A Flattering Send-off—The Ghost of the Sea Swallow—The Ghost as Passenger—The True Romance—Arrival at the Fiji Isles—Great-hearted Sailormen

REFERRING to my diary notes, I see that the Sea Swallow was due to sail on the 6th September, but did not sail till the 7th. This gave me one day more in Nuka Hiva. I remember how delighted Grimes was to see me appear in the shanty the morning after I was supposed to have sailed. We spent the day visiting old friends, including Lydia, and did our best to cheer her up. She kept wailing out: “Benbows kills me when ’e comes ’ome from sea and find I send Wayee into forest in temper-fit.”

“Don’t you worry, she’ll come back soon,” said I soothingly, though I must admit that I had my misgivings, which proved only too true.

I went alone to see Father O’Leary. The old priest took my hand and blessed me, wishing me all kinds of luck, and I felt quite affected by his fatherly manner. Next day the Sea Swallow sailed. I had a mind to persuade Grimes to stow away when he bade me good-bye. His big, scrubby face looked very serious as he said: “You’re a-coming back with the boat, I s’pose?”

“Yes, Grimes, you’ll see me again, don’t you fret,” I replied.

The impecunious beach fraternity gave me a hearty send-off. Uncle Sam, the Dude, the jockey, O’Hara, the jovial Scot and the rest came down to the beach as the anchor went up and gave me one final “Hurrah!”

Though I’d been elevated to the Marquesan peerage more than once, and crowned with heathen honours, I felt mighty proud as those wild-looking white men waved their wide-brimmed sombreros and cheered and cheered. I felt that I had accomplished something in my life, something creditable, and almost unhoped for in my schoolboy dreams.

I had played their old songs on my violin; recited The Prisoner of Chillon; written love letters to relatives and far-away wives, Penelopes, faithless damsels and longing daughters, and, notwithstanding their fascinating persuasions, had only become slightly, jovially, inebriated twice, and by so doing had earned their undying respect. Ah me! I well knew that my mother, my sisters and old austere Aunt M—— would have swooned away at the very thought of my mixing with such terrible men. But what knew they of the great world, of adventure and all that appealed to the heart of sanguine youth?

But to return to the voyage of the Sea Swallow. I stood on deck and watched the forests dwindle, as the shores of Nuka Hiva receded, and we cut away out into the Pacific. While the skipper swore, the mountain peaks became lower and lower, till they looked like big jewels sparkling on the horizon astern, twinkling softly in the light of the setting sun.

The Sea Swallow was a tramp steamer, carrying sail to steady her, for she rolled like a ball on a rough sea.

I never met a more jovial skipper than Captain C——. He had his drawbacks, but could swear well, and thought he was something of a genius on the violin. When he was half-seas-over he could play—a jig.

I think he managed to snap twenty strings one night as he tried to imitate my playing of Paganini’s Carnaval de Venise.

The weather was gloriously beautiful the first two days out. I remember I was having a cup of coffee with the fierce old cook in the galley when the hurricane struck us. It swooped down, as is usual in those parts, without the slightest warning, blowing great guns ere nightfall, and by eight bells we were shipping thundering seas. There was something in that infinite expanse of raging, mountainous waters that appealed to me. I stood on deck watching the great foaming crests rise and roll away. The stars were out, marshalled in their millions across those infinite frontiers—and as we pitched along, the ship slewing first to leeward, and then over to windward, with the heave of those mighty hills of ocean, those regiments of starry constellations shifted, right about turn, to the pendulous sway of the masts’ tips.

Rolling along, the wild poetry of that ramping, shouting, glorious, frantic Pacific entered my soul and sent my thoughts back through the past. It almost seemed as though I had imagined that far-away isle, the grog shanty and all my recent experiences. I thought of Waylao. Where was she? Had she returned home, or had she followed the fate of the derelict girl from Noumea? Little did I dream, as we beat across the storm-beaten Pacific, that down below in the depths of the hold beneath my feet wept a stowaway—a figure huddled up, hidden amongst the bales of cargo, moaning in the pangs of fright and misery, imprisoned and starving in that iron coffin, nailed in, dead, yet alive—and that this trembling, dying stowaway was Benbow’s daughter, Waylao. Yes, unknown to me, as that tramp dived her nose into those raging gulfs, Waylao shrieked for death to come to release her from her misery, just below deck, under my feet.

