“All right,” he nodded.
“Better finish this bottle,” suggested Cranshaw easily. He himself drank little.
“Come out to the steamer to-morrow,” said Hobson, a half hour later, as they rose. “I’d like to show you—show you Agnes’s picture—an’ the baby’s.”
“Thanks,” returned Cranshaw.
But his long, lean face seemed to quiver a trifle, and as he ushered his guest into the sleeping-room his gray eyes were baleful. That speech had been sheer venom, for Hobson was not drunk; he had merely forgotten for the moment his intense fear of Cranshaw.
Once ensconced with their mosquito curtains, the two men exchanged a few words before dropping off to sleep, then the darkness was broken only by the rasping snore of Hobson.
Curiously enough, Cranshaw’s breathing seemed hardly audible.
For Avarua, the night was a cool one. The bungalow was at the edge of town, and the roar of the surf thundered dully from the outer reefs in unbroken cadences.
Suddenly, and without the slightest warning, a horrible scream echoed out from the veranda—shrilled up and off, and seemed to die softly in the distance.
“My God!” Hobson’s voice rang out. “What’s that?”