many duties which had devolved upon him in the matter

of obtaining and outfitting the schooner, and signing

her two mates and crew of fifteen, had been spent with

his employer's daughter.

The girl was rather glad that he was to be a member of

their little company, for she had found him a much

travelled man and an interesting talker with none of

the, to her, disgusting artificialities of the

professional ladies' man. He talked to her as he might

have talked to a man, of the things that interest

intelligent people regardless of sex.

There was never any suggestion of familiarity in his

manner; nor in his choice of topics did he ever ignore

the fact that she was a young girl. She had felt

entirely at ease in his society from the first evening

that she had met him, and their acquaintance had grown

to a very sensible friendship by the time of the

departure of the Ithaca--the rechristened schooner

which was to carry them away to an unguessed fate.

The voyage from Singapore to the Islands was without

incident. Virginia took a keen delight in watching the

Malays and lascars at their work, telling von Horn that

she had to draw upon her imagination but little to

picture herself a captive upon a pirate ship--the half

naked men, the gaudy headdress, the earrings, and the

fierce countenances of many of the crew furnishing only

too realistically the necessary savage setting.

A week spent among the Pamarung Islands disclosed no

suitable site for the professor's camp, nor was it

until they had cruised up the coast several miles north

of the equator and Cape Santang that they found a tiny

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