Page:Barbour--Joan of the ilsand.djvu/80

68 the moon arose, bathing the island in its splendour, the man whom prudence had driven over the side of the Four Winds to seek seclusion in the unknown, found himself the guardian of Tao Tao and of every living soul thereon, including this brown-eyed girl to whom, after all, he was little more than a complete stranger.

She knew him only as a man who had fallen off a steamer, and had asked no questions about the thirty or so years that had gone before in his life. He half wished she had been just a mite more curious on the subject.

She found him on the veranda later, and he was surprised at the sense of elation that came to him with the sound of her approaching footsteps. She took the chair he drew toward the rail for her and seated herself in it with a long sigh of relief. The day had been an eventful one, and now that it was at an end her tired nerves were grateful for the calm and quiet of the scene. Before them, beyond the compound, framed between two sentinel cocoa-palms at the edge of the beach, stretched the moon's path across the peaceful sea, while, against a purple sky the moon itself, half-grown, glowed like molten silver. They talked long that night, and far more intimately than either had thought possible. Joan spoke of her life in England before fallen fortunes and the death of their parents had sent her and her brother seeking wealth in the South