I left it at that, not wanting to stir up trouble in his head, and we didn’t talk of the thing again—not for a long time, anyhow.
But a change had come over Buck. He’d got to be as cheerful as a cricket, and I’d see him sometimes at table sitting staring in front of himself as if he was looking at the New Jerusalem, instead of the bird’s-eye panelling of the after bulkhead; then, by his talk I could tell his head was travelling on the same old track; when a man talks of the building price of steam yachts you can tell how his mind is running, same as when he talks of rents on Pacific Avenue and such places. But I said nothing, just kept my head shut and let him talk, and glad I was the morning we raised Levua.
It’s a big island—if you’ve never been down that way—mountainous and with no proper reef only to the west, for east the sea comes smack up to the cliffs—but it’s pretty, what with the trees and all, and there’s a big waterfall comes down on the south from the hills that’s reckoned one of the sights of the island.
Levenstein’s house was on the beach to the west; a run of reef, broken here and there, kept the sea pretty smooth on the beach, and there was ten fathoms close up to the sand. A lot of scouring goes on there with the tides, and the fishings the best I’ve seen anywhere, just in that bit of water.
Old Pat O’Brien hadn’t asked to see a photograph of Levenstein, else maybe he wouldn’t have been so keen on shipping Sadie off on her travels; I’d forgot the fellow’s good looks, but when he boarded us after we’d dropped the hook, I remembered the fact and I saw he’d taken Sadie’s eye.
Levenstein wasn’t unlike Kaiser Bill, only younger and better-looking; he was the sort women like, and he could coo like a damn turtle dove when he was in the mind, but he had the reputation of having whipped a Kanaka to death. I’d just as soon have given a girl’s happiness to that chap as I’d have given a rump steak to a tiger cat trustin’ in it to honour it. No, sir, that build don’t make for happiness, not much, and if Sadie had been my girl when I saw her setting her eyes on him like that, I’d have put the Greyhound to sea again, even if I’d had to shove her over the reef to get out.
But I wasn’t bothering about Sadie’s happiness; I reckoned a little unhappiness mightn’t help to do her much harm by unsticking her glue a bit, and I reckon Buck felt the same, so, having business in the trade room and ashore enough to last us for days, we let things rip and didn’t bother.
Sadie and the old Mammy were given the overseer’s house on shore, and the girl settled down to enjoy herself. She was awfully keen on exploring the island and seeing the natives, and she and the old Kanaka woman would make excursions, taking their grub with them, and having picnics all over the place, and Levenstein would go with her sometimes, and Marks, from the north of the island, would come over sometimes, and it made my blood fair boil to see her carrying on with those two Germans because she thought them gentlemen, and at the same time cold-shouldering us as if we weren’t more than the dirt she walked on.
I said the same to Buck, and Buck he only says: “Leave her to me,” he says, “she’s come out to get what she won’t get, but she’ll get what she little expects if she marries uncle Lev,” says Buck. “Leave her to me,” he says, “I’ll l’arn her before I’ve done with her,” he says. “Damn her!” says he—which wasn’t the language to use about a girl, but then Sadie wasn’t so much a girl as a china figure all prickles, no use to hold or carry and not the ornament you’d care to stick on your chimney-piece if you wanted to be happy in your home.
One day Buck says to me: “Come on over to the north of the island,” he says, “I want to have a talk to Marks.”