“Where is the village?”
“About a quarter of a mile up a valley which runs up to those mountains from the sea. Miss Larrieau, by the way, is again in Riva. She arrived a week ago and has taken up her residence in her old home. I will point it out to you, Mr. Pritchard.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You are, perhaps, wondering why none of my people are present,” Mr. Muggridge continued. “You have unfortunately arrived in mid-afternoon, when my people are sleeping or, what is more probable, over in the river bathing.”
The Kanaka sailors having disposed Dan’s baggage above high-water mark, the whaleboat pulled back to the ship and was hoisted aboard even while the Pelorus slowly came about and headed for the open sea again. Mr. Muggridge, evidently greatly pleased at the prospect of white company—and a gentleman at that—courteously led the way to the white bungalow and extended to Dan and his servant the hospitality of his home.
“Thank you, Mr. Muggridge,” said Dan gratefully. “I shall be most happy to accept your invitation—for the present at least. May I ask you to point out to me Miss Larrieau’s habitation?”
Mr. Muggridge’s eyebrows went up perceptibly. What a hurry this well bred, respectable-looking stranger was in to see that half-caste Jezebel! “Follow the road up past the church yonder until you come to the river, which you will cross on two coco-palm logs. They are very slippery. Be careful. Having crossed the bridge, turn to the left and follow the path up the hill to a house that is as distinctly a white man’s dwelling as my own. You should find the lady you seek asleep on the veranda.”
“Thank you, Mr. Muggridge. If you don’t mind, I think I shall run up to Miss Larrieau’s house.”
“Dinner will be served at five-thirty,” the missionary warned him. “I shall have my servant help your man bring the baggage up to your room.”
Tamea’s home stood in a grove of coco-palms, interspersed with some flowering shrubs and a few lesser trees with luxuriant green foliage. The house had been built on a solid foundation of cement and creosoted redwood underpinning, to protect it from the native wood-devouring insects. Dan suspected that the green paint which had at some distant date been applied to the house was anti-fouling—the sort of paint used on ships’ bottoms to protect them from teredos. From under the house the snouts of half a dozen young pigs, taking their siesta, protruded, and in the yard a stately gamecock and some hens were prospecting for worms. The place smelled a little of neglect, of semi-decayed vegetation, of insanitation—the smell peculiar to the homes of native dwellers in the tropics. A well worn flight of five steps led up from the front of the house to the veranda, from which one might glean a view of miles of coastline. About the place there was a silence so profound that Dan feared he might have come too late, after all.