The Blue Lagoon: A Romance

I. WHERE THE SLUSH LAMP BURNS II. UNDER THE STARS III. THE SHADOW AND THE FIRE IV. AND LIKE A DREAM DISSOLVED V. VOICES HEARD IN THE MIST VI. DAWN ON A WIDE, WI...

XI. THE ISLAND XII. THE LAKE OF AZURE XIII. DEATH VEILED WITH LICHEN XIV. ECHOES OF FAIRY-LAND XV. FAIR PICTURES IN THE BLUE...

XVI. THE POETRY OF LEARNING XVII. THE DEVIL’S CASK XVIII. THE RAT HUNT XIX. STARLIGHT ON THE FOAM XX. THE DREAMER ON THE REEF XXI. THE GARLAND OF FLOWERS XXII. ALONE...

I. UNDER THE ARTU TREE II. HALF CHILD-HALF SAVAGE III. THE DEMON OF THE REEF IV. WHAT BEAUTY CONCEALED V. THE SOUND OF A DRUM VI. SAILS UPON THE SEA VII. THE...

X. AN ISLAND HONEYMOON XI. THE VANISHING OF EMMELINE XII. THE VANISHING OF EMMELINE (CONTINUED) XIII. THE NEWCOMER XIV. HANNAH XV. THE LAGOON OF FIRE XVI. THE CY...

I. MAD LESTRANGE II. THE SECRET OF THE AZURE III. CAPTAIN FOUNTAIN IV. DUE SOUTH THE BLUE LAGOON...

WHERE THE SLUSH LAMP BURNS Mr Button was seated on a sea-chest with a fiddle under his left ear. He was playing the “Shan van vaught,” and accompanying the tune, punctuating it, w...

UNDER THE STARS It was a wonderful night up on deck, filled with all the majesty and beauty of starlight and a tropic calm. The Pacific slept; a vast, vague swell flowing from fa...

THE SHADOW AND THE FIRE It was the fourth day of the long calm. An awning had been rigged up on the poop for the passengers, and under it sat Lestrange, trying to read, and the ch...

AND LIKE A DREAM DISSOLVED Before the woman had time to speak a thunderous step was heard on the companion stairs, and Le Farge broke into the saloon. The man’s face was injected ...

VOICES HEARD IN THE MIST The sun became fainter still, and vanished. Though the air round the dinghy seemed quite clear, the on-coming boats were hazy and dim, and that part of th...

DAWN ON A WIDE, WIDE SEA “Is it aslape I’ve been?” said Mr Button, suddenly awaking with a start. He had shipped his oars just for a minute’s rest. He must have slept for hours, ...

STORY OF THE PIG AND THE BILLY-GOAT Every hour or so Mr Button would shake his lethargy off, and rise and look round for “sea-gulls,” but the prospect was sail-less as the prehist...

“S-H-E-N-A-N-D-O-A-H” He had slept an hour and more when he was brought to his senses by a thin and prolonged shriek. It was Emmeline in a nightmare, or more properly a day-mare, ...

SHADOWS IN THE MOONLIGHT “Daddy’s a long time coming,” said Dick all of a sudden. They were seated on the baulks of timber that cumbered the deck of the brig on either side of th...

THE TRAGEDY OF THE BOATS When the fog lifted after midnight the people in the long-boat saw the quarter-boat half a mile to starboard of them. “Can you see the dinghy?” asked Les...

THE ISLAND “Childer!” shouted Paddy. He was at the cross-trees in the full dawn, whilst the children standing beneath on deck were craning their faces up to him. “There’s an islan...

THE LAKE OF AZURE On either side lay a great sweep of waving blue water. Calm, almost as a lake, sapphire here, and here with the tints of the aqua marine. Water so clear that fat...

DEATH VEILED WITH LICHEN “Mr Button,” said she, when the latter had descended, “there’s a little barrel”; she pointed to something green and lichen-covered that lay between the tr...

ECHOES OF FAIRY-LAND “Mr Button,” said Emmeline that night, as they sat on the sand near the tent he had improvised, “Mr Button—cats go to sleep.” They had been questioning him a...

FAIR PICTURES IN THE BLUE “I don’t want my old britches on! I don’t want my old britches on!” Dick was darting about naked on the sand, Mr Button after him with a pair of small t...

THE POETRY OF LEARNING To forget the passage of time you must live in the open air, in a warm climate, with as few clothes as possible upon you. You must collect and cook your own...

THE DEVIL’S CASK One morning, about a week after the day on which the old sailor, to use his own expression, had bent a skirt on Emmeline, Dick came through the woods and across t...

THE RAT HUNT They had dinner at noon. Paddy knew how to cook fish, island fashion, wrapping them in leaves, and baking them in a hole in the ground in which a fire had previously ...

STARLIGHT ON THE FOAM Mr Button saw no more rats, much to Dick’s disappointment. He was off the drink. At dawn next day he got up, refreshed by a second sleep, and wandered down t...

