When I began writing, it was with the happy idea of sending off one letter in a bottle, and then following it with the same letter in another, and so on-trusting to the law of averages that one of them would eventually get through to its destination. However, it was obvious, once I had started to write, that I could not possibly tell you everything in one letter.

Then it occurred to me that if a suitable reward were offered for safe delivery and one bottle got washed up somewhere, whoever found it might think it worth while to look around for more. Obviously if I dumped them into the drink here at the same time of tide each day, they should all arrive more or less in the same spot somewhere-at least, I hope so.

I am therefore writing a sort of diary and as each spasm is finished, I'm sealing it up and consigning it to the tender mercy of Old Neptune's postal service. Now to get back to my story…

I awoke with a bit of a jolt, but then I remembered where I was and lay back on the pillow to take stock of the situation. By the slant of the sunlight which filtered through the blinds, I figured it was late in the afternoon so I propped myself up and looked around with a general idea of getting up - but with no great determination - the bed was too darn comfortable for that. Then my eyes spotted a pitcher and a carved coconut cup on a table beside the bed - I investigated, expecting to find water - but to my delight, the thing was full of a sweet perfumed amber colored drink which a sample showed was contrary-wise pleasantly dry to the taste. A couple of good swigs and I felt fine and the idea of getting up seemed more reasonable - but still there was something soft and insistent about this bed and it puzzled me.

I was as naked as the day I was born but I felt as if I were wearing silk pajamas, and I discovered to my surprise that the sheets were indeed silk. This naturally shook me a bit but as I later discovered almost all the cloth on this island, with the exception of the towels, is silk, thanks not to any silk worm or spinning wheel, but to an industrious little water bug. I'll tell you about that in due course. At the moment, all I could think of was that I had quite definitely landed in the lap of luxury.

My wandering gaze took in the fact that my shirt and trousers had been washed and ironed and with a towel were hanging over the back of a chair. So my curiosity as to the rest of my surroundings getting the better of the beckoning of the bed, I swung my legs over the side, put on my pants and picking up the towel wandered off in search of the shower - which I duly found. There was plenty of cold and hot water with ample room to splash around in so by the time I was through I felt one hundred per cent. On my way out of the bathroom, I ran slap-bang into Malua.

"Good heavens," she exclaimed, "what are you doing up like this. We thought you'd sleep the clock round."

"Well, I have done – just about," I replied. "'The moon was only just up when I hit the beach if I remember correctly, which means that I snored off first around 10 last night. What’s the time now?"

"Oh, about half past six"

"Well, there you are! Let's see - with only the short break while I was being brought up here, that's 18 or 19 hours - I haven't had that much sleep for ages, all in one wallop."

"Then you feel all right?" she asked.

"Fine, but trifle peckish - can I raid the larder?"

Malua laughed and taking my arm led me forward. Now I don’t know, I’ve been arm in arm with a girl before but there was something about the way she did it that was different and which somehow made feel rather daft and light-headed. Everything about her seemed so soft and inviting, and the perfume she used made you dizzy. Somehow her shoulder seemed to brush mine, and somehow her hands sort of caressed my arm, and maybe I had a heavy roll in my walk because I swayed towards her and for an instant my cheek seemed to brush against her hair. This apparently surprised us both, because as I turned my head, to regain my balance of course, she raised hers and I found my lips pressed against her cheek - at which point she laughed and tugged on my arm - which naturally meant that she had to hold on tighter as she dragged me towards the living room. It was all very disconcerting.

She pushed me into an easy chair and told me to relax while she got me a snack, explaining that supper would be on in about an hour, and then turned to go but stopped suddenly, spinning round on her toes. "Oh, I'm so sorry Jimmy, I forgot, do you smoke?'

When I replied that I did, she went tripping away on her towering heels to a sort of sideboard affair to return with two boxes. The one containing those cigarillo things, and the other large matches.

I helped myself and examined the matches with interest. They were unusual.

"Where on earth did you get these," I asked, "don't tell me you make them here?"

"But of course," she replied. "Why not? It's only a twig dipped into some chemical stuff that the professor and his assistants concoct. Sometimes they let me help. Look, it works fine" and picking one tip she struck it on a rough green colored stone which had been cleverly set in the lid, then resting one hand on the arm of my chair leaned forward to light my cigarette.