She had stowed away about half-an-hour before we left Tai-o-hae. How she had managed to creep on board without being observed was a mystery. Still I know by experience that it is possible, for Grimes and I had done it more than once ourselves.

Waylao told me after how she had crept aboard and slipped down the fore-peak hatchway, and her terrible despair as she heard the sailors cry, “Let go!” and crash!—down went the hatchway. As she stared up from that dark depth she saw the last gleam of the blue tropic day vanish, and knew she was a prisoner.

Hidden in that inky darkness, she had heard the throb of the engines, and, reaching the open sea, had become fearfully sick, from the roll of the steamer and the stifling air of that hold. The rats in hungry droves came out and attacked her as she crouched on the bales of merchandise, In her despair she had shrieked; but not a sound had reached the sailors on deck. She felt the roll of the hurricane-lashed ocean, had heard the crew singing their wild chanteys in the tempest.

Striving to climb up the iron stanchions to get near the fore-peak deck, and make herself heard, she had fallen back into the depths of that dark hold, and, clutching at the cases to save herself, had torn her finger-nails off. God only knows the intense misery that that wretched castaway must have suffered down in the bowels of that steamer. It’s bad enough when two strong men stow away, and have each other’s companionship, but how terrible for that frail girl down there, quite alone, accompanied by her memories and her misery.

She was nearly dead when, a week out from Tai-o-hae, they discovered her, broken, bleeding and starved.

The storm had blown itself out. We were cutting along at about eleven knots. It was one of those nights when the monotony of the sea was broken by the glorious expanse of the illimitable heavens.

The vastness of the ocean set in those dim, encircling sky-lines had stirred my imagination. I was standing on a visionary ship in a rolling world of illusions. The far-off, pale horizons on every side were not horizons of reality, but dim, far-off sky-lines of more distant, wonderful, unknown seas, where sailed the old ships that were loaded with magical, sweet-scented cargoes of human dreams. I fancied I could hear the faint moaning of the deep, moving waters, the waves breaking away from God’s mighty Imagination, an Imagination sparkling the wonderful foam of Immortal Beauty. I heard the winds of sorrow drifting across the reefs of starry thought, beating finely, steadfastly, against Eternity. I was only called back to the realms of Time by the shuffling of sea-boots coming along the deck.

I took my pipe from my lips, wondering on the sudden, unusual commotion. As I stared through the gloom, I saw the huddled crew coming aft. It was a perfect night, hardly a breath of wind to stir the canvas. The sails bellied out and then—flop!—they went, like grey drums beating out muffled rÉveillÉs to the stars. The skipper was tramping to and fro on the poop as the crew stood by the gangway whispering together.

“What on earth’s the matter?” was my mental comment, as one of their number, a sleek-faced Yankee, went on to the poop as spokesman.

As he approached the “Old Man,” I half wondered if a mutiny was on, and calculated in my mind as to which side I should join, while my heart leaped with excitement. Then I heard the Yankee say:

“Cap’en, we got a serious matter to speak about.”

“Well, get on with it,” said the skipper, as he stared at the men about him as though he thought they had gone mad.

“Well, Cap’en,” said the sailor once more, as he expectorated so as to relieve his feelings. Then, to my astonishment, he blurted out: “This God-damned ship’s ’aunted!”

The skipper gazed contemptuously on the speaker, then yelled:

“Haunted, you say? Well, get to hell out of it! Or go forward and put up with it!”

“’Tain’t no good, sir, yer carrying on. Ship’s ’aunted, and I, for one, ain’t going forrard no more.”

“You moon-struck, superstitious niggers, clear to hell out of it, or, by God! I’ll put you back,” yelled the now enraged skipper, as he stamped on the deck.

Then the boatswain quickly stepped forward and said:

“Captain, I reckon this ’ere packet’s ’aunted right enough. You can come up by the fore-peak and listen for yourself. We ain’t mad.”

Saying this, old Bully-beef—for that was the boatswain’s nickname—spat on the deck, and then looked the captain steadily in the eyes.

