Lost Island. Ralph Henry Barbour

      CHAPTER I

      IN WHICH DAVID HALLARD HEARS THE CALL OF THE SEA

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      "I dare say you've seen a lot of strange things in the South Seas," said Dave Hallard, a bit wistfully.

      "Aye, there's queer sights in them latitudes," agreed the old sailor, pausing in his task of slapping paint on the side of the ship and gazing thoughtfully across the sunlit harbor. "Lots an' lots of 'em," he added after a moment as, lighting his pipe again, he went on with his work. "I suppose you've never been to sea, have you?" he asked, casting a sidelong glance at the boy who for the last half-hour had been perched on the ​string-piece of the wharf, his legs dangling above the oily water.

      "Not yet," answered Dave regretfully.

      "An' I guess you're seventeen, eh! Or maybe a bit more."

      "Sixteen," the boy replied. He was, however, tall for sixteen, and there was the promise of much strength in his broad shoulders. A keen enthusiasm for outdoor sports had developed his body and, without doubt, fostered the determination apparent in the firm mouth, the square chin, and the steady grey eyes.

      "Well, when I was your age," said the mariner, "I was cabin-boy under old Captain Zebalon Pratt He was one of your old-fashioned Yankee skippers, and no mistake, and many's the dose of rope's-end I got, my hearty. Barrin' the rope's-end, though, I liked it all well enough. It's a hard life, but it's the only life for me. It gets a hold over you, but it ain't a bed of roses at any time. We've just finished a rough enough ​time this last voyage, after we left Honolulu for home, and I won't say there was n't a while when I'd have given a month's pay to feel solid land under my feet. But it's forgotten now."

      "Were you ever shipwrecked?" the boy asked.

      "Three times. Once off the coast of China, once in the Mediterranean, and once hard by New Guinea."

      He paused for a moment, while allowing his memory to dwell upon those vivid moments.

      "I don't know, though," he went on, "that any of them shipwrecks ever proved quite so excitin' as the last shakin' up we had in this steamer. When you get an easterly gale blowin' in that part of the Pacific, it suttinly comes good and hard. We were making a course 'most due sou'-east when the wind hit us. It came sudden, cuttin' slices clean off the surface, and the old ship listed over till I thought she was a goner. Her port rail was right under water, and the big waves ​that broke over us sometimes reached half-way up the funnel. One man must have gone overboard at once, and the mate was knocked senseless against a stanchion. He'd have gone too, but he got entangled in some gear, and after a while we dragged him under shelter.

      "It sure was blowin' for about an hour, and then it eased off quick like, but we knew what to expect when it started again. Everything loose had been shot over the side, and one of the boats had been stove in. We just had time to get ready for the next snorter before it arrived, and then the old ship was nearly lifted clean out of water. You've heard of seas runnin' mountains high, p'raps. Well, them seas was like mountains, and we were slidin' down the sides same as the coasters at Coney, only it didn't cost ten cents a time, and we didn't know exactly what was going to happen when we got to the bottom."

       The sailor put down the paint-brush and

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