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I've a carriage outside. It won't take us five minutes to get down to the wharf." To the wharf we drove. Some forty sad wretches, amid their mats, blankets, and luggage of various sorts, were squatting on the stringer piece. The Noeau had just arrived and was making fast to a lighter that lay between her and the wharf. A Mr.
Good-bye!" he called. And he stood there on the wharf, waving his hands to her till the Noeau was clear away and the faces lining her after-rail were vague and indistinct. "I thought you knew," said McVeigh, who had been regarding him curiously. "You, of all men, should have known. I thought that was why you were here." "I know now," Kersdale answered with immense gravity. "Where's the carriage?"
She straight on board, and aft on the open deck where the lepers huddled by the rail, wailing now, to their dear ones on shore. The lines were cast off, and the Noeau began to move away from the wharf. The wailing increased. Such grief and despair! I was just resolving that never again would I be a witness to the sailing of the Noeau, when McVeigh and Kersdale returned.
"I'll show you the saddest aspect of the whole situation the lepers wailing as they depart for Molokai. The Noeau will be taking them on board in a few minutes. But let me warn you not to let your feelings be harrowed. Real as their grief is, they'd wail a whole sight harder a year hence if the Board of Health tried to take them away from Molokai. We've just time for a whiskey and soda.
These deportations occurred about once a month, when, the last good-byes said, the lepers were marched on board the little steamer, the Noeau, and carried down to the settlement. One afternoon, writing letters at the club, Jack Kersdale dropped in on me. "Just the man I want to see," was his greeting.
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