The skipper’s manner immediately changed. He had sailed with Bully-beef for several years, and knew that he was a level-headed old fellow.

For a moment he returned the boatswain’s stare, then he responded:

“Well, I’ll come forward and see your ghost, but, mind you, I don’t want any fooling here. Now then, lads, tell me what’s upset you all?”

“Waal, Skipper,” said the first spokesman, “we can’t get no sleep, for, by God! there’s a spirit down in the hold. We heard it talking last night to another of its kind, and then it moaned like a mad thing and started to sing. Ain’t that right, Billy?”

As the Yankee gave this information, he turned to another sailor, who immediately stepped forward to corroborate the evidence:

“Sir, it’s right enough. I went on deck last night and stamped my foot, thinking to frighten the thing away, but it only wailed louder and louder still, and started to speak. So I puts my ear to the deck, by the hatchway, and listens. Blowed if I didn’t hear it moan and say: ‘Oh, Christ, protect me. Sink the ship. Mercy! Mercy!’”

“You did, did you?” said the skipper emphatically, as he pulled his cap back from his forehead.

Walking down the poop gangway, he said: “Come on! We’ll soon see about your ghost.”

In a moment the crew and the huddled Kanakas—for we had several natives amongst us—followed the Old Man.

As we all stood assembled by the fore-peak, we listened. Only the sound of the long-drawn roar of the dipping bows and the jiggle of the screw disturbed the vast silence of the calm sea.

One of the crew stamped his foot on the deck. Then they all listened again. They heard a noise.

“’Ear that, sir?” said the boatswain.

“Hear what?” said the skipper, as he looked aloft as the rigging rattled and the smoke from the funnel slewed about and went south-west like a great bank of cloud beneath the stars. “Why, you damned lot of cowards, I’m blessed if you are not all frightened of the wind’s whistle in the rigging!”

“Wait a bit, wait a bit, sir,” said the boatswain, as the bows dipped and an interval of silence came. Then he too stamped his big foot.

Just as the skipper was about to yell at them again, he suddenly stopped. A look of interest, that swiftly changed into astonishment, came on to his face.

There sounded quite distinctly to the ears of the huddled crew a long, far-away wail.

“Clear the hatch off. Now then, rise and shine. Don’t stand there with your God-damned mouths wide open! By heaven! get a move on you.”

Some of the native members of the crew hesitated before they started to do the skipper’s bidding. Then all worked with a will. Off came the canvas covering—crash! crash!—and the wooden bolts were loosened.

“Fetch me a lantern,” shouted the skipper. Then, beckoning to the boatswain to follow him, he leaned over the dark depth and went down the iron ladder into the ship’s hold.

The boatswain looked at the sympathetic faces of the crew, glanced seaward at the stars on the horizon as though for the last time in his mortal existence—and also disappeared.

Presently we all heard a tumbling and a mumbling, then a deep moan.

“Good God Almighty!” came a voice from below.

“Hold her legs. That’s it. Gently now!” In a moment we were all bending over the edge of the hatchway. We saw the skipper climbing up with the figure in his arms. “It’s a stowaway!” was the cry all round. In a moment the red-bearded cook and I had grabbed the deck grating. As the skipper came up we all leaned forward. Good Lord! never, surely, was a sadder sight. There on the deck, under the stars of that wide Pacific, they laid her. The huddled crew gazed upon her: they could only stare with awestruck eyes on that beautiful face.

I rushed to get water. It was I who first bent over that stricken form as the skipper lifted the unconscious head. It was Waylao who lay there before me; but so wasted was she that I did not recognise her. As the cool winds drifted across the deck and the sailors and the black squad stepped back, the fresh air revived her. We saw her eyelids quiver—they opened and gazed upon the crew silently.

As I stood among those men and stared at that face through the gloom, I thought it was some beautiful white girl. There was no semblance to a half-caste in that thin face before us. I thought that I must be going mad as I pushed the cook aside and stared again, for in the excitement of it all I had fancied that the girl that lay before us, pale-faced and stricken, was Pauline.

It was a mad idea, I know; but I had been thinking more about John L——’s daughter than I have cared to confess.

