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.
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