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Sheldon attempted to rise, got half up out of his chair, and fell back helplessly. He was surprised at the size of the men, who loomed like giants behind her. Both were six-footers, and they were heavy in proportion. He had never seen islanders like them. They were not black like the Solomon Islanders, but light brown; and their features were larger, more regular, and even handsome.
The woman-or girl, rather, he decided-walked along the veranda toward him. The two men waited at the head of the steps, watching curiously. The girl was angry; he could see that. Her gray eyes were flashing, and her lips were quivering. That she had a temper, was his thought. But the eyes were striking. He decided that they were not gray after all, or, at least, not all gray. They were large and wide apart, and they looked at him from under level brows. Her face was cameo-like, so clear cut was it. There were other striking things about her-the cowboy Stetson hat, the heavy braids of brown hair, and the long-barrelled 38 Colt's revolver that hung in its holster on her hip.
«Pretty hospitality, I must say,» was her greeting, «letting strangers sink or swim in your front yard.»
«I-I beg your pardon,» he stammered, by a supreme effort dragging himself to his feet.
His legs wobbled under him, and with a suffocating sensation he began sinking to the floor. He was aware of a feeble gratification as he saw solicitude leap into her eyes; then blackness smote him, and at the moment of smiting him his thought was that at last, and for the first time in his life, he had fainted.
The ringing of the big bell aroused him. He opened his eyes and found that he was on the couch indoors. A glance at the clock told him that it was six, and from the direction the sun's rays streamed into the room he knew that it was morning. At first he puzzled over something untoward he was sure had happened. Then on the wall he saw a Stetson hat hanging, and beneath it a full cartridge-belt and a long-barrelled 38 Colt's revolver. The slender girth of the belt told its feminine story, and he remembered the whale-boat of the day before and the gray eyes that flashed beneath the level brows. She it must have been who had just rung the bell. The cares of the plantation rushed upon him, and he sat up in bed, clutching at the wall for support as the mosquito screen lurched dizzily around him. He was still sitting there, holding on, with eyes closed, striving to master his giddiness, when he heard her voice.
«You'll lie right down again, sir,» she said.
It was sharply imperative, a voice used to command. At the same time one hand pressed him back toward the pillow while the other caught him from behind and eased him down.
«You've been unconscious for twenty-four hours now,» she went on, «and I have taken charge. When I say the word you'll get up, and not until then. Now, what medicine do you take?-quinine? Here are ten grains. That's right. You'll make a good patient.»
«My dear madame,» he began.
«You musn't speak,» she interrupted, «that is, in protest. Otherwise, you can talk.»
«But the plantation-«
«A dead man is of no use on a plantation. Don't you want to know about ME? My vanity is hurt. Here am I, just through my first shipwreck; and here are you, not the least bit curious, talking about your miserable plantation. Can't you see that I am just bursting to tell somebody, anybody, about my shipwreck?»
He smiled; it was the first time in weeks. And he smiled, not so much at what she said, as at the way she said it-the whimsical expression of her face, the laughter in her eyes, and the several tiny lines of humour that drew in at the corners. He was curiously wondering as to what her age was, as he said aloud:
«Yes, tell me, please.»
«That I will not-not now,» she retorted, with a toss of the head. «I'll find somebody to tell my story to who does not have to be asked. Also, I want information. I managed to find out what time to ring the bell to turn the hands to, and that is about all. I don't understand the ridiculous speech of your people. What time do they knock off?»
«At eleven-go on again at one.»
«That will do, thank you. And now, where do you keep the key to the provisions? I want to feed my men.»
«Your men!» he gasped. «On tinned goods! No, no. Let them go out and eat with my boys.»
Her eyes flashed as on the day before, and he saw again the imperative expression on her face.
«That I won't; my men are MEN. I've been out to your miserable barracks and watched them eat. Faugh! Potatoes! Nothing but potatoes! No salt! Nothing! Only potatoes! I may have been mistaken, but I thought I understood them to say that that was all they ever got to eat. Two meals a day and every day in the week?»
He nodded.
«Well, my men wouldn't stand that for a single day, much less a whole week. Where is the key?»
«Hanging on that clothes-hook under the clock.»
He gave it easily enough, but as she was reaching down the key she heard him say:
«Fancy niggers and tinned provisions.»
This time she really was angry. The blood was in her cheeks as she turned on him.
«My men are not niggers. The sooner you understand that the better for our acquaintance. As for the tinned goods, I'll pay for all they eat. Please don't worry about that. Worry is not good for you in your condition. And I won't stay any longer than I have to-
–just long enough to get you on your feet, and not go away with the feeling of having deserted a white man.»
«You're American, aren't you?» he asked quietly.
The question disconcerted her for the moment.
«Yes,» she vouchsafed, with a defiant look. «Why?»
«Nothing. I merely thought so.»
«Anything further?»
He shook his head.
«Why?» he asked.
«Oh, nothing. I thought you might have something pleasant to say.»
«My name is Sheldon, David Sheldon,» he said, with direct relevance, holding out a thin hand.
Her hand started out impulsively, then checked. «My name is Lackland, Joan Lackland.» The hand went out. «And let us be friends.»
«It could not be otherwise-« he began lamely.
«And I can feed my men all the tinned goods I want?» she rushed on.
«Till the cows come home,» he answered, attempting her own lightness, then adding, «that is, to Berande. You see we don't have any cows at Berande.»
She fixed him coldly with her eyes.
«Is that a joke?» she demanded.
«I really don't know-I-I thought it was, but then, you see, I'm sick.»
«You're English, aren't you?» was her next query.
«Now that's too much, even for a sick man,» he cried. «You know well enough that I am.»
«Oh,» she said absently, «then you are?»
He frowned, tightened his lips, then burst into laughter, in which she joined.
«It's my own fault,» he confessed. «I shouldn't have baited you. I'll be careful in the future.»
«In the meantime go on laughing, and I'll see about breakfast. Is there anything you would fancy?»
He shook his head.
«It will do you good to eat something. Your fever has burned out, and you are merely weak. Wait a moment.»
She hurried out of the room in the direction of the kitchen, tripped at the door in a pair of sandals several sizes too large for her feet, and disappeared in rosy confusion.
«By Jove, those are my sandals,» he thought to himself. «The girl hasn't a thing to wear except what she landed on the beach in, and she certainly landed in sea-boots.»
CHAPTER V-SHE WOULD A PLANTER BE
CHAPTER VI-TEMPEST
CHAPTER VII-A HARD-BITTEN GANG
The woman-or girl, rather, he decided-walked along the veranda toward him. The two men waited at the head of the steps, watching curiously. The girl was angry; he could see that. Her gray eyes were flashing, and her lips were quivering. That she had a temper, was his thought. But the eyes were striking. He decided that they were not gray after all, or, at least, not all gray. They were large and wide apart, and they looked at him from under level brows. Her face was cameo-like, so clear cut was it. There were other striking things about her-the cowboy Stetson hat, the heavy braids of brown hair, and the long-barrelled 38 Colt's revolver that hung in its holster on her hip.
«Pretty hospitality, I must say,» was her greeting, «letting strangers sink or swim in your front yard.»
«I-I beg your pardon,» he stammered, by a supreme effort dragging himself to his feet.
His legs wobbled under him, and with a suffocating sensation he began sinking to the floor. He was aware of a feeble gratification as he saw solicitude leap into her eyes; then blackness smote him, and at the moment of smiting him his thought was that at last, and for the first time in his life, he had fainted.
The ringing of the big bell aroused him. He opened his eyes and found that he was on the couch indoors. A glance at the clock told him that it was six, and from the direction the sun's rays streamed into the room he knew that it was morning. At first he puzzled over something untoward he was sure had happened. Then on the wall he saw a Stetson hat hanging, and beneath it a full cartridge-belt and a long-barrelled 38 Colt's revolver. The slender girth of the belt told its feminine story, and he remembered the whale-boat of the day before and the gray eyes that flashed beneath the level brows. She it must have been who had just rung the bell. The cares of the plantation rushed upon him, and he sat up in bed, clutching at the wall for support as the mosquito screen lurched dizzily around him. He was still sitting there, holding on, with eyes closed, striving to master his giddiness, when he heard her voice.
«You'll lie right down again, sir,» she said.
It was sharply imperative, a voice used to command. At the same time one hand pressed him back toward the pillow while the other caught him from behind and eased him down.
«You've been unconscious for twenty-four hours now,» she went on, «and I have taken charge. When I say the word you'll get up, and not until then. Now, what medicine do you take?-quinine? Here are ten grains. That's right. You'll make a good patient.»
«My dear madame,» he began.
«You musn't speak,» she interrupted, «that is, in protest. Otherwise, you can talk.»
«But the plantation-«
«A dead man is of no use on a plantation. Don't you want to know about ME? My vanity is hurt. Here am I, just through my first shipwreck; and here are you, not the least bit curious, talking about your miserable plantation. Can't you see that I am just bursting to tell somebody, anybody, about my shipwreck?»
