Harriwell pressed him to stay on longer, but Bertie insisted on sailing immediately on the Arla for Tulagi, where, until the following steamer day, he stuck close by the Commissioner’s house.  There were lady tourists on the outgoing steamer, and Bertie was again a hero, while Captain Malu, as usual, passed unnoticed.  But Captain Malu sent back from Sydney two cases of the best Scotch whiskey on the market, for he was not able to make up his mind as to whether it was Captain Hansen or Mr. Harriwell who had given Bertie Arkwright the more gorgeous insight into life in the Solomons.

EL DORADO

From “A Tarpaulin Muster,” BY JOHN MASEFIELD

The night had fallen over the harbour before the winch began to rattle.  The stars came out, calm and golden, shaking little tracks in the sea.  In the tiers of ships shone the riding-lights.  To the westward, where the Point jutted out, the great golden light of Negra winked and glimmered as it revolved.  It was a beat continually, like the marching of an army, along the line of the coast.  In one of the tiers of ships there was a sing-song.  A crew had gathered on the forecastle head, to beat their pannikins to the stars.  The words of their song floated out into the darkness, full of a haunting beauty which thrilled and satisfied me.  There was something in the night, in the air, in the beauty of the town, and in the sweetness of the sailors’ singing, which made me sorry to be leaving.  I should have liked to have gone ashore again, to the Calle del Inca, where the cafes and taverns stood.  I should have liked to have seen those stately pale women, in their black robes, with the scarlet roses in their hair, swaying slowly on the stage to the clicking of the castenets.  I should have liked to have taken part in another wild dance among the tables of the wine shops.  I was sorry to be leaving.

When the winch began to clank, as the cable was hove in, I gathered up my lead-line, and went to the leadsman’s dicky, or little projecting platform, on the starboard side.  I was to be the leadsman that night, and as we should soon be moving, I made the breast-rope secure, and stood by.

Presently the bell of the engine-room clanged, and there came a wash abaft as the screws thrashed.  The ship trembled, as the turbulent trampling of the engines shook her.  The bell clanged again; the water below me gleamed and whitened; the dark body of the steamer, with her lines of lit ports, swept slowly across the lights in the harbour.  The trampling of the engines steadied, and took to itself a rhythm.  We were off.  I cast an eye astern at the little town I was so sad to leave, and caught a glimpse of a path of churned water, broadening astern of us.  A voice sounded from the promenade deck behind me.  “Zat light, what you call ’eem?”

I could not answer.  My orders were to keep strict silence.  The point of an umbrella took me sharply below the shoulders.  “What you call ’eem—­zat light?  Ze light zere?”