Dan Winterslip pushed his way forward and ran up the sharp incline. As he reached the deck he encountered an old acquaintance, Hepworth, the second officer.
“You’re the man I’m looking for,” he cried.
“How are you, sir,” Hepworth said. “I didn’t see your name on the list.”
“No, I’m not sailing. I’m here to ask a favor.”
“Glad to oblige, Mr. Winterslip.”
Winterslip thrust a letter into his hand. “You know my cousin Roger in ’Frisco. Please give him that—him and no one else—as soon after you land as you possibly can. I’m too late for the mail—and I prefer this way anyhow. I’ll be mighty grateful.”
“Don’t mention it—you’ve been very kind to me and I’ll be only too happy—I’m afraid you’ll have to go ashore, sir. Just a minute, there—” He took Winterslip’s arm and gently urged him back on to the plank. The instant Dan’s feet touched the dock, the plank was drawn up behind him.
For a moment he stood, held by the fascination an Islander always feels at sight of a ship outward bound. Then he turned and walked slowly through the pier-shed. Ahead of him he caught a glimpse of a slender lithe figure which he recognized at once as that of Dick Kaohla, the grandson of Kamaikui. He quickened his pace and joined the boy.
“Hello, Dick,” he said.
“Hello.” The brown face was sullen, unfriendly.
“You haven’t been to see me for a long time,” Dan Winterslip said. “Everything all right?”
“Sure,” replied Kaohla. “Sure it’s all right.” They reached the street, and the boy turned quickly away, “Good night,” he muttered.
Dan Winterslip stood for a moment, thoughtfully looking after him. Then he got into the car. “No hurry now,” he remarked to the chauffeur.
When he reappeared in his living-room, Miss Minerva glanced up from the book she was reading. “Were you in time, Dan?” she asked.
“Just made it,” he told her.
“Good,” she said, rising. “I’ll take my book and go upstairs. Pleasant dreams.”
He waited until she reached the door before he spoke. “Ah—Minerva—don’t trouble to write your nephew about stopping here.”
“No, Dan?” she said, puzzled again.
“No. I’ve attended to the invitation myself. Good night.”
“Oh—good night,” she answered, and left him.
Alone in the great room, he paced restlessly back and forth over the polished floor. In a moment he went out on to the lanai, and found the newspaper he had been reading earlier in the evening. He brought it back to the living-room and tried to finish it, but something seemed to trouble him. His eyes kept straying—straying—with a sharp exclamation he tore one corner from the shipping page, savagely ripped the fragment to bits.
Again he got up and wandered about. He had intended paying a call down the beach, but that quiet presence in the room above—Boston in its more tolerant guise but Boston still—gave him pause.
He returned to the lanai. There, under a mosquito netting, was the cot where he preferred to sleep; his dressing-room was near at hand. However, it was too early for bed. He stepped through the door on to the beach. Unmistakable, the soft treacherous breath of the Kona fanned his cheek—the “sick wind” that would pile the breakers high along the coast and blight temporarily this Island paradise. There was no moon, the stars that usually seemed so friendly and so close were now obscured. The black water rolled in like a threat. He stood staring out into the dark—out there to the crossroads where paths always crossed again. If you gave them time—if you only gave them time—
As he turned back, his eyes went to the algaroba tree beyond the wire, and he saw the yellow flare of a match. His brother Amos. He had a sudden friendly feeling for Amos, he wanted to go over and talk to him, talk of the far days when they played together on this beach. No use, he knew. He sighed, and the screen door of the lanai banged behind him—the screen door without a lock in a land where locks are few.
Tired, he sat in the dark to think. His face was turned toward the curtain of bamboo between him and the living-room. On that curtain a shadow appeared, was motionless a second, then vanished. He caught his breath—again the shadow. “Who’s there?” he called.
A huge brown arm was thrust through the bamboo. A friendly brown face was framed there.
“Your fruit I put on the table,” said Kamaikui. “I go bed now.”
“Of course. Go ahead. Good night.”
The woman withdrew. Dan Winterslip was furious with himself. What was the matter with him, anyhow? He who had fought his way through unspeakable terrors in the early days—nervous—on edge—
“Getting old,” he muttered. “No, by heaven—it’s the Kona. That’s it. The Kona. I’ll be all right when the trades blow again.”
When the trades blew again! He wondered. Here at the crossroads one could not be sure.
II
The High Hat
John Quincy Winterslip walked aboard the ferry at Oakland feeling rather limp and weary. For more than six days he had been marooned on sleepers—his pause at Chicago had been but a flitting from one train to another—and he was fed up. Seeing America first—that was what he had been doing. And what an appalling lot of it there was! He felt that for an eternity he had been staring at endless plains, dotted here and there by unesthetic houses the inmates of which had unquestionably never heard a symphony concert.
Ahead of him ambled a porter, bearing his two suitcases, his
