“What the blazes!” gasped Hillary, as he looked over his shoulder and saw that massive personality step out from underneath the forest palms. The strange being wore an antediluvian topee and an extraordinary, old-fashioned, long-tailed coat. The atmosphere of another age hung about him. A colt revolver stuck in his leather belt seemed to have some strong link of kinship with the grim determination of its owner’s mouth.
“What-o, chum! How’s the gal?” Saying this, the new-comer put forth his huge, thorny palm and emphasised his monstrous presence by bringing it down smash!—nearly fracturing Hillary’s spine.
“What-o, friend from the great unknown!” came like an obsequious echo from the young apprentice’s lips as, recovering his breath, he saw the humour of the situation. Hillary well knew that it was wise to return such Solomon Island civility as affably as possible. At that first onslaught Gabrielle had jumped behind Hillary’s back when he had sprung to his feet. No one knows how long that new-comer had stood hidden behind the palm stems before he came forth. Anyhow, he rubbed his big hands together in a mighty good temper, chuckling to himself to think his presence should be so little desired. He bowed to the girl with massive, Homeric gallantry. Then, as they both stared with open-mouthed wonder, he put his hand up and, twisting his enormous moustache-end on the starboard side, courteously inquired the route for the equivalent of the South Sea halls of Olympus. It was then, and with the most consummate impertinence imaginable, that he gave them both the full view of his Herculean back and put forth his mighty feet to go once more on his way, bound for the wooden halls of Bacchus—the nearest grog shanty.
Such a being as that intruder on Gabrielle’s and Hillary’s privacy might well seem to exist in the imagination only, but he was real enough. That remarkable individual was only one of many of his kind who, having left their ship on some drunken spree, roamed the islands, seeking the nearest grog shanty, after some drunken carousal in the inland tribal villages.
As that massive figure passed away he left his breath, so to speak, behind him. It seemed to pervade all things, sending a pungent flavour of adventure over forest, hill and lagoon. Indeed, the faery-like creation into which Hillary’s imagination had so beautifully transmuted Gabrielle—vanished. “Well, I’m jiggered!” he muttered. As for Gabrielle, she looked as though she was half sorry to see that handsome personality go. His big, grey eyes had gazed at her with an unmistakable, yet not rude, look of admiration. Indeed, before he strode away he gazed at Hillary as though with a mighty concern, as though he would not hesitate to redress wrongs done to fair maids who had been lured into a South Sea forest by such as he.
“Do you know him?” gasped the apprentice as the man went off; but the astonished look in the girl’s eyes at once convinced him that the late visitor was a stranger to Gabrielle as well as to himself. It all happened so suddenly that he wondered if he had dreamed of that remarkable presence. But the frightened cockatoos still giving their ghostly “Cah! Cah!” over the palms were real enough. And as they both listened they could still hear the fading crash of the travelling feet that accompanied some rollicking song, as the big sea-boots of that extraordinary being beat down the scrubby forest growth as they travelled due south-west.
Gabrielle little dreamed as she stood there listening how one day she would hear that intruder’s big voice again, and with what welcome music it would ring in her ears.
Gabrielle laughed quietly to herself as the intruder passed away and seemingly left a mighty silence behind him. She had seen many men of his type in her short day, not only in Rokeville, but out on the ships that anchored in the harbour. She had also seen stranded sailors at Gualdacanar, at Ysabel and at Malaita, where her father had taken her on a trip a year or so before. Such men stood out of the ruck, quite distinct from the ordinary run of beachcombers, who were usually stranded scallawags, seeking out the tenderfoots who would stand them drinks in the nearest grog bar. Hillary saw that new-comer as some mighty novelty in the way of man; to the young apprentice the late intruder was something between a Ulysses and a Don Quixote. And Hillary’s conception of the man’s character was not far wrong. Anyway, he did not express his private opinion, for he looked up at Gabrielle and said: “Good Lord, what an awful being. Glad to see the back of him!”
It may have been that the late stranger’s presence had turned Hillary’s thoughts to his sailor life, for that massive being positively smelt of the high seas, of tornadoes and sea-board life on buffeting voyages to distant lands. Looking up at Gabrielle, he suddenly said: “I’m going aboard the schooner that is due to leave for Apia next week. I’m on the look-out for a berth. I suppose I sha’n’t see you any more if I get a job?”
Everard’s daughter gazed at the apprentice for a moment as though she did not quite know her own mind concerning his query. Then she sighed and said: “Must you go away to sea again?”