Page:Anderson--Isle of seven moons.djvu/244

232 "With these. This is a spade, you see. Pretty crude but it did the business. All you ve got to do is to take a limb of a tree and shape it with a knife, split it at this end, sharpen a flat stone by rubbing it against another, then fasten it in the cleavage. Liana vines make good ropes—and there you are. Of course the spade got loose from the handle sometimes, but I didn't need to hurry."

"And this is your hammer and your axe—and my, but this is a beautiful sitting room and real chairs and cocoanut bowls!" then shyly—"I wouldn't mind keeping house in that cute little place."

For answer, he put his arms around her. There, in the little one-room hut built of tropical trees, the westering sun shining in the doorway, their lips met, not in the old boy and girl kiss of first love but the maturer sealing of their promise after long years of waiting.

Across Rainbow Bay and far beyond, the sun changed the liquid sapphire of the waters to rippling gold as he paused on the brink, and the Captain's cheery hail rang through the grove.

On the beach, Spanish Dick was turning Ben's brace of wild birds on a spit over a fire, whose rosy flickerings added a warm human touch to the wilderness of tropical colours all around them.

As they were finishing the last morsels Ben said to Sally:

"Oh, Sally. I didn't tell you but this island has a mystery"