“I hope she will,” I said, and little did I dream that the wish I expressed at that moment should come true in such a remarkable manner before we had returned.

“And you don’t know what they meant by their song about the white waterfall and Black Fernando’s hell?” murmured Barbara.

“No, I don’t,” I replied.  “The Maori ran away when I attempted to cross-examine him, and Toni denies all knowledge of the duet on the wharf.”

“Oh, we must ask him again!” she cried.  “There he is near the wheel.  I’ll go and bring him!”

She raced madly after the Fijian and hauled him before us in triumph.  I was more convinced than ever that it was Toni who had blundered over his lesson on the wharf, but Toni denied the charge more vehemently than he did on the boat.  He asserted in reply to Barbara Herndon’s questions, that he could not sing a note, that he was absolutely ignorant of white waterfalls, and the only hell he knew was the one spoken of by the missionary in Lower George Street, Sydney; and the girl sighed as she gave up the effort.

“It seemed such a nice mystery to unravel,” she murmured, “but if Toni persists in saying that he knows nothing of the white waterfall the investigation falls to the ground.”

The Fijian was backing away with renewed protestations when a head came round the corner of the galley, and a voice that was deeper than the caves of Atiu fired a question at us.

“What about the white waterfall?”

“Oh, Mr. Leith,” cried Miss Barbara, “we have just been investigating a mystery.  Mr. Verslun discovered it this afternoon in Levuka.  But you haven’t met Mr. Verslun yet, have you?”

“I haven’t,” growled the owner of the voice.

“Mr. Verslun, this is Mr. Leith, who is father’s partner,” said Miss Barbara.  “He knows a lot about the Islands, but he refuses to tell any of his experiences.”

I looked at the man who stood in front of me, and a curious thing flashed through my mind.  I was reminded at that moment of a story I had read of a man charged with an attempt upon the life of a prince.  The would-be murderer informed the judge that a terrible hate of the princeling had gripped him the moment he put eyes on him, and he had made the attempt upon his life before he had managed to control the unexplainable surge of hate.  I understood the emotion that had gripped that unfortunate as I stood face to face with Leith.  A feeling of revulsion gripped me, and I experienced a peculiar squalmy sensation as I took his hand.  It was unexplainable.  Perhaps some ancestor of mine had unsatisfactory dealings with a man of the same unusual type in a faraway past, and the transmitted hate had suddenly sprung into the conscious area.  I do know that you can keep a secretary-bird away from snakes till it grows old, but the first reptile it sees it immediately starts out to beat him up.  I had the inherited hate that makes the secretary-bird rush madly at a snake that may be the first of its species that it has ever seen, and I guess that Leith had no love to spare for me from the moment he took my hand.