“It would have been such a dreadful disappointment to us if we could not have obtained passages in the Tucopia,” she said, in her soft, sweet voice, as she sank back in the deck-chair he placed before her.  “My husband is so bent on making a tour through Samoa.  Now, do tell me, Mr. Otway, are these islands so very lovely?”

“Very, very lovely, Mrs. Lacy,” replied Otway, leaning with his back against the rail and regarding her with half-closed eyes; “as sweet and fair to look upon as a lovely woman—­a woman with violet eyes and lips like a budding rose.”

She gave him one swift glance, seemingly in anger, yet her eyes smiled into his; then she bent her head and regarded the deck with intense interest.  Otway thought he had scored.  She was sure she had.

Otway had just shown her and her husband his own cabin, and had told them that they could occupy it—­he would make himself comfortable in the trade-room, he said.  This was after the first look from the violet eyes.

* * * * *

Robertson, the skipper, came aboard, shook hands with Mrs. Lacy and her husband, nodded to the other passengers, dived below for a moment or two, and then reappeared on deck, full of energy, blasphemy, and anxiety to get under way.  In less than an hour the smart barque was outside the Heads, and heeling over to a brisk south-westerly breeze.  Two days later she was four hundred miles on her course.

The Rev. Wilfrid Lacy soon made himself very agreeable to the rest of the passengers, who all agreed that he was a splendid type of parson, and even Otway, who had as much principle as a rat and began making love to his wife from the outset, liked him.  First of all, he was not the usual style of travelling clergyman.  He didn’t say grace at meals, he smoked a pipe, drank whisky and brandy with Otway and Robertson, told rattling good stories, and displayed an immediate interest when the skipper mentioned that the second mate was a “bit of a bruiser,” and that there were gloves on board; and the second mate, a nuggety little Tynesider, at once consented to a friendly mill as soon as he was off duty.

“Wilfrid,” said Mrs. Lacy, “you’ll shock every one.  I can see that Captain Robertson wonders what sort of a clergyman you are.”

Robertson saw the merry light in her dark eyes, and then laughed aloud as he saw Miss Weidermann’s face.  It expressed the very strongest disapproval, and during the rest of the meal the virgin lady preserved a dismal silence.  The rest of the passengers, however, “took” to the clerical gentleman at once.  With old Father Roget—­the Marist missionary who sat opposite him—­he soon entered into an animated conversation, while the two De Boos girls, vivacious Samoan half-castes, attached themselves to his wife.  Seated beside Otway was another passenger, an American skipper named Burr, who was going to Apia to take command of a vessel