CHAPTER V
I MAKE A PROMISE
The morning following the unpleasant incident with Leith broke clear and sunny. The Pacific, as if tired after its mad pranks of the preceding three days, was a shimmering stretch of placid blue water, and the shattered spars and loose cordage of The Waif were the only reminders of the terrific storm that had swept us before it.
Captain Newmarch set all hands at work to repair the damage, and before midday we were bowling along under as much canvas as we could spread. The storm being directly from the southwest had not carried us from our course, and Newmarch chuckled when he had taken an observation.
"We'll strike it in the morning," he growled.
"What? Penrose Island?" I asked.
"No, the Isle of Tears," he answered sharply.
"The Isle of Tears?" I repeated.
"That's what I said," he remarked sourly. "And now you know as much as I know. It was kept a little secret by the orders of my employers, but we are so close to the spot now that I don't think it will matter if I let the cat out of the bag."
"And is it there that the Professor will conduct his search?" I asked.
"You had better ask that question of Professor Herndon," he replied. "I know nothing about what they'll do ashore."
He left the poop before I had time to put another question to him, and as I walked up and down I turned over in my mind the tiny morsel of information I had received. The captain's secrecy was peculiar, to say the least, and as I reasoned that Professor Herndon knew absolutely nothing of the Islands, it was quite evident that the orders prohibiting Newmarch from making known the exact destination of the yacht had come from Leith. It was not the first time I had heard of the Isle of Tears. Strange stories floated across the Pacific concerning the little islet east of the Suvaroff Group, and out of the reticule of the mind I attempted to drag these stories and piece them together during the minutes that passed after Newmarch had given me the information. They were not pleasant stories as I remembered them at that moment. The island had a "past." The mention of it brought hazy recollections to natives—recollections that were too misty to put into words, but which the untutored mind connected with happenings that were anything but pleasant. And I recalled a night at "Tonga Pete's" place on the Rue de Rivoli at Papeete, when a sailor from a copra schooner in the bay, who had been marooned upon the island by Captain "Bully" Hayes, told a wild, weird story of unexplainable happenings that he had witnessed during the two days and two nights he had spent ashore.
Holman came hurrying upon deck as I was endeavouring to remember all the story that the sailor had told, and the youngster immediately rushed me with the news.
"The captain has just told me," I said.
"Well, Leith has just given the information out in the cabin," he cried. "They must have decided to give it out at the same moment."
"But the Professor?" I asked. "Surely he knew. Do you mean to say that he was ignorant of the fact that it was the Isle of Tears and not Penrose Island that we were making for?"
Holman laughed at my question. "You haven't spoken much to him, Verslun. He couldn't remember the name of a place three minutes. He only knows that there are archaeological treasures on this island we are going to, and he doesn't care two cents about its name. Leith has told him some tall stories about the camp, judging by the way the old man's eyes shine when he mentions it. Yesterday he read me Leith's description of stone hamungas and things that are supposed to have been built before Julius Caesar invaded Britain, and he's pop-eyed with joy as he thinks how he'll yank Fame by the tail when he gets on the ground and snapshots the affairs. Gee! I'm glad I haven't got a kink for digging up relics and dodging about places that went to smash thousands of years ago. A vice like that is more expensive than the poker habit."
"Well, Newmarch says we'll strike it early in the morning," I said, "and then we'll see whether your suspicions are correct."
"I'm infernally afraid they are," snapped the youngster. "I wouldn't care ten cents about the brute only that the girls are aboard. I felt sorry when I saw him climb to his feet yesterday. If you hit him again hit him with something that will crack his skull. He's a devil, Verslun, and before we are much older we will find it out."
I laughed at his gloomy forebodings, and as Miss Barbara Herndon came on deck at that moment he raced away and left me to my own meditations.
My thoughts were mixed. I had pleasant and unpleasant ones. If Leith was the scoundrel that Holman suspected, the two girls were in danger, and now as we neared the island where they would leave the yacht to accompany their father, the clutch of fear was upon me. On The Waif I felt that I had some little power, but on land, more especially on the lonely island toward which we were heading, that feeling of protectorship which the sailorman has for his passengers would be lost. If Leith knew the island, and it was evident that he had visited it before, any villainy that he contemplated would be held in check till he was ashore and in command of the expedition and I would be powerless.
