An hour passed. Then Stump grew restless. Taking off his shoes he tiptoed down the companion ladder to the cabin. All there was in darkness. He listened. He could hear the captain’s regular breathing. He was asleep. Turning to steal back his foot encountered an obstruction, and he fell heavily on the deck.
“Is that you, Stump?” Captain Scott asked, suddenly awaking. “Is it ten already?”
“’Tain’t much past two bells,” Stump hastened to answer. “Wind’s hauling to northward. I was a-going to tell you if you were awake.”
The captain grunted. Stump waited in silence. No answer. The captain was again asleep. Stump moved, this time more cautiously, up the hatch.
The night was dark. The sky, brilliant with stars, accentuated the shrouded deep. Undefined shadowy shapes above the southern horizon Stump knew to be the high mountain range of the islands of Ukula.
Within an hour’s time lights made their appearance. As time wore on more and more lights sprang up from the sea. Stump, despite the fear of his master’s vengeance, smiled grimly. These lights were in the town of Ukula and on board the anchored war-ships. The “Talofa” was being drawn as by a loadstone to its deserved retribution.
The lights came nearer. Stump glanced anxiously at the clock inside the companion hatch. The hands pointed to quarter past nine o’clock. Now he thought he could hear the thunder of the surf beating upon the reef.
Mata seemed wrapped in characteristic native reserve. If he saw the lights ahead, he considered them not his concern.
“Fishing on the reef at Saluafata,” Stump said finally to relieve the tension on his own nerves.
Mata gazed fixedly at the lights for nearly a minute.