So saying, I swung on my heel and left the house.
It would have been a bad business for any man who might have crossed me that night, for I was in about as vile a temper as it would be possible to be. So, unable to trust myself among men, I made for the hill-side, and started walking about the back of the island.
I must have wandered all night, for breakfast-time discovered me not more than a hundred yards from the Albino's door. With a yearning for some one to impart my sorrows to, I made towards it, and entered in time to catch my friend at his meal. His keen eyes saw in an instant that something was wrong.
"You've been quarrelling with Juanita," he began. "Don't deny it; I can see it in your face. Well, you're a bigger fool than I figured you. What was it about?"
When I told him, he gave me a glance full of such withering contempt that I almost quailed before it.
"I thought it was a man I was helping; as I live, it's only a school-girl! Did she forget to say he was a pretty boy, and to kiss him, and to chuck him under the chin then?"
His raillery was more than I could stand, so being unwilling to quarrel with him too, I got up to go. But this by no means suited him.
"Sit down," he snapped, pointing with a long fore-finger to the kerosene case which did duty for a chair; "sit down and tell me what you propose to do now; or, what's more to the point, I'll tell you what you shall do."
"Why, you shall just eat your breakfast here, my boy, and then go back to the 'Orient' and eat humble pie."
"Never!" I cried. "I'll see you damned first!"
"Silence, fool!" he almost shrieked. "You shall eat just as much dirt as she chooses to give you. Do you think I'm going to let you spoil this contract for a ha'porth of humility? That's not my way. And when you've talked her round----"
"Suppose your grandmother! She's a woman, and if you go the right way to work, you ought to be able to do what you like with her. Then you'll let her understand that you have money to invest, and after that you'll find all go smooth as buttermilk."
"Child, you've got to; you've fairly got to grovel, or quarrel with me. Now just pack your traps, and clear out of this; I want to wash up."
In obedience to his command I returned to the township, and once more entered the "Orient." Juanita was not in. She had gone for a walk along the beach. Inquiring the direction, I followed it, and soon discovered her seated on the side of Fortification Hill, gazing across the blue strip of sea to where the mainland of Australia pushes its head up above the horizon. Numbers of white-sailed pearling craft dotted the bay; a missionary schooner was going about on her second board towards her moorings; and so still was the air, that the sound of hammering came quite distinctly from a lugger at anchor under the shadow of the Prince of Wales' Island, nearly a mile away. As I approached her, Juanita looked up and saw me.