He smiled; it was the first time in weeks. And he smiled, not so much at what she said, as at the way she said it-the whimsical expression of her face, the laughter in her eyes, and the several tiny lines of humour that drew in at the corners. He was curiously wondering as to what her age was, as he said aloud:
«Yes, tell me, please.»
«That I will not-not now,» she retorted, with a toss of the head. «I'll find somebody to tell my story to who does not have to be asked. Also, I want information. I managed to find out what time to ring the bell to turn the hands to, and that is about all. I don't understand the ridiculous speech of your people. What time do they knock off?»
«At eleven-go on again at one.»
«That will do, thank you. And now, where do you keep the key to the provisions? I want to feed my men.»
«Your men!» he gasped. «On tinned goods! No, no. Let them go out and eat with my boys.»
Her eyes flashed as on the day before, and he saw again the imperative expression on her face.
«That I won't; my men are MEN. I've been out to your miserable barracks and watched them eat. Faugh! Potatoes! Nothing but potatoes! No salt! Nothing! Only potatoes! I may have been mistaken, but I thought I understood them to say that that was all they ever got to eat. Two meals a day and every day in the week?»
He nodded.
«Well, my men wouldn't stand that for a single day, much less a whole week. Where is the key?»
«Hanging on that clothes-hook under the clock.»
He gave it easily enough, but as she was reaching down the key she heard him say:
«Fancy niggers and tinned provisions.»
This time she really was angry. The blood was in her cheeks as she turned on him.
«My men are not niggers. The sooner you understand that the better for our acquaintance. As for the tinned goods, I'll pay for all they eat. Please don't worry about that. Worry is not good for you in your condition. And I won't stay any longer than I have to-
–just long enough to get you on your feet, and not go away with the feeling of having deserted a white man.»
«You're American, aren't you?» he asked quietly.
The question disconcerted her for the moment.
«Yes,» she vouchsafed, with a defiant look. «Why?»
«Nothing. I merely thought so.»
«Anything further?»
He shook his head.
«Why?» he asked.
«Oh, nothing. I thought you might have something pleasant to say.»
«My name is Sheldon, David Sheldon,» he said, with direct relevance, holding out a thin hand.
Her hand started out impulsively, then checked. «My name is Lackland, Joan Lackland.» The hand went out. «And let us be friends.»
«It could not be otherwise-« he began lamely.
«And I can feed my men all the tinned goods I want?» she rushed on.
«Till the cows come home,» he answered, attempting her own lightness, then adding, «that is, to Berande. You see we don't have any cows at Berande.»
She fixed him coldly with her eyes.
«Is that a joke?» she demanded.
«I really don't know-I-I thought it was, but then, you see, I'm sick.»
«You're English, aren't you?» was her next query.
«Now that's too much, even for a sick man,» he cried. «You know well enough that I am.»
«Oh,» she said absently, «then you are?»
He frowned, tightened his lips, then burst into laughter, in which she joined.
«It's my own fault,» he confessed. «I shouldn't have baited you. I'll be careful in the future.»
«In the meantime go on laughing, and I'll see about breakfast. Is there anything you would fancy?»
He shook his head.
«It will do you good to eat something. Your fever has burned out, and you are merely weak. Wait a moment.»
She hurried out of the room in the direction of the kitchen, tripped at the door in a pair of sandals several sizes too large for her feet, and disappeared in rosy confusion.
«By Jove, those are my sandals,» he thought to himself. «The girl hasn't a thing to wear except what she landed on the beach in, and she certainly landed in sea-boots.»
CHAPTER V-SHE WOULD A PLANTER BE
Sheldon mended rapidly. The fever had burned out, and there was nothing for him to do but gather strength. Joan had taken the cook in hand, and for the first time, as Sheldon remarked, the chop at Berande was white man's chop. With her own hands Joan prepared the sick man's food, and between that and the cheer she brought him, he was able, after two days, to totter feebly out upon the veranda. The situation struck him as strange, and stranger still was the fact that it did not seem strange to the girl at all. She had settled down and taken charge of the household as a matter of course, as if he were her father, or brother, or as if she were a man like himself.
«It is just too delightful for anything,» she assured him. «It is like a page out of some romance. Here I come along out of the sea and find a sick man all alone with two hundred slaves-«
«Recruits,» he corrected. «Contract labourers. They serve only three years, and they are free agents when they enter upon their contracts.»
«Yes, yes,» she hurried on. «-A sick man alone with two hundred recruits on a cannibal island-they are cannibals, aren't they? Or is it all talk?»
«Talk!» he said, with a smile. «It's a trifle more than that. Most of my boys are from the bush, and every bushman is a cannibal.»
«But not after they become recruits? Surely, the boys you have here wouldn't be guilty.»
«They'd eat you if the chance afforded.»
«Are you just saying so, on theory, or do you really know?» she asked.
«I know.»
«Why? What makes you think so? Your own men here?»
«Yes, my own men here, the very house-boys, the cook that at the present moment is making such delicious rolls, thanks to you. Not more than three months ago eleven of them sneaked a whale-boat and ran for Malaita. Nine of them belonged to Malaita. Two were bushmen from San Cristoval. They were fools-the two from San Cristoval, I mean; so would any two Malaita men be who trusted themselves in a boat with nine from San Cristoval.»
«Yes?» she asked eagerly. «Then what happened?»
«The nine Malaita men ate the two from San Cristoval, all except the heads, which are too valuable for mere eating. They stowed them away in the stern-locker till they landed. And those two heads are now in some bush village back of Langa Langa.»
She clapped her hands and her eyes sparkled. «They are really and truly cannibals! And just think, this is the twentieth century! And I thought romance and adventure were fossilized!»
He looked at her with mild amusement.
«What is the matter now?» she queried.
«Oh, nothing, only I don't fancy being eaten by a lot of filthy niggers is the least bit romantic.»
«No, of course not,» she admitted. «But to be among them, controlling them, directing them, two hundred of them, and to escape being eaten by them-that, at least, if it isn't romantic, is certainly the quintessence of adventure. And adventure and romance are allied, you know.»
«By the same token, to go into a nigger's stomach should be the quintessence of adventure,» he retorted.
«I don't think you have any romance in you,» she exclaimed. «You're just dull and sombre and sordid like the business men at home. I don't know why you're here at all. You should be at home placidly vegetating as a banker's clerk or-or-«
«A shopkeeper's assistant, thank you.»
«Yes, that-anything. What under the sun are you doing here on the edge of things?»
«Earning my bread and butter, trying to get on in the world.»
«'By the bitter road the younger son must tread, Ere he win to hearth and saddle of his own,'» she quoted. «Why, if that isn't romantic, then nothing is romantic. Think of all the younger sons out over the world, on a myriad of adventures winning to those same hearths and saddles. And here you are in the thick of it, doing it, and here am I in the thick of it, doing it.»
«I-I beg pardon,» he drawled.
«Well, I'm a younger daughter, then,» she amended; «and I have no hearth nor saddle-I haven't anybody or anything-and I'm just as far on the edge of things as you are.»
«In your case, then, I'll admit there is a bit of romance,» he confessed.
He could not help but think of the preceding nights, and of her sleeping in the hammock on the veranda, under mosquito curtains, her bodyguard of Tahitian sailors stretched out at the far corner of the veranda within call. He had been too helpless to resist, but now he resolved she should have his couch inside while he would take the hammock.
«You see, I had read and dreamed about romance all my life,» she was saying, «but I never, in my wildest fancies, thought that I should live it. It was all so unexpected. Two years ago I thought there was nothing left to me but. . . .» She faltered, and made a moue of distaste. «Well, the only thing that remained, it seemed to me, was marriage.»
«And you preferred a cannibal isle and a cartridge-belt?» he suggested.
«I didn't think of the cannibal isle, but the cartridge-belt was blissful.»
«You wouldn't dare use the revolver if you were compelled to. Or,» noting the glint in her eyes, «if you did use it, to-well, to hit anything.»
She started up suddenly to enter the house. He knew she was going for her revolver.
«Never mind,» he said, «here's mine. What can you do with it?»
«Shoot the block off your flag-halyards.»
He smiled his unbelief.
«I don't know the gun,» she said dubiously.
«It's a light trigger and you don't have to hold down. Draw fine.»
«Yes, yes,» she spoke impatiently. «I know automatics-they jam when they get hot-only I don't know yours.» She looked at it a moment. «It's cocked. Is there a cartridge in the chamber?»
She fired, and the block remained intact.
«It's a long shot,» he said, with the intention of easing her chagrin.
But she bit her lip and fired again. The bullet emitted a sharp shriek as it ricochetted into space. The metal block rattled back and forth. Again and again she fired, till the clip was emptied of its eight cartridges. Six of them were hits. The block still swayed at the gaff-end, but it was battered out of all usefulness. Sheldon was astonished. It was better than he or even Hughie Drummond could have done. The women he had known, when they sporadically fired a rifle or revolver, usually shrieked, shut their eyes, and blazed away into space.
