“That’s them,” said Brent.
We came on deck. Then we climbed on to the wharf whilst Scott’s men went aboard, true undertakers’ assistants, callous, jovial, red-faced, gin-breathing. We watched the tow rope passed and the mooring ropes cast off, the tow rope tighten and the bowsprit of the Greyhound turning for the last time from land. We watched the smashed-up water of the harbour streaming like a millrace under the bat-bat-bat of the tug paddles and the stern of the Greyhound with the faded old lettering turned towards a wharf for the last time.
As the vision faded, Brent heaved a deep sigh, thinking maybe of his partner and old times.
“Well,” he said, turning away, “that’s the end of her. What gets me is that the other one may be alive and kicking her heels and enjoying herself—no knowing, it’s those sort that live longest, seems to me.”
CHAPTER X.
IRON LAW, OR THE QUEEN OF UTIALI
I
If you want to study psychology go to the wilds. The minds of civilised men and women are so covered with embroidery that the true texture is almost hidden; their faces have been used so long for masks that form and expression cannot be relied on. Amongst savages you come sometimes upon the strangest facts bearing upon the structure of mind, facts that lose half their significance in the atmosphere of London, yet which, all the same, are not unconnected with our processes of reasoning and conduct.
I was sitting with Brent in the house of Ibanez, the agent of the Southern Islands Soap Syndicate, an institution that turns cocoanut trees and native labour into soap, mats, margarine, dollars and dividends, beats up the blue Pacific with the propellers of filthy steamboats and has its offices in San Francisco, London and New York. We were sitting, to speak more strictly, in the verandah, the southern night lay before us and a million stars were lighting the sea.
Tahori, a native boy, and one of Ibanez’s servants, had just brought along a big tray with cigars and drinks and placed it on a table by us. I noticed that he wore white cotton gloves. Brent had also noticed the fact.
“What’s wrong with that chap’s hands?” asked Brent.