As she did so, I glanced up and found her looking at me and there was something in her eyes that made me feel as if I were looking into the golden brown deep of a pool in a highland stream. You remember that one below Bucchanty Falls, on a sunny day? The way it used to bubble and sparkle? Well it was like that only this one was shaded with a dark mist of the most impossibly long curved eyelashes.

The match burning down to her fingers put an end to this mutual looky-Iooky business.

"How'd you like our tobacco?" she said blowing it out.

I tried to draw slowly and deliberately on my cigarette but only succeeded in chewing off the end. With a mouthful of tobacco, I mumbled something like "marvelous" or "excellent". It really was too. And there was an awkward pause in which neither of us seemed game to look squarely at the other. Then, apparently satisfied that I now had everything I needed for the time being, she straightened up, slowly, like a cat stretching, and once more headed off toward the kitchen, those amazing pencil-thin heels going clickety-click on the polished hardwood floor.

I spotted another flagon and some cups within reach, so I poured myself a generous drink as a nerve tightener, and then sprawled back in the chair. After all I'd been through, the whole thing was incredible and I pinched myself just to make sure that I really wasn't dreaming. It seemed impossible that anything or anywhere could be so utterly remote from the beastliness of everything that made up the world of today.

The stuff I was drinking, and the gentle breeze which came drifting across the shaded verandah to explore the room, carrying with it the scents of all the flowers it had brushed against on the way, just because it was too darn lazy to drop them, made me feel half tight. Or maybe it was Malua.

We'd only met for about half a minute so to speak, and yet that I was nuts about her and that she seemed, more or less, agreeably inclined toward me seemed rather evident. And there was that business of the butterflies. But then it occurred to me, as a bit of a damper, that anyone quite as lovely as she was couldn't look anything else but adorable and must surely be tangled up with some bloke or other and it might be all my imagination. If it was so, it was so, and there was plenty of time to find out for certain. Meanwhile it would perhaps be a bit boorish to chance abusing what after all might be nothing more than really wonderful hospitality.

I was thinking this way when she came back, and so instead of kissing her well and truly then and there, I decided to wait and see.

I was pretty damned hungry, so I helped myself to come down to earth by concentrating on the wooden platter covered with all sorts of savory looking things which she placed close to my hand. But it was an unequal battle, because once she had made sure that everything was hunky-dory, she drew up another chair and curled up in it. Then she stretched out and crossed her slender ankles in front of her, in the process arranging them so that I had an excellent opportunity of appraising their beauty and the fascinating lines of those stilt heels.

I'm afraid that I didn't behave like a connoisseur of food and wine and tobacco at all, I just stared and began to eat in such a vague manner that I missed my mouth, at which Malua laughed merrily.

"You know, Jimmy," she said, "I think you’ve got something on our mind. Have you?"

Her eyes were shining with mischief, but before I had a chance to tell her what it was, we were interrupted by the sound of running feet and a shriek of laughter.

I glanced up to see two teenage boys thunder across the verandah.

Almost as suddenly they stopped and there was a loud "Ssh! Hey we forgot that sailor! He'll be sleeping!"

Malua and I sat still. Apparently coming in from the sunlight they had not spotted us in the shade of the room inside.

"Here come my brothers," she whispered, "they'll get a shock when they see you up and about. The last you were laid up for days, one was terribly hurt, poor boy," and she shuddered, "but he's all right now."

Then the two kids, dressed in nothing more than the usual sarong of the islands entered on tiptoe. For a moment they were so busy with this Ssh-ing business that they didn't see me, but when they did they stopped with a jerk, mouths wide open.

"Gosh, it's Jim," said one. "Aren't you tired?" said the other.

I got up grinning and as we shook hands, assured them that I was quite O.K.

They were a couple of wholesome-looking infants - tall, well built and obviously fit as fiddles. "Now, you've got the advantage of me," I said, "somehow you seem to know my name's Jim."

"Oh that was Malua", the one cut in, "she looked at your identification disc when she took your clothes away to wash them."

"And she took an awful time to get them too", said the other looking blandly at the ceiling, "but girls are always like that. I bet I'd have done it in half the time."

"The names of these two reptiles", Malua interrupted, "is Mutt, on the right, and as you might imagine Geoff, on the left. They're twins, but they're easy to distinguish because Mutt has a little scar on his cheek." Then, turning to them, "Where's daddy?"

"Oh, he's with mother, down having a look at the new bridge", said Geoff, "He said you weren't to wait for him for supper, but I don't expect he thought Jim would be up. I'll tell you what", and he paused, then with the rush of a bright idea, "Mutt and I will get supper while you talk to Jim. How's that?"

