliness of my life here, so far away from you."
But two years ago he had done that which would keep Doris from ever coming to him, he thought. He had married a young native girl—that is, taken her to wife in the Paumotuan fashion—and surely Doris, with her old-fashioned notions of right and wrong, would grieve bitterly if she knew it.
Presently he rose, talking to himself as is the wont of those who have lived long apart from all white associations, and sauntered up and down the shady path at the side of his dwelling, thinking of Doris, and if he would ever see her again. Then he entered the house.