And then, as the chief leaned on his war-club, swelling his massive chest and bowing graciously, Hillary intimated that he must depart at once.
Indeed the apprentice was getting impatient. “It’s no good hanging about here; this won’t find Gabrielle,” he thought, as he cursed the old skulls and the atmosphere of gloom that Ingrova’s gruesome exhibition had cast over him. “Why should I be made melancholy through Ingrova’s dead relatives? I don’t bring out the bones of my dead aunts and old uncles to make men miserable.” Such was his inward comment as he left the chief and hurried away. Thoughts of Gabrielle’s strange disappearance returned to him with redoubled force. He recalled how she had touched his hand for the first time. And as Hillary passed along by the forest banyans and saw the deep indigo of the far distant ocean, he stared on the rose-pearl flush of the sea horizon. “What a fool I was! I could have easily persuaded her to bolt that night on the derelict,” he thought, as he once more started on his way back to Everard’s.
In due course he arrived back at Everard’s bungalow. The old man was terribly upset when Hillary told him that he had heard nothing about his daughter’s whereabouts. He trembled violently as he looked up at Hillary and said: “I’ve been up to Parsons’s shanty: no one has seen Gabby, or heard of her. What can it all mean?”
Hillary made no reply. He did his best to cheer the old sailorman up. His unbounded faith in Gabrielle had returned. He recalled her innocent manner when she had offered him the little flower out of her hair when he had first met her on the lagoon. “No girl who gave a flower like that could do wrong,” he thought. Not only would he not entertain the idea that a dark Papuan man could have influence over Gabrielle, but he also persuaded the father to make no inquiries about the Rajah.
“What proof have you got that the Rajah is the kind of man who would take advantage of any woman?” he inquired of Everard. Possibly he was influenced to make these remarks by a kind of Dutch courage. He imagined that there was far less chance of Everard’s suspicions being true if he himself blinded his own eyes to the possibilities of what a dark man might persuade a white girl to do. Over and over again he had recalled to memory Gabrielle’s eyes as she had gazed into his own on the derelict ship. “No! Impossible!” thought he. “I’ve got boundless faith in Gabrielle; I feel certain she’s only gone up to K——. She’s probably stopping with the German missionary’s wife and will be back to-morrow.”
“Why the blazing h—— didn’t you go there to K—— and see?” said the old sailor in a petulant voice, as he suddenly looked apologetically at the apprentice. He had gripped Hillary’s hand gratefully in the thought that a strange youth should have such unbounded faith in his daughter.
“I’ve only just thought of Gabrielle’s friendship with the missionary’s wife at K——,” said Hillary.
Then Everard suddenly remembered that he had already sent a native servant up to K—— to inquire.
All that night the old ex-sailor sat huddled in his arm-chair, crying softly to himself. He swore that he’d never drink again or hurt a hair of the girl’s head if she returned safely home.
Hillary slept little. Once he walked into Gabrielle’s bedroom, gazed on her tiny trestle bed and thought of all she had said to him. Then he was obliged to go out of doors and walk up and down under the palms in an attempt to stifle his grief. In the morning he helped Everard to get the breakfast. The old man spoke kindly to him and repeatedly muttered to himself about his foolishness in thinking the youth was such a villain because he happened to be stranded in Bougainville and hadn’t a cent to bless himself with.