"Sometimes I feel almost a brotherly love for you", said Maula, settling back in her chair. "That's a wonderful idea. Go to it, my warriors!"

I sat down again too, and for a few moments there was silence except for a murmur of voices, laughter, and a clattering from the direction of the kitchen.

The sun had just disappeared behind the blue hills and from where I sat I could see the ever- changing riot of color it discarded, like a parting gift to a happy little land at the end of another day.

Every now and then as the shadows deepened a little twinkling light would spring out, then another and another, winking and peeping through the leaves like elves coming to life to change the gathering darkness into a fairyland.

It was all so unreal, those friendly little lights, no blackout, no blitz, just happy people home at the end of the day. I began to feel rather uncomfortable. It seemed all wrong for me to be sitting here like this in such contentment and peace, and, anyway, could it last? Could even this little paradise escape the destruction and the beastliness of our so called civilization, with its endless procession of crackpots claiming to have the salvation of the world at their crushing finger tips and trampling everything and everyone underfoot in the wild triumphant march of their insane ideology? The thought made me shudder.

I felt my hand trembling and glanced down to see the white of my knuckles showing from the force with which I was gripping my goblet. I had a mad desire to smash it to the floor.

Maula seemed to sense my thoughts, for she came over and sat on the arm of my chair and gently stroked her fingers through my hair.

"Don't worry, Jimmy," she murmured, "just rest". And then somehow she was in my arms and everything was sort of chaotic.

Certainly I'd had a pretty tough time I suppose, and maybe the ship blowing up under me might have had something to do with it. But if it was shock then there was as much in what had happened in the last few hours to make it worse. The change was too sudden and I really felt worn out flat, all I could do was to hold on to this wonderful girl as if my very life depended upon it. I felt a bit of an ass, but Matua went on murmuring sweet nothings in my ear, which was all I cared about, and then I felt her stiffen slightly.

"Jimmy, " she said, "have you got a girl you're fond of back in England?" I shook my head.

"Anywhere else in the world?" Again I shook my head. I felt her looking at me, studying my face. Then she gave a happy little sigh, kissed me full on the lips, a slow lingering kiss which knocked me for a row of hoops, and then pushed herself out of my arms.

She didn't seem to walk away from me, she just floated off into the shadows of one corner of the room, a shadow herself, to drift back again and sink to the floor at my feet. In her hands she held a guitar and as she began softly to pluck the strings almost imperceptibly the whole room seemed to fill with music.

I hardly noticed that the clamor from the kitchen had ceased and that Mutt and Geoff were standing in silence silhouetted in the doorway.

Never before have I heard anything like it. The strings sang an accompaniment to that wonderful voice, and though the words were in the soft native dialect, there was no mistaking their meaning. I felt that I was held fast by an irresistible force, as if everything were being drawn out of me and that I was being carried away and away on a magic carpet through a starry sky, floating on and on - until at least as gently as it had begun the melody faded, and with it the stars and the magic carpet, and I realized that I was still sitting in my chair, the room once more full of the quiet of the evening. Or was it quiet? There still seemed to be music everywhere.

The tension was broken by Geoff. Brothers fortunately are most unromantic,

"Mutt," he said, "did you ever hear her sing like that before?"

Mutt grunted and shook his head.

"Then I'll take ten to one that old Mouldy's a pony again before very long", and they went back into the kitchen chuckling.

"Who's Mouldy?" I asked.

"Me," said Malua in a small voice, "brothers have a nice taste in names, don't they?"

I digested this for a moment, found I was too fuddled to add it up and then asked, "Well, what's this about a pony - were you once a pony, too?"

She nodded, "Of course."

"Then why should you become one again?"

Malua put the guitar down by her side and looking down at the floor began tracing invisible patters on it with her slender tapering fingers.

"It's a wedding custom." She spoke softly, her voice scarcely audible and yet so clear that I could hear every word. "A very old custom. You have your old customs in the outside world, too, don't you, Jimmy?" she looked up and puckered her nose.

I nodded.

"And you like to keep them," she went on, "because they bring good luck. We're all a bit superstitious, aren't we?"

"We throw rice and old shoes," I answered, "and carry the bride over the doorstep and that sort of thing. What happens with you people?"

Malua half-rose and then sank back on her heels.

