Isle o' Dreams   By: Frederick Ferdinand Moore (1877-)

[Illustration: "Come up closer so I can look into the boat," commanded Trask ]

ISLE O' DREAMS

BY

FREDERICK F. MOORE

Author of "The Devil's Admiral," "The Sailor Girl," Etc.

[Illustration]

FRONTISPIECE BY RALPH PALLEN COLEMAN

Garden City New York DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1920

COPYRIGHT, 1917, 1920, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN

To MARJORIE

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Robert Trask Arrives in Manila from Amoy 3

II. Dinshaw Tells of His Island 19

III. Captain Dinshaw Pulls a Long Bow 33

IV. Captain Jarrow Goes Cruising in Strange Waters 50

V. Jarrow Does and Says Queer Things 64

VI. Mr. Peth Is Particular About Where He Sleeps 74

VII. Trask Has a Talk With Doc Bird 92

VIII. How the Schooner Arrived off the Island 104

IX. Trask Undertakes a Private Investigation 124

X. Captain Jarrow Admits He Is Suspicious of Peth 144

XI. Mr. Peth Does Most Amazing Things 161

XII. Trask Makes a Discovery 179

XIII. What Happened to Doc and the Dinghy 191

XIV. What Jarrow Wanted and What He Got 203

XV. An End and a Beginning 220

ISLE O' DREAMS

ISLE O' DREAMS

CHAPTER I

ROBERT TRASK ARRIVES IN MANILA FROM AMOY

As the tubby little China Coast steamer marched up Manila Bay, Trask stood under the bridge on the skimpy "promenade deck" and waited impatiently for the doctor's boat to come alongside. He was the only white passenger among a motley lot of Chinese merchants and half castes of varied hues, and he was glad the passage was at an end.

He had made the trip with a Finnish skipper, disconcertingly cross eyed, a Lascar mate who looked like a pirate and had a voice like a school girl, a purser addicted to the piccolo late at night, and fellow passengers who jabbered interminably about nothing at all in half a dozen languages. So Trask regarded the spires and red roofs of Manila with the hungry eyes of a man who has been separated from civilization and his own kind too many days to remember.

Before the steamer anchored, Trask saw the Taming passing out for Hong Kong, white moustaches of foam at her forefoot and her decks alive with men and women. She was as smart as a big liner.

But he looked away from her to the Luneta and the villa like Bay View Hotel, white and stately, at the lip of the bay. That was his goal, for he had promised Marjorie Locke he would be in Manila the day before, and he was now a day late.

The customs boarding officer took him ashore with his bags and graciously allowed him to depart in a quilez , after holding his baggage for examination. Trask went whirling up Calle San Fernando, through Plaza Oriente, Calle Rosario, Plaza Moraga, over the Bridge of Spain and into shady Bazumbayan Drive, skirting the moat of the Walled City. It was a roundabout way but the quickest, for the cochero made his ponies travel at a good clip for a double fare.