Standing there before him, she looked again in his hard, unrelenting face. Then she slowly walked forward.
“Sulky,” said Chaplin to Denison.
Steadily she walked along the deck, and then mounted to the to'gallant fo'c's'le and stood a second or two by the cathead. Her white dress flapped and clung to her slender figure as she turned and looked aft at us, and her long, black hair streamed out like a pall of death. Suddenly she sprang over.
With a curse Chaplin rushed to the wheel, and in double-quick time the whaleboat was lowered and search was made. In half an hour Chaplin returned, and gaining the deck said, in his usual cool way, to the mate: “Hoist in the boat and fill away again as quick as possible.” Then he went below.
A few minutes afterwards he was at his accustomed amusement, making tortoise-shell ornaments with a fret-saw.
“A sad end to the poor girl's life,” said the supercargo.
“Yes,” said the methodical ex-Honolulu black-birder, “and a sad end to my lovely five hundred dollars.”
HICKSON: A HALF-CASTE
“Mauki” Hickson and I were coming across from the big native town at Mulinu'u Point to Apia one afternoon when we met a dainty little white woman, garmented in spotless white. Hickson, touching his hat, walked on across the narrow bridge that crosses the creek by the French Mission, and waited for me on the other side.