It's funny how all the little imperfections in your dress and manner rise up suddenly and bang you hard on the b.u.mp of observation when you find yourself in front of some one whose good opinion you want to earn.

I felt it so the moment I stood before the girl in the cream serge suit.

My drill outfit, that I had thought rather clean when I brushed the sh.e.l.l grit from it after my sleep on the wharf, looked as black as the devil's tail when she appeared. My hands appeared to be several degrees larger than the prize hams that come out of Kansas, and my tongue, as if it recognized the stupidity of the remarks I attempted to make, started to play fool stunts as if it wanted to go down my throat and choke me to death.

The girl guessed the sort of predicament I was in at that moment. G.o.d only knows how many months had pa.s.sed since I had spoken to a woman like her. Not that good women are lacking in the Islands, but because they were on a different plane to me. I had been belting native crews on trading schooners between the Carolines and the Marquesas, and when ash.o.r.e I had little opportunity for speaking to a woman of the type of Edith Herndon.

And she understood the feeling that held me tongue-tied. To make me feel at my ease she started to tell of everything that had happened from the moment that _The Waif_ had cleared Sydney Heads, and the time she spent in that recital was as precious to me as the two-minute interval between rounds is to a prize-fighter who has been knocked silly the moment before the round ends. I had shaken the dizziness out of my head when she finished, and I had obtained control over my tongue.

"You must tell us a lot about the South Seas," she cried. "You have been down here such a long time that you must have many interesting things to relate. Captain Newmarch will not talk, and Mr. Leith refuses to see anything picturesque in the sights he has seen during his wanderings."

"Who is Mr. Leith?" I asked.

"He is father's partner in this expedition," she said quietly. "He has lived down here for many years, but he will not tell us much. And Barbara is anxious to know everything she can."

"Barbara?" I stammered. "Then--then there is another lady aboard?"

"Oh, yes! my sister," cried the girl. "I think I hear her coming now."

There was no question about the latter part of her remark. A burst of laughter that was more infectious than influenza came from the companion-stairs, and immediately in its wake came a girl who made me think, as I compared her to Miss Edith, of a beautiful yacht alongside a stately liner. Barbara Herndon was sunshine personified. Laughter went with her wherever she went, and a pair of Tongans, polishing bra.s.ses, immediately put their molars on view, as if they had understood what caused the smiles upon her pretty face as she came toward us.

"Oh, you are the new mate?" she cried, as I was introduced. "Mr. Holman was just telling me about you. He said that you repeated a chapter of 'Pilgrim's Progress' every time you woke up after a sleep."

I blushed as I made a mental resolve that I would punch the head of that youngster when I had a suitable opportunity, and in between my stammering explanations I made notes on the differences between the two girls. Edith was as stately as Juno, with a face that was so sweet and restful that a glance at it was better than an opiate for a man whose nerves were all out of tune. She had that kind of repose that you see sometimes on the face of an Oriental statue, the repose that comes to women who have met great trials or for whom great trials are waiting.

Barbara was altogether different. She found the world rather an amusing place, and it seemed as if she took it for granted that her sister was capable of shouldering the cares of the family, leaving her free to smile at all the amusing incidents she found in the course of the day.

It appeared to me that I was an amusing incident to her at that moment.

She returned to the fool story that Holman had told, and I couldn't sidestep her questions.

"But it is true that you were quoting Bunyan on the wharf when Mr.

Holman found you, isn't it?" she asked mischievously.

"No, it isn't true," I spluttered. "I only asked Mr. Holman a question to see if he was familiar with 'Pilgrim's Progress'."

"Why did you ask him that?" she quizzed. "I'm sure he looks a perfectly respectable young man."

Miss Edith was smiling, but she took pity upon me at last and endeavoured to rescue me from my tormentor.

"Oh, Barbara!" she cried reprovingly, "Mr. Verslun will think you are very inquisitive. You must not pry into his private affairs."

"But it is nothing private," I gurgled. "I simply asked Mr. Holman a question in an endeavour to find out what a Maori and a Fijian were talking about."

"Oh, it is something mysterious!" cried the younger girl. "I knew it! I knew it! We are getting into the region of mystery at last! Oh, Mr.

Verslun, you are a perfect treasure! It has been a nasty, dull, old trip from the moment we left Sydney Harbour, and you are the first person to bring a little colour into the voyage."

She was so worked up at the thought of hearing something wonderfully mysterious and romantic that I started to make a long yarn out of that incident on the wharf just for her benefit. Miss Edith was interested too, but I was convinced, as I polished up the points of the little tale and endeavoured to pull in a thrill, that the elder sister was deriving her pleasure from watching the face of the younger one, and not from my story.

"It pleases Barbara," she cried, when I had told how Toni had denied all knowledge of his friend, and how the Maori had sent the farewell chant after the boat. "She thinks she will see and hear wonderful things before we get back to civilization."

