The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-10-03
On Kindilini
By John Fleming Wilson.


hadn t been seen much together. and
| Honoria had even avoided the usual
routs and balls But inside a week oul
eyes followed them, for Henry quietly
took Honoria as his constant compan'
ion. and Alexander, snuff box in hand
sat by the wheel and stared out upon
the ocean with a sullen, hurt look
Honoria was respondent.
''We were really a strange company
though I suppose our being thrust to-
gether in eramped quarters had much
to do with our incongruity. Out OF
thirty passengers there were, besides
Honoria, only three women. Two of
these were wives Of men on board; the
third was slim, shy girl going to some
place in Connecticut to be married.
Her name was Susan Hays, and she
sat in the shadow of the long boat at
night and warmed her engagement ring
against her breast. I suppose she
thought no one observed her
t'Indeed, [ aattered myself that it
was I only who had been shrewd
enough to read the story of this girl g
brooding affection. But one night, sit
ting on a hatch and watching the
moonlight on the upper sails, l heard
Honoria s voice, from some shadow,
saying unsteadily, Il threw my be-
trothal ring into drawer when I got
it. I couldn't wear it, Harry
''Plicott (for I recognized his voice)
muttered, 'One can get rid Of the en-
gagement ring, but the wedding ring
sticks fast, doesn t it, Honoriag'
"That was all / heard. But | knew,
then, that Alexander Mclean had bet
ter look to his wife or lose her. The
Golden Gate was swimming eastward
slowly through warm, breezy seas,
under dark skies where the stars hung
in certain gorgeous detachment and
a woman s face in the dusk was more
than all the commandments. A few
days later I went forward at SHUTDOWN,
and found Honoria and Henry sitting
on the big anchor, quite forgetful of
the dinner-gong. When I appeared,
she looked up with defiant glance,
and Henry dropped her hand. Later he
came to me and said, glowering, you
understand, I suppose, that it is none
of your businesss' Well, of course it
was no affair of mine The elderly
chap with the snuffbo had the whole
burden on his shoulders.
'fThereafter I thought that Henry
dropped some of his reserve. Whenever
Honoria came up on deck, with her
hair glowing in the light and her firm,
white hands shading her eyes,-her in
variable gesture,-Plicott would leave
whatever group he was in and walk
-
would sit down, silently, together.
Now and then one would see her brush
her warm lips with her fingers and
glance abroad with frightened. tremu
lous air, like child in trouble. Henry
would glover ont of his hungry eyes,
and his lean, dark face would redden.
Now and again Alexander walked by,
his starched face rigid with disap-
prevail. So far as we observed, neither
man ever addressed the other.
stYou understand that the course
taken by our vessel was lonely beyond
expression. It is extremely probable
that not one ship in ten years cuts
across that desolate expanse of the
South Pacific. Tt is sea of battling
winds, of intending blank reaches that
weary the eye. Day after day the
horizon recedes before you, presenting
a constant, definite line, broken once
in a while by the uprising of distant
wave or the column of cloud. Over
head the winds echo in the profound
vault, a measured, faint thunder that
is forever exactly above you, invari
able and incessant, like the din of
vast wheels.
fThe Golden Gate gained an atmos-
phere of intense and eternal solitude.
much as if she had become fixed in
space, and the earth were rumbling
under us like an endless treadmill, mid
way of which we were travelling, with
out an inch S advance. I suppose we
all of lis expected this to last forever.
/ don t think one of US looked for the
bark to arrive at any port. Honestly,
as / review it, [ am convinced that
we didn t dream of ever missing the
sight of Honoria, elbows on knees, eyes
on the distance, feeling beside her
Plicott, whose dark face was forever
ruddied by the thought of his love for
her. Susan Hays was
eternally to slip across before them,
holding her gentle left hand in the
palm of her right in order that no
breath of this fiery passion might scar
the tender love that warmed her small
betrothal ring. For ages Alex
ander Mclean was to skulk in the
shadow, tapping the lid of his box of
deadly venom. So, when, one night
as we sat about the deck, the yards
shivered, a shroud snapped high up,
giving forth a vibrant, shrill tang, and
the Golden Gate stopped dead on her
course, We stared at each other like
men Weakened from a dream.
81 An hour later we knew the extent
of our disaster. In that uncharted sea
a reef had intercepted US. The bark
had slipped upon it under the gentle
impulse of her sails, nosed inte2 it. and
swung round broadside to the sharp
coral Our vessel was total loss, "
ing almost awash to the long, low roll
lers that passed over the sunken reef
without breaking.
'tThe next day was an anxious one.
The captain pored over the charts and
fingered the Handbook and Sailing
Directions for the South Pacific while
the mates cleared away the boats,
broke out provisions, and did what
they could to prepared for the long trip
to land. Toward evening the captain
assembled us and said THE reef we
a xJ-raaLo1