Then the hubbub subsided, and one by one the drunken audience fell asleep. Old Tideman, who was a crank on astronomy, crept outside with his telescope to look at the stars. The wide-open door revealed the moonlit palms just outside and the few straggling figures of sulu-clad natives who had crept from afar to listen to the songs of the wild white men! The last that was seen of the old man that night was when he went off down the track, his little clerical hat bashed over his eyes, his arms waving as he tried to make his companion understand how he admired her frizzly mop hair and lustrous eyes. For it was the fat native woman with whom he had danced a Fijian jig on the bench table! O’Hara grinned when he met the old gent in the morning. He responded by giving him a freezing stare, as though he hardly knew him! He looked quite pious, as though he only indulged in plain milk diet and studied ecclesiastical problems. He looked bad though; one can’t bribe the liver and make its overflow look blushing and rosy red when it’s really a bilious green! The night of debauchery had aged him considerably. His hands shook; he didn’t know which way to go. First he picked a flower, chewed it, then wiped his mouth and his clammy forehead. O’Hara went straight into business then, and said:
“I’m clearing out to-day. I’ve hired a fine outrigger-canoe that’s big enough to hold twenty.” Then he looked square into the aged fugitive’s face, and asked him if he was coming along with us.
He was as pleased to get away from that place as we were, that was very evident, for he decided to go away with O’Hara and myself at once. There was no need for secrecy, the shanty was quiet as the grave; for the sleeping reprobates were making up by day for sleep lost through the night. Only the forest banyans sighed as we three crept away into the shadows, and then even the wail of the derelict captain’s concertina faded away as we plunged into the dense wood. When we arrived at the native village we found, to our disgust, that the man who had promised to lend us the canoe was out fishing in it.
“It’s no good getting ratty, guv’nor,” said O’Hara, as the old fellow began to swear, and said he’d go back to the Organization. We breathed a sigh of relief when the native boat-owner at length returned. In a moment we were off, bound for the shore. The old man dropped his walking-stick in his hurry; we were all anxious to get away. As we went down the long grove of feathery palms and giant breadfruits the stars were shining over the sea. We could feel the cool drifts of wind coming in as they stirred the wild odours of half-dead forest flowers and decaying pineapples. As we tramped down the soft shore-track we saw the fireflies dancing in the bamboos that grew high up on the edge of the rocky slope above us, far ahead. It seemed as though we were looking through a telescope and could see myriads of tiny worlds sparkling and dancing far away in infinite space.