He nodded seriously, and then grinned. “The fruits of vengeance, eh? Well, I’ll tell you. I believe I’m immune from heart-break, and I don’t believe I have a soul to wreck.”
Again Melita knew a sudden desire to touch the corded throat and run her fingers through the wavy hair. So strong was the impulse she leaned forward a little, and then caught at her lower lip with her teeth. Travers was busy lighting a battered briar pipe, and when he looked up, noticing nothing, the woman had recovered herself. But she was shaken inwardly. She had never met a man who affected her so.
“Perhaps you would like to look around,” suggested the woman, “while I write you a list of the brig owners and captains I know of. The name Brietmann is unknown to me, but—”
“It is possible my man has changed his name. He had cause to,” put in the sailor grimly.
Melita nodded. “That was what I was thinking. Perhaps one of the brig captains I know may be your man. The name Brietmann sounds German. There are five Germans who own their own ships. But I’ll give you a list. You can make further inquiries as to the length of time each has been in the islands. That’s something I’m not acquainted with. Pardon me!”
The sailor nodded, while the woman went off to find a pencil and paper. Left alone in the big room, Captain James Travers whistled softly to himself. He grinned as he wandered round, inspecting the braziers, quaintly moulded, and the pictures that hung here and there on the walls.
Presently he came to a sort of sideboard set in a corner farthest from the veranda, which could be seen through the curtains that served as a house front, and were tied back in the day time. The sideboard was a long affair of mahogany, richly inlaid and carved, with drawers below the serving shelf and a large square of beveled looking-glass above. There were whale’s teeth, purple with age; shark’s backbones, polished and varnished and worked into the form of walking sticks; a small whale’s vertebra; pearl shells, and other shells of all sorts and colors; a piece of fossilized wood from far-off Guinea; native spears and other weapons; necklaces of babies’ skulls, and many other curios the admirers of Melita had brought from the Shining Paths to swell her collection.
But what drew the sailor’s attention, what wiped the grin from his face and the warmth from his eyes, was the sight of a neat, bright nickel-steel revolver placed in a far corner of the shelf, half hidden behind a monstrosity of a devil-devil mask from Fiji.
Slowly the sailor removed his pipe. He did not feel the hot bowl burn his hand. Nor did he hear the swish of skirts as Melita came softly behind him and started as she caught sight of the reflection of his savage face in the glass. His free hand went out and picked up the revolver, and he turned it over and over in his palm. Finally he held it muzzle down and looked at the initials carved on the bottom of the butt. He started violently as Melita touched his arm and swung round.
“What is it?” she asked curiously.
“Who gave you this?” he demanded savagely, his lips drawn back from his teeth. He rammed his pipe in his pocket and caught the woman’s shoulder. “Tell me!”
Melita looked at the bright weapon, and then wonderingly at the sailor. “That was given me by Steinberger,” she said steadily. “He told me it had a history. I never found out what.”
The sailor let go her shoulder with a bitter laugh, and slipped the revolver in his pocket. “History? Yes, it has a history.… Where does Steinberger live? Where can I find him? Who is he in the islands?”
“Steinberger is a big trader and pearl buyer. He owns and commands the brig Atlantis.”
“With a Medusa figurehead and scroll work all down the forefoot?” Melita nodded, her eyes wide with dread. “All right, go on.”
“… and has a trading station at Funafuti Lagoon in the Ellice Islands.”
“That’s enough for me,” said the sailor with an oath, and he strode toward the veranda, his face flushed with passion. Melita ran after him and caught at his sleeve.
“Sit down for a moment. There’s something I want to say.” Her voice was cold and commanding. She, too, had a temper.
The sailor halted, looked down at her, hesitated, and then slowly returned to the cushioned dais where the empty tea cups still stood. He dropped moodily down on crossed legs and picked up his cap. He had forgotten it before. Melita sank beside him.
“I presume this Brietmann you spoke of is Steinberger,” commenced Melita abruptly, her fan resting on the sailor’s arm as though to hold him still. “I don’t know what lies between the two of you, but I can guess that Steinberger’s been up to some more of his deviltry.… Will you do something for me for the information you’ve got, in place of this ruby?”
She brought the red stone to light and slipped it into the angry sailor’s palm. He looked at it stupidly for a moment, and then back at the woman. He commenced to say something, but changed his mind. He waited.
“Will you?” the woman persisted.
“Depends what it is,” the sailor muttered. “What is it? Yes, I’ll do it. Do anything out of gratitude for the information.”
“Then listen!” And Melita told the other how Steinberger had abducted her sister. Melita could use language that cut like a knife, and the story she told was not pretty hearing the way she put it. The man almost forgot his own trouble. He saw the point at once.
“You want your sister?” Melita nodded, and leaning back she opened her fan and slowly waved it to and fro. Her own cold passion had exhausted her. The sailor looked at her and then held out his hand.
“That’s a bargain,” he said curtly. “Steinberger will have no use for women after I’ve seen him. If your sister is alive, you shall have her back. Expect me any time. Good bye!”
He rose to his feet, jammed on his cap, and with a brief handshake was gone, leaping from the veranda in his haste and running down the pathway to where the boat lay waiting to take him aboard his ship. The clank of the anchor cable came up to the hotel through the breeze, and one by one the barque’s sails were hoisted. In two hours she was hull down and sailing fast.
Melita dropped to the cushions when the sailor had gone, and she cried—she who had not cried in years. In her heart strange forces were stirring—forces that had lain dormant since her first lover had kissed her over the mission wall in Apia. Then, after a while, she rose and went out on the veranda to watch the barque running from the coast and from sight. Then she cried again and wished she were clean. Who was she to dream of love?
It was not till nightfall, when the lamps were lit and the schooners from all the Pacific began to drop anchor off the Point, that Melita found the ruby Travers had left among the cushions. She wrapped it tight in its washleather bed and snuggled it close to her heart, torn with fears for the safety of the man she had only known for a brief hour.
Not one of the captains guessed what was passing in the mind of the woman who laughed a little too freely, and who seemed to be in such a cynical mood when they jested with her that night.
CHAPTER V
OUTWARD BOUND
Captain James Travers sat in his saloon beneath the poop deck of the Wanderer, and smoked in thoughtful silence. Occasionally he would unclasp his hands from behind his head and, removing his pipe, blow a cloud of smoke up at the lamp that swung uneasily in its gimbals directly above his head.
Now that the first hot rage and exultation of his discovery had died, the sailor was very much at his ease, in spite of the uneasy pitch and chop of the deck as the barque lifted herself over the somewhat short swell and snorted into the trough and into the teeth of a brisk wind, for she was now close-hauled.
His coat was flung