I recognized that Holman's fears were without solid foundation. They were transmitted through Barbara Herndon, but I also recognized that the elder sister would hardly support the statements unless she had good grounds for her anxiety. Her woman's intuition had branded Leith's motives in bringing the Professor into the Islands as bad, and the sallow-faced giant could not erase the impression. The actual reason for trickery was a matter of speculation. Professor Herndon was wealthy; it was his money that had fitted out the expedition, but how Leith expected to benefit himself by treachery was more than I could tell. Still, try as I would to fight off the impressions that Holman's tongue had fixed within my mind, I was unable to alter the opinion I had formed of the man the moment I met him. There was an atmosphere about the yacht that was unexplainable. Try as I could to find legitimate grounds for fears I could not. The Professor was a scientist who wished to study certain things the whereabouts of which were known to Leith. Apparently the Professor was satisfied with the bargain he had made. Leith, as the two girls had informed Holman, had called upon their father at the Langham Hotel in Wynyard Square, Sydney, and, after fascinating the old man with his stories, had presented his credentials and made a bargain with him which resulted in the chartering of the yacht. His former life was a mystery that he guarded jealously from the probes which the girls had skilfully endeavoured to use. It was clear that he had spent many years in the Islands, but that fact is not one that is generally put forward as a recommendation of good character. The South Sea holds a large percentage of the nimble people who manage to be in another spot when Dame Justice throws her lariat. The Law of the Fringe has made curiosity a criminal offence, and a new name covers more than charity.
I had had little chance of speaking to Edith Herndon since the moment I came aboard, but I determined, after I had looked at the matter from every side, that I would ask her point blank if I could be of any assistance. Leith's face was the only prop he put forward as a support to his claims of respectability, and his face betrayed him.
My chance came early that evening. A big tropical moon rose out of Asia and spread a silvery wash upon the ocean. Professor Herndon and his eldest daughter were leaning over the rail, but the moment I joined them the old man informed us that he had to see to his scientific outfit so that everything would be in readiness for the landing on the following morning, and he hurried off and left us together.
The girl did not speak for a few minutes, and I made no attempt to break the silence. Somehow I felt that her intuition had already told her that I wished to speak about the happenings of the morrow, and her opening remark proved that my surmise was correct.
"You will stay with the yacht, I suppose?" she questioned.
"I cannot say," I replied. "Captain Newmarch hasn't spoken to me about the matter. Does your father intend to go far inland?"
"Father has just told me that the actual distance is not great, but the travelling is very hard. It seems that it is only a few miles to the spot where Mr. Leith says that father can see all the sights and obtain all the specimens he desires, but those few miles will take us four days to travel. There are all kinds of obstacles in the way."
"And you are not afraid?" I stammered. "You do not dislike the idea of going?"
She lifted her head and looked me in the face, the big amber eyes shining softly in the moonlight.
"I dread it," she said quietly. "It is foolish to say so, but—"
She stopped speaking and turned her face away from me. In the little silence that followed I heard the plop plop of the waves against the side of the yacht. A native chanted a Samoan love song in the fo'c'stle, but that and the soft whine of the pulleys were the only sounds that disturbed the night. We seemed such a long way from civilization at that minute, and a great pity for the girl's plight gave me sufficient courage to make a proffer of my services.
"Miss Herndon," I spluttered, "if I could do anything to help you, please tell me. I might help you if you wish. Tell me what you think is best."
"If you stay with the yacht you can do nothing," she murmured.
"Then you want me to go?" I cried. "You would like me to go with——"
"Father and Barbara and me," she said softly. "Mr. Holman is coming, and if you could come too—"
"I can!" I cried. "I will go with the party if you say so."
"But if Captain Newmarch orders you to stay with the yacht?"
"He can order away," I spluttered. "I am going where Leith is going, that is as long as Leith accompanies you and your father."
Something moved on the top of the galley as I put my resolution into words, and I sprang up quickly. The moon made every inch of the yacht as bright as day, yet I was not quick enough in my rush. A tin pan, knocked down by the eavesdropper, rolled across the deck, but the spy had fled.
"Some one was listening to us," I explained as I returned to the girl's side.
"I am sorry then that I asked you to accompany us," she murmured. "I am dragging you into our troubles, Mr. Verslun, and it is not right."