As the shadows of the funnel’s smoke passed over us, it seemed that I was a member of a phantom crew, so silent were those huddled men as they watched the pale face of that figure lying there, on the hatchway.

The captain ordered us to lift the grating and take her into the cuddy. When we had placed her tenderly in the spare cabin’s bunk, we saw the way she was. The light of the swinging lamp lit up her face. Her bosom was quite bare, her garments being torn to fragments. We had no sooner placed her in the bunk and laid her head on the pillow than she fell asleep. There were only four of us, beside the skipper, as we stood in that cabin. I saw them look solemnly at each other; then each coughed, as if to say in significant silence: “So that’s the secret of the stowaway. She’s stowed away because of That.”

In a flash I had recognised Waylao. For a moment I was so astounded that I couldn’t even speak or think. Then my wits came to my assistance. I decided to keep my own counsel and never reveal by the slightest sign that I had seen the girl before.

It was three days before Waylao could sit up in her bunk and think reasonably. But, considering her serious condition when found in the hold, her improvement was wonderfully rapid. The cook made special soups, and the skipper seemed always to be examining the small drawers of his medicine chest. “That’s fine for cuts and bruises,” he’d say, as he brought out boxes of ointment and went off to give Waylao medical attention.

I do not think I can do better than refer to my diary and reproduce my own remarks at this period of my story. Here’s how the entries go:

“September 19th.—Waylao looks wonderfully well to-day. Her finger-nails have fallen off, and the new nails are just peeping out of the quicks. I played the violin to her this afternoon. She’s got a voice that fairly thrills one. The skipper says she’d make a fortune in America, on the stage. As we sat on deck last night, Waylao and I referred to the poor escapee girl form Noumea, and I told her exactly how I found the convict girl afloat in the lagoon at daybreak. Waylao cried like a child when I said I had placed a little cross on the girl’s grave.

“The boatswain’s given Waylao a beautiful silk and tappa dress. She looks fine in it. He’d bought it from a native at Hivaoa, for his wife, I suppose. Poor wife, she’ll never see that dress.

“September 20th.—I’ve been chaffed a good deal by the crew for paying such a lot of attention to the stowaway. It’s a good job I didn’t let on that I knew her before I left Tai-o-hae.

“Waylao keeps talking about Father O’Leary and her mother. I’ve promised to go and see them both when I go back to Nuka Hiva. God knows when that will be, I don’t.

“The sailors on this boat are fine fellows. Perfect gentlemen, so far as the opinion of the world doesn’t go. Only one scoundrel on board; he knocked my bow arm up in the air with his fist as I was playing the violin in the forecastle. We had a fight. His lip’s swollen, but I’ve got a lump just over the right eyebrow. The skipper’s put some of his special ointment on my lump; says he’s ashamed to think of a respectable fellow like me fighting on board his ship. I do feel a bit ashamed of the lump, I admit.

“Sighted Tengerewa Isle on the starboard this evening. As we passed by we could distinguish the coco-palms; they looked like the distant masts of some old Spanish galleon derelict, ashore on an unknown isle in an unknown sea—masts that had been there so long that they’d burst into leaf. As the stars came out we could hear the breakers humming on the reefs far away. It’s funny, but the noise of those breakers came very loud once or twice, and made me think of the early workmen’s train that rushed by my bedroom when I last lodged at Battersea, London Town.

“Waylao and I sat on deck till midnight. Saw vast flocks of strange birds going south under the stars. They looked like migrating cranes, had long necks, saw them distinctly fly down the big moon looming on the horizon.

“Never saw such a calm sea; looked like a mighty mirror that was walled round by pale crystalline substance, and vaulted by a dome ornamented with myriads of inexpressibly beautiful stars imaged in the vast mirror beneath, with phantom ships sailing across it, breaking the brittle surface into sparkling foams of phosphorescent light.

“It seemed hard lines that so many millions of worlds were wasting their glory in infinite space, and I so hard up that I had to travel across that ocean for a pittance of two pounds ten shillings a month.

“Thursday, September 21st.—Made it up with boatswain’s mate. He seems to like me since the fight. It’s a fact that it’s only wasting breath to quote the poets to men in an argument. It’s like throwing pearls to swine. Nothing like a good smash in the jaw to convince a man that you are as good as he is.

