“Mel!” Dan’s cry of welcome sounded suspiciously like a sob. “Mel, my dear old friend! Lord, man, what a joy to see you again!” And he folded Mellenger to his heart and was silent for a minute, fighting his emotions.
“It’s Thursday night, old son,” said Mellenger calmly, “so I thought I’d drop around for dinner—as usual. Is Sooey Wan still dishing up the grub in your Lares and Penates?” He cuffed Dan affectionately on the ear. “I’m sort of halfway glad to see you again, Dan.”
They walked up the beach to the Muggridge residence. Captain Hackett paused beside the veranda and looked the house over critically. “Where is the sky pilot?” he queried.
“He’s dead, Captain. His wife died shortly before you were here last. Before that he had been a little bit obsessed by Tamea and after his wife’s death he rather went on the loose among the natives. I imagine he was about half cracked——”
“Half?” Hackett sneered, “All. He was half cracked when he came here, otherwise he would not have come. His wife was the last tie that bound him to his self-respect, and when she died, doubtless it commenced to dawn on him that she had been a martyr to a cause not particularly worth while. The heat and the loneliness killed her. I could see it coming.”
“I dare say you are right, Captain. She was, as you say, the last tie that bound him to his self-respect. Here, where there was no law save his, after Gaston left and before I came, there was no longer any incentive to remain a white man, and he started to degenerate. Religion was not sufficient to sustain him. He had an uphill job here, at best, and there was nothing to read except the Bible and he had known that by heart for twenty years. I wouldn’t talk to him and neither would Tamea.”
“Why?”
“Because he was half crazy. When he wasn’t striving to convert Tamea he was reviling her for an abandoned woman. Of course I had to put a stop to that, and when I did he reviled me. Finally I warned him to stay off the hill. But he wouldn’t. He came prowling up there one night and set fire to our house. Sooey Wan caught him and we put out the fire before any damage had been done. A week later I heard shooting outside our veranda—three rifle shots and six pistol shots. Muggridge owned the only rifle on the island and Sooey Wan owned the only pistol—and he slept on the veranda.
“In the morning Muggridge was gone, there were three bullet holes through our house and Sooey Wan was cleaning his .45 with kerosene. He said nothing and I asked no questions. I did not care to know.”
“Comfortable old Chink, that, to have around one’s house,” Hackett remarked dryly. “Well, I have a year’s supply of grub and trade goods for the mission, so I suppose I might as well dump it here to await the arrival of the successor to the mad Muggridge. It’s all paid for.”