Mr. Button was seated on a sea-chest with a fiddle under his left ear. He was playing the “Shan van vaught,” and accompanying the tune, punctuating it, with blows of his left heel on the fo’cs’le deck...

Mr. Button was seated on a sea-chest with a fiddle under his left ear. He was playing the “Shan van vaught,” and accompanying the tune, punctuating it, with blows of his left heel on the fo’cs’le deck...

Mr. Button was seated on a sea-chest with a fiddle under his left ear. He was playing the “Shan van vaught,” and accompanying the tune, punctuating it, with blows of his left heel on the fo’cs’le deck...

It was a wonderful night up on deck, filled with all the majesty and beauty of starlight and a tropic calm. The Pacific slept; a vast, vague swell flowing from far away down south under the night, lif...

It was the fourth day of the long calm. An awning had been rigged up on the poop for the passengers, and under it sat Lestrange, trying to read, and the children trying to play. The heat and monotony ...

Before the woman had time to speak a thunderous step was heard on the companion stairs, and Le Farge broke into the saloon. The man’s face was injected with blood, his eyes were fixed and glassy like ...

The sun became fainter still, and vanished. Though the air round the dinghy seemed quite clear, the oncoming boats were hazy and dim, and that part of the horizon that had been fairly clear was now bl...

“Is it aslape I’ve been?” said Mr. Button, suddenly awaking with a start. He had shipped his oars just for a minute’s rest. He must have slept for hours, for now, behold! a warm, gentle wind was blowi...

Every hour or so Mr. Button would shake his lethargy off, and rise and look round for “seagulls,” but the prospect was sailless as the prehistoric sea, wingless, voiceless. When Dick would fret now an...

He had slept an hour and more when he was brought to his senses by a thin and prolonged shriek. It was Emmeline in a nightmare, or more properly a day-mare, brought on by a meal of sardines and the ha...

“Daddy’s a long time coming,” said Dick all of a sudden. They were seated on the baulks of timber that cumbered the deck of the brig on either side of the caboose. An ideal perch. The sun was setting ...

When the fog lifted after midnight the people in the longboat saw the quarter-boat half a mile to starboard of them. “Can you see the dinghy?” asked Lestrange of the captain, who was standing up searc...

“Childer!” shouted Paddy. He was at the cross-trees in the full dawn, whilst the children standing beneath on deck were craning their faces up to him. “There’s an island forenint us.” “Hurrah!” cried ...

“Childer!” shouted Paddy. He was at the cross-trees in the full dawn, whilst the children standing beneath on deck were craning their faces up to him. “There’s an island forenint us.” “Hurrah!” cried ...

On either side lay a great sweep of waving blue water. Calm, almost as a lake, sapphire here, and here with the tints of the aqua marine. Water so clear that fathoms away below you could see the branc...

“Mr. Button,” said she, when the latter had descended, “there’s a little barrel”; she pointed to something green and lichen-covered that lay between the trunks of two trees⁠—something that eyes less s...

“Mr. Button,” said Emmeline that night, as they sat on the sand near the tent he had improvised, “Mr. Button⁠—cats go to sleep.” They had been questioning him about the “never-wake-up” berries. “Who s...

“I don’t want my old britches on! I don’t want my old britches on!” Dick was darting about naked on the sand, Mr. Button after him with a pair of small trousers in his hand. A crab might just as well ...

To forget the passage of time you must live in the open air, in a warm climate, with as few clothes as possible upon you. You must collect and cook your own food. Then, after a while, if you have no s...

To forget the passage of time you must live in the open air, in a warm climate, with as few clothes as possible upon you. You must collect and cook your own food. Then, after a while, if you have no s...

One morning, about a week after the day on which the old sailor, to use his own expression, had bent a skirt on Emmeline, Dick came through the woods and across the sands running. He had been on the h...

They had dinner at noon. Paddy knew how to cook fish, island fashion, wrapping them in leaves, and baking them in a hole in the ground in which a fire had previously been lit. They had fish and taro r...

Mr. Button saw no more rats, much to Dick’s disappointment. He was off the drink. At dawn next day he got up, refreshed by a second sleep, and wandered down to the edge of the lagoon. The opening in t...

“I wonder where Paddy is?” cried Dick next morning. He was coming out of the chapparel pulling a dead branch after him. “He’s left his coat on the sand, and the tinder box in it, so I’ll make the fire...

You could just make the figure out lying on the reef near the little cask, and comfortably sheltered from the sun by an upstanding lump of coral. “He’s asleep,” said Dick. He had not thought to look t...

The idea of spiritual life must be innate in the heart of man, for all that terrible night, when the children lay huddled together in the little hut in the chapparel, the fear that filled them was tha...

He began to collect the things, and carry them to the dinghy. He took the staysail and everything that might be useful; and when he had stowed them in the boat, he took the breaker and filled it with ...

On the edge of the green sward, between a diamond-chequered artu trunk and the massive bole of a breadfruit, a house had come into being. It was not much larger than a big henhouse, but quite sufficie...

