CHAPTER XVII FAREWELL TO TOPS ISLAND
"I spent nearly two months on Tops Island," said Madame to me, when telling her story in Whitehall, "and I was exceedingly loath to depart. I had by accident picked out the very best season in the year. There was not a drop of rain, the big sun shone gloriously all day long, and the regular rise and fall of the south-east trade wind kept down the heat. In my tent, which was wide open by night and day, and had generous air spaces between the walls and roof, the temperature never rose above 85 nor sank below 65. We called that winter in the South, but it was just a perfect English summer, smiling upon the tropical growth of a Pacific island. Whenever I thought of a return to a desolate European autumn, I shuddered to my bones. If I were not an intensely modern woman," she went on reflectively, "I would spend three months of every year in Tops Island. But it takes such a devil of a long time to go and return. And perhaps my second stay would be so unlike my first—there would be no Willatopy and no Humming Top—that I should never go again. It is always a mistake to seek the repetition of a delightful experience. I don't suppose that I shall ever again see little Mrs. Toppys, the Hula wife of wise mad William, or those dear girls in the banana-leaf petticoats. They had lost their shyness of me, and clung about my neck when the motor boat came to bear me off for the last time. I consoled them with bright chains for their brown necks, and gave to the Topy family two of Sir John's tents and quite a lot of his camp gear. I am afraid that all through my Southern adventure I made very free with the property of our good profiteer of Wigan. He never called me to account, the dear thing. The last I saw of my camping ground, as the boat sped off, was the three Topy women kneeling on the sand crying to me to come back. I wonder what they would think of me now if they knew all."
William, Lord Topsham, and his legal adviser had already gone off in a whaleboat, so that when Madame mounted the accommodation ladder all was ready for departure. The mooring hawsers had been cast off, and the bow anchor cable hauled short. The tide was flowing into the bay so that the Humming Top's cutwater pointed towards the Coral Sea outside. At a word from Ching, who stood alone on the bridge, the steam winches rattled, and the anchor was run up.
John Clifford had discreetly vanished below, but Willie stood not far from Madame Gilbert on the boat deck. Ching rang for half-speed astern, and the long narrow yacht backed into the bay to give herself room to make the entrance. At the sound of the engines Willie started and his eyes flashed. For a moment he became once more the sailor and the incomparable pilot. By instinct, rather than intention, he moved towards the bridge ladder and mounted the rungs. At the top Ching faced him.
"Do you wish to take charge, my lord?" asked the Skipper.
"No," mattered Willie, "I am not a pilot. I am Lord Topsham."
"Then," replied Ching, very firmly, "I must request Lord Topsham to leave my bridge. No passengers are allowed here."
Willie returned to the boat deck and seated himself gloomily by the rail. He could not keep his skilled eyes off the channel through which they had begun to pass, but he felt grievously the rebuff that Ching had dealt him. The loss of Madame's friendliness had taught him something; the Skipper's cold professional words had taught him more. He began to realise that an idle English Lord is of no account in a ship in comparison with a pilot. As Willatopy, the pilot, he had been, by sheer merit, Lord of the Bridge; now he was titular Lord only of Topsham, a far-off Devonshire hamlet. It was a bitter lesson in relative values.