THE DREAMER ON THE REEF “I wonder where Paddy is?” cried Dick next morning. He was coming out of the chapparel pulling a dead branch after him. “He’s left his coat on the sand, an...

THE GARLAND OF FLOWERS You could just make the figure out lying on the reef near the little cask, and comfortably sheltered from the sun by an upstanding lump of coral. “He’s asl...

ALONE The idea of spiritual life must be innate in the heart of man, for all that terrible night, when the children lay huddled together in the little hut in the chapparel, the fe...

THEY MOVE AWAY He began to collect the things, and carry them to the dinghy. He took the stay-sail and everything that might be useful; and when he had stowed them in the boat, he...

UNDER THE ARTU TREE On the edge of the green sward, between a diamond-chequered artu trunk and the massive bole of a breadfruit, a house had come into being. It was not much large...

HALF CHILD—HALF SAVAGE Five rainy seasons had passed and gone since the tragic occurrence on the reef. Five long years the breakers had thundered, and the sea-gulls had cried roun...

THE DEMON OF THE REEF The romance of coral has still to be written. There still exists a widespread opinion that the coral reef and the coral island are the work of an “insect.” T...

WHAT BEAUTY CONCEALED Emmeline, seated on the coral rock, had almost forgotten Dick for a moment. The sun was setting, and the warm amber light of the sunset shone on reef and roc...

THE SOUND OF A DRUM The next day Dick was sitting under the shade of the artu. He had the box of fishhooks beside him, and he was bending a line on to one of them. There had origi...

SAILS UPON THE SEA Dick put the hook away and took to the sculls. He had a three-mile row before him, and the tide was coming in, which did not make it any the easier. As he rowed...

THE SCHOONER They carried the bananas up to the house, and hung them from a branch of the artu. Then Dick, on his knees, lit the fire to prepare the evening meal. When it was over...

LOVE STEPS IN Two birds were sitting in the branches of the artu tree: Koko had taken a mate. They had built a nest out of fibres pulled from the wrappings of the cocoa-nut fronds...

THE SLEEP OF PARADISE The moon rose up that evening and shot her silver arrows at the house under the artu tree. The house was empty. Then the moon came across the sea and across ...

AN ISLAND HONEYMOON One day Dick climbed on to the tree above the house, and, driving Madame Koko off the nest upon which she was sitting, peeped in. There were several pale green...

THE VANISHING OF EMMELINE Months passed away. Only one bird remained in the branches of the artu: Koko’s children and mate had vanished, but he remained. The breadfruit leaves had...

THE VANISHING OF EMMELINE (continued) He dropped the line, and turned with a start. There was no one visible. He ran amongst the trees calling out her name, but only echoes answer...

THE NEWCOMER He could not move for a moment, then he sprang to his feet and ran towards her. She looked pale and dazed, and she held something in her arms; something wrapped up in...

HANNAH At noon, in the shallows of the reef, under the burning sun, the water would be quite warm. They would carry the baby down here, and Emmeline would wash it with a bit of fl...

THE LAGOON OF FIRE Ever since the tragedy of six years ago there had been forming in the mind of Emmeline Lestrange a something—shall I call it a deep mistrust. She had never been...

THE CYCLONE When they awoke next morning the day was dark. A solid roof of cloud, lead-coloured and without a ripple on it, lay over the sky, almost to the horizon. There was not ...

THE STRICKEN WOODS At first they thought they were ruined; then Dick, searching, found the old saw under a tree, and the butcher’s knife near it, as though the knife and saw had b...

A FALLEN IDOL The next day Dick began to rebuild the house. He had fetched the stay-sail from the reef and rigged up a temporary tent. It was a great business cutting the canes a...

THE EXPEDITION Next morning the light of day filtering through the trees awakened Emmeline in the tent which they had improvised whilst the house was building. Dawn came later her...

THE KEEPER OF THE LAGOON The woods here had been less affected by the cyclone than those upon the other side of the island, but there had been destruction enough. To reach the pla...

THE HAND OF THE SEA There was nothing in the boat that could possibly be used as a paddle; the scull was only five or six yards away, but to attempt to swim to it was certain deat...

TOGETHER The island had sunk slowly from sight; at sundown it was just a trace, a stain on the south-western horizon. It was before the new moon, and the little boat lay drifting....

MAD LESTRANGE They knew him upon the Pacific slope as “Mad Lestrange.” He was not mad, but he was a man with a fixed idea. He was pursued by a vision: the vision of two children a...

THE SECRET OF THE AZURE To lose a child he loves is undoubtedly the greatest catastrophe that can happen to a man. I do not refer to its death. A child wanders into the street, o...

CAPTAIN FOUNTAIN He had a suite of rooms at the Palace Hotel, and he lived the life of any other rich man who is not addicted to pleasure. He knew some of the best people in the c...

DUE SOUTH It was on the 10th of May, so quickly did things move under the supervision of the bedridden captain, that the _Raratonga_, with Lestrange on board, cleared the Golden G...