«That's really good shooting . . . for a woman,» he said. «You only missed it twice, and it was a strange weapon.»
«But I can't make out the two misses,» she complained. «The gun worked beautifully, too. Give me another clip and I'll hit it eight times for anything you wish.»
«I don't doubt it. Now I'll have to get a new block. Viaburi! Here you fella, catch one fella block along store-room.»
«I'll wager you can't do it eight out of eight . . . anything you wish,» she challenged.
«No fear of my taking it on,» was his answer. «Who taught you to shoot?»
«Oh, my father, at first, and then Von, and his cowboys. He was a shot-Dad, I mean, though Von was splendid, too.»
Sheldon wondered secretly who Von was, and he speculated as to whether it was Von who two years previously had led her to believe that nothing remained for her but matrimony.
«What part of the United States is your home?» he asked. «Chicago or Wyoming? or somewhere out there? You know you haven't told me a thing about yourself. All that I know is that you are Miss Joan Lackland from anywhere.»
«You'd have to go farther west to find my stamping grounds.»
«Ah, let me see-Nevada?»
She shook her head.
«California?»
«Still farther west.»
«It can't be, or else I've forgotten my geography.»
«It's your politics,» she laughed. «Don't you remember 'Annexation'?»
«The Philippines!» he cried triumphantly.
«No, Hawaii. I was born there. It is a beautiful land. My, I'm almost homesick for it already. Not that I haven't been away. I was in New York when the crash came. But I do think it is the sweetest spot on earth-Hawaii, I mean.»
«Then what under the sun are you doing down here in this God– forsaken place?» he asked. «Only fools come here,» he added bitterly.
«Nielsen wasn't a fool, was he?» she queried. «As I understand, he made three millions here.»
«Only too true, and that fact is responsible for my being here.»
«And for me, too,» she said. «Dad heard about him in the Marquesas, and so we started. Only poor Dad didn't get here.»
«He-your father-died?» he faltered.
She nodded, and her eyes grew soft and moist.
«I might as well begin at the beginning.» She lifted her head with a proud air of dismissing sadness, after, the manner of a woman qualified to wear a Baden-Powell and a long-barrelled Colt's. «I was born at Hilo. That's on the island of Hawaii-the biggest and best in the whole group. I was brought up the way most girls in Hawaii are brought up. They live in the open, and they know how to ride and swim before they know what six-times-six is. As for me, I can't remember when I first got on a horse nor when I learned to swim. That came before my A B C's. Dad owned cattle ranches on Hawaii and Maui-big ones, for the islands. Hokuna had two hundred thousand acres alone. It extended in between Mauna Koa and Mauna Loa, and it was there I learned to shoot goats and wild cattle. On Molokai they have big spotted deer. Von was the manager of Hokuna. He had two daughters about my own age, and I always spent the hot season there, and, once, a whole year. The three of us were like Indians. Not that we ran wild, exactly, but that we were wild to run wild. There were always the governesses, you know, and lessons, and sewing, and housekeeping; but I'm afraid we were too often bribed to our tasks with promises of horses or of cattle drives.
«Von had been in the army, and Dad was an old sea-dog, and they were both stern disciplinarians; only the two girls had no mother, and neither had I, and they were two men after all. They spoiled us terribly. You see, they didn't have any wives, and they made chums out of us-when our tasks were done. We had to learn to do everything about the house twice as well as the native servants did it-that was so that we should know how to manage some day. And we always made the cocktails, which was too holy a rite for any servant. Then, too, we were never allowed anything we could not take care of ourselves. Of course the cowboys always roped and saddled our horses, but we had to be able ourselves to go out in the paddock and rope our horses-«
«What do you mean by ROPE?» Sheldon asked.
«To lariat them, to lasso them. And Dad and Von timed us in the saddling and made a most rigid examination of the result. It was the same way with our revolvers and rifles. The house-boys always cleaned them and greased them; but we had to learn how in order to see that they did it properly. More than once, at first, one or the other of us had our rifles taken away for a week just because of a tiny speck of rust. We had to know how to build fires in the driving rain, too, out of wet wood, when we camped out, which was the hardest thing of all-except grammar, I do believe. We learned more from Dad and Von than from the governesses; Dad taught us French and Von German. We learned both languages passably well, and we learned them wholly in the saddle or in camp.
«In the cool season the girls used to come down and visit me in Hilo, where Dad had two houses, one at the beach, or the three of us used to go down to our place in Puna, and that meant canoes and boats and fishing and swimming. Then, too, Dad belonged to the Royal Hawaiian Yacht Club, and took us racing and cruising. Dad could never get away from the sea, you know. When I was fourteen I was Dad's actual housekeeper, with entire power over the servants, and I am very proud of that period of my life. And when I was sixteen we three girls were all sent up to California to Mills Seminary, which was quite fashionable and stifling. How we used to long for home! We didn't chum with the other girls, who called us little cannibals, just because we came from the Sandwich Islands, and who made invidious remarks about our ancestors banqueting on Captain Cook-which was historically untrue, and, besides, our ancestors hadn't lived in Hawaii.
«I was three years at Mills Seminary, with trips home, of course, and two years in New York; and then Dad went smash in a sugar plantation on Maui. The report of the engineers had not been right. Then Dad had built a railroad that was called 'Lackland's Folly,'-it will pay ultimately, though. But it contributed to the smash. The Pelaulau Ditch was the finishing blow. And nothing would have happened anyway, if it hadn't been for that big money panic in Wall Street. Dear good Dad! He never let me know. But I read about the crash in a newspaper, and hurried home. It was before that, though, that people had been dinging into my ears that marriage was all any woman could get out of life, and good-bye to romance. Instead of which, with Dad's failure, I fell right into romance.»
«How long ago was that?» Sheldon asked.
«Last year-the year of the panic.»
«Let me see,» Sheldon pondered with an air of gravity. «Sixteen plus five, plus one, equals twenty-two. You were born in 1887?»
«Yes; but it is not nice of you.»
«I am really sorry,» he said, «but the problem was so obvious.»
«Can't you ever say nice things? Or is it the way you English have?» There was a snap in her gray eyes, and her lips quivered suspiciously for a moment. «I should recommend, Mr. Sheldon, that you read Gertrude Atherton's 'American Wives and English Husbands.'»
«Thank you, I have. It's over there.» He pointed at the generously filled bookshelves. «But I am afraid it is rather partisan.»
«Anything un-English is bound to be,» she retorted. «I never have liked the English anyway. The last one I knew was an overseer. Dad was compelled to discharge him.»
«One swallow doesn't make a summer.»
«But that Englishman made lots of trouble-there! And now please don't make me any more absurd than I already am.»
«I'm trying not to.»
«Oh, for that matter-« She tossed her head, opened her mouth to complete the retort, then changed her mind. «I shall go on with my history. Dad had practically nothing left, and he decided to return to the sea. He'd always loved it, and I half believe that he was glad things had happened as they did. He was like a boy again, busy with plans and preparations from morning till night. He used to sit up half the night talking things over with me. That was after I had shown him that I was really resolved to go along.
«He had made his start, you know, in the South Seas-pearls and pearl shell-and he was sure that more fortunes, in trove of one sort and another, were to be picked up. Cocoanut-planting was his particular idea, with trading, and maybe pearling, along with other things, until the plantation should come into bearing. He traded off his yacht for a schooner, the Miele, and away we went. I took care of him and studied navigation. He was his own skipper. We had a Danish mate, Mr. Ericson, and a mixed crew of Japanese and Hawaiians. We went up and down the Line Islands, first, until Dad was heartsick. Everything was changed. They had been annexed and divided by one power or another, while big companies had stepped in and gobbled land, trading rights, fishing rights, everything.
«Next we sailed for the Marquesas. They were beautiful, but the natives were nearly extinct. Dad was cut up when he learned that the French charged an export duty on copra-he called it medieval– but he liked the land. There was a valley of fifteen thousand acres on Nuka-hiva, half inclosing a perfect anchorage, which he fell in love with and bought for twelve hundred Chili dollars. But the French taxation was outrageous (that was why the land was so cheap), and, worst of all, we could obtain no labour. What kanakas there were wouldn't work, and the officials seemed to sit up nights thinking out new obstacles to put in our way.
«Six months was enough for Dad. The situation was hopeless. 'We'll go to the Solomons,' he said, 'and get a whiff of English rule. And if there are no openings there we'll go on to the Bismarck Archipelago. I'll wager the Admiraltys are not yet civilized.' All preparations were made, things packed on board, and a new crew of Marquesans and Tahitians shipped. We were just ready to start to Tahiti, where a lot of repairs and refitting for the Miele were necessary, when poor Dad came down sick and died.»
«And you were left all alone?»
Joan nodded.
