“Who are you, young lady?” he said presently, “and what do you want?”
“I am the daughter of Gaston Larrieau, master of the schooner Moorea. My father is dead. My name is Tamea and I am weary of this white man’s land. My heart aches for my own people and I would go back to them. I have money to pay for my passage. I would go to Riva.”
“I have no passenger license, child, but your father was my friend. If you can stand us, we can stand you. There will be no charge for the passage. We are towing out this morning with the tide and our first port of call is Tahiti. Go below, girl, and the cook will give you breakfast.”
As the sun was rising back of Mount Diablo the launch cast the little schooner adrift off the Golden Gate and the Kanaka sailors, chanting a hymn, ran up her headsails. As they filled, Tamea came out of the cabin and looked again upon that ocher-tinted coastline, watched again the bizarre painted gasoline trawlers of the Mediterranean fishermen put out for the Cordelia banks. Then the mainsail went up and the schooner heeled gently over, took a bone in her teeth and headed south.
“It is best to leave him thus,” the girl murmured. “He does not love me and he never will. I would not stay to afflict him. What he would not accept from me he accepted from a servant. Then I knew!”
She lifted her golden voice and sang “Aloha,” the Hawaiian song of farewell. . . .
For Tamea, Queen of Riva, was of royal blood, and when the gods rained blows upon her she could take them smiling!
CHAPTER XXV
At seven o’clock the following morning Dan Pritchard was awakened from a light and fitful slumber by forceful hammering at his bedroom door. To his query, “Yes, yes, who is it?” a voice freighted with tears and fright answered:
“ ’Tis Julia, sor. Miss Tammy’s gone, God help us.”