"What the (adjective noun) for?" demanded the mate.
"Because I say, pauki!" (pig) flashed Vaiti. "No!—you got head of pig, heart of fowl. You bo'sun, you know I get you through this all right, suppose you trusting me—you come here."
Harris, shaking his great shoulders in an easy laugh, swung down on to the main deck, and began ordering about the crew. He had an enormous admiration for Vaiti, even when she boxed his ears, but he thought her special peculiarities of character rather a trying obstacle in the way of his enjoying the easy life beloved of South Sea mates.
The acidulous bo'sun rose from his seat on deck, holding out an unclean palm, in the midst of which glittered two fine pearls.
"I've been through that little lot, and got these, which do look like biz, ma'am," he observed. "As to people havin' fowls' hearts, or pigs' heads, I'm not prepared to pass judgment. But I don't own to neither myself, and if you say it's a fight, a fight it is. Or if you've got a better plan in that uncommon level 'ead of yours, I'm ready to stand by."
"You something like a man," pronounced the commanding officer in the muslin skirt. "You listen. I tell him all again."
* * * * *
An hour later the bo'sun, very wet and draggled, climbed over the bulwarks of the Sybil, and the schooner Margaret Macintyre, of Sydney, slipped behind into the falling dusk.
"Said he was thirteen weeks out from Sydney, ma'am," reported the ambassador. "Four weeks out from Apia, gettin' copra round here and there, and there wasn't no Wellington news anywhere, as he remembered. Nice new chart, with no lines of that kind ruled on it anywhere. As to where he got the divin' gear that was in the cabin, or what kind of copra he reckoned to pick up on the Delgadas, he didn't say, not bein' asked."
Vaiti stood still to consider, a beautifully poised black silhouette against the yellow oblong of the lamp-lit cabin door.