"Yes," acknowledged Captain Cathie, in reply to a pointed question of Aunt Jannet's respecting the sailorly qualities of his boat, "I'm bound to say she's not exactly what you might call a fast boat. But she's sure, and if you give her wind enough and time enough she gets there all right."
They had a busy three days preparing for the long voyage. Captain Cathie reckoned they might make the Marquesas in twelve days with good weather. So they made provision for twenty, out of the stores they had brought from Kanele and Anape. He had borrowed Evans's pocket compass, but vowed he could find his way without it.
"If we go west with a touch of south in it we're bound to hit either the Marquesas or Paumotus," he said cheerfully. "You may look for that schooner here in six weeks from to-day—that is, if there's one to be had, and if I can find a trader who'll negotiate the drafts."
Jean had been racking her brains as to how they were to get hold of some of the money waiting to be used in London, for all her papers had disappeared in the deluge. But Blair had thought the whole matter out, and had brought over paper and pens and a bottle of ink. And among them they drew up a number of documents which, with Captain Pym's verification of the circumstances, would, they thought, procure for Captain Cathie all the money he needed as soon as he reached Sydney, and possibly before that.
And a very busy man would Captain Cathie be, if ever he reached Sydney. For he had to buy a new Torch and a multitudinous cargo; engage new hands—to a limited extent, however, this time, for henceforth they hoped to utilise largely the services of the brown men; and last, but by no means least, to provide, so far as money could do it, adequate recompense for the families of the men whose lives had been given in the service of the Dark Islands. So far as forethought and hard thinking could do it they had attended to everything, and Captain Cathie's programme might have daunted a less valiant man.
And so, very early one morning, before the sun had topped the hills behind, though the outer sea danced and sparkled merrily, there was a great leave-taking on the white beach at the mouth of the valley where the old village used to stand. The Kenni-Kenni had brought them all up the day before, with all their belongings, in a couple of trips, and they were among their own brown people once more, ready and anxious to be at their work again.
The last hearty handshakes had been given and the last words said. The shallop they had built for use with the larger boat, and which was to be left behind, had just put Captain Pym and Captain Cathie on board. The sails ran up, and the Kenni-Kenni's nose turned determinedly for the passage and the long journey westward.
Kenneth Blair and his wife Jean, and Aunt Jannet Harvey stood in the centre of a line of brown folk and waved the farewells and benedictions their voices could no longer carry, and little Kenni-Kenni waved and shouted because the others did. His namesake bobbed and rose to the swell of the passage and was lost to sight behind the spouting jets of the reef.
The line of watchers on the beach climbed the hillside behind them, and watched and waved till the white sails alone were visible, till they became a tiny white speck, till they disappeared.
Then Kenneth Blair kissed his wife very tenderly, for his heart was very full. And he turned to the brown folk, and said—