“I was a young man not long from a German university and travel in Europe when I was sent to Easter Island,” he said, with dignity. “A commercial firm in Tahiti, a Frenchman and a Scotchman, had control of the island, which was not under the flag of any country, and was employed by them to look after their interests. The firm had a schooner that sailed there now and then, and with me went a young American. He was a graduate of some Yankee college, and had drifted into the South Seas a few months before. For some reason we did not know about, he was eager to go to Easter Island. He could speak none of the lingos hereabouts, and the firm at first refused him, but on his insistence, and willingness to agree to stay two years and to work for a trifle, they sent him with me.
“He was about twenty-four, handsome and gay, but a student. I liked him from the start. Ralph Waldo Willis was his name, and I was glad that I had such a companion for there was nobody else but natives to talk to, except Timi Linder, a half-Tahitian who was older than us and who was our boss. Our cockroach schooner was a month in getting there. It’s more than a thousand miles as the tropic bird goes, but for us it was sailing the wrong way many days, making half-circles or beating dead against the wind. We were about ready to turn round and sail back when we caught a breeze and made sight of land. I hated it at first view. It was nothing like our South Sea islands, with black, frowning cliffs worn into a thousand caves and recesses. The ocean broke angrily against the stern basalt, or entered these huge pits and sprang out of them in welling masses of foam and spray. An iron-bound coast that defied the heart, or any sentiment but wonder and fear. Boulders as big as ships were half attached to the precipices or lay near-by to attest the continuous devouring of the land by the sea. Coming from Tahiti, with its beautiful reefs and beaches, and the clouds like wreaths of reva-reva, with cocoanut-palms and breadfruit-trees and bananas covering all the land, this Easter Island seemed terribly bare and forbidding. There wasn’t a flower on it.”
Llewellyn halted and lit his pipe. In the glow of the match his eyes had the inversion of the relator who is remote from his audience.
McHenry, who had been quiet a few minutes, must call attention to himself.
“Is there any fightin’ or women in this yarn?” he burst out, with a guffaw.
Llewellyn came back to the present in a dark fume.
“I’ll chuck it,” he said irritably. “You want only stories that stink!”
Nimau, the Frenchman, took McHenry’s arm.
“Nom d’une pipe!” he rapped out. “Take that bottle, McHenry, and throw it and yourself into the lagoon. Monsieur Llewellyn, please go on! The night is just begun. That Ile de Pâcques is a very curious place.”
McHenry, offended, jumped up. “Go to hell, all of you!” he blurted. “I’ll go and stir up the Mormons. If they smell my breath, it’ll make ’em jealous.”