«Very much alone. I had no brothers nor sisters, and all Dad's people were drowned in a Kansas cloud-burst. That happened when he was a little boy. Of course, I could go back to Von. There's always a home there waiting for me. But why should I go? Besides, there were Dad's plans, and I felt that it devolved upon me to carry them out. It seemed a fine thing to do. Also, I wanted to carry them out. And . . . here I am.
«Take my advice and never go to Tahiti. It is a lovely place, and so are the natives. But the white people! Now Barabbas lived in Tahiti. Thieves, robbers, and lairs-that is what they are. The honest men wouldn't require the fingers of one hand to count. The fact that I was a woman only simplified matters with them. They robbed me on every pretext, and they lied without pretext or need. Poor Mr. Ericson was corrupted. He joined the robbers, and O.K.'d all their demands even up to a thousand per cent. If they robbed me of ten francs, his share was three. One bill of fifteen hundred francs I paid, netted him five hundred francs. All this, of course, I learned afterward. But the Miele was old, the repairs had to be made, and I was charged, not three prices, but seven prices.
«I never shall know how much Ericson got out of it. He lived ashore in a nicely furnished house. The shipwrights were giving it to him rent-free. Fruit, vegetables, fish, meat, and ice came to this house every day, and he paid for none of it. It was part of his graft from the various merchants. And all the while, with tears in his eyes, he bemoaned the vile treatment I was receiving from the gang. No, I did not fall among thieves. I went to Tahiti.
«But when the robbers fell to cheating one another, I got my first clues to the state of affairs. One of the robbed robbers came to me after dark, with facts, figures, and assertions. I knew I was ruined if I went to law. The judges were corrupt like everything else. But I did do one thing. In the dead of night I went to Ericson's house. I had the same revolver I've got now, and I made him stay in bed while I overhauled things. Nineteen hundred and odd francs was what I carried away with me. He never complained to the police, and he never came back on board. As for the rest of the gang, they laughed and snapped their fingers at me. There were two Americans in the place, and they warned me to leave the law alone unless I wanted to leave the Miele behind as well.
«Then I sent to New Zealand and got a German mate. He had a master's certificate, and was on the ship's papers as captain, but I was a better navigator than he, and I was really captain myself. I lost her, too, but it's no reflection on my seamanship. We were drifting four days outside there in dead calms. Then the nor'wester caught us and drove us on the lee shore. We made sail and tried to clew off, when the rotten work of the Tahiti shipwrights became manifest. Our jib-boom and all our head-stays carried away. Our only chance was to turn and run through the passage between Florida and Ysabel. And when we were safely through, in the twilight, where the chart shows fourteen fathoms as the shoalest water, we smashed on a coral patch. The poor old Miele struck only once, and then went clear; but it was too much for her, and we just had time to clear away in the boat when she went down. The German mate was drowned. We lay all night to a sea-drag, and next morning sighted your place here.»
«I suppose you will go back to Von, now?» Sheldon queried.
«Nothing of the sort. Dad planned to go to the Solomons. I shall look about for some land and start a small plantation. Do you know any good land around here? Cheap?»
«By George, you Yankees are remarkable, really remarkable,» said Sheldon. «I should never have dreamed of such a venture.»
«Adventure,» Joan corrected him.
«That's right-adventure it is. And if you'd gone ashore on Malaita instead of Guadalcanar you'd have been kai-kai'd long ago, along with your noble Tahitian sailors.»
Joan shuddered.
«To tell the truth,» she confessed, «we were very much afraid to land on Guadalcanar. I read in the 'Sailing Directions' that the natives were treacherous and hostile. Some day I should like to go to Malaita. Are there any plantations there?»
«Not one. Not a white trader even.»
«Then I shall go over on a recruiting vessel some time.»
«Impossible!» Sheldon cried. «It is no place for a woman.»
«I shall go just the same,» she repeated.
«But no self-respecting woman-«
«Be careful,» she warned him. «I shall go some day, and then you may be sorry for the names you have called me.»
«It is just too delightful for anything,» she assured him. «It is like a page out of some romance. Here I come along out of the sea and find a sick man all alone with two hundred slaves-«
«Recruits,» he corrected. «Contract labourers. They serve only three years, and they are free agents when they enter upon their contracts.»
«Yes, yes,» she hurried on. «-A sick man alone with two hundred recruits on a cannibal island-they are cannibals, aren't they? Or is it all talk?»
«Talk!» he said, with a smile. «It's a trifle more than that. Most of my boys are from the bush, and every bushman is a cannibal.»
«But not after they become recruits? Surely, the boys you have here wouldn't be guilty.»
«They'd eat you if the chance afforded.»
«Are you just saying so, on theory, or do you really know?» she asked.
«I know.»
«Why? What makes you think so? Your own men here?»
«Yes, my own men here, the very house-boys, the cook that at the present moment is making such delicious rolls, thanks to you. Not more than three months ago eleven of them sneaked a whale-boat and ran for Malaita. Nine of them belonged to Malaita. Two were bushmen from San Cristoval. They were fools-the two from San Cristoval, I mean; so would any two Malaita men be who trusted themselves in a boat with nine from San Cristoval.»
«Yes?» she asked eagerly. «Then what happened?»
«The nine Malaita men ate the two from San Cristoval, all except the heads, which are too valuable for mere eating. They stowed them away in the stern-locker till they landed. And those two heads are now in some bush village back of Langa Langa.»
She clapped her hands and her eyes sparkled. «They are really and truly cannibals! And just think, this is the twentieth century! And I thought romance and adventure were fossilized!»
He looked at her with mild amusement.
«What is the matter now?» she queried.
«Oh, nothing, only I don't fancy being eaten by a lot of filthy niggers is the least bit romantic.»
«No, of course not,» she admitted. «But to be among them, controlling them, directing them, two hundred of them, and to escape being eaten by them-that, at least, if it isn't romantic, is certainly the quintessence of adventure. And adventure and romance are allied, you know.»
«By the same token, to go into a nigger's stomach should be the quintessence of adventure,» he retorted.
«I don't think you have any romance in you,» she exclaimed. «You're just dull and sombre and sordid like the business men at home. I don't know why you're here at all. You should be at home placidly vegetating as a banker's clerk or-or-«
«A shopkeeper's assistant, thank you.»
«Yes, that-anything. What under the sun are you doing here on the edge of things?»
«Earning my bread and butter, trying to get on in the world.»
«'By the bitter road the younger son must tread, Ere he win to hearth and saddle of his own,'» she quoted. «Why, if that isn't romantic, then nothing is romantic. Think of all the younger sons out over the world, on a myriad of adventures winning to those same hearths and saddles. And here you are in the thick of it, doing it, and here am I in the thick of it, doing it.»
«I-I beg pardon,» he drawled.
«Well, I'm a younger daughter, then,» she amended; «and I have no hearth nor saddle-I haven't anybody or anything-and I'm just as far on the edge of things as you are.»
«In your case, then, I'll admit there is a bit of romance,» he confessed.
He could not help but think of the preceding nights, and of her sleeping in the hammock on the veranda, under mosquito curtains, her bodyguard of Tahitian sailors stretched out at the far corner of the veranda within call. He had been too helpless to resist, but now he resolved she should have his couch inside while he would take the hammock.
«You see, I had read and dreamed about romance all my life,» she was saying, «but I never, in my wildest fancies, thought that I should live it. It was all so unexpected. Two years ago I thought there was nothing left to me but. . . .» She faltered, and made a moue of distaste. «Well, the only thing that remained, it seemed to me, was marriage.»
«And you preferred a cannibal isle and a cartridge-belt?» he suggested.
«I didn't think of the cannibal isle, but the cartridge-belt was blissful.»
«You wouldn't dare use the revolver if you were compelled to. Or,» noting the glint in her eyes, «if you did use it, to-well, to hit anything.»
She started up suddenly to enter the house. He knew she was going for her revolver.
«Never mind,» he said, «here's mine. What can you do with it?»
«Shoot the block off your flag-halyards.»
He smiled his unbelief.
«I don't know the gun,» she said dubiously.
«It's a light trigger and you don't have to hold down. Draw fine.»
«Yes, yes,» she spoke impatiently. «I know automatics-they jam when they get hot-only I don't know yours.» She looked at it a moment. «It's cocked. Is there a cartridge in the chamber?»
She fired, and the block remained intact.
«It's a long shot,» he said, with the intention of easing her chagrin.
But she bit her lip and fired again. The bullet emitted a sharp shriek as it ricochetted into space. The metal block rattled back and forth. Again and again she fired, till the clip was emptied of its eight cartridges. Six of them were hits. The block still swayed at the gaff-end, but it was battered out of all usefulness. Sheldon was astonished. It was better than he or even Hughie Drummond could have done. The women he had known, when they sporadically fired a rifle or revolver, usually shrieked, shut their eyes, and blazed away into space.
«That's really good shooting . . . for a woman,» he said. «You only missed it twice, and it was a strange weapon.»
«But I can't make out the two misses,» she complained. «The gun worked beautifully, too. Give me another clip and I'll hit it eight times for anything you wish.»