On the edge of the green sward, between a diamond-chequered artu trunk and the massive bole of a breadfruit, a house had come into being. It was not much larger than a big henhouse, but quite sufficie...

On the edge of the green sward, between a diamond-chequered artu trunk and the massive bole of a breadfruit, a house had come into being. It was not much larger than a big henhouse, but quite sufficie...

Five rainy seasons had passed and gone since the tragic occurrence on the reef. Five long years the breakers had thundered, and the seagulls had cried round the figure whose spell had drawn a mysterio...

The romance of coral has still to be written. There still exists a widespread opinion that the coral reef and the coral island are the work of an “insect.” This fabulous insect, accredited with the ge...

Emmeline, seated on the coral rock, had almost forgotten Dick for a moment. The sun was setting, and the warm amber light of the sunset shone on reef and rock-pool. Just at sunset and low tide the ree...

The next day Dick was sitting under the shade of the artu. He had the box of fishhooks beside him, and he was bending a line on to one of them. There had originally been a couple of dozen hooks, large...

Dick put the hook away and took to the sculls. He had a three-mile row before him, and the tide was coming in, which did not make it any the easier. As he rowed, he talked and grumbled to himself. He ...

They carried the bananas up to the house, and hung them from a branch of the artu. Then Dick, on his knees, lit the fire to prepare the evening meal. When it was over he went down to where the boat wa...

Two birds were sitting in the branches of the artu tree: Koko had taken a mate. They had built a nest out of fibres pulled from the wrappings of the coconut fronds, bits of stick and wire grass⁠—anyth...

The moon rose up that evening and shot her silver arrows at the house under the artu tree. The house was empty. Then the moon came across the sea and across the reef. She lit the lagoon to its dark, d...

One day Dick climbed on to the tree above the house, and, driving Madame Koko off the nest upon which she was sitting, peeped in. There were several pale green eggs in it. He did not disturb them, but...

One day Dick climbed on to the tree above the house, and, driving Madame Koko off the nest upon which she was sitting, peeped in. There were several pale green eggs in it. He did not disturb them, but...

Months passed away. Only one bird remained in the branches of the artu: Koko’s children and mate had vanished, but he remained. The breadfruit leaves had turned from green to pale gold and darkest amb...

He dropped the line, and turned with a start. There was no one visible. He ran amongst the trees calling out her name, but only echoes answered. Then he came back to the lagoon edge. He felt sure that...

He could not move for a moment, then he sprang to his feet and ran towards her. She looked pale and dazed, and she held something in her arms; something wrapped up in her scarf. As he pressed her to h...

At noon, in the shallows of the reef, under the burning sun, the water would be quite warm. They would carry the baby down here, and Emmeline would wash it with a bit of flannel. After a few days it s...

Ever since the tragedy of six years ago there had been forming in the mind of Emmeline Lestrange a something⁠—shall I call it a deep mistrust. She had never been clever; lessons had saddened and weari...

When they awoke next morning the day was dark. A solid roof of cloud, lead-coloured and without a ripple on it, lay over the sky, almost to the horizon. There was not a breath of wind, and the birds f...

At first they thought they were ruined; then Dick, searching, found the old saw under a tree, and the butcher’s knife near it, as though the knife and saw had been trying to escape in company and had ...

The next day Dick began to rebuild the house. He had fetched the staysail from the reef and rigged up a temporary tent. It was a great business cutting the canes and dragging them out in the open. Emm...

Next morning the light of day filtering through the trees awakened Emmeline in the tent which they had improvised whilst the house was building. Dawn came later here than on the other side of the isla...

The woods here had been less affected by the cyclone than those upon the other side of the island, but there had been destruction enough. To reach the place he wanted, Dick had to climb over felled tr...

There was nothing in the boat that could possibly be used as a paddle; the scull was only five or six yards away, but to attempt to swim to it was certain death, yet they were being swept out to sea. ...

The island had sunk slowly from sight; at sundown it was just a trace, a stain on the southwestern horizon. It was before the new moon, and the little boat lay drifting. It drifted from the light of s...

They knew him upon the Pacific slope as “Mad Lestrange.” He was not mad, but he was a man with a fixed idea. He was pursued by a vision: the vision of two children and an old sailor adrift in a little...

They knew him upon the Pacific slope as “Mad Lestrange.” He was not mad, but he was a man with a fixed idea. He was pursued by a vision: the vision of two children and an old sailor adrift in a little...

To lose a child he loves is undoubtedly the greatest catastrophe that can happen to a man. I do not refer to its death. A child wanders into the street, or is left by its nurse for a moment, and vanis...

He had a suite of rooms at the Palace Hotel, and he lived the life of any other rich man who is not addicted to pleasure. He knew some of the best people in the city, and conducted himself so sanely i...

It was on the 10th of May, so quickly did things move under the supervision of the bedridden captain, that the Raratonga, with Lestrange on board, cleared the Golden Gates, and made south, heeling to ...