The Ebbing of the Tide, page 89 by Louis Becke
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bled from between his lips, and then the end.
With cold, merciless eyes the other regarded him, with clenched hands and set teeth. Then he went for'ard and unbent the boat's kedge, and with the same lashings that had bound the living man to the thwart he lashed the kedge across the dead man's chest.
He stood up and looked at the approaching steamer, and then he raised the body in his arms and dropped it over the side.
*****
A few days later the papers said that the steamer Maungatapu had picked up a man named Harry, who with Captain Cressingham, of the Belted Will had been blown out to sea from Port ------. It appeared from the survivor's statement that during a heavy squall the same night Captain Cressingham had fallen overboard, and his companion was unable to rescue him.
"THE BEST ASSET IN A FOOL'S ESTATE"
A slight smile lit up the clear-cut, sombre face of Lawson from Safune, as looking up from his boat at Etheridge's house he saw the glint of many lights shining through the walls of the roughly-built store. It was well on towards midnight when he had left Safune and sailed round to Etheridge's, a distance of twelve or fifteen miles, and as his boat touched the sand the first streaks of dawn were changing the dead whiteness of the beach into a dull grey--soon to brighten into a creamy yellow as the sun pierced the heavy land-mist.
A native or two, wrapped from head to foot in the long lava lava of white calico, passed him as he followed the windings of the track to Etheridge's, but gave him no sign of greeting. Had he been any one of the few other white men living on Savaii the dark men would have stopped him and, native-like, inquired the reason of his early visit to their town. But they knew Lawson too well. Matâaitu they called him--devil-faced. And in this they were not far wrong, for Lawson, with his dark olive skin, jet black beard, and eyes that belied the ever-smiling lips, was not a man whom people