"Oh," said the captain, with a sudden movement towards the new arrivals, "I see Mrs. Percival has come on deck. Come over and be introduced." We walked over, and I received a formal bow from a handsome, pale woman, who had evidently been sojourning in the East. There is a certain similarity in all "Indian women," as they are generally called, which extends even to manner and expression. Long residence in a hot climate robs them of their roses, while the habit of command, resulting from association with an inferior race, gives them a tinge of hauteur—not to say unconscious insolence of manner—which is scarcely agreeable to those who, from circumstances, they may deem to be socially inferior.
So it was that Miranda, in spite of Miss Vavasour's nods and signals, received but the faintest recognition, and retreated to her chair somewhat chilled by her reception. She, however, took no apparent notice of the slight, and was soon absorbed in conversation with Miss Vavasour, her brother, and Mrs. Craven, who had moved up her chair to join the party. The colonel deserted his former friends to devote himself to his family duties, while the captain and I walked forward and commenced a discussion which had, at any rate, a strong personal interest for me.
"Now look here, Hilary," said he, as he lighted a fresh cigar. He had been smoking on the quarter-deck under protest, as it were, and thus commenced: "Listen to me, my boy! I've been thinking seriously about you and Miranda. Your start in life when you get to Sydney is important. I think I can give you a bit of advice worth following. You understand all the dialects between here and the Line Islands, don't you?"
"More than eight," I answered; "I can talk with nearly every islander from here to the Gilberts. I have learned so much, at any rate, in my wanderings."
"And a very good thing, too, for it's not a thing that can be picked up in a year, no matter how a man may work, and he's useless or nearly so without it; you can keep accounts, write well, and all that?"
I replied that I had a number of peculiar accounts to keep as supercargo to the Leonora, as well as all Hayston's business letters to write; that my office books were always considered neat, complete, and well kept. Then he suddenly said, "You are the very man we want!"
"Who are we, and what is the man wanted for?" I asked.
"For the South Sea Island trade, and no other," said Captain Carryall, putting his hand on my shoulder. "Old Paul Frankston (you've heard of him) and I have laid it out to establish a regular mercantile house in Sydney for the development of the island trade. The old man will back us, and the name of Paul Frankston is good from New Zealand to the North Pole and back again. I will do the whaling, cruising, and cargo business—cocoa-nut oil, copra, and curios—while you will live in one of those nice white houses at North Shore, somewhere about Neutral Bay, where you can see the ships come through the Heads; Miranda can have a skiff, and you a ten-tonner, so as not to forget your boating and your sea-legs. What do you think of that, eh?"
"It is a splendid idea!" I cried, "and poor Miranda will be within sound of the sea. If she were not, she would pine away like her own araucarias which will not live outside of the wave music. But how about the cash part of it? I haven't much. Most of my savings went down in the Leonora."
"Oh, we'll manage that somehow! Old Paul will work that part of the arrangement. I daresay your father will advance what will make your share equal, or nearly so, to ours."