“Some one was listening to us,” I explained as I returned to the girl’s side.

“I am sorry then that I asked you to accompany us,” she murmured.  “I am dragging you into our troubles, Mr. Verslun, and it is not right.”

“Hush!” I cried.  “Your troubles are mine just because you are a woman out on the very fringe of the earth where you can get no one else to help you bear them.  You see I can claim a right in this spot.  This is the jumping off place of the world down here, and an offer of assistance must not be refused.”

She stood in front of me, a tall, splendid figure, the moonlight silvering the piled masses of hair and giving one the impression that her head was surrounded by a shining halo.  Suddenly she put out her hand and took mine.

“I accept your offer gladly,” she said softly.  “You are very, very kind, Mr. Verslun.  It may be, as you say, the jumping off place of the world down here at the very outposts of civilization, but the power that protects one in the crowded cities is surely here as well.  Good-night, friend.”

It was an hour after the time when Miss Herndon went below that I asked the captain’s permission to go along with the expedition.  He plucked his scrawny beard with a nervous hand as he stood staring at me.

“What the devil do you want to go for?” he asked.

“For the fun of the thing.”

“I don’t know,” he muttered.  “I’ll see Leith.”

He turned away and I walked for’ard.  The beauty of the night was extraordinary.  The yacht seemed to be veneered with a soft luminous paint that gave us the appearance of a ghostly ship skimming over a ghostly ocean.

At the top of the fo’c’stle ladder I found a native stretched full length and sobbing mightily.  He walloped his head against the planks when I endeavoured to get him upon his feet, and the sobs shook his frame.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Toni!  Toni!  Toni!” he wailed.  “Toni he gone.  Toni, my brother, all same come from Suva, now him dead.”

“I’m sorry, but it can’t be helped,” I said.  “He should have been more careful.”

The native lifted himself from the deck and glanced around fearfully.  Satisfied that there were no listeners he dried his eyes and crawled upon his knees to the spot where I was standing.  “He not washed overboard,” he whispered.  “Soma stick one knife in him, then he tip him over.  Me see him, very much afraid.”

“When?” I asked.

“Night afore last,” he gasped.  “Captain see him do it.  Very bad thing.  Toni, my brother, all same work one time Suva.”

Holman joined me when I relieved the captain late in the night; I told the youngster what I knew about the disappearance of Toni.

“Who knifed him?” he asked.

“The big Kanaka who pulled Leith out of the scuppers when he fell yesterday.”

“Holy smoke!” cried the boy.  “I’d like to get the strength of things on board this boat.  Why, that big nigger is going to be the guide of the expedition on shore.”