“Well, look at it,” said Davis. “In he comes with the Araya, sees me, remembers the trick he played me, tries to pal up, gets a snub on the nose, puts it in his pocket, and then goes on the jag, him and Jarvis, leaving his schooner with a parcel of damn fool Kanakas in charge and me layin’ about dangerous. Kanakas, why they’re worse than that! Island boys that’ll take any white man’s bidding s’long as he feeds them with fried bananas. It’s lovely, that’s what it is, lovely——” Linking his arm in that of Harman, he was walking him along the sand towards a boat beached and left almost high and dry by the ebbing tide. To the right lay the lights of the town, and almost on the beach sand the long amber glow of the lit club. Harman, walking between the beauty of Papaleete by night and the glory of the moon upon the sea, showed no sign of haste to reach the boat.
What bothered him was, not so much the turpitude of the business, as the seeming futility and madness of it, for even in those days before wireless talked it was next to impossible to steal a ship and make good. Every port in the world is a compound eye for scrutiny, the character of a ship is inquired into as carefully as her health. Harman knew the whole business. There is a cable from Papaleete to Suva, and from Suva to ’Frisco and beyond, and to-morrow morning Penhill had only to speak and the description of the Araya and the two vanished beachcombers would be in the hands of the San Francisco authorities before noon; before night all American seaboard ports would be closed to the Araya, and by next day at noon, the British Board of Trade would seal Australia and Hong Kong. Chinese ports would be notified in “due course.”
With every bolthole blocked, the Araya might still live free for years pottering among the less-known islands, they might even pile her on some rock and make their escape in the boats, but what would be the use of all that? No, the whole thing would have been futile and ridiculous but for the one thing that made it possible—Penhill. Penhill daren’t prosecute. The schooner was his, and he was the only man who could move, and he was tied. Davis said so. Davis had given details which made the matter clear to Harman, yet still he hesitated.
They had reached the boat. It was the Araya’s, left confidingly on a beach where no man ever stole boats; there were canoes to be had in plenty, but Davis preferred the boat, he had reasons.
Harman, resting his hand on the gunnel, looked about him for a moment at the deserted beach, still undecided.
His dunnage left at the house of a native woman where he had lodged was unprocurable, he owed a bill. As he stood considering this and other matters, from the groves by the beach diffusing itself through the night, came the voice of a native singing a love song, tender, plaintive, old as Papaleete and focussing in itself all the softness and beauty that the active soul of Billy Harman had learnt to hate.
He seized the gunnel of the boat and assisted by Davis, shoved her off.
Out on the moonlit water, the town showed up fairylike, its lights twinkling amidst the moving foliage. Away on Huahine, rising steeply like a wall of velvety blackness to the stars, the lights of tiny villages showed like fireflies come to rest; fronting and beneath all this mystery and loveliness showed the definite amber glow of the club where Penhill and Jarvis were drinking themselves blind. That was Papaleete.
No port authorities, no harbour police, no sign of life but the anchor lights of a brigantine and a bêche-de-mer boat—that also was Papaleete. On board the Araya the anchor watch was snoring; kicked awake and rubbing its eyes, it jumped to the voice of white authority. The returned boat was a certificate that the new white fellow mas’rs were representatives of white fellow mas’r Penhill and Penhill’s character was an antidote to loving inquiries.
“They’re a sprightly lot,” said Harman as the main boom swung to starboard and the great sail filled, tugging at the sheet. “Monkeys to jump an’ no tongues to ask questions.”