«I don't doubt it. Now I'll have to get a new block. Viaburi! Here you fella, catch one fella block along store-room.»
«I'll wager you can't do it eight out of eight . . . anything you wish,» she challenged.
«No fear of my taking it on,» was his answer. «Who taught you to shoot?»
«Oh, my father, at first, and then Von, and his cowboys. He was a shot-Dad, I mean, though Von was splendid, too.»
Sheldon wondered secretly who Von was, and he speculated as to whether it was Von who two years previously had led her to believe that nothing remained for her but matrimony.
«What part of the United States is your home?» he asked. «Chicago or Wyoming? or somewhere out there? You know you haven't told me a thing about yourself. All that I know is that you are Miss Joan Lackland from anywhere.»
«You'd have to go farther west to find my stamping grounds.»
«Ah, let me see-Nevada?»
She shook her head.
«California?»
«Still farther west.»
«It can't be, or else I've forgotten my geography.»
«It's your politics,» she laughed. «Don't you remember 'Annexation'?»
«The Philippines!» he cried triumphantly.
«No, Hawaii. I was born there. It is a beautiful land. My, I'm almost homesick for it already. Not that I haven't been away. I was in New York when the crash came. But I do think it is the sweetest spot on earth-Hawaii, I mean.»
«Then what under the sun are you doing down here in this God– forsaken place?» he asked. «Only fools come here,» he added bitterly.
«Nielsen wasn't a fool, was he?» she queried. «As I understand, he made three millions here.»
«Only too true, and that fact is responsible for my being here.»
«And for me, too,» she said. «Dad heard about him in the Marquesas, and so we started. Only poor Dad didn't get here.»
«He-your father-died?» he faltered.
She nodded, and her eyes grew soft and moist.
«I might as well begin at the beginning.» She lifted her head with a proud air of dismissing sadness, after, the manner of a woman qualified to wear a Baden-Powell and a long-barrelled Colt's. «I was born at Hilo. That's on the island of Hawaii-the biggest and best in the whole group. I was brought up the way most girls in Hawaii are brought up. They live in the open, and they know how to ride and swim before they know what six-times-six is. As for me, I can't remember when I first got on a horse nor when I learned to swim. That came before my A B C's. Dad owned cattle ranches on Hawaii and Maui-big ones, for the islands. Hokuna had two hundred thousand acres alone. It extended in between Mauna Koa and Mauna Loa, and it was there I learned to shoot goats and wild cattle. On Molokai they have big spotted deer. Von was the manager of Hokuna. He had two daughters about my own age, and I always spent the hot season there, and, once, a whole year. The three of us were like Indians. Not that we ran wild, exactly, but that we were wild to run wild. There were always the governesses, you know, and lessons, and sewing, and housekeeping; but I'm afraid we were too often bribed to our tasks with promises of horses or of cattle drives.
«Von had been in the army, and Dad was an old sea-dog, and they were both stern disciplinarians; only the two girls had no mother, and neither had I, and they were two men after all. They spoiled us terribly. You see, they didn't have any wives, and they made chums out of us-when our tasks were done. We had to learn to do everything about the house twice as well as the native servants did it-that was so that we should know how to manage some day. And we always made the cocktails, which was too holy a rite for any servant. Then, too, we were never allowed anything we could not take care of ourselves. Of course the cowboys always roped and saddled our horses, but we had to be able ourselves to go out in the paddock and rope our horses-«
«What do you mean by ROPE?» Sheldon asked.
«To lariat them, to lasso them. And Dad and Von timed us in the saddling and made a most rigid examination of the result. It was the same way with our revolvers and rifles. The house-boys always cleaned them and greased them; but we had to learn how in order to see that they did it properly. More than once, at first, one or the other of us had our rifles taken away for a week just because of a tiny speck of rust. We had to know how to build fires in the driving rain, too, out of wet wood, when we camped out, which was the hardest thing of all-except grammar, I do believe. We learned more from Dad and Von than from the governesses; Dad taught us French and Von German. We learned both languages passably well, and we learned them wholly in the saddle or in camp.
«In the cool season the girls used to come down and visit me in Hilo, where Dad had two houses, one at the beach, or the three of us used to go down to our place in Puna, and that meant canoes and boats and fishing and swimming. Then, too, Dad belonged to the Royal Hawaiian Yacht Club, and took us racing and cruising. Dad could never get away from the sea, you know. When I was fourteen I was Dad's actual housekeeper, with entire power over the servants, and I am very proud of that period of my life. And when I was sixteen we three girls were all sent up to California to Mills Seminary, which was quite fashionable and stifling. How we used to long for home! We didn't chum with the other girls, who called us little cannibals, just because we came from the Sandwich Islands, and who made invidious remarks about our ancestors banqueting on Captain Cook-which was historically untrue, and, besides, our ancestors hadn't lived in Hawaii.
«I was three years at Mills Seminary, with trips home, of course, and two years in New York; and then Dad went smash in a sugar plantation on Maui. The report of the engineers had not been right. Then Dad had built a railroad that was called 'Lackland's Folly,'-it will pay ultimately, though. But it contributed to the smash. The Pelaulau Ditch was the finishing blow. And nothing would have happened anyway, if it hadn't been for that big money panic in Wall Street. Dear good Dad! He never let me know. But I read about the crash in a newspaper, and hurried home. It was before that, though, that people had been dinging into my ears that marriage was all any woman could get out of life, and good-bye to romance. Instead of which, with Dad's failure, I fell right into romance.»
«How long ago was that?» Sheldon asked.
«Last year-the year of the panic.»
«Let me see,» Sheldon pondered with an air of gravity. «Sixteen plus five, plus one, equals twenty-two. You were born in 1887?»
«Yes; but it is not nice of you.»
«I am really sorry,» he said, «but the problem was so obvious.»
«Can't you ever say nice things? Or is it the way you English have?» There was a snap in her gray eyes, and her lips quivered suspiciously for a moment. «I should recommend, Mr. Sheldon, that you read Gertrude Atherton's 'American Wives and English Husbands.'»
«Thank you, I have. It's over there.» He pointed at the generously filled bookshelves. «But I am afraid it is rather partisan.»
«Anything un-English is bound to be,» she retorted. «I never have liked the English anyway. The last one I knew was an overseer. Dad was compelled to discharge him.»
«One swallow doesn't make a summer.»
«But that Englishman made lots of trouble-there! And now please don't make me any more absurd than I already am.»
«I'm trying not to.»
«Oh, for that matter-« She tossed her head, opened her mouth to complete the retort, then changed her mind. «I shall go on with my history. Dad had practically nothing left, and he decided to return to the sea. He'd always loved it, and I half believe that he was glad things had happened as they did. He was like a boy again, busy with plans and preparations from morning till night. He used to sit up half the night talking things over with me. That was after I had shown him that I was really resolved to go along.
«He had made his start, you know, in the South Seas-pearls and pearl shell-and he was sure that more fortunes, in trove of one sort and another, were to be picked up. Cocoanut-planting was his particular idea, with trading, and maybe pearling, along with other things, until the plantation should come into bearing. He traded off his yacht for a schooner, the Miele, and away we went. I took care of him and studied navigation. He was his own skipper. We had a Danish mate, Mr. Ericson, and a mixed crew of Japanese and Hawaiians. We went up and down the Line Islands, first, until Dad was heartsick. Everything was changed. They had been annexed and divided by one power or another, while big companies had stepped in and gobbled land, trading rights, fishing rights, everything.
«Next we sailed for the Marquesas. They were beautiful, but the natives were nearly extinct. Dad was cut up when he learned that the French charged an export duty on copra-he called it medieval– but he liked the land. There was a valley of fifteen thousand acres on Nuka-hiva, half inclosing a perfect anchorage, which he fell in love with and bought for twelve hundred Chili dollars. But the French taxation was outrageous (that was why the land was so cheap), and, worst of all, we could obtain no labour. What kanakas there were wouldn't work, and the officials seemed to sit up nights thinking out new obstacles to put in our way.
«Six months was enough for Dad. The situation was hopeless. 'We'll go to the Solomons,' he said, 'and get a whiff of English rule. And if there are no openings there we'll go on to the Bismarck Archipelago. I'll wager the Admiraltys are not yet civilized.' All preparations were made, things packed on board, and a new crew of Marquesans and Tahitians shipped. We were just ready to start to Tahiti, where a lot of repairs and refitting for the Miele were necessary, when poor Dad came down sick and died.»
«And you were left all alone?»
Joan nodded.
«Very much alone. I had no brothers nor sisters, and all Dad's people were drowned in a Kansas cloud-burst. That happened when he was a little boy. Of course, I could go back to Von. There's always a home there waiting for me. But why should I go? Besides, there were Dad's plans, and I felt that it devolved upon me to carry them out. It seemed a fine thing to do. Also, I wanted to carry them out. And . . . here I am.
