The count had hardly cleared the gangway before the “Sitka’s” boat rounded to under the schooner’s stern and shot alongside.
“If Captain Scott has sold out to his countrymen,” the count exclaimed to himself, “he will find it difficult to deliver the goods.”
At the dock he alighted. The rescued man was supported up to the hotel between two sailors.
Dry clothes were provided him and from his medicine chest the count administered a sleeping draught. Once snugly wrapped in blankets in one of the rooms of the count’s suite, and a native boy sleeping across the only exit, the count felt sure that the stranger would be on hand in the morning to explain the mystery of why a white man was swimming from the “Talofa” toward the “Sitka,” his face bruised and himself half exhausted. It would be worth all the trouble he had taken to know.
The count yawned. It was nearly midnight, and in the tropics one must be an early riser, for the heat of the morning sun does not conduce to refreshing sleep. He dismissed the sailors who had aided him. Then he shut his door and threw himself down on his couch to think.
After several minutes, he rose and penned two notes. Sealing them, he called one of the attendant natives.
“Take this one at once,” he directed; “the other,” he added to himself, “can wait until early to-morrow morning.”
The native bowed and disappeared upon his errand.
CHAPTER VI
THE “TALOFA’S” CARGO
Phil, upon his return to the “Sitka,” recounted to his captain everything that had occurred during his visit to the suspected schooner.