“Probably it isn’t Captain Scott’s ‘Talofa,’” he added deprecatingly. “It was too far away to see anything but the tops of her sails.”
Commander Tazewell listened earnestly.
“‘Bully’ Scott is usually on hand where there is a chance for his nefarious trade in guns,” he replied. “Miss Alice Lee may have no real grounds for her belief that it is the ‘Talofa,’ but that young girl is more than usually clever for one of her age, and her father tells me she is worshiped by the native women, to whom she is a veritable administering angel. Tuamana’s daughter, Avao, is her particular friend. You know,” he added, “in Kapua, the women are the tale bearers; no bit of interesting news escapes them.”
CHAPTER IV
CAPTAIN “BULLY” SCOTT AND HIS MATE
Captain “Bully” Scott sat comfortably on the combing of the after deck house and gazed toward the high mountain ranges of the islands of Kapua. The land had been in sight all day, but the fitful breeze was hardly enough to hold the “Talofa’s” great expanse of canvas out taut against the sheets. Yet even the light breeze drove the schooner faster than the captain wished to travel.
“Bring her up another point,” he directed, in a well modulated, almost cultivated voice.
The helmsman, a Fiji Islander, a strapping bronze skinned native, naked except for the loin cloth of tapa, eased down his helm until the great sails flapped idly.
“Mr. Stump,” the captain called down the hatch.
A middle-sized, wizened man stuck his head up above the deck in answer.
“Mr. Stump, I’ll thank you to invite our passengers down to their staterooms and put the hatch cover on and lock it,” Captain Scott said politely. “It’ll be dark in another half hour, and then we’ll ‘bear up’ and run in to close with the land.”