he 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."

"Who says so?"

"Leith pointed him out to the Professor this afternoon," answered
Holman. "I was talking to the old scientist at the time."

I whistled softly. If Soma was a henchman of Leith's it was clear to me
why the captain had shielded him the night he jerked the knife at me
when I dropped the pin upon his woolly head, but why Toni had been put
away was a mystery.

"Is it any good of attempting to convince the Professor?" I asked.

"Not a bit," snapped Holman. "The girls have been imploring him to turn
back this last three days while we were stuck in the cabin, but he won't
listen to them. He's a maniac, that's what he is. He doesn't know what
those two wom