“We shall go back together now,” said Thandar.
“I am afraid,” replied Nadara.
For a time the man stood gazing at the dainty yacht, and far beyond it into the civilization which it represented, and he saw there suave men and sneering women, and among them was a slender brown beauty who shrank from the cruel glances of the women—and Waldo writhed at this and at the greedy eyes of the suave men as they appraised the girl—and he, too, was afraid.
“Come,” he said, taking Nadara by the hand, “let us hurry back into the hills before they discover us.”
Just as the men from the yacht, which Mr. John Alden Smith-Jones had despatched to the South Seas in search of his missing son, emerged from the forest into a view of the valley and the cliffs a cave man and his mate clambered over the brow of the latter and disappeared toward the hills beyond.
It was nearly dusk as the searchers from the yacht were returning toward the beach.
They had found no sign of human habitation in the little valley, nor anywhere along the coast that they had so carefully explored.
The commander of the expedition, Captain Cecil Burlinghame, a retired naval officer, was in advance.
They had penetrated the woods nearly to the beach when his foot struck against a package wrapped in the skin of a small rodent.
He stooped and picked it up.
“Here is the first evidence that another human being than ourselves has ever set foot upon this island,” he said as he cut the gut lacing with his pocket knife.
Within the first wrapping he found a chamois-bag such as women sometimes use to carry jewels about their persons.
From this he emptied into his palm a dozen priceless rings, a few old-fashioned brooches, bracelets, and lockets.
In one of the latter he discovered the ivory miniature of a woman—a very beautiful woman.
In the other side of the locket was engraved: “To Eugénie Marie Céleste de la Valois, Countess of Crecy, from Henri, her husband. 17th January, 18—”
“Gad!” cried the old captain. “Now what do you make of that?
“The Count and Countess of Crecy were returning to Paris from their honeymoon trip round the world in the steam yacht Dolphin nearly twenty years ago, and after they touched at Australia were never heard of again.
“What tragedy, what mystery, what romance might not these sparkling gems disclose had they but tongues!”
Part II
I
King Big Fist
Waldo Emerson Smith-Jones, scion of the aristocratic house of the John Alden Smith-Joneses of Boston, clambered up the rocky face of the precipitous cliff with the agility of a monkey.
His right hand clasped the slim brown fingers of his half-naked mate, assisting her over the more dangerous or difficult stretches.
At the summit the two turned their faces back toward the sea. Beyond the gently waving forest trees stretched the broad expanse of shimmering ocean. In the foreground, upon the bosom of a tiny harbor, lay a graceful yacht—a beautiful toy it looked from the distance of the cliff top.
For the first time the man obtained an unobstructed view of the craft. Before, when they first had discovered it, the boles of the forest trees had revealed it but in part.
Now he saw it fully from stem to stern with all its well-known, graceful lines standing out distinctly against the deep blue of the water.
The shock of recognition brought an involuntary exclamation from his lips. The girl looked quickly up into his face.
“What is it, Thandar?” she asked. “What do you see?”
“The yacht!” he whispered. “It is the Priscilla—my father’s. He is searching for me.”
“And you wish to go?”
For some time he did not speak—only stood there gazing at the distant yacht. And the young girl at his side remained quite motionless and silent, too, looking up at the man’s profile, watching the expression upon his face with a look of dumb misery upon her own.
Quickly through the man’s mind was running the gamut of his past. He recalled his careful and tender upbringing—the time, the money, the fond pride that had been expended upon his education. He thought of the result—the narrow-minded, weakling egoist; the pusillanimous coward that had been washed from the deck of a passing steamer upon the sandy beach of this savage, forgotten shore.
And yet it had been love, solicitous and tender, that had prompted his parents to their misguided efforts. He was their only son. They were doubtless grieving for him. They were no longer young, and in their declining years it appeared to him a pathetic thing that they should be robbed of the happiness which he might bring them by returning to the old life.
But could he ever return to the bookish existence that once had seemed so pleasant?
Had not this brief year into which had been crowded so much of wild, primitive life made impossible a return to the narrow, self-centered existence? Had it not taught him that there was infinitely more in life than ever had been written into the dry and musty pages of books?
It had taught him to want life at first hand—not through the proxy of the printed page. It and—Nadara. He glanced toward the girl.
Could he give her up? No! A thousand times, no!
He read in her face the fear that lurked in her heart. No, he could not give her up. He owed to her all that he possessed of which he was most proud—his mighty physique, his new found courage, his woodcraft, his ability to cope, primitively, with the primitive world, her savage world which he had learned to love.
No, he could not give her up; but—what? His gaze lingered upon her sweet face. Slowly there sank into his understanding something of the reason for his love of this wild, half-savage cave girl other than the primitive passion of the sexes.
He saw now not only the physical beauty of her
