"She wants a Dozey dress!"
"What in ——'s that? It don't sound respectable," virtuously observed the boatswain, who had never heard of the famous French dressmaker.
"You bet it is, then. Dozey's a regular bang-up swell in Paris, who makes the most expensive gownds in the world, and every one in them parts treats him just the same as a baronight or a duke. You can't get so much as a jumper from him for less than sixty pound, and Vaiti she says every woman in Papeëte or Aucklan' or Sydney who saw one of his dresses would spot it right away, and go and throw herself over the Heads. She read about his things in a piece in one of them female papers in the hotel, and she saw an actress wearin' of one, and she's been layin' out to get one ever since, somethin' awful. Seems when a woman in London, or Paris, or Yarmouth gets a Dozey dress, and takes to standin' off and on before the others, who's only got new velveteens with musling frills or such-like it just makes them other women drag their anchors and run head-on to the shore. So Vaiti, she——"
"Hold on," interrupted the boatswain. "Why, if she 'ad one of those gownds, she couldn't bend it on to her yards, not if it cost a million. Man alive, she ain't laid down on the same lines as them Frenchwomen, anyway."
"You let her alone for that," chuckled Harris. "But what beats me is who she's going to do with them skulls, and how. We won't know in a hurry, either, because she and Pita's fixed it up between them to do the job alone. Thank 'eaven for small mercies, says I. 'Er on the war-path's rather more than I care for; and this isn't going to be any picnic, if I know anything of natives."
"Pita!" whistled the boatswain. "The old man will 'ave 'is gore before the voyage is out, if Vaiti goes on like this. It's Ritter, that fat German trader in Papeëte, that he's wanting to marry her to; and as for natives, it's 'ands off for them, if she is 'alf of one 'erself."
"Well, she and Pita was planning it all out in the fore-top last night. I heard them, when she thought I was sleeping on the top of the galley. And the old man came out and roared at her like a Marquesas bull to come down; so down she came, laughing at him, like the devil she is. There's no one else on this ship would laugh, without it was on the wrong side of his mouth, when the old man gets ratty. Coming! All right!"
The mate jumped to his feet, and answered Vaiti's sharp hail in person, a deprecating smile spreading like spilt treacle all over his face as he came up to her, cap in hand. Vaiti took her cigar out of her mouth, and looked at him for a minute without speaking. The Sybil rolled on the towering swell like a captured beast trying to beat its brains out against a wall, but Saxon's Maori daughter stood as steady as the slender main-mast upon the reeling deck. Harris smiled more than ever, and turned the marlinspike about in his hands, looking a little foolish.
"You wanting Captain Saxon come and lay you out in the scupper pretty soon?" inquired Vaiti presently.
"Not particular," answered the mate, the smile sliding slowly off his face.