By Reef and Palm

"Put thy face to mine, Paranili," she whispered; "I grow cold now."

As the bearded face of the man bent over her, one thin, weak arm rose waveringly in the air, and then fell softly round his neck, and Brantley, with his hand upon her bosom, felt that her heart had ceased to beat.

The next day he sailed the schooner into the lagoon, and Doris pressed her lips on the dead forehead of the native girl ere she was laid to rest. Something that Doris had said to him as they walked away from her grave filled Brantley's heart with a deadly fear, and as he took her in his arms his voice shook.

"Don't say that, Doris. It cannot be so soon as that. I was never a good man; but surely God will spare you to me a little longer."

But it came very soon—on the morning of the day that he intended sailing out of the lagoon again, Doris died in his arms on board the schooner, and Brantley laid her to rest under the shade of a giant puka-tree that overshadowed the stones of the old MARAE.

That night he called Rua Manu into the cabin and asked him if he could beat his way back to Vahitahi in the schooner.

"'Tis an easy matter, Paranili. So that the sky be clear and I can see the stars, then shall I find Vahitahi in three days."

"Good. Then to-morrow take the schooner there, and tell such of the people as desire to be with me to come here, and bring with them all things that are in my house. It is my mind to live here at Tatakoto."

As the schooner slipped through the narrow passage, he stood on the low, sandy point, and waved his hand in farewell.

A week later the little vessel dropped her anchor in the lagoon again, and Rua Manu and his crew came ashore to seek him.

They found him lying under the shade of the puka-tree with his revolver in his hand and a bullet-hole in his temple.