I laughed, and he turned suddenly toward me.  “Do you think we’ll put in anywhere in the Samoan Group?”

“I don’t think so,” I replied.  “Why?”

Holman came closer.  “If we do I’m going to get the girls ashore and keep them there,” he muttered.  “I don’t care what you think of the proposition.  This trip is going to be a tough one, and I’m certain there is some deviltry afoot.”

I tried to laugh at the serious face upon the youngster, but the conviction which he threw into his words choked my mirth.  Whether it was the little brush with the Kanaka or the gloomy forebodings of the boy I couldn’t tell, but I felt a trifle anxious after my first night aboard The Waif.

“But there is nothing to be gained by running away if we do put in to a port,” I growled.

“How is that?” stammered Holman.

“Well, if Leith is an admirer of Edith Herndon, as you say,” I argued, “and if the captain is in league with Leith, the yacht wouldn’t leave till the girls came aboard.  Besides, the Professor wouldn’t go on without them.”

“I don’t know about the Professor,” grunted Holman.  “That old doodlebug only thinks of the silly specimens that he is going to collect down here.  If he had any love for his daughters he wouldn’t have brought them along.”

“But you told me they insisted on coming.”

“So they did!” he retorted savagely.  “But they knew that the poor old fool was in the hands of a scoundrel and they wouldn’t let him go alone.  They think they can protect him from that devil, and it nearly makes me cry to hear them say so.”

Miss Edith Herndon and her sister came up on deck at that moment, and if I was impressed by the calm sweetness of the elder girl’s face on the previous afternoon, the strength and beauty of it as I saw it in the fresh morning sunlight made my heart pound violently against my ribs.  The prettiness of Miss Barbara made the quiet dignity of the elder sister more noticeable, and that apparent strength of character made me doubt Holman’s contention that she would be unable to help the scientist if Leith’s motives were discovered to be criminal.

It was Barbara’s keen eyes that detected my plaster, and I squirmed as I saw the light of curiosity in her eyes.

“Oh, tell us how it happened!” she cried.  “Please make it a night attack upon the yacht, Mr. Verslun!  I heard a wild cry just after I retired and I felt sure that war canoes had surrounded us.  They always surround the ill-fated ship, don’t they?” she continued merrily.  “And the ship is always ill-fated in all the really thrilling sea stories I have read!”

Leith came sauntering aft as she fired her questions at me, and he stood near Miss Edith with his dull eyes fixed upon me as I answered.

“I’m afraid I cannot feed your imagination to-day,” I replied.  “I tripped over a coil of rope, and the deck sprang up and bumped me.”