«Take my advice and never go to Tahiti. It is a lovely place, and so are the natives. But the white people! Now Barabbas lived in Tahiti. Thieves, robbers, and lairs-that is what they are. The honest men wouldn't require the fingers of one hand to count. The fact that I was a woman only simplified matters with them. They robbed me on every pretext, and they lied without pretext or need. Poor Mr. Ericson was corrupted. He joined the robbers, and O.K.'d all their demands even up to a thousand per cent. If they robbed me of ten francs, his share was three. One bill of fifteen hundred francs I paid, netted him five hundred francs. All this, of course, I learned afterward. But the Miele was old, the repairs had to be made, and I was charged, not three prices, but seven prices.
«I never shall know how much Ericson got out of it. He lived ashore in a nicely furnished house. The shipwrights were giving it to him rent-free. Fruit, vegetables, fish, meat, and ice came to this house every day, and he paid for none of it. It was part of his graft from the various merchants. And all the while, with tears in his eyes, he bemoaned the vile treatment I was receiving from the gang. No, I did not fall among thieves. I went to Tahiti.
«But when the robbers fell to cheating one another, I got my first clues to the state of affairs. One of the robbed robbers came to me after dark, with facts, figures, and assertions. I knew I was ruined if I went to law. The judges were corrupt like everything else. But I did do one thing. In the dead of night I went to Ericson's house. I had the same revolver I've got now, and I made him stay in bed while I overhauled things. Nineteen hundred and odd francs was what I carried away with me. He never complained to the police, and he never came back on board. As for the rest of the gang, they laughed and snapped their fingers at me. There were two Americans in the place, and they warned me to leave the law alone unless I wanted to leave the Miele behind as well.
«Then I sent to New Zealand and got a German mate. He had a master's certificate, and was on the ship's papers as captain, but I was a better navigator than he, and I was really captain myself. I lost her, too, but it's no reflection on my seamanship. We were drifting four days outside there in dead calms. Then the nor'wester caught us and drove us on the lee shore. We made sail and tried to clew off, when the rotten work of the Tahiti shipwrights became manifest. Our jib-boom and all our head-stays carried away. Our only chance was to turn and run through the passage between Florida and Ysabel. And when we were safely through, in the twilight, where the chart shows fourteen fathoms as the shoalest water, we smashed on a coral patch. The poor old Miele struck only once, and then went clear; but it was too much for her, and we just had time to clear away in the boat when she went down. The German mate was drowned. We lay all night to a sea-drag, and next morning sighted your place here.»
«I suppose you will go back to Von, now?» Sheldon queried.
«Nothing of the sort. Dad planned to go to the Solomons. I shall look about for some land and start a small plantation. Do you know any good land around here? Cheap?»
«By George, you Yankees are remarkable, really remarkable,» said Sheldon. «I should never have dreamed of such a venture.»
«Adventure,» Joan corrected him.
«That's right-adventure it is. And if you'd gone ashore on Malaita instead of Guadalcanar you'd have been kai-kai'd long ago, along with your noble Tahitian sailors.»
Joan shuddered.
«To tell the truth,» she confessed, «we were very much afraid to land on Guadalcanar. I read in the 'Sailing Directions' that the natives were treacherous and hostile. Some day I should like to go to Malaita. Are there any plantations there?»
«Not one. Not a white trader even.»
«Then I shall go over on a recruiting vessel some time.»
«Impossible!» Sheldon cried. «It is no place for a woman.»
«I shall go just the same,» she repeated.
«But no self-respecting woman-«
«Be careful,» she warned him. «I shall go some day, and then you may be sorry for the names you have called me.»
CHAPTER VI-TEMPEST
It was the first time Sheldon had been at close quarters with an American girl, and he would have wondered if all American girls were like Joan Lackland had he not had wit enough to realize that she was not at all typical. Her quick mind and changing moods bewildered him, while her outlook on life was so different from what he conceived a woman's outlook should be, that he was more often than not at sixes and sevens with her. He could never anticipate what she would say or do next. Of only one thing was he sure, and that was that whatever she said or did was bound to be unexpected and unsuspected. There seemed, too, something almost hysterical in her make-up. Her temper was quick and stormy, and she relied too much on herself and too little on him, which did not approximate at all to his ideal of woman's conduct when a man was around. Her assumption of equality with him was disconcerting, and at times he half-consciously resented the impudence and bizarreness of her intrusion upon him-rising out of the sea in a howling nor'wester, fresh from poking her revolver under Ericson's nose, protected by her gang of huge Polynesian sailors, and settling down in Berande like any shipwrecked sailor. It was all on a par with her Baden-Powell and the long 38 Colt's.
At any rate, she did not look the part. And that was what he could not forgive. Had she been short-haired, heavy-jawed, large– muscled, hard-bitten, and utterly unlovely in every way, all would have been well. Instead of which she was hopelessly and deliciously feminine. Her hair worried him, it was so generously beautiful. And she was so slenderly and prettily the woman-the girl, rather-that it cut him like a knife to see her, with quick, comprehensive eyes and sharply imperative voice, superintend the launching of the whale-boat through the surf. In imagination he could see her roping a horse, and it always made him shudder. Then, too, she was so many-sided. Her knowledge of literature and art surprised him, while deep down was the feeling that a girl who knew such things had no right to know how to rig tackles, heave up anchors, and sail schooners around the South Seas. Such things in her brain were like so many oaths on her lips. While for such a girl to insist that she was going on a recruiting cruise around Malaita was positive self-sacrilege.
He always perturbedly harked back to her feminineness. She could play the piano far better than his sisters at home, and with far finer appreciation-the piano that poor Hughie had so heroically laboured over to keep in condition. And when she strummed the guitar and sang liquid, velvety Hawaiian hulas, he sat entranced. Then she was all woman, and the magic of sex kidnapped the irritations of the day and made him forget the big revolver, the Baden-Powell, and all the rest. But what right, the next thought in his brain would whisper, had such a girl to swagger around like a man and exult that adventure was not dead? Woman that adventured were adventuresses, and the connotation was not nice. Besides, he was not enamoured of adventure. Not since he was a boy had it appealed to him-though it would have driven him hard to explain what had brought him from England to the Solomons if it had not been adventure.
Sheldon certainly was not happy. The unconventional state of affairs was too much for his conservative disposition and training. Berande, inhabited by one lone white man, was no place for Joan Lackland. Yet he racked his brain for a way out, and even talked it over with her. In the first place, the steamer from Australia was not due for three weeks.
«One thing is evident: you don't want me here,» she said. «I'll man the whale-boat to-morrow and go over to Tulagi.»
«But as I told you before, that is impossible,» he cried. «There is no one there. The Resident Commissioner is away in Australia. Them is only one white man, a third assistant understrapper and ex– sailor-a common sailor. He is in charge of the government of the Solomons, to say nothing of a hundred or so niggers-prisoners. Besides, he is such a fool that he would fine you five pounds for not having entered at Tulagi, which is the port of entry, you know. He is not a nice man, and, I repeat, it is impossible.»
«There is Guvutu,» she suggested.
He shook his head.
«There's nothing there but fever and five white men who are drinking themselves to death. I couldn't permit it.»
«Oh thank you,» she said quietly. «I guess I'll start to-day.– Viaburi! You go along Noa Noah, speak 'm come along me.»
Noa Noah was her head sailor, who had been boatswain of the Miele.
«Where are you going?» Sheldon asked in surprise.-«Vlaburi! You stop.»
«To Guvutu-immediately,» was her reply.
«But I won't permit it.»
«That is why I am going. You said it once before, and it is something I cannot brook.»
«What?» He was bewildered by her sudden anger. «If I have offended in any way-«
«Viaburi, you fetch 'm one fella Noa Noah along me,» she commanded.
The black boy started to obey.
«Viaburi! You no stop I break 'm head belong you. And now, Miss Lackland, I insist-you must explain. What have I said or done to merit this?»
«You have presumed, you have dared-«
She choked and swallowed, and could not go on.
Sheldon looked the picture of despair.
«I confess my head is going around with it all,» he said. «If you could only be explicit.»
«As explicit as you were when you told me that you would not permit me to go to Guvutu?»
«But what's wrong with that?»
«But you have no right-no man has the right-to tell me what he will permit or not permit. I'm too old to have a guardian, nor did I sail all the way to the Solomons to find one.»
«A gentleman is every woman's guardian.»
«Well, I'm not every woman-that's all. Will you kindly allow me to send your boy for Noa Noah? I wish him to launch the whale– boat. Or shall I go myself for him?»
Both were now on their feet, she with flushed cheeks and angry eyes, he, puzzled, vexed, and alarmed. The black boy stood like a statue-a plum-black statue-taking no interest in the transactions of these incomprehensible whites, but dreaming with calm eyes of a certain bush village high on the jungle slopes of Malaita, with blue smoke curling up from the grass houses against the gray background of an oncoming mountain-squall.
«But you won't do anything so foolish-« he began.
«There you go again,» she cried.
