It was when I was climbing into the boat that I got a surprise.  One of the two natives at the oars was the little Fijian who had been the pupil of the Maori, but he didn’t bat an eyelash when I stared at him.

“What’s up?” asked Holman.  “Do you know Toni?”

“He’s one of the brace that were singing that song about the white waterfall,” I growled.

The Fijian let out a volley of indignant denials, and Holman laughed.

“You might be mistaken,” he said.  “Toni came ashore with me about two hours ago, but I don’t think he left the boat.”

“I’m not mistaken,” I said, as the Fijian kept on protesting that he had never moved from the boat, “but it doesn’t matter much.  Let it go.”

We were about a quarter of a mile from the shore when a man raced down from the town, ran along to the sea end of the wharf and waved his arms as if he was signalling us.  Holman turned and looked at him.

“I wonder who it is?” he muttered.  “Perhaps it is somebody with your board bill, Verslun.”

I started to laugh, then I stopped suddenly.  The man on the wharf was shouting to us, and when my ears caught a word I recognized him.  It was the big Maori who had been instructing the Fijian earlier in the afternoon.

I told Holman, and he looked at Toni, but Toni’s face was blank.  For some reason or other he wished to ignore his instructor who was screaming on the end of the wharf.

“He must be mad,” muttered Holman.  “The darned fool thinks we—­Listen!”

A land breeze brought the last line of the chant to our ears as we neared The Waif, and the words seemed to stir me curiously as they swirled around us.  I had a desire to memorize the chant, and even after we had got out of range of the high-powered voice of the singer I found myself murmuring over and over again the words: 

  “That’s the way to heaven out
   Of Black Fernando’s hell.”

[Illustration]

CHAPTER II

THE PROFESSOR’S DAUGHTERS

In the old days, when slave-carrying was a game followed by gentlemen with nerve, the officer with the best nose on board the man-o’-war that overhauled a suspected slave carrier was always sent aboard to make an examination.  It was his business to sniff at the air in the hold in an endeavour to distinguish the “slave smell.”  No matter how the wily slaver disinfected the place, the odour of caged niggers remained, and a long-nosed investigator could always detect it.

Now the trouble odour on board a ship is the same as the slave smell.  An experienced investigator can detect it immediately, and when I climbed over the low bulwarks of The Waif I got a whiff.  I couldn’t tell exactly where it was, but I knew that Dame Trouble was aboard the craft.  It’s a sort of sixth sense with a sailorman to be able to detect a stormy atmosphere, and I felt that the yacht wasn’t the place that the dove of peace would choose as a permanent abode.  I don’t know how the information came to me.  It seemed to filter in through the pores of my skin, but it was information that I felt sure was correct.