"My name is Selden," I told him, "and I have been on the island several mouths. My uncle, Henry Selden, has leased Iriatai from the Government and planted coconuts. Last year he discovered a patch of shell in the lagoon, and the French have granted him a season's diving-rights."
I was going to say more, but a sudden sound interrupted my words. The ship's bell rang out two sharp and measured beats, paused, and sounded twice again. It was six o'clock. The watch was changing, and at a word from the captain the tall mate came aft to take the wheel.
"Keep a man aloft," the skipper said. "It grows dark, but within half an hour you will raise the land." He turned to me. "Come below," he suggested, "you will be hungry after your day at sea. When we have dined, I shall be interested to hear more of your island."
He followed me down to the saloon, where the table was set with shining glass and porcelain. A young woman rose as we appeared, a slender, graceful girl, with sullen eyes and a great bruise disfiguring one pale brown cheek. She wore a loose gown of scarlet silk; crescents of gold were in her ears; and her dark hair, dressed in a single braid thick as a man's arm, hung to her knees. I learned afterward that she was a half-caste from the Carolines. The captain spoke to her and glanced at me.
"Madame Schmidt," he said in introduction; and as I took her hand, I realized suddenly how I must have appeared. It was months since scissors had touched my hair, which stood on my head like a Fijian's, tangled and bleached by the sun. My skin was tanned to a sort of saddle-color, and I was naked save for the torn and faded pareu about my waist. The captain seemed to divine my thought.
"Eh, Raita!" he ordered, "get out for our guest some clean clothes. He will feel more at ease."
I slipped into a stateroom to put on the garments the woman laid out for me: an enormous pair of trousers I rolled up at the bottom, and a coat in which Marama and I could have buttoned ourselves with room to spare. The meal was served by the captain's body servant, the black, shock-headed savage I had seen on deck. He was an evil-looking creature, like some fierce ape masquerading in a sailor's clothes. Several times during the meal Schmidt gave him orders in an outlandish jargon I had never heard, and once, when the captain told him to fetch wine, he asked his master a question in a shrill chatter, grimacing with his eyebrows like a monkey. The woman ate sullenly, without once raising her eyes; when she had finished, she rose and left us without a word.
It was still daylight outside, but the swinging lamp above the table was lit, and under its light I had an opportunity to study the features of my host. I began to change my first opinion of him, for the scrutiny was not reassuring: the more I looked, the more he puzzled me and the less I trusted him. When the black man set cups of coffee before us Schmidt began to question me. How long had we been on Iriatai? How many divers were at work? Was there plenty of shell? Was its quality good? Had we been lucky with pearls? But by now I was on my guard, and returned evasive answers, feigning the stupidity of weariness—a deception which did not require much acting on my part. A long-drawn shout from above brought us suddenly to our feet.
"Land ho!"
When I came on deck the western sky was glowing with a fiery sunset, and under the crimson clouds I could make out the long dark line of Iriatai. Puzzled and vaguely uneasy in my mind, I was leaning on the rail when my eye fell on a handsome dinghey, slung on davits close to where I stood. Her stern was toward me, and there, neatly lettered on the bright varnished wood, I saw the word, "Cholita." So Schmidt's vessel was called Cholita—a pretty name for a pretty schooner—and then I remembered with a sudden start. My thoughts flashed back to the morning when I had paddled out to breakfast with my uncle in Faatemu Bay—to his account of Thursday Island Schmidt. My uncle's words came back to me: "His schooner's as pretty as her reputation is black, and the way he handled her was a treat to watch."