And they left Melita to her anger, while they went on board their ships to explain to grinning mates and supercargoes Steinberger’s latest folly.
Melita was nearly speechless with rage. She paced her room fiercely, her lips white and her eyes glowing. She refused to be calmed for a long time. That Steinberger—fat, greasy Steinberger—had defied her, treated her like a plaything that waited on his purposes, was intolerable. She who swayed the affairs of all the Pacific treated like a common native, her sister abducted to be Steinberger’s mistress!
But she could not move hand or foot to checkmate the German. There were admirers of hers, of course, who would at her word attempt to restore her her sister, but there were only two or three actually powerful enough in the islands to attempt it with any hope of success, and none were handy. Melita could only wait and hope that Tia Kua was not being treated too badly.
* * * *
TWO weeks later a strange ship beat up to the anchorage off the Point and hove to. Melita was frankly puzzled as she watched the beautiful streaming lines and the swan-like grace of the anchoring barque. The tide was yet high, and there was plenty of time to make Apia before it fell. The ship, too, was not a regular caller at the hotel. Melita did not remember ever having seen it before. Whoever was coming to see her was coming for that purpose alone, and not making just a casual call.
A boat dropped from the barque’s near side and sped across the intervening water to the shore. Presently a man came up the winding pathway. Even Melita, who was used to all sorts of men, caught her breath sharply. For this man was not the usual shipmaster. He was not gray and a little bent, with the flesh of the neck lightly grooved into squares and lines. He did not lag in his step, nor did the long climb seem to affect his breath very much. He was young and tall, and well worth looking on. Unlike the usual island shipmaster, he was dressed in a thin uniform of blue serge, with the gold braid of his rank on the cuffs, and a gold ship badge in the center of his blue peaked cap. The cap itself was perched far back on his head, exposing a thick crop of wavy gold-brown hair, and a face as tanned as that of any kanaka. A pair of laughing blue eyes held Melita’s for a moment, and then hardened a little. The man rested one hand on his hip, and with the other removed his cap from his head. He bowed a trifle.
“Is this the house where Melita lives?” he asked pleasantly enough, though there was that in his voice—a suppressed hardness—that showed he was a man used to command.
Melita was curious. The stranger interested her. She had never seen him before, and she thought she had seen every shipmaster in the Pacific. He looked clean, too, which was more than most of the men she knew did. He was more of a man to like the sea and the sun and the stars at night than the perfumed rooms of the hotel, or some easy amour with native girls in their own villages. He glowed with health, and his lips were firm, which showed that drink had not got him under control. Yes, Melita was curious.
“I am Melita,” she said. The man raised his head and smiled, replacing his cap. He came forward a pace.
“May I speak with you alone? My name is James Travers—Captain James Travers. I command and own the barque Wanderer, laying out there in the roadstead.”
Melita waved away her attendant women, more curious than ever, and motioned the stranger to sit in the swing chair on the veranda beside her. The man nodded and came forward, seated himself carelessly and, crossing one leg over the other, held his knee with clasped hands, rocking to and fro the while. He eyed the woman seriously, and with not a little interest. He had heard her spoken of from China to Australia. She was a character.
“I am looking for a man,” he commenced abruptly. “His name is, or was, Brietmann, and he is, or was, half owner of the brig Hamburg, registered at Cape Town. Except that he’s big built and inclined to be fat I can give no description of him. Two years ago in Fu Chow the port captain of one of the big lines informed me that a man named Brietmann had been fined the year before for dangerous sailing while anchoring near other ships. From Fu Chow Brietmann took papers for Apia with the intention, it was said, of going on the island trade. I was told you were acquainted with every shipmaster and trader in the Pacific. Can you help me?”
Melita withdrew her eyes with an effort from the man’s face, and conned over in her mind a list of the men she knew. She was silent for so long that the man sneered and, reaching in his pocket, drew forth a piece of wash leather. Unwrapping it he held before the woman’s gaze a magnificent ruby that sent blood fires dancing and leaping in reflection in her eyes.
“I’ll give this to know,” he said, thinking she was reckoning what the information would be worth. Melita looked at the ruby, and put out a hesitating hand. Then her eyes grew hard. The sailor, watching keenly, laughed a little, guessing what she was thinking.
“You can take it. No condition attached, except that you give me the information I need. I just want to know where Brietmann hangs out. No one knew in Suva, no one knew in Papeete. Do you know? I shall not say who gave me the information, if that is what’s worrying you.”
Melita slipped the stone inside her bodice with sudden decision. It was a princely reward.
“I can’t think of anything or anyone right now,” she said frankly. “I may later on. There are several big, fleshy men who own brigs in the islands.… But come inside and try my tea. I had it shipped from Yokohama.… Unless you’d prefer whisky?”
The sailor hesitated. He looked down the slope to where the barque lay at anchor, rising and falling to the swell. He looked to the sky away to windward.
“Good wind blowing, and I hate to lose any of it,” he muttered to himself. “I’m sailing for Calloa light, to pick up a cargo there,” he said aloud. “Nitrates for England. I can’t waste much time.” Then he looked at Melita, and his decision faltered and died. She was beautiful, and even a man who does not care for women cannot but admire beauty.
Besides, she was the famous Melita, and the sailor was more than half curious to probe into her mentality a bit to see how she came to be so. He stood up from the swing chair abruptly, removing his cap.
“I’ll take tea,” he said, his voice a little more mellow than it had been.
The experienced Melita smiled a little to herself. She could see the sailor was growing interested in her. She was a new type to him. He, who had sailed far and wide, had battled with wind and water and men, was naturally inclined to be carelessly at ease with all women. He had them classified into two great classes—the thoroughly lost and the thoroughly saved—and each class was as bad as the other.
But Melita defied classification. He remembered that men had told him that she had never been any man’s since the break-up of her girlhood romance with that early French adventurer. He grew frank as they sat cross-legged in the now deserted big room and drank tea together from tiny fragile cups, with the fumes of the incense wreathing about their heads.
CHAPTER IV
VENGEANCE TRAIL
“I never met a woman quite like you, Melita. Most women who enter this—this sort of thing”—he waved an expressive arm around—“are apt to become coarse. You dress with taste, you talk with an accent that was learned in London, if I am not mistaken, and you have the manners of a wise old society matron. I conclude you have traveled and mixed with good people.”
She nodded absently, her eyes on his corded throat, wondering what it would feel like to the touch, warm and throbbing with life, probably rippling as it moved with the muscle-life beneath the clear skin. She had forgotten to be languid and indifferent.
“Then what are you doing here? You can’t be broke and unable to get away. If you are, that ruby will put you on your feet.”
Melita roused herself with an effort, and tapped him on the lips with her fan. “My friend, you are encroaching on the secret places