In front of us, with her tall, black spars cutting out clearly against the flood of moonlight, that lit up the waters of the quiet little bay, lay the old Wolverene—to both of us a silent reminder of one night not long ago, under far-off skies, when the old corvette sailed past our little, schooner, towering up above us, a cloud of spotless white canvas, as she gracefully rose and sank to the long sweep of the ocean swell.
“Poor old Tierney,” said my friend, alluding to the captain of that little schooner. “He's dead now; blew his hand off with dynamite down in the Gilbert Group—did you know?”
“Yes. What a good fellow he was! There are few like him left now. Aye, few indeed.”
“By the way, did he ever tell you about Jack Lester and his little daughter, Tessa?”
“Something of it. You were with him in the Mana that trip, weren't you?”
“Yes,” said my friend, “Brayley and I both. He had been up to Honolulu, sick; and he came on board of the Mana and seemed so anxious to get back to his station on Maduro that Tierney—good old fellow as he was—told him to bring his traps aboard, and he would land him there on the way to Samoa. His wife had died five years before, and he had to leave his station in the care of his daughter, a child of twelve or so. Not that he fretted much about the station—it was only the little girl he thought of.”
We smoked on in silence awhile. Then my friend resumed—
“I shall never forget that voyage. It was a night such as this that it happened—I mean that affair of the boat on Auriki Reef.”