The White Waterfall Part 7

My chance came early that evening. A big tropical moon rose out of Asia and spread a silvery wash upon the ocean. Professor Herndon and his eldest daughter were leaning over the rail, but the moment I joined them the old man informed us that he had to see to his scientific outfit so that everything would be in readiness for the landing on the following morning, and he hurried off and left us together.

The girl did not speak for a few minutes, and I made no attempt to break the silence. Somehow I felt that her intuition had already told her that I wished to speak about the happenings of the morrow, and her opening remark proved that my surmise was correct.

"You will stay with the yacht, I suppose?" she questioned.

"I cannot say," I replied. "Captain Newmarch hasn't spoken to me about the matter. Does your father intend to go far inland?"

"Father has just told me that the actual distance is not great, but the travelling is very hard. It seems that it is only a few miles to the spot where Mr. Leith says that father can see all the sights and obtain all the specimens he desires, but those few miles will take us four days to travel. There are all kinds of obstacles in the way."

"And you are not afraid?" I stammered. "You do not dislike the idea of going?"

She lifted her head and looked me in the face, the big amber eyes shining softly in the moonlight.

"I dread it," she said quietly. "It is foolish to say so, but--"

She stopped speaking and turned her face away from me. In the little silence that followed I heard the _plop plop_ of the waves against the side of the yacht. A native chanted a Samoan love song in the fo'c'stle, but that and the soft whine of the pulleys were the only sounds that disturbed the night. We seemed such a long way from civilization at that minute, and a great pity for the girl's plight gave me sufficient courage to make a proffer of my services.

"Miss Herndon," I spluttered, "if I could do anything to help you, please tell me. I might help you if you wish. Tell me what you think is best."

"If you stay with the yacht you can do nothing," she murmured.

"Then you want me to go?" I cried. "You would like me to go with----"

"Father and Barbara and me," she said softly. "Mr. Holman is coming, and if you could come too--"

"I can!" I cried. "I will go with the party if you say so."

"But if Captain Newmarch orders you to stay with the yacht?"

"He can order away," I spluttered. "I am going where Leith is going, that is as long as Leith accompanies you and your father."

Something moved on the top of the galley as I put my resolution into words, and I sprang up quickly. The moon made every inch of the yacht as bright as day, yet I was not quick enough in my rush. A tin pan, knocked down by the eavesdropper, rolled across the deck, but the spy had fled.

"Some one was listening to us," I explained as I returned to the girl's side.

"I am sorry then that I asked you to accompany us," she murmured. "I am dragging you into our troubles, Mr. Verslun, and it is not right."

"Hush!" I cried. "Your troubles are mine just because you are a woman out on the very fringe of the earth where you can get no one else to help you bear them. You see I can claim a right in this spot. This is the jumping off place of the world down here, and an offer of a.s.sistance must not be refused."

She stood in front of me, a tall, splendid figure, the moonlight silvering the piled ma.s.ses of hair and giving one the impression that her head was surrounded by a shining halo. Suddenly she put out her hand and took mine.

"I accept your offer gladly," she said softly. "You are very, very kind, Mr. Verslun. It may be, as you say, the jumping off place of the world down here at the very outposts of civilization, but the power that protects one in the crowded cities is surely here as well. Good-night, friend."

It was an hour after the time when Miss Herndon went below that I asked the captain's permission to go along with the expedition. He plucked his scrawny beard with a nervous hand as he stood staring at me.

"What the devil do you want to go for?" he asked.

"For the fun of the thing."

"I don't know," he muttered. "I'll see Leith."

He turned away and I walked for'ard. The beauty of the night was extraordinary. The yacht seemed to be veneered with a soft luminous paint that gave us the appearance of a ghostly ship skimming over a ghostly ocean.

At the top of the fo'c'stle ladder I found a native stretched full length and sobbing mightily. He walloped his head against the planks when I endeavoured to get him upon his feet, and the sobs shook his frame.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"Toni! Toni! Toni!" he wailed. "Toni he gone. Toni, my brother, all same come from Suva, now him dead."

"I'm sorry, but it can't be helped," I said. "He should have been more careful."

The native lifted himself from the deck and glanced around fearfully.

Satisfied that there were no listeners he dried his eyes and crawled upon his knees to the spot where I was standing. "He not washed overboard," he whispered. "Soma stick one knife in him, then he tip him over. Me see him, very much afraid."

"When?" I asked.

"Night afore last," he gasped. "Captain see him do it. Very bad thing.

Toni, my brother, all same work one time Suva."

Holman joined me when I relieved the captain late in the night; I told the youngster what I knew about the disappearance of Toni.

"Who knifed him?" he asked.

"The big Kanaka who pulled Leith out of the scuppers when he fell yesterday."

"Holy smoke!" cried the boy. "I'd like to get the strength of things on board this boat. Why, that big n.i.g.g.e.r is going to be the guide of the expedition on sh.o.r.e."

"Who says so?"

"Leith pointed him out to the Professor this afternoon," answered Holman. "I was talking to the old scientist at the time."

I whistled softly. If Soma was a henchman of Leith's it was clear to me why the captain had shielded him the night he jerked the knife at me when I dropped the pin upon his woolly head, but why Toni had been put away was a mystery.

"Is it any good of attempting to convince the Professor?" I asked.

"Not a bit," snapped Holman. "The girls have been imploring him to turn back this last three days while we were stuck in the cabin, but he won't listen to them. He's a maniac, that's what he is. He doesn't know what those two women are suffering through his darned foolishness, and if he did know it wouldn't trouble him. If you want the real extract of selfishness you must make a puncture in a scientific guy with a hobby, and you can get as much as you want."

"Well, I'm going along to see what happens," I said. "If Leith refuses to accept me I'm going just the same."

Holman gripped my hand--gripped it fiercely, then he left me hurriedly.

I tramped backward and forward as _The Waif_ sailed steadily through the waves of glittering mercury. A few days before, when I was an occupant of "The Rathole" in Levuka, life seemed to be empty and cold, but a wonderful change had come in those few days. Although I had not spoken to Edith Herndon more than half a dozen times, it appeared to me that it was those few short conversations that had chased the loneliness and morbid thoughts from my mind. Her very presence stimulated me in a manner that I could not express, and as I stared out across the moon-whitened ocean I started nervously at the thought which had sprung suddenly into my brain. It was an insane thought, and I tried to laugh it away. Edith Herndon was as far above me as the moon was above the waves that were silvered by her beams. I pictured myself lying like a beachcomber upon the pile of pearl sh.e.l.l when the strange chant of the Maori and the dead Toni concerning "the way to heaven out of Black Fernando's h.e.l.l" had come to my ears, and I blessed the new influence which had come into my life.

"My way to heaven lies in this direction," I soliloquized, and the quivering yacht went bounding on as I allowed wild dreams to race unchecked through my brain.

[Ill.u.s.tration]