"Do you?" asked the mate curiously. Harris had not much notion of the dignity of his office, and dearly loved a gossip at all times.
"More nor you, havin' eyes and ears that's of use to me occasionally," replied the bo'sun dryly.
Harris considered.
"I'll give you my grey shirt to tell," he said persuasively. "There's sure to be something up."
"'Ow much does we ever get out of it when there is?" asked Gray sourly. "I could do with that shirt very well, though. There ain't much to tell, except that the old man he thought there was an island hereabouts not marked on the chart that nobody knew about; and Vaiti she allowed that was all —— rot, because, says she, this part's been surveyed, and though the Admiralty surveys isn't the for-ever-'n-ever-Amen dead certainties the little brassbound officers thinks them, still they don't leave whole islands out on the loose without a collar and a name round their necks, so to say. So, says she, let me work out the length of time they ran before the hurricane, says she, and the d'rection of the wind, which the old boy remembered right enough, says she; and then look it up on the chart, and I'll be blowed, says she, if you don't find something for a guide like. So by-and-by she looks, and says she, ''Ere's something; 'ere's a reef marked P.D., and it is P.D.,' says she, 'for you and I knows there's nothin' there,' she says. 'But we'll look a bit more to the north'ard,' she says, 'where it's right off the' track of ships, and maybe we'll find somethin' and maybe we won't,' she says. 'But I think,' she says, 'that somewheres not too far off from that P.D. reef we'll maybe get a sight of what we're lookin' for,' she says, 'because sometimes reefs is put down for bigger things by mistake,' she says, 'especially if you 'aven't been to see.' Then she comes on deck, and I makes myself scarce, for it ain't healthy on this ship to listen at no cabin skylights, not if she knows you're there."
"Well, whatever the game is, I don't suppose it'll line our little insides any fatter, bo'sun. We don't count on this ship anything like as we ought to when there's shares goin'. I wonder that I stick to her, I do! Old man as drunk as a lord half the time—me doin' his work as well as my own—a blessed she-cat running the blooming show——"
"Ready about!" sang Vaiti from the deck-house, and the mate and bo'sun sprang across the deck. There was something about the orders of the "she-cat" that enforced a smartness on the Sybil rare on an island schooner, even when heavy-fisted Saxon was not about.
Half an hour later, Vaiti had rowed herself ashore, curtly declining Harris's polite offers of assistance, and had landed on the beach. As she did not know who she might be going to see, she had provided for all emergencies. Her revolver was in her pocket, and she wore a flowing sacque of lace-trimmed white silk that made her feel she was fit to meet any Russian princess, if such were indeed on the island. It was a gratifying thought that the said princess, if she had been a celebrated beauty, must now be well into the forties, and consequently beneath all contempt as a rival belle.
Her father's absence did not trouble her. He had a nasty trick of starting a drinking bout just when he was most needed—in fact, it was the one point in Saxon's character on which you could absolutely rely. Vaiti, therefore, had grown used to doing without him, and rather liked to have a perfectly free hand.
She had fully grasped the bearings of the case. There was possibly a very great chief's daughter from Europe, with a rather insignificant chief who had stolen her away, living there in hiding. The people of her country would pay a great deal to know where she was and bring her back. Or, if there seemed any lack of safety about this proceeding (Vaiti had long ago learned that her father was not fond of putting himself within the reach of principalities and powers of any kind), the couple themselves must be made to pay for silence. It was all very simple.