The author had intended to publish this book anonymously and has left the manuscript as originally written.
I see by the next entry in my diary that I gave the skipper several violin lessons. Here are the entries:
“Skipper gone violin mad. He’s got a good ear, but his technique and time are rotten. I’m on sick list. Skipper kept me up all night. Though I hate whisky, I swallowed several glasses through his infernal persuasion. I can see now that it was deliberate on his part. He says that I played the violin like a heathen god. I know that I did _something_, because the violin’s strings were all broken this morning.
“I’ve got some dim recollection of pressing Waylao’s hand when the skipper wasn’t looking, recall some faint idea that I thought she was a glorious Madonna, and that I whispered impassioned things into her ears. I think I danced too. The world seemed to have suddenly righted itself, everything seemed beautiful and rosy. Death and God walked mercifully together. I even got over-familiar with the skipper—smacked him on the back and told him he’d be a good violinist in about a thousand years’ time. No more whisky for me, thank you.
“_Monday._—Passed Curacoa reef this afternoon. Samoan Isles are away to the north. Been thinking of dear old Grimes; wish he was with me.
“Waylao cried for two hours to-day. I did my level best to cheer her up. She had been telling me a lot about her childhood. I find that she is really a most intelligent girl, but rather given to following her impulses instead of calm reason. Like me in that respect.
“I feel sometimes that I’m half in love with Waylao. She’s romantic; has got a beautiful golden gleam in the pupils of her eyes. I can easily see how that devil of a man got her into trouble. She’s been talking a lot about Eastern men, Indians, etc. Got my suspicions about things. I know what the world is: read about life in the newspapers, London, England. Wicked, soulless old bounders some men are.
“I dreamed about Pauline last night. She came to me as I was playing the violin by the old grog shanty. I threw my arms around her; she kissed me passionately, saying that she had loved me all the time. She seemed wondrously beautiful in the dream. I can’t imagine anything so gloriously divine now that I’m wide awake. Yet I somehow feel the effect on my heart. It’s strange that the most divine conceptions of beauty are realised when we are asleep. Perhaps it’s a beautiful premonition, some prophetic knowledge of what things will be like when we are dead—and yet, what about nightmares?