was no more than a raw youth essaying his first adventures in
politics. In fact, he played a most creditable and courageous part
in the last revolution, when the native dynasty was overthrown; and
he could not have been over sixteen at the time. I am pointing out
that he was no coward, in order that you may appreciate what happens
later on. I've seen him in the breaking yard at the Haleakala
Ranch, conquering a four-year-old brute that for two years had
defied the pick of Von Tempsky's cow-boys. And I must tell of one
other thing. It was down in Kona,--or up, rather, for the Kona
people scorn to live at less than a thousand feet elevation. We
were all on the lanai of Doctor Goodhue's bungalow. I was talking
with Dottie Fairchild when it happened. A big centipede--it was
seven inches, for we measured it afterwards--fell from the rafters
overhead squarely into her coiffure. I confess, the hideousness of
it paralysed me. I couldn't move. My mind refused to work. There,
within two feet of me, the ugly venomous devil was writhing in her
hair. It threatened at any moment to fall down upon her exposed
shoulders--we had just come out from dinner.

"What is it?" she asked, starting to raise her hand to her head.

"Don't!" I cried. "Don't!"

"But what is it?" she insisted, growing frightened by the fright she
read in my eyes and on my stammering lips.

My exclamation attracted Kersdale's attention. He glanced our way
carelessly, but in that glance took in everything. He came over to
us, but without haste.