night."
The news came as a shock to me. Toni's last question that he had put ashe clung to the wheel with Soma had flashed through my mind severaltimes through the night. He had asked it in a manner that insinuatedthat I might be interested in the reasons why Big Jacky, his companionon the wharf at Levuka, wished the whereabouts of the white waterfall toremain a secret, and now his disappearance blocked my inquiries. I feltannoyed with myself for not listening to what the Fijian had to say atthe moment he confessed that he had lied, and then the face of thelistening Soma came up before my mental eye. Soma was a person that Iwas beginning to cordially dislike.
I turned to Newmarch and fired a question at him.
"Do you think he was helped overboard?"
"Why, no," he said slowly. "Why do you think that?"
"Oh, nothing," I replied. "I thought his narrow escape of the morningwould have made him careful."
It was a few hours after this conversation that I had my first chanceof speaking to Edith Herndon since the moment we had run into thedisturbance. The girl poked her head out of the companionway, and Ihastened to assist her out on deck. It was her first sight of the damagewhich the storm had done to the yacht, and she gave a cry of alarm asshe looked at the splintered spars and the cordage that cracked in thewind like the whips of invisible devils.
"Oh, Mr. Verslun, we are a wreck!" she cried.
"Not quite," I said, gripping her arm to steady her as _The Waif_ tooka header. "We've weathered the worst of it and we're still sound. Thestorm centre has slipped away to the north, and we can count ourselvesout of the ruction for the present."
Her shapely hand clutched my wet oilskins as the yacht plunged from theback of an enormous swell, and I was so busy noting the beauty of thehand that I had no eye for the sallow face that peeped from thecompanion. Leith's bass voice rose above the noise of the waves, andthere was an angry note in it.
"This isn't a nice place for you, Miss Edith!" he cried.
The girl half turned her head, looked at him for a second, then withoutany intimation that she had heard what he said, she turned again towardme and started to cross-examine me upon the amount of damage we hadsustained. I thought that the white, shapely hand tightened its gripupon my wet sleeve at the moment Leith's bass voice came booming to ourears, and I blessed the big brute's interference for the thrill which Iderived from the pressure of her fingers upon the greasy coat.
But Leith was not to be denied. The cold stare, instead of driving himback into the cabin, only roused his temper. Very cautiously he climbedalong the heaving deck to the point where we were standing, and,clutching a rope, he swayed backward and forward immediately behind us.
"Miss Edith!" he called.
The girl turned her head sharply. "Well?" she cried.
"This isn't a proper place for you!" roared Leith. "One of those seas isliable to come aboard at any moment, and you might be washed away beforeany one could assist you."
Edith Herndon's lips showed the slightest trace of a smile. "You hadbetter be careful too, Mr. Leith," she retorted. "Mr. Verslun is holdingon to me in case one of those old gray rollers should make a suddenleap, but you have no one to hold on to you."
A frown passed over Leith's face like a cloud shadow across a yellowplain. He slackened his grip on the rope and lurched toward us.
"You must go below at once!" he screamed, addressing the girl. "Yourfather is too ill to look after you at this moment, so the duty is mine.There is danger here, and I order you below!"
He touched her shoulder with his big fingers that resembled talons, butthe girl made a quick side movement and slipped from his grip.
"Do not touch me!" she cried fiercely. "How dare you put your hand onme!"
But Leith's temper was up at that moment, and he was angry enough foranything. He made a spring for the girl's hand, and I thrust my shoulderforward to bump him off. _The Waif_ nearly stood on her end at thatinstant, and her acrobatic feat combined with the push flung Leith offhis feet and sent him rolling ludicrously along the deck.
Miss Herndon gave a little cry of alarm and sprang for thecompanion-stairs, down which she disappeared without taking a glance atthe brute on the wet planks. Leith picked himself up, gripped a loosebackstay with his left hand and swung himself toward me, striking outviciously with his free right hand when he came within hitting distance.
The blow landed on my shoulder, and I returned the compliment with anuppercut that jerked him from his swing rope and sent him stumblingbackward against the rail. The fall stunned him for a few moments and herolled about in the wash; then Soma, the Kanaka who jerked the knife atme, rushed from the galley door and dragged him to his feet. The nativesteered him to the companionway, where he stood for a moment glaring atme as if undecided whether to continue the fight or beat a retreat, butthe wild plunging of the yacht convinced him that the spot was not onewhere he figured to advantage, so he stumbled below.
I looked around and saw Holman clinging to the rigging, his boyish facewearing an expression of extreme pleasure.
"You're getting wise," he cried, as he scrambled toward me; "but don'tthink you've walloped him. He'll come back at you when he has a betteropportunity of beating you up."
CHAPTER V
I MAKE A PROMISE
The morning following the unpleasant incident with Leith broke clear andsunny. The Pacific, as if tired after its mad pranks of the precedingthree days, was a shimmering stretch of placid blue water, and theshattered spars and loose cordage of _The Waif_ were the only remindersof the terrific storm that had swept us before it.
Captain Newmarch set all hands at work to repair the damage, and beforemidday we were bowling along under as much canvas as we could spread.The storm being directly from the southwest had not carried us from ourcourse, and Newmarch chuckled when he had taken an observation.
"We'll strike it in the morning," he growled.
"What? Penrose Island?" I asked.
"No, the Isle of Tears," he answered sharply.
"The Isle of Tears?" I repeated.
"That's what I said," he remarked sourly. "And now you know as much as Iknow. It was kept a little secret by the orders of my employers, but weare so close to the spot now that I don't think it will matter if I letthe cat out of the bag."
"And is it there that the Professor will conduct his search?" I asked.
"You had better ask that question of Professor Herndon," he replied. "Iknow nothing about what they'll do ashore."
He left the poop before I had time to put another question to him, andas I walked up and down I turned over in my mind the tiny morsel ofinformation I had received. The captain's secrecy was peculiar, to saythe least, and as I reasoned that Professor Herndon knew absolutelynothing of the Islands, it was quite evident that the orders prohibitingNewmarch from making known the exact destination of the yacht had comefrom Leith. It was not the first time I had heard of the Isle of Tears.Strange stories floated across the Pacific concerning the little isleteast of the Suvaroff Group, and out of the reticule of the mind Iattempted to drag these stories and piece them together during theminutes that passed after Newmarch had given me the information. Theywere not pleasant stories as I remembered them at that moment. Theisland had a "past." The mention of it brought hazy recollections tonatives--recollections that were too misty to put into words, but whichthe untutored mind connected with happenings that were anything butpleasant. And I recalled a night at "Tonga Pete's" place on the Rue deRivoli at Papeete, when a sailor from a copra schooner in the bay, whohad been marooned upon the island by Captain "Bully" Hayes, told a wild,weird story of unexplainable happenings that he had witnessed during thetwo days and two nights he had spent ashore.
Holman came hurrying upon deck as I was endeavouring to remember all thestory that the sailor had told, and the youngster immediately rushed mewith the news.
"The captain has just told me," I said.
"Well, Leith has just given the information out in the cabin," he cried."They must have decid
ed to give it out at the same moment."
"But the Professor?" I asked. "Surely he knew. Do you mean to say thathe was ignorant of the fact that it was the Isle of Tears and notPenrose Island that we were making for?"
Holman laughed at my question. "You haven't spoken much to him, Verslun.He couldn't remember the name of a place three minutes. He only knowsthat there are archaeological treasures on this island we are going to,and he doesn't care two cents about its name. Leith has told him sometall stories about the camp, judging by the way the old man's eyes shinewhen he mentions it. Yesterday he read me Leith's description of stone_hamungas_ and things that are
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