"It starts at eight on the wedding morning", she dropped her eyes and then kept glancing up at me through that mist of eyelashes. "The four most recent brides lead the "bride-to-be" off into the woods, and no one else knows where." She paused and began tracing patterns with her fingers again. "Then they tie her to a tree so that she cannot get away, one that is well hidden, and tie up her mouth so that she cannot make a sound, and then leave her.

Her future husband has until noon to find her.

If he cannot, then we take it as a sign that his love for her is not strong enough and the marriage is postponed - but if he succeeds he brings his bride back to her father's house and everyone joins in the feasting. That goes on until sundown."

She stopped twiddling her fingers and looked up smiling.

"Then the bridal carriage is brought out, it's very light and built to be drawn by only one pony, and to this the bride is harnessed. Then", with a wave of her arms, "her father hands the whip and reins to her husband and he drives her off to their own home, and that's that, Jimmy."

"Hmm," I grunted, grinning, "the bride seems to have a pretty tough day of it, and for the bridegroom the start-off must be rather like looking for a needle in a haystack. Does he ever miss out?"

"That's the odd thing about it," she said, rising to her feet. "There must be a catch in it somewhere because I've never known a time when the bride was not found, even though it's always at the last minute, but I don't know for certain if there is a trick to it and that's what makes it so unsettling."

"Just think of it," and she turned and leant on the arms of my chair, "he can be ever so close to her and still be unable to see her and no matter how much she might want to help him, she can do nothing. She cannot call him, she cannot make a sound, and he might walk past again and again and never find her. I always think it must be terrible for her. I know that it happens like this because the girl's arms are always red and bruised from her struggles against the ropes. Are you good at tracking, Jimmy?"

I shook my head.

"Lousy," I groaned, "I reckon I'll have to remain a bachelor whether I want to or not. I was never any good at the Boy Scout Indian chief act."

"Oh dear," said Malua, "I'm, I mean the poor girl you want to marry, will go frantic," and she covered her mouth, wide in dismay, with the fingers of both hands.

The matter certainly seemed to present problems. All the ordinary men and boys on the island would of course be skilled hunters, and tracking would present little difficulty to them, but with me it would be a very different matter.

"They'll have to alter the local rules in my case," I said, pouring myself another drink. "I know what, I'll tie the bride up, close my eyes, count ten, and then find her, how's that?"

"Oh, that doesn't come until much later, Jimmy."

"What doesn't?" I queried.

"The husband tying up his bride," she answered smiling, her eyes wide as if I should have known all about it. "The last thing in the wedding night before they go to sleep, the husband ties her up, and to prove the wedding, she must try and get free before he wakes up in the morning. If she succeeds then she has the final decision in future arguments, but if she cannot get free, then the husband rules the roost." And leaning over my chair once more until our two faces were only inches apart, she put a finger on the tip of my nose and wiggled it, "and for your information, Jimmy, I'm pretty clever at wrigging out of knots."

I grinned. "Then obviously you wouldn't want to get tangled up with a sailor, would you?" I replied.

Further discussion was unfortunately stopped by much clattering and noise, as the two boys reentered the room each carrying a huge tray laden with the most appetizing food.

I shall never forget that evening.

While the boys were setting the table, I slipped out and changed my clothes. Like the others I wore nothing but a sarong as we sat on little stools around a low table in the soft light of the lamps.

The food was fit for Lucullus, and I washed it down with copious swigs of that same amber wine that I found by my bed, and then topped it off with excellent coffee.

Mutt and Geoff were a cheerful pair. They kept up a merry prattle, and did all the chores, which earned the eternal gratitude of Malua.

She and I said little, there was no need. Occasionally, I asked a question but more often than not, my mind wandered from the answer to the vision of the girl opposite me. Her lovely face was framed in the shimmering dark mist of her hair in which was an enormous scented hibiscus (incidentally, I’ve never heard of this species anywhere else before - it smells like Lily of the Valley.)

From her ears hung long earrings, so long that they brushed her shoulder and flashed and sparkled at every movement, while round her neck she wore a string of exquisitely matched pearls.

I was dining with a goddess on the food and wine of the gods. I was sitting on a cloud, way above Mount Olympus. I had another drink of wine and the cloud floated a bit higher.

The spell was broken by the unromantic twins Mutt and Geoff, demanding that we take ourselves elsewhere so that they could fix the table for late comers. So Malua and I collected drinks and cigarettes and wandered back to our arm chairs.