The White Waterfall

spected slave carrier was always sent aboard to make an examination. It was his business to sniff at the air in the hold in an endeavour to distinguish the "

ll exactly where it was, but I knew that Dame Trouble was aboard the craft. It's a sort of sixth sense with a sailorman to be able to detect a stormy atmosphere, and I felt that the yacht wasn't the place t

ation with him was as tough a job as one could lay hold of. Sometimes a word came to the tip of his tongue, felt the atmosphere, as you might say, then slid back into his throat with a

omic papers show in the make-up of science professors, with a little bit extra for good luck. He was sixty inches of nerves, wrinkles, and whisk

rofessor and I took to be an introduct

ng while in the Isl

I care to say

d the spot we are ma

answered. "I was helping a German scientist

stuff, and before I could do a conversational backstep he had pushed me against the side of the galley and was deluging me with questions, the answers to which he entered in shorthand in a note

e world, and my tongue refused to mould my words. The girl was tall, of graceful build, and possessed of a quiet beauty that had a most peculiar effect upon me. Only that afternoon, as I lay in the shadow of the pile of pearl shell on Levuka wharf, I had thought of crossing to Auckland and shipping up to 'Frisco so that I could hear good women laugh and talk as I had heard

t out my big hand to take her little one I thought I'd fall down on the

ood before the girl in the cream serge suit. My drill outfit, that I had thought rather clean when I brushed the shell grit from it after my sleep on the wharf, looked as black as the devil's tail when she appeared. My hands appeared to be

er. Not that good women are lacking in the Islands, but because they were on a different plane to me. I had been belting native crews on trading

Waif had cleared Sydney Heads, and the time she spent in that recital was as precious to me as the two-minute interval between rounds is to a prize-fighter who

time that you must have many interesting things to relate. Captain Newmarch will not talk, and

r. Leith?

. "He has lived down here for many years, but he will not tel

d. "Then-then there i

ried the girl. "I think

e a girl who made me think, as I compared her to Miss Edith, of a beautiful yacht alongside a stately liner. Barbara Herndon was sunshine personified. Laughter went with her wherever

lman was just telling me about you. He said that you repeated a cha

estful that a glance at it was better than an opiate for a man whose nerves were all out of tune. She had that kind of repose that you see sometimes on the face of an Oriental statue, the repose that comes to women who have met great trials or for whom great trials are waiting. B

r at that moment. She returned to the fool story that

nyan on the wharf when Mr. Holman found

y asked Mr. Holman a question to see if h

quizzed. "I'm sure he looks a

k pity upon me at last and endeavou

Verslun will think you are very inquisitive

asked Mr. Holman a question in an endeavour to fin

ion of mystery at last! Oh, Mr. Verslun, you are a perfect treasure! It has been a nasty, dull, old trip fro

dent on the wharf just for her benefit. Miss Edith was interested too, but I was convinced, as I polished up the points of the little tale and e

of his friend, and how the Maori had sent the farewell chant after the boat. "She

t the wish I expressed at that moment should come tru

heir song about the white waterfall and

hen I attempted to cross-examine him, and Toni

he cried. "There he is near th

oni denied the charge more vehemently than he did on the boat. He asserted in reply to Barbara Herndon's questions, that he could not sing a note, that he was absolutely i

"but if Toni persists in saying that he knows nothing of t

a head came round the corner of the galley, and a voice th

the white

stigating a mystery. Mr. Verslun discovered it this afternoo

rowled the own

ner," said Miss Barbara. "He knows a lot about the Is

the unexplainable surge of hate. I understood the emotion that had gripped that unfortunate as I stood face to face with Leith. A feeling of revulsion gripped me, and I experienced a peculiar squalmy sensation as I took his hand. It was unexplainable. Perhaps some ancestor of mine had unsatisfactory dealings with a man of the same unusual type in a faraway past, and the transmitted hate had suddenly

oked, as if waiting, like the tentacles of an octopus, for something to get in their grip. The body was heavy, and, in a manner that I cannot explain, it made me think of animals that lived and die

m that reminded me of the icicle eyes of the crocodile, and, curiously, I associated that reptile's notions of fair warfare with Leith as I looked at him. That sullen face, with the eyes t

aterfall?" he repeated, after the c

happened to Mr. Verslun

" asked

the structure as I spoke. "It's really nothing important th

owled, turning to

He asserts that he was in the boat when the incident happened an

straightened as he looked me in the eyes. "C

y only a small happening that I am afraid I expanded a little in an endea

re facts?"

overed them with fiction, and I think Miss

line of the affair to satisfy his curiosity, and I felt elated at no

aking, then a Tahitian boy broke the awkward silence by informing me that the captain wis