Phil read the letter, while his indignation increased at every line of the carefully worded explanation. He was on the point of condemning the entire crowd of schemers when his glance fell upon the eager face of the captain’s orderly, Schultz.
“Well!” Commander Tazewell exclaimed. “They’ve had the last word. There’s no getting behind that letter.”
He turned to Lieutenant Morrison, standing expectantly waiting to hear what would be the next move. “You may secure the boats for the night,” he said.
CHAPTER VII
THE KAPUAN FIRM
Carl Klinger had been sitting in his office at the Kapuan firm’s store when a loud knocking aroused him from his reveries. He rose quickly to open the door.
“What do you want?” he inquired roughly in Kapuan as he threw open the door. A native, much out of breath from running, confronted him. Klinger saw it was one of the pilot’s boat-crew from the pilot station on Matautu Point at the entrance to the harbor.
“The ‘Talofa’ coming in through the entrance,” the man replied. “Captain Svenson send me to tell you quick.”
“How do you know it’s the ‘Talofa’?” Klinger asked incredulously. He could not believe that Captain Scott would be so foolhardy as to enter Ukula harbor with his cargo. Twenty Solomon Island natives to work on the plantations, actually kidnapped from their homes, beside several thousand Snyder rifles with millions of rounds of ammunition constituted the greatest part of the “Talofa’s” cargo. Had “Bully” Scott gone mad?
“No other but Captain Scott could find the entrance to the harbor on a night like this,” the man replied positively. Klinger noted the utter blackness of the night. He was enough of a sailorman himself to understand the dangers attending the navigation of a vessel so large as the “Talofa.” Even the pilots preferred to wait until daylight before bringing a vessel through the treacherous coral reefs.
“Wait,” he ordered. Then returning to his desk he wrote several pages of a letter, sealed and addressed it, then gave it to the native messenger.