Lavelle caught Emily by the arm as the island's heaving reeled her against him and held her. The tense, startled expression which she saw in his face drove the faint smile of embarrassment from hers. It frightened her.  
She followed his glance, which was sweeping their surroundings. They were standing in what had evidently been the bed or course of a creek or large brook. It gullied its way clear across the island from east to west, following the base line of the hill.
 
"What is it?" Emily asked in dismay. "Something is wrong, captain."
 
Before Lavelle could form an answer the island gave another heave. The shell of earth rippled as if it had been so much water.
 
With a cry of terror and warning Rowgowskii sprang away from the boat's side and went scrambling up the hill. The two coolies, still a-tremble with the fear which the sudden and mysterious death of their mate a moment before had put in them, followed him shrieking.
 
Chang leaped to Lavelle's side, the spot where he had been standing filling with water as his feet left it.
 
"Lun, master! Lun, lady!" shouted the giant.
 
"Come!" said Emily to Lavelle, starting toward the hill. She took but a step. A sharp cry of anguish, which she tried hard to suppress, escaped from her. Her limbs refused to carry her. They seemed to be breaking with the pain born of the cramped life in the boat.
 
With a murmured word of understanding Lavelle snatched her into his arms and carried her halfway up the hillside. Chang pushed him as he went. When he put her down in a mat of grass and taro plant tops she still clung to his hand as a child might have done.
 
On this higher ground the movement of the island was not less terrifying.
 
"Was—is it an earthquake?" Emily whispered in awe.
 
Lavelle shook his head. His gaze went searching up to windward and then darted across the island to leeward where the sun was tobogganing down a bright yellow sky—such a sky as invariably presages wind. He turned to windward again.
 
For an instant despair overwhelmed him. This islet was but a bit of waif land—the bait of a cruel trap which the sea had set for him. Even as he watched it the surf piled higher and higher against the sheer weather shore. This was the fanged jaw of the trap; and it was closing. The swiftly rising wind which whipped his face seemed to chuckle in glee.
 
To drive the heavy boat through that surf and back to sea was a task which seemed to him to be beyond the force at his command. Nor could that crew get it across the island to make a launching from the lee side.
 
Despair enters the breasts of strong men only to refuel their fires of determination. So it was with Paul Lavelle. Emily saw the gloom pass from his face. A conquering light of resolution succeeded it. His jaw set again in its familiar line of purpose. Thus she had beheld him on the deck of the doomed Cambodia. Thus he had looked as he had come to her that night.
 
"We must put to sea again," said he, facing her quickly and in his tenseness pressing the hand with which she was clinging to him. He read her apprehension. "Mornin............