“The skipper got fearfully drunk last night. I had to play the fiddle till two o’clock in the morning as he sang a song that had no melody in it. He said it was composed by his uncle, a Doctor of Music! I and the cook eventually lifted the Old Man up with due respect and dropped him in his bunk—dead drunk.

“Waylao’s been telling me what she intends to do when she gets to Suva, Fiji. I’m worried about her; she talks like a child. It’s a bit of a job to have a girl like Waylao on one’s hands. I feel that I must look after her. It seems like a dream to me, this girl on a ship with me, lost, far away at sea. I feel quite like some Don Juan, out here in the wide Pacific with a beautiful half-caste girl looking to me for protection. Those old novels that I read as a child were true after all. There is such a thing as romance on earth, or at least on the seas.

“Friday, September 22nd.—Been thinking of England to-day. I’d give something to hear the thrush singing up in the old apple-tree of my grandfather’s estate.

“It’s wonderful how beautiful another place seems when you are sailing across Southern Seas, perfectly alone. As I dreamed, I could hear the ship’s Kanakas singing their native songs in a strange tongue. I like their melodies; they sound weirdly sweet. The words seem to go like this: ‘Cheery-o, me-o, O see ka vinka! too-ee-me, loge wailo, mandy-o! pom! pom!’ As they sang aloft, their shadows dropped down through the moonlight on to the deck at my feet.

“I thought of my dear mother last night. I’d give something to put my arms round her to-night. I was her favourite: that’s natural enough, as I’m the worst boy of the family.

“Saturday.—Feel a bit worried to-day. I went mad last night. The world seemed beautiful; I felt like some old poet who’d crept out of the tomb and found the world reading his poems. Waylao and I sat on deck. It was a glorious night, perfectly calm. The sky was crowded with stars. I could just see the outline of Waylao’s face in the gloom beside me. She was sitting in the skipper’s deckchair. Her face seemed ineffably beautiful, her eyes seemed to have caught the ethereal gleams of the stars. She fascinated me. I felt a wild desire enter my heart. Then I took hold of her hand and whispered:

“‘Waylao, I am worried about you.’

“‘And I about you,’ she responded half absently.

“Again the wild impulse thrilled me, but still I spoke on.

“‘Girl, we are only shadows in this world. In a little while all this dream of ours will be less than a dream. It is strange that you should have come into my life like this. I half wish that I had never met you,’ said I. Then, before I could understand what I was doing, I placed my arms about her; I pulled her gently towards me. Her face was lifted up to mine; I gazed into the depths of those exquisite eyes, they shone so brightly. I looked at the mouth: it quivered. Ah! it was a beautiful mouth; it seemed to be curved so that it might tenderly resemble the warm, wild, passionate South.

“Alas! though I was born in the far-away cold North-West, I, too, seemed to feel the spell of the impassioned starlit Isles. I tried to control myself; but men, let alone romantic youths, are weak, and so I fell—I clasped her in my arms and pressed my lips to hers. Heaven only knows what I might not have said to her in my madness if the boatswain had not called me: ‘Hey, hey, youngster! Where are you? What the hell——’

“I leaped away into the darkness.

“I never had a wink of sleep that night. This morning I could not look Waylao in the eyes. When no one was looking, she took my hand and smiled in such a way that I knew that she understood my feelings. Ah me! I shall never make a good missionary. Waylao’s look and her manner convinces me that she is better than I am. Confession is good for the soul. I ought to be better than I was last night, for I have confessed the truth—had sinful thoughts, and the half-caste girl has made me a better youth. Wish I wasn’t so passionate a fellow.

“Sunday, September.—Sang hymns to-day in the cuddy. Skipper’s very religious on Sunday. I told Waylao all about England to-day, and became quite sentimental. I told her of the splendour of the woods—how May came and quickened the fields to green sprouting grass; how the wild hedgerows budded forth their beauty—like some poetic sorrow of the old sunsets—bleeding forth pale, anÆmic blossoms, flowers that scented the airs with old memories. I told her of the blackbird singing its overture to the sunrise. I said: ‘Ah, Waylao, I long to hear the blackbird again, telling me that God, its Creator, too, has some divine memory of the voice of a goddess who sang to Him ere His first heaven was shattered into the chaos of all the stars.’

