When I came on deck the western sky was glowing with a fiery sunset, and under the crimson clouds I could make out the long dark line of Iriatai. Puzzled and vaguely uneasy in my mind, I was leaning on the rail when my eye fell on a handsome dinghey, slung on davits close to where I stood. Her stern was toward me, and there, neatly lettered on the bright varnished wood, I saw the word, "Cholita." So Schmidt's vessel was called Cholita--a pretty name for a pretty schooner--and then I remembered with a sudden start. My thoughts flashed back to the morning when I had paddled out to breakfast with my uncle in Faatemu Bay--to his account of Thursday Island Schmidt. My uncle's words came back to me: "His schooner's as pretty as her reputation is black, and the way he handled her was a treat to watch." So this was the Cholita, and I was the guest of the famous Thursday Island Schmidt! I felt a touch on my shoulder, Marama was beside me, a serious expression on his face. "Listen!" he said in a hurried whisper; "I must go forward before the captain returns. If we approach the land to-night, let us slip overboard and swim ashore. Seroni must be warned, for I think that there is evil afoot. Do you remember Rairi, the Tara's cook who tried to kill old Pahuri that night on our passage south? He is aboard--I have seen him, though his face was turned away from me. He has been ordered to keep out of your sight. This schooner was bound for Iriatai before she picked us up. The mate, who is a good man and beginning to fear for himself, has told me as much." The captain was approaching with a noiseless step; when I glanced up he was not four yards off. He halted and looked at Marama in angry astonishment. "Get forward," he bellowed, in a voice that made the sailors turn their heads, "_verdammt_ Kanaka cheek!" He turned to me, the former suavity gone from his manner. "And you," he ordered--"go below!" I obeyed him, choking with anger and a sense of impotence. The half-caste girl was sitting on the lounge, she had been sewing, but now her hands were clenched and her work lay where it had dropped to the floor. There was a look of apprehension in her eyes. When she saw that I was alone she beckoned me with a swift gesture. "Come here, boy--me want talk with you," she whispered in quaint broken English. "Me hear Schmidt say 'Go below'--he too much bad man! _Guk_! Me hate him!--Suppose we go near land tonight, me jump overboard, swim ashore. You come too--we go hide in bush." Her fierce eyes blazed as she pointed to the bruise on her cheek.