«I didn't mean it that way, and you know I didn't.» He was speaking slowly and gravely. «And that other thing, that not permitting-it is only a manner of speaking. Of course I am not your guardian. You know you can go to Guvutu if you want to»-«or to the devil,» he was almost tempted to add. «Only, I should deeply regret it, that is all. And I am very sorry that I should have said anything that hurt you. Remember, I am an Englishman.»
Joan smiled and sat down again.
«Perhaps I have been hasty,» she admitted. «You see, I am intolerant of restraint. If you only knew how I have been compelled to fight for my freedom. It is a sore point with me, this being told what I am to do or not do by you self-constituted lords of creation.-Viaburi I You stop along kitchen. No bring 'm Noa Noah.-And now, Mr. Sheldon, what am I to do? You don't want me here, and there doesn't seem to be any place for me to go.»
«That is unfair. Your being wrecked here has been a godsend to me. I was very lonely and very sick. I really am not certain whether or not I should have pulled through had you not happened along. But that is not the point. Personally, purely selfishly personally, I should be sorry to see you go. But I am not considering myself. I am considering you. It-it is hardly the proper thing, you know. If I were married-if there were some woman of your own race here-but as it is-«
She threw up her hands in mock despair.
«I cannot follow you,» she said. «In one breath you tell me I must go, and in the next breath you tell me there is no place to go and that you will not permit me to go. What is a poor girl to do?»
«That's the trouble,» he said helplessly.
«And the situation annoys you.»
«Only for your sake.»
«Then let me save your feelings by telling you that it does not annoy me at all-except for the row you are making about it. I never allow what can't be changed to annoy me. There is no use in fighting the inevitable. Here is the situation. You are here. I am here. I can't go elsewhere, by your own account. You certainly can't go elsewhere and leave me here alone with a whole plantation and two hundred woolly cannibals on my hands. Therefore you stay, and I stay. It is very simple. Also, it is adventure. And furthermore, you needn't worry for yourself. I am not matrimonially inclined. I came to the Solomons for a plantation, not a husband.»
Sheldon flushed, but remained silent.
«I know what you are thinking,» she laughed gaily. «That if I were a man you'd wring my neck for me. And I deserve it, too. I'm so sorry. I ought not to keep on hurting your feelings.»
«I'm afraid I rather invite it,» he said, relieved by the signs of the tempest subsiding.
«I have it,» she announced. «Lend me a gang of your boys for to– day. I'll build a grass house for myself over in the far corner of the compound-on piles, of course. I can move in to-night. I'll be comfortable and safe. The Tahitians can keep an anchor watch just as aboard ship. And then I'll study cocoanut planting. In return, I'll run the kitchen end of your household and give you some decent food to eat. And finally, I won't listen to any of your protests. I know all that you are going to say and offer– your giving the bungalow up to me and building a grass house for yourself. And I won't have it. You may as well consider everything settled. On the other hand, if you don't agree, I will go across the river, beyond your jurisdiction, and build a village for myself and my sailors, whom I shall send in the whale-boat to Guvutu for provisions. And now I want you to teach me billiards.»
At any rate, she did not look the part. And that was what he could not forgive. Had she been short-haired, heavy-jawed, large– muscled, hard-bitten, and utterly unlovely in every way, all would have been well. Instead of which she was hopelessly and deliciously feminine. Her hair worried him, it was so generously beautiful. And she was so slenderly and prettily the woman-the girl, rather-that it cut him like a knife to see her, with quick, comprehensive eyes and sharply imperative voice, superintend the launching of the whale-boat through the surf. In imagination he could see her roping a horse, and it always made him shudder. Then, too, she was so many-sided. Her knowledge of literature and art surprised him, while deep down was the feeling that a girl who knew such things had no right to know how to rig tackles, heave up anchors, and sail schooners around the South Seas. Such things in her brain were like so many oaths on her lips. While for such a girl to insist that she was going on a recruiting cruise around Malaita was positive self-sacrilege.
He always perturbedly harked back to her feminineness. She could play the piano far better than his sisters at home, and with far finer appreciation-the piano that poor Hughie had so heroically laboured over to keep in condition. And when she strummed the guitar and sang liquid, velvety Hawaiian hulas, he sat entranced. Then she was all woman, and the magic of sex kidnapped the irritations of the day and made him forget the big revolver, the Baden-Powell, and all the rest. But what right, the next thought in his brain would whisper, had such a girl to swagger around like a man and exult that adventure was not dead? Woman that adventured were adventuresses, and the connotation was not nice. Besides, he was not enamoured of adventure. Not since he was a boy had it appealed to him-though it would have driven him hard to explain what had brought him from England to the Solomons if it had not been adventure.
Sheldon certainly was not happy. The unconventional state of affairs was too much for his conservative disposition and training. Berande, inhabited by one lone white man, was no place for Joan Lackland. Yet he racked his brain for a way out, and even talked it over with her. In the first place, the steamer from Australia was not due for three weeks.
«One thing is evident: you don't want me here,» she said. «I'll man the whale-boat to-morrow and go over to Tulagi.»
«But as I told you before, that is impossible,» he cried. «There is no one there. The Resident Commissioner is away in Australia. Them is only one white man, a third assistant understrapper and ex– sailor-a common sailor. He is in charge of the government of the Solomons, to say nothing of a hundred or so niggers-prisoners. Besides, he is such a fool that he would fine you five pounds for not having entered at Tulagi, which is the port of entry, you know. He is not a nice man, and, I repeat, it is impossible.»
«There is Guvutu,» she suggested.
He shook his head.
«There's nothing there but fever and five white men who are drinking themselves to death. I couldn't permit it.»
«Oh thank you,» she said quietly. «I guess I'll start to-day.– Viaburi! You go along Noa Noah, speak 'm come along me.»
Noa Noah was her head sailor, who had been boatswain of the Miele.
«Where are you going?» Sheldon asked in surprise.-«Vlaburi! You stop.»
«To Guvutu-immediately,» was her reply.
«But I won't permit it.»
«That is why I am going. You said it once before, and it is something I cannot brook.»
«What?» He was bewildered by her sudden anger. «If I have offended in any way-«
«Viaburi, you fetch 'm one fella Noa Noah along me,» she commanded.
The black boy started to obey.
«Viaburi! You no stop I break 'm head belong you. And now, Miss Lackland, I insist-you must explain. What have I said or done to merit this?»
«You have presumed, you have dared-«
She choked and swallowed, and could not go on.
Sheldon looked the picture of despair.
«I confess my head is going around with it all,» he said. «If you could only be explicit.»
«As explicit as you were when you told me that you would not permit me to go to Guvutu?»
«But what's wrong with that?»
«But you have no right-no man has the right-to tell me what he will permit or not permit. I'm too old to have a guardian, nor did I sail all the way to the Solomons to find one.»
«A gentleman is every woman's guardian.»
«Well, I'm not every woman-that's all. Will you kindly allow me to send your boy for Noa Noah? I wish him to launch the whale– boat. Or shall I go myself for him?»
Both were now on their feet, she with flushed cheeks and angry eyes, he, puzzled, vexed, and alarmed. The black boy stood like a statue-a plum-black statue-taking no interest in the transactions of these incomprehensible whites, but dreaming with calm eyes of a certain bush village high on the jungle slopes of Malaita, with blue smoke curling up from the grass houses against the gray background of an oncoming mountain-squall.
«But you won't do anything so foolish-« he began.
«There you go again,» she cried.
«I didn't mean it that way, and you know I didn't.» He was speaking slowly and gravely. «And that other thing, that not permitting-it is only a manner of speaking. Of course I am not your guardian. You know you can go to Guvutu if you want to»-«or to the devil,» he was almost tempted to add. «Only, I should deeply regret it, that is all. And I am very sorry that I should have said anything that hurt you. Remember, I am an Englishman.»
Joan smiled and sat down again.
«Perhaps I have been hasty,» she admitted. «You see, I am intolerant of restraint. If you only knew how I have been compelled to fight for my freedom. It is a sore point with me, this being told what I am to do or not do by you self-constituted lords of creation.-Viaburi I You stop along kitchen. No bring 'm Noa Noah.-And now, Mr. Sheldon, what am I to do? You don't want me here, and there doesn't seem to be any place for me to go.»
«That is unfair. Your being wrecked here has been a godsend to me. I was very lonely and very sick. I really am not certain whether or not I should have pulled through had you not happened along. But that is not the point. Personally, purely selfishly personally, I should be sorry to see you go. But I am not considering myself. I am considering you. It-it is hardly the proper thing, you know. If I were married-if there were some woman of your own race here-but as it is-«
She threw up her hands in mock despair.
«I cannot follow you,» she said. «In one breath you tell me I must go, and in the next breath you tell me there is no place to go and that you will not permit me to go. What is a poor girl to do?»
«That's the trouble,» he said helplessly.
«And the situation annoys you.»
«Only for your sake.»
