Hillary was not wrong in his hasty summing up of that big man’s character. Ulysses had a large heart notwithstanding his own strange confessions of far-off isles, discarded queens and melancholy kings.
“Blow me soul, by the heart of God, you’ve got it bad; it’s in love you are,” said he, as he laid his huge hand across his waistcoat, over his vagabond heart. Then, continuing he said: “So this Rajah Macka’s boss of a plantation and owns a ship?”
“That’s so,” ejaculated the apprentice.
Ulysses immediately took from the folds of his red shirt a large parchment-like scroll, presumably his mysterious chart, and then opening it out at a spare page wrote down: “A b—— heathen Kanaka missionary owns a ship, got plantations, and most probably in possession of money too through being a black-birder, and it is now herein written down, stated and agreed, between Samuel Bilbao and myself, that all the aforesaid cash and goods are due to the aforesaid Samuel Bilbao, by God;” And as the giant sailorman wrote on, he accompanied each word with a musical chuckle.
Hillary gazed at the man in incredulous wonder; but still, odd as it may seem, he began to feel a vast confidence in Ulysses’ ability for doing anything that he set out to do. “Heavens, who ever saw such a human phenomenon off the stage?” was his reflection as he realised that the original being before him was certainly a master of his own actions. The apprentice instinctively saw that his new-found friend was invaluable as a leader in a forlorn hope, whereas a practical man who carefully weighed all possibilities to a nicety would be a “dead horse” and a bugbear to boot.
“What kind of a maid is this glorious girl of yours?” said Samuel Bilbao after a pause.
“Why, she’s as white a girl as ever lived; only the vilely suspicious would think ill of her. I’ve never met a girl like her before!”
“Ho! Ho!” roared the sailor, who had been mightily in love on more than one occasion. Then, looking straight into the apprentice’s face, he said in a hushed, sympathetic voice: “That all ye got to say for the poor girl?” Seeing how the wind blew, he at once became sympathetic. He too had loved and sorrowed, he said; and then he spoke soothingly and, patting the apprentice on the shoulder, said with tremendous solemnity: “How sad! Tell me everything, lad.”
Hillary, who had imbibed rather liberally, became emotional, and after going into many details about Gabrielle and her disappearance suddenly blurted out: “She’s a strange kind of girl too; she says she’s haunted by a shadow thing, a woman, I think, some sort of a ghost.”
Just for a moment Bilboa renewed his intense scrutiny of the apprentice’s face, then roared: “By God! Abducted by a Rajah, whipped off to a tambu temple to be sacrificed at the altar of one by name Macka Koo Raja—and she’s haunted!” The big man roared the foregoing so loudly that Hillary thought he would awaken the whole township! But still the sailorman yelled on: “God damn it, youngster, I’ve cuddled queens and princesses on a hundred heathen isles, but never has such a strange story come out of my wooing.” Then he added swiftly: “Cheer up! I’ve had numerous abduction jobs both for and against: kings and queens have paid me in pearl and gold for such things, and never yet did I fail in finding a pretty maid’s hiding-place or the weakness in a queen’s virtue! I tell ye this—your Rajah Macka’s done for! I’m his man.” Saying this, he gave Hillary a quizzical look and continued: “You’re sure the girl’s not stealing a march on ye? She didn’t run off on the abduction night in front of the Rajah, eh?” Before Hillary could give his emphatic assurance in reply to this query the sailorman gave a huge grin and said: “What’s the dear old pa think of it all? Worried much? Got cash?” Whereupon Hillary at once told Bilbao how old Everard had promised to give anything up to a thousand pounds to anyone who would go to New Guinea in search of the girl.