“Remember that there may come a time when I cannot protect. The natives here are not much spoiled. This is not Papeete.”
“That’s what I’m always saying to our chaps.”
“Say it also to yourself, my friend. I had a man here this morning who wished to kill you. No, he will not do it. Now I must go.”
It was a very sobered Bassett that skulked back along the beach to the club-house. He jumped perceptibly when a land-crab rattled an old meat-tin on the stones. At the club it seemed to him that most of the men were sulky and bad-tempered. Some slept on the verandah. The German and Lord Charles Baringstoke bent over an interminable game of chess. Lord Charles looked up as Bassett passed.
“I say, Mr damned Bassett,” said Lord Charles, “why didn’t you elect Smith?”
“Oh, go to the devil!” said Bassett, irritably, and went on to his own room. He was angry with himself, and a man in that case is always angry with the rest of the world.
King Smith went on with his work, assiduously as a London clerk under the eye of the senior partner. It was near sunset when he came out on to the beach.
Down by the water’s edge stood the Rev. Cyril Mast. He was quite a young man, and his face was that of a dissipated boy. At present he was looking out through glasses that he could not hold quite steady.
“You look at nothing,” laughed Smith.
“See for yourself,” said Mast, in a musical, resonant voice. “Your schooner will be in before you expected her.”