«Then let me save your feelings by telling you that it does not annoy me at all-except for the row you are making about it. I never allow what can't be changed to annoy me. There is no use in fighting the inevitable. Here is the situation. You are here. I am here. I can't go elsewhere, by your own account. You certainly can't go elsewhere and leave me here alone with a whole plantation and two hundred woolly cannibals on my hands. Therefore you stay, and I stay. It is very simple. Also, it is adventure. And furthermore, you needn't worry for yourself. I am not matrimonially inclined. I came to the Solomons for a plantation, not a husband.»
Sheldon flushed, but remained silent.
«I know what you are thinking,» she laughed gaily. «That if I were a man you'd wring my neck for me. And I deserve it, too. I'm so sorry. I ought not to keep on hurting your feelings.»
«I'm afraid I rather invite it,» he said, relieved by the signs of the tempest subsiding.
«I have it,» she announced. «Lend me a gang of your boys for to– day. I'll build a grass house for myself over in the far corner of the compound-on piles, of course. I can move in to-night. I'll be comfortable and safe. The Tahitians can keep an anchor watch just as aboard ship. And then I'll study cocoanut planting. In return, I'll run the kitchen end of your household and give you some decent food to eat. And finally, I won't listen to any of your protests. I know all that you are going to say and offer– your giving the bungalow up to me and building a grass house for yourself. And I won't have it. You may as well consider everything settled. On the other hand, if you don't agree, I will go across the river, beyond your jurisdiction, and build a village for myself and my sailors, whom I shall send in the whale-boat to Guvutu for provisions. And now I want you to teach me billiards.»
CHAPTER VII-A HARD-BITTEN GANG
Joan took hold of the household with no uncertain grip, revolutionizing things till Sheldon hardly recognized the place. For the first time the bungalow was clean and orderly. No longer the house-boys loafed and did as little as they could; while the cook complained that «head belong him walk about too much,» from the strenuous course in cookery which she put him through. Nor did Sheldon escape being roundly lectured for his laziness in eating nothing but tinned provisions. She called him a muddler and a slouch, and other invidious names, for his slackness and his disregard of healthful food.
She sent her whale-boat down the coast twenty miles for limes and oranges, and wanted to know scathingly why said fruits had not long since been planted at Berande, while he was beneath contempt because there was no kitchen garden. Mummy apples, which he had regarded as weeds, under her guidance appeared as appetizing breakfast fruit, and, at dinner, were metamorphosed into puddings that elicited his unqualified admiration. Bananas, foraged from the bush, were served, cooked and raw, a dozen different ways, each one of which he declared was better than any other. She or her sailors dynamited fish daily, while the Balesuna natives were paid tobacco for bringing in oysters from the mangrove swamps. Her achievements with cocoanuts were a revelation. She taught the cook how to make yeast from the milk, that, in turn, raised light and airy bread. From the tip-top heart of the tree she concocted a delicious salad. From the milk and the meat of the nut she made various sauces and dressings, sweet and sour, that were served, according to preparation, with dishes that ranged from fish to pudding. She taught Sheldon the superiority of cocoanut cream over condensed cream, for use in coffee. From the old and sprouting nuts she took the solid, spongy centres and turned them into salads. Her forte seemed to be salads, and she astonished him with the deliciousness of a salad made from young bamboo shoots. Wild tomatoes, which had gone to seed or been remorselessly hoed out from the beginning of Berande, were foraged for salads, soups, and sauces. The chickens, which had always gone into the bush and hidden their eggs, were given laying-bins, and Joan went out herself to shoot wild duck and wild pigeons for the table.
«Not that I like to do this sort of work,» she explained, in reference to the cookery; «but because I can't get away from Dad's training.»
Among other things, she burned the pestilential hospital, quarrelled with Sheldon over the dead, and, in anger, set her own men to work building a new, and what she called a decent, hospital. She robbed the windows of their lawn and muslin curtains, replacing them with gaudy calico from the trade-store, and made herself several gowns. When she wrote out a list of goods and clothing for herself, to be sent down to Sydney by the first steamer, Sheldon wondered how long she had made up her mind to stay.
She was certainly unlike any woman he had ever known or dreamed of. So far as he was concerned she was not a woman at all. She neither languished nor blandished. No feminine lures were wasted on him. He might have been her brother, or she his brother, for all sex had to do with the strange situation. Any mere polite gallantry on his part was ignored or snubbed, and he had very early given up offering his hand to her in getting into a boat or climbing over a log, and he had to acknowledge to himself that she was eminently fitted to take care of herself. Despite his warnings about crocodiles and sharks, she persisted in swimming in deep water off the beach; nor could he persuade her, when she was in the boat, to let one of the sailors throw the dynamite when shooting fish. She argued that she was at least a little bit more intelligent than they, and that, therefore, there was less liability of an accident if she did the shooting. She was to him the most masculine and at the same time the most feminine woman he had ever met.
A source of continual trouble between them was the disagreement over methods of handling the black boys. She ruled by stern kindness, rarely rewarding, never punishing, and he had to confess that her own sailors worshipped her, while the house-boys were her slaves, and did three times as much work for her as he had ever got out of them. She quickly saw the unrest of the contract labourers, and was not blind to the danger, always imminent, that both she and Sheldon ran. Neither of them ever ventured out without a revolver, and the sailors who stood the night watches by Joan's grass house were armed with rifles. But Joan insisted that this reign of terror had been caused by the reign of fear practised by the white men. She had been brought up with the gentle Hawaiians, who never were ill-treated nor roughly handled, and she generalized that the Solomon Islanders, under kind treatment, would grow gentle.
She sent her whale-boat down the coast twenty miles for limes and oranges, and wanted to know scathingly why said fruits had not long since been planted at Berande, while he was beneath contempt because there was no kitchen garden. Mummy apples, which he had regarded as weeds, under her guidance appeared as appetizing breakfast fruit, and, at dinner, were metamorphosed into puddings that elicited his unqualified admiration. Bananas, foraged from the bush, were served, cooked and raw, a dozen different ways, each one of which he declared was better than any other. She or her sailors dynamited fish daily, while the Balesuna natives were paid tobacco for bringing in oysters from the mangrove swamps. Her achievements with cocoanuts were a revelation. She taught the cook how to make yeast from the milk, that, in turn, raised light and airy bread. From the tip-top heart of the tree she concocted a delicious salad. From the milk and the meat of the nut she made various sauces and dressings, sweet and sour, that were served, according to preparation, with dishes that ranged from fish to pudding. She taught Sheldon the superiority of cocoanut cream over condensed cream, for use in coffee. From the old and sprouting nuts she took the solid, spongy centres and turned them into salads. Her forte seemed to be salads, and she astonished him with the deliciousness of a salad made from young bamboo shoots. Wild tomatoes, which had gone to seed or been remorselessly hoed out from the beginning of Berande, were foraged for salads, soups, and sauces. The chickens, which had always gone into the bush and hidden their eggs, were given laying-bins, and Joan went out herself to shoot wild duck and wild pigeons for the table.
«Not that I like to do this sort of work,» she explained, in reference to the cookery; «but because I can't get away from Dad's training.»
Among other things, she burned the pestilential hospital, quarrelled with Sheldon over the dead, and, in anger, set her own men to work building a new, and what she called a decent, hospital. She robbed the windows of their lawn and muslin curtains, replacing them with gaudy calico from the trade-store, and made herself several gowns. When she wrote out a list of goods and clothing for herself, to be sent down to Sydney by the first steamer, Sheldon wondered how long she had made up her mind to stay.
She was certainly unlike any woman he had ever known or dreamed of. So far as he was concerned she was not a woman at all. She neither languished nor blandished. No feminine lures were wasted on him. He might have been her brother, or she his brother, for all sex had to do with the strange situation. Any mere polite gallantry on his part was ignored or snubbed, and he had very early given up offering his hand to her in getting into a boat or climbing over a log, and he had to acknowledge to himself that she was eminently fitted to take care of herself. Despite his warnings about crocodiles and sharks, she persisted in swimming in deep water off the beach; nor could he persuade her, when she was in the boat, to let one of the sailors throw the dynamite when shooting fish. She argued that she was at least a little bit more intelligent than they, and that, therefore, there was less liability of an accident if she did the shooting. She was to him the most masculine and at the same time the most feminine woman he had ever met.
A source of continual trouble between them was the disagreement over methods of handling the black boys. She ruled by stern kindness, rarely rewarding, never punishing, and he had to confess that her own sailors worshipped her, while the house-boys were her slaves, and did three times as much work for her as he had ever got out of them. She quickly saw the unrest of the contract labourers, and was not blind to the danger, always imminent, that both she and Sheldon ran. Neither of them ever ventured out without a revolver, and the sailors who stood the night watches by Joan's grass house were armed with rifles. But Joan insisted that this reign of terror had been caused by the reign of fear practised by the white men. She had been brought up with the gentle Hawaiians, who never were ill-treated nor roughly handled, and she generalized that the Solomon Islanders, under kind treatment, would grow gentle.