Isle o' Dreams

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. The rig shot across the baking Luneta, and ere it had come to a full stop before the Bay View Trask was out and into the darkened hall of the tourist headquarters of the Philippine capital. The place appeared deserted except for a sleepy muchacho , who staggered out from some palms, looking for the new guest's baggage. "Have you got an outside room?" demanded Trask of the drowsing English clerk behind the railing, as he pulled the register toward him and scanned the open page. "I say! Mr. Trask!" The young man looked up. "Correct," he said. "Where did we——?" "I'm Wilkins, sir, G. O. H., Colombo. You were there last year, sir, in from Singapore. You had an argument with a 'rickshaw man. I was managing the bar at the time." "Sure enough, Wilkins! How d'ye do!" and Trask extended a hand which Wilkins shook with fervour, striking a bell with the…