Hearty were the congratulations showered upon me at Potts Point, you may be sure, when I told my tale, and my health was drunk at lunch with much goodwill. But our minds were too much taken up with the arrangements for our departure that afternoon to allow us to think very much of anything else. By two o'clock we were ready to leave the house, by half-past we were on board the yacht, at three-fifteen the anchor was up, and a few moments later we were ploughing our way down the harbour.
Our search for Phyllis had reached another stage.
CHAPTER V
THE ISLANDS, AND WHAT WE FOUND THERE
To those who have had no experience of the South Pacific the constantly recurring beauties of our voyage would have seemed like a foretaste of Heaven itself. From Sydney, until the Loyalty Group lay behind us, we had one long spell of exquisite weather. By night under the winking stars, and by day in the warm sunlight, our trim little craft ploughed her way across smooth seas, and our only occupation was to promenade or loaf about the decks and to speculate as to the result of the expedition upon which we had embarked.
Having sighted the Isle of Pines we turned our bows almost due north and headed for the New Hebrides. Every hour our impatience was growing greater. In less than two days, all being well, we should be at our destination, and twenty-four hours after that, if our fortune proved in the ascendant, we ought to be on our way back with Phyllis in our possession once more. And what this would mean to me I can only leave you to guess.
One morning, just as the faint outline of the coast of Aneityum was peering up over the horizon ahead, Wetherell and I chanced to be sitting in the bows. The sea was as smooth as glass, and the tinkling of the water round the little vessel's nose as she turned it off in snowy lines from either bow, was the only sound to be heard. As usual the conversation, after wandering into other topics, came back to the subject nearest our hearts. This led us to make a few remarks anent Nikola and his character. I could not help asking him for an explanation.
"You want to know how it is that I am so frightened of Nikola?" he asked. "Well, to give you my reason will necessitate my telling you a story. I don't mind doing that at all, but what I am afraid of is that you may be inclined to doubt its probability. However, if you want to hear it you shall."
"I should like to above all things," I replied. "I have been longing to ask you about it for some time past, but could not quite screw up my courage."