"I hope she will," I said, and little did I dream that the wish I expressed at that moment should come true in such a remarkable manner before we had returned.

"And you don't know what they meant by their song about the white waterfall and Black Fernando's h.e.l.l?" murmured Barbara.

"No, I don't," I replied. "The Maori ran away when I attempted to cross-examine him, and Toni denies all knowledge of the duet on the wharf."

"Oh, we must ask him again!" she cried. "There he is near the wheel.

I'll go and bring him!"

She raced madly after the Fijian and hauled him before us in triumph. I was more convinced than ever that it was Toni who had blundered over his lesson on the wharf, but Toni denied the charge more vehemently than he did on the boat. He a.s.serted in reply to Barbara Herndon's questions, that he could not sing a note, that he was absolutely ignorant of white waterfalls, and the only h.e.l.l he knew was the one spoken of by the missionary in Lower George Street, Sydney; and the girl sighed as she gave up the effort.

"It seemed such a nice mystery to unravel," she murmured, "but if Toni persists in saying that he knows nothing of the white waterfall the investigation falls to the ground."

The Fijian was backing away with renewed protestations when a head came round the corner of the galley, and a voice that was deeper than the caves of Atiu fired a question at us.

"What about the white waterfall?"

"Oh, Mr. Leith," cried Miss Barbara, "we have just been investigating a mystery. Mr. Verslun discovered it this afternoon in Levuka. But you haven't met Mr. Verslun yet, have you?"

"I haven't," growled the owner of the voice.

"Mr. Verslun, this is Mr. Leith, who is father's partner," said Miss Barbara. "He knows a lot about the Islands, but he refuses to tell any of his experiences."

I looked at the man who stood in front of me, and a curious thing flashed through my mind. I was reminded at that moment of a story I had read of a man charged with an attempt upon the life of a prince. The would-be murderer informed the judge that a terrible hate of the princeling had gripped him the moment he put eyes on him, and he had made the attempt upon his life before he had managed to control the unexplainable surge of hate. I understood the emotion that had gripped that unfortunate as I stood face to face with Leith. A feeling of revulsion gripped me, and I experienced a peculiar squalmy sensation as I took his hand. It was unexplainable. Perhaps some ancestor of mine had unsatisfactory dealings with a man of the same unusual type in a faraway past, and the transmitted hate had suddenly sprung into the conscious area. I do know that you can keep a secretary-bird away from snakes till it grows old, but the first reptile it sees it immediately starts out to beat him up. I had the inherited hate that makes the secretary-bird rush madly at a snake that may be the first of its species that it has ever seen, and I guess that Leith had no love to spare for me from the moment he took my hand.

He was a huge brute, fully six feet tall, and he was the possessor of two of the strongest-looking hands I had ever seen. They were claws, that's what they were. The great fingers were slightly crooked, as if waiting, like the tentacles of an octopus, for something to get in their grip. The body was heavy, and, in a manner that I cannot explain, it made me think of animals that lived and died in long past ages. The big brute looked so capable of making an inexcusable attack that one's primitive instincts warned one to keep in a state of readiness for the onslaught that seemed imminent.

But it was the face that was specially unattractive. It was a sallow, flat face, and the strange eyes did nothing to lighten it. They were dead, l.u.s.treless eyes. They had a coldness in them that reminded me of the icicle eyes of the crocodile, and, curiously, I a.s.sociated that reptile's notions of fair warfare with Leith as I looked at him. That sullen face, with the eyes that would never brighten at a tale of daring, or dim from a story of pathos, belonged to a man who would imitate crocodile tactics by lying quiet till his prey was within striking distance.

"What is all this about the white waterfall?" he repeated, after the crooked fingers had dropped my hand.

"Oh, it's something that happened to Mr. Verslun," replied Miss Barbara.

"Where?" asked Leith.

"On the wharf over there," I answered coldly, nodding toward the structure as I spoke. "It's really nothing important though, and I related it solely for Miss Herndon's amus.e.m.e.nt."

"But Toni?" he growled, turning toward the two girls.

"Oh, Toni puts forward an alibi," laughed the youngest sister. "He a.s.serts that he was in the boat when the incident happened and he persists in saying that he knows nothing about the matter."

Leith again turned toward me, and his brows straightened as he looked me in the eyes. "Can't you tell the story over again?" he asked.

"I'd rather not," I said, somewhat rudely. "I'm tired of it. It was really only a small happening that I am afraid I expanded a little in an endeavour to thrill Miss Herndon, and the story is now her personal property."

"But the bare facts?" he growled.

"There are no bare facts," I replied. "I covered them with fiction, and I think Miss Herndon is going to copyright the whole."

He took the remark as a direct refusal on my part to give him an outline of the affair to satisfy his curiosity, and I felt elated at noting the sudden glint of anger that appeared in the l.u.s.treless eyes.