"Hush!" I cried. "Your troubles are mine just because you are a woman out on the very fringe of the earth where you can get no one else to help you bear them. You see I can claim a right in this spot. This is the jumping off place of the world down here, and an offer of assistance must not be refused."
She stood in front of me, a tall, splendid figure, the moonlight silvering the piled masses of hair and giving one the impression that her head was surrounded by a shining halo. Suddenly she put out her hand and took mine.
"I accept your offer gladly," she said softly. "You are very, very kind, Mr. Verslun. It may be, as you say, the jumping off place of the world down here at the very outposts of civilization, but the power that protects one in the crowded cities is surely here as well. Good-night, friend."
It was an hour after the time when Miss Herndon went below that I asked the captain's permission to go along with the expedition. He plucked his scrawny beard with a nervous hand as he stood staring at me.
"What the devil do you want to go for?" he asked.
"For the fun of the thing."
"I don't know," he muttered. "I'll see Leith."
He turned away and I walked for'ard. The beauty of the night was extraordinary. The yacht seemed to be veneered with a soft luminous paint that gave us the appearance of a ghostly ship skimming over a ghostly ocean.
At the top of the fo'c'stle ladder I found a native stretched full length and sobbing mightily. He walloped his head against the planks when I endeavoured to get him upon his feet, and the sobs shook his frame.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"Toni! Toni! Toni!" he wailed. "Toni he gone. Toni, my brother, all same come from Suva, now him dead."
"I'm sorry, but it can't be helped," I said. "He should have been more careful."
The native lifted himself from the deck and glanced around fearfully. Satisfied that there were no listeners he dried his eyes and crawled upon his knees to the spot where I was standing. "He not washed overboard," he whispered. "Soma stick one knife in him, then he tip him over. Me see him, very much afraid."
"When?" I asked.
"Night afore last," he gasped. "Captain see him do it. Very bad thing. Toni, my brother, all same work one time Suva."
Holman joined me when I relieved the captain late in the night; I told the youngster what I knew about the disappearance of Toni.
"Who knifed him?" he asked.
"The big Kanaka who pulled Leith out of the scuppers when he fell yesterday."
"Holy smoke!" cried the boy. "I'd like to get the strength of things on board this boat. Why, that big nigger is going to be the guide of the expedition on shore."
"Who says so?"
"Leith pointed him out to the Professor this afternoon," answered Holman. "I was talking to the old scientist at the time."
I whistled softly. If Soma was a henchman of Leith's it was clear to me why the captain had shielded him the night he jerked the knife at me when I dropped the pin upon his woolly head, but why Toni had been put away was a mystery.
"Is it any good of attempting to convince the Professor?" I asked.
"Not a bit," snapped Holman. "The girls have been imploring him to turn back this last three days while we were stuck in the cabin, but he won't listen to them. He's a maniac, that's what he is. He doesn't know what those two women are suffering through his darned foolishness, and if he did know it wouldn't trouble him. If you want the real extract of selfishness you must make a puncture in a scientific guy with a hobby, and you can get as much as you want."
"Well, I'm going along to see what happens," I said. "If Leith refuses to accept me I'm going just the same."
Holman gripped my hand—gripped it fiercely, then he left me hurriedly.
I tramped backward and forward as The Waif sailed steadily through the waves of glittering mercury. A few days before, when I was an occupant of "The Rathole" in Levuka, life seemed to be empty and cold, but a wonderful change had come in those few days. Although I had not spoken to Edith Herndon more than half a dozen times, it appeared to me that it was those few short conversations that had chased the loneliness and morbid thoughts from my mind. Her very presence stimulated me in a manner that I could not express, and as I stared out across the moon-whitened ocean I started nervously at the thought which had sprung suddenly into my brain. It was an insane thought, and I tried to laugh it away. Edith Herndon was as far above me as the moon was above the waves that were silvered by her beams. I pictured myself lying like a beachcomber upon the pile of pearl shell when the strange chant of the Maori and the dead Toni concerning "the way to heaven out of Black Fernando's hell" had come to my ears, and I blessed the new influence which had come into my life.
"My way to heaven lies in this direction," I soliloquized, and the quivering yacht went bounding on as I allowed wild dreams to race unchecked through my brain.