“While I spoke to Waylao night fell. I could only hear the throb of the engines as we slid across the sea. As the girl stared up at me in the dusk, I fancied that we two sailed across strange seas, quite alone, and there was no one else in the world. A shooting star slid across the sky, arched and faded like some signal thrown out of a door in heaven. Waylao trembled like a leaf as she saw that light in the sky; she said that it was a terrible sign. I tried to cheer her up, saying that she must not believe the old legends that her mother told her, that a shooting star did not mean anything awful, that no one was to die through its fall, that most probably it was a signal to the infinite that some mortal had just spoken the truth.

“That star, nevertheless, made me wonder as I looked up at the heavens. I couldn’t help thinking of God. The vastness of creation, the wonder of the stars seemed so terrific that a thrill went down my backbone. How vast God must be. He who can hold creation with its myriads of worlds in the hollow of His hand. Where did God come from? This shows that we lack several senses. I suppose that the tropic bird that sailed through the dusk over the ship, and looked at us with its beautiful wild eyes, wondered where our ship came from. Even if that bird had intellect, would it ever dream of the primeval forest, the giant pines, how they fell before the axe; and were shaped into masts; of the shipbuilders; of mighty furnaces smelting the ores from the old hills; of the toil of men, and the strikes for higher wages; the happy homes in the villages kept up by the money that the shipbuilding brought to them; of the village theatre and the happy sprees as the wives took the children out full of laughter, to come home again and romp in their cots about it all; of the brass plate on the coffin telling the man’s name who fell down the hold of the ship and was killed the day it was launched, and of the wonders of the voyages? Stop! Good heavens! I could go on like this for ever. Why, the history of a box of matches would fill all the paper on earth with all-absorbing wonders. It only shows that the mystery of God is only wonderful to us because we lack the sense to fathom the mystery. Anyway, I’ll believe in God till I die. I used to believe in a creed, but I think it best to believe in God.

“I suppose I’m talking like this because I’ve been thinking of Pauline. Waylao has been telling me to-day how she and Pauline sat in the forest by moonlight and sang old heathen songs together, songs that were supposed to make the man who would love them poke his head out of the waters of the lagoon that they watched. Waylao hummed the songs to me. I don’t know why, but the look in her fine eyes made me feel intensely unhappy. I’m a most passionate fellow at times. I have strange moods, moods that make me feel very tender towards women and men. I suppose it’s a kind of insanity. I’ve taken a liking to the funniest old men and women imaginable. Once my fancy was for an old ex-convict: he was about eighty years of age, swore fearfully, cursed God, never washed himself, woke up in the middle of the night and roared forth atheistical songs, opened his mouth wide and hissed ‘He! He! He!’ like a fiend, as he mentioned the Deity—and yet when I was down with fever he waited on me as though I were his child. Not even my dear mother could have outvied the tenderness of that villainous scoundrel. I recall to mind how I met a little native girl in Samoa. She was only six years of age, curly-haired, and had brown, beautiful baby eyes. I never saw such a pretty rosebud mouth, or retroussÉ nose. I played the violin, and she sang like a bird. We even went off busking together. When I went away she threw her arms about me and looked into my face like a woman of twenty. That little girl’s face haunted me for days; I even counted up how old I’d be when she was twenty, thinking that I could come back to the South Seas and marry her.

“I tell these things to show one that I am no ordinary being. I hope some day to be able to publish this complete diary of my travels. Who knows, men may read it and try to diagnose my temperament.”

(Page missing here in my diary.) I must reproduce the next entry:

