Vaiti took a turn across the deck, and fell silent, angrily chewing a lock of her hair. The horrid vision of Donahue risen from his ocean grave, and wandering about the islands as a malignant ghost, bent on avenging his death, had struck her as such a fancy could only strike an islander, and almost paralysed her active mind. Now she realised that it was merely a case of mistaken newspaper report, and that Donahue had somehow escaped from the wreck of his schooner, and was once more roaming the islands in the flesh—at the very lowest ebb of fortune, it was evident, but probably none the less dangerous for that. She was quite certain that he was in some way at the bottom of this business of cursing the crew, although no doubt the witch-doctor and Mata had been intermediary. And it was no trifle. Sheer mutiny she would have much preferred.
"Wot's it all about?" asked Gray, who had not been so long in the islands as the mate. "Wot's the odds if a lot of bally niggers thinks they've been cursed? Seems to me anythin' the witch-doctor could do wouldn't be likely to harm a crew that's been salted by our old man in the cursin' way. There ain't no witch-what-d'ye-call-'em about the islands that can lay over 'im for language."
"Oh, shut up! You don't know anything about it," said Harris with irritation.
"Suppose you tells me," suggested Gray, tucking another quid into his cheek, and looking dispassionately at the crew, who were now lying on deck rolling about with the motion of the vessel, and looking half dead already. "Doesn't seem as if we was goin' to have much bother with that lot.... And you gettin' as white at the gills as a flounder, thinkin' they was goin' to take charge. Go 'ome and learn a ladies' dancin'-class, Mr. 'Arris; you ain't fit to 'andle men."
"I'll handle you if——" Harris was beginning roughly, when Vaiti, whose temper had been badly ruffled by the events of the last half-hour, stepped across the deck and delivered two stinging blows, one on Harris's right ear and one on Gray's left.
"You take'm that," she said. "Alliti, you speak bo'sun about Maori 'mana.' Glay, you lemember Alliti mate, no give cheek."
"Want to know if I've got any left for myself, before I start givin' it away," observed the bo'sun ruefully, rubbing his face. "But better be slapped nor neglected by a pretty girl, hany day, says I."
Vaiti did not smile, but leaned over the rail, and began staring at the crew. She was in no mood for flattery.
"Well, if you want to know, it's like this," said Harris. "These native blokes, they thinks some of their chiefs has got what they call 'mana.'"
"Wot's that mean?"