One day he accepted an invitation from the old French priest to pay a visit to the Mission. He went away quietly one morning, and then wrote to Baldwin.
“Ten miles is a good long way off,” he thought. “I'll be all right in a week or so—then I'll come back and be a fool no longer.”
The priest liked the young man, and in his simple, hospitable way, made much of him. On the evening of the third day, as they paced to and fro on the path in the Mission garden, they saw Baldwin's boat sail up to the beach.
“See,” said the priest, with a smile, “M. Baldwin will not let me keep you; and Loisé comes with him. So, so, you must go, but you will come again?” and he pressed the young Englishman's hand.
The sturdy figure of the old trader came up through the garden; Loisé, native fashion, walking behind him.
Knitting his heavy white eyebrows in mock anger he ordered Brice to the boat, and then extending his hand to the priest—“I must take him back, Father; the Malolo sails to-morrow, and the skipper is coming ashore to-night to dinner, to say good-bye; and, as you know, Father, I'm a silly old man with the whisky bottle, and I'll get Mr. Brice to keep me steady.”
The tall, thin old priest raised his finger warningly and shook his head at old Baldwin and then smiled.
“Ah, M. Baldwin, I am very much afraid that I will never make you to understand that too much of the whisky is very bad for the head.”
With a parting glass of wine they bade the good Father good-bye, and then hoisting the sail, they stood across for Rikitea. The sun had dipped, and the land-breeze stole softly down from the mountains and sped the boat along. Baldwin was noisy and jocular; Brice silent and ill at ease.
Another hour's run and Baldwin sailed the boat close under the trading schooner's stern. Leaning over the rail was the pyjama-clad captain, smoking a cigar.