Page:Barbour--Joan of the ilsand.djvu/23

Rh the South Seas are places where there are perils for stout hearts to overcome, comforts which would satisfy few women, work which only men with iron wills and iron constitutions can hope to accomplish.

The air was wonderfully clear, even for those latitudes. Through a break in the trees, to the east, a small reef, three miles off, seemed to be scarcely more than a thousand yards distant. To the south, twenty miles from the silvery shore near where the girl stood, loomed the outline of another island. The girl trained a pair of binoculars on to this blur for full five minutes, and then swept the wide expanse of the ocean without finding anything to arrest her attention.

With a gesture of impatience, and a slight frown on her sun-tanned forehead, she lowered the field glasses and turned on her heel just as the sound of a guttural voice reached her. "Marster Trent!"

Beyond the compound a kinky-haired black of alarming mien, who was, however, the "boss boy" on the plantation, and tractable for his kind, stood awaiting permission to cross the narrow clearing, which was sacrosanct.

"What you want, Taleile?" the girl asked, instantly assuming a more authoritative manner. "Come here."

"Want big Marster Trent," said the black, in the curiously unpitched voice of the South Sea islander.