“Sunday Night.—Waylao not well; gone to bed early. Played the violin for two hours; skipper does not like my practice. I must admit it’s not pleasant, for I’m practising difficult technical studies. I’ve got hopes of becoming a great violinist; I feel ambitious, and hope to be a kind of Paganini some day. I often feel that I’m something special in the way of Man, and dream of my coming greatness. This egotism of mine makes me supremely happy. Sometimes I see, in my imagination, the great hoarding bills throughout the cities of the world announcing that ‘I AM COMING!’ I’ve gone so far as to imagine that the Queen commanded my presence at Buckingham Palace. I’ve been knighted—in dreams. I’ve heard the royal voice exclaim ‘Arise, Sir—(incognito)—Sir Shadow.’^[5] I nearly revealed my name, my identity then. Phew! Supposing I had done so, what would haughty old Uncle Jack and prim, aristocratic old Aunt Mally say to hear that I had published a diary telling of such things—the whole truth out at last—deliberately published a public record telling how So-and-so’s youngest son had sailed the Southern Seas with a beautiful half-caste girl—and a girl LIKE THAT, too? They’d raise their hands with horror, shocked, disgraced, broken with the thought of ‘What will They say?’ Who the devil cares for They?”

I see by the next entry in my diary that I gave the skipper several violin lessons. Here are the entries:

“Skipper gone violin mad. He’s got a good ear, but his technique and time are rotten. I’m on sick list. Skipper kept me up all night. Though I hate whisky, I swallowed several glasses through his infernal persuasion. I can see now that it was deliberate on his part. He says that I played the violin like a heathen god. I know that I did something, because the violin’s strings were all broken this morning.

“I’ve got some dim recollection of pressing Waylao’s hand when the skipper wasn’t looking, recall some faint idea that I thought she was a glorious Madonna, and that I whispered impassioned things into her ears. I think I danced too. The world seemed to have suddenly righted itself, everything seemed beautiful and rosy. Death and God walked mercifully together. I even got over-familiar with the skipper—smacked him on the back and told him he’d be a good violinist in about a thousand years’ time. No more whisky for me, thank you.

“Monday.—Passed Curacoa reef this afternoon. Samoan Isles are away to the north. Been thinking of dear old Grimes; wish he was with me.

“Waylao cried for two hours to-day. I did my level best to cheer her up. She had been telling me a lot about her childhood. I find that she is really a most intelligent girl, but rather given to following her impulses instead of calm reason. Like me in that respect.

“I feel sometimes that I’m half in love with Waylao. She’s romantic; has got a beautiful golden gleam in the pupils of her eyes. I can easily see how that devil of a man got her into trouble. She’s been talking a lot about Eastern men, Indians, etc. Got my suspicions about things. I know what the world is: read about life in the newspapers, London, England. Wicked, soulless old bounders some men are.

“I dreamed about Pauline last night. She came to me as I was playing the violin by the old grog shanty. I threw my arms around her; she kissed me passionately, saying that she had loved me all the time. She seemed wondrously beautiful in the dream. I can’t imagine anything so gloriously divine now that I’m wide awake. Yet I somehow feel the effect on my heart. It’s strange that the most divine conceptions of beauty are realised when we are asleep. Perhaps it’s a beautiful premonition, some prophetic knowledge of what things will be like when we are dead—and yet, what about nightmares?

“Tuesday.—Sighted isles off Fiji at sunset last night. Smelt the odours of decaying, overripe fruits as the wind blew gently from the land.

“A fleet of canoes passed on the port side. Big, savage, tattooed men waved paddles to us, friendly-wise. Passed one little isle that was inhabited by one hut, sheltered by a large, feathery palm-tree. Looked like the gaudy-coloured picture of a South Sea novel, as the Fijian chief stood by his hut door with his club, and his deep-bosomed wife threw the sailors a graceful salutation, kiss-wise, with hand at her lips. They had two fainy toatisis (girls), who were all the while running up and down the shore, waving their arms and splashing in the waves.

“Waylao is very excited at the prospect of going ashore soon. I’ve told skipper that I intend leaving the ship at Suva. He was angry at first, but calmed down after, and paid me all that was due to me.

“The boatswain kissed Waylao when she wished the sailors good-bye.

“I felt a bit wild at the way some of the sailors chaffed me about Waylao. But I don’t care. I’m getting used to chaff and the winks and ways of this clever world.

“You ought to have heard the skipper giving Waylao advice about stowing away in the holds of tramp ships. He gave her a little cash, too. Shows he doesn’t belong to a Charity Organisation, doesn’t it?

“I promised to meet Waylao ashore. Sailors all winking and accusing me of leaving ship so as to accompany the pretty stowaway. I’ve been to Suva before, so I know all about the best spots for a girl like Waylao to get lodgings.”