Sooey Wan vouchsafed no reply, until Tamea had entered the house and he found himself alone for a moment with his master. “Boss,” he then said confidentially, “missionaly heap klazy. Look out. Sooey Wan look out.” And he permitted the butt of a long-barreled Colt’s .45 to slide down from his voluminous sleeve. “Sooey Wan no likee. That missionaly ketchum devil inside heap plenty.”
CHAPTER XXIX
Ten months had passed since Dan Pritchard had seen a human being whiter than Tamea or talked English to a white man. He was acutely conscious of this flight of time as he sat on the veranda of the green bungalow and watched a schooner beating up the coast of Riva.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the Pelorus, Tamea,” he remarked. “Even at this distance her lines look too fine for an ordinary trading schooner. I hope she drops in. I’d like to have a visit with Hackett. That man has a superior mind.”
Tamea glanced sharply at him from under lowered lids. Her lips trembled ever so slightly and she bit them to stop the trembling. At length she said: “Yes, that is the Pelorus, dear heart. She will drop anchor in the lagoon for the night and Hackett will come ashore to visit us. Doubtless he has supplies for the mission.”
“Won’t it be splendid to have him up for dinner, Tamea? Confound it, I wish we had a really decent dinner to offer him. He must be as weary of canned goods, chicken, fish and pig as I am.”
To this Tamea made no reply, but her sweet face was slightly clouded as she sat down at the piano and commenced picking out a hymn by ear. Her basses were not very good, and the piano, hard driven for many a year without tuning, rendering sterling assistance in the attack upon Dan’s nerves. He rose and walked out of the house and down the hill to the beach, where he sat on an upturned canoe and waited patiently for the Pelorus to negotiate the opening in the reef. She did it prettily enough, and as her anchor splashed overside and the harsh grating of the chain in her hawse-pipe floated across the lagoon to Dan, for a reason scarcely possible for analysis, a lump rose in his throat.
Perhaps it was the impending drama of a meeting with his own kind after ten months of alien association that thrilled him so, for he rose and ran down to the wash of the surf on the white shingle, hallooing and waving his arms. Two men on the poop waved back at him. One wore a singlet, a short pair of white trousers and a Panama hat. The other was arrayed in white linen and, at that distance, reminded Dan of a yacht owner out with his guests for a cruise.
The whaleboat splashed overboard and the two men dropped overside into it and were rowed ashore. The man in the short breeks and singlet was Captain Hackett. He leaped overboard as the whaleboat grounded and splashed through the wash, with outstretched hand, his face wearing a hearty but cynical smile.
“How do you do, Mr. Pritchard?” he cried. “Do not bother to answer. I know. You don’t do worth two squirts of bilge water.” He shook hands. “Riva on your nerves a bit?” He laughed. “Well, they always wait for us at the edge of the surf—the ‘back to nature and the simple life’ boys.” He slapped the embarrassed Dan on the shoulder. “Got a friend of yours with me.” He turned and waved toward a Kanaka sailor upon whose back was just mounting, preparatory to being carried ashore so his feet would not get wet, no less a person than—Mark Mellenger!