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He became aware that she was speaking.
«I beg pardon,» he said. «What's that you were saying?»
«You weren't listening to a word-I knew it,» she chided. «I was saying that the condition of the Flibberty-Gibbet was disgraceful, and that to-morrow, when you've told the skipper and not hurt his feelings, I am going to take my men out and give her an overhauling. We'll scrub her bottom, too. Why, there's whiskers on her copper four inches long. I saw it when she rolled. Don't forget, I'm going cruising on the Flibberty some day, even if I have to run away with her.»
While at their coffee on the veranda, Satan raised a commotion in the compound near the beach gate, and Sheldon finally rescued a mauled and frightened black and dragged him on the porch for interrogation.
«What fella marster you belong?» he demanded. «What name you come along this fella place sun he go down?»
«Me b'long Boucher. Too many boy belong along Port Adams stop along my fella marster. Too much walk about.»
The black drew a scrap of notepaper from under his belt and passed it over. Sheldon scanned it hurriedly.
«It's from Boucher,» he explained, «the fellow who took Packard's place. Packard was the one I told you about who was killed by his boat's-crew. He says the Port Adams crowd is out-fifty of them, in big canoes-and camping on his beach. They've killed half a dozen of his pigs already, and seem to be looking for trouble. And he's afraid they may connect with the fifteen runaways from Lunga.»
«In which case?» she queried.
«In which case Billy Pape will be compelled to send Boucher's successor. It's Pape's station, you know. I wish I knew what to do. I don't like to leave you here alone.»
«Take me along then.»
He smiled and shook his head.
«Then you'd better take my men along,» she advised. «They're good shots, and they're not afraid of anything-except Utami, and he's afraid of ghosts.»
The big bell was rung, and fifty black boys carried the whale-boat down to the water. The regular boat's-crew manned her, and Matauare and three other Tahitians, belted with cartridges and armed with rifles, sat in the stern-sheets where Sheldon stood at the steering-oar.
«My, I wish I could go with you,» Joan said wistfully, as the boat shoved off.
Sheldon shook his head.
«I'm as good as a man,» she urged.
«You really are needed here,» he replied.
«There's that Lunga crowd; they might reach the coast right here, and with both of us absent rush the plantation. Good-bye. We'll get back in the morning some time. It's only twelve miles.»
When Joan started to return to the house, she was compelled to pass among the boat-carriers, who lingered on the beach to chatter in queer, ape-like fashion about the events of the night. They made way for her, but there came to her, as she was in the midst of them, a feeling of her own helplessness. There were so many of them. What was to prevent them from dragging her down if they so willed? Then she remembered that one cry of hers would fetch Noa Noah and her remaining sailors, each one of whom was worth a dozen blacks in a struggle. As she opened the gate, one of the boys stepped up to her. In the darkness she could not make him out.
«What name?» she asked sharply. «What name belong you?»
«Me Aroa,» he said.
She remembered him as one of the two sick boys she had nursed at the hospital. The other one had died.
«Me take 'm plenty fella medicine too much,» Aroa was saying.
«Well, and you all right now,» she answered.
«Me want 'm tobacco, plenty fella tobacco; me want 'm calico; me want 'm porpoise teeth; me want 'm one fella belt.»
She looked at him humorously, expecting to see a smile, or at least a grin, on his face. Instead, his face was expressionless. Save for a narrow breech-clout, a pair of ear-plugs, and about his kinky hair a chaplet of white cowrie-shells, he was naked. His body was fresh-oiled and shiny, and his eyes glistened in the starlight like some wild animal's. The rest of the boys had crowded up at his back in a solid wall. Some one of them giggled, but the remainder regarded her in morose and intense silence.
«Well?» she said. «What for you want plenty fella things?»
«Me take 'm medicine,» quoth Aroa. «You pay me.»
And this was a sample of their gratitude, she thought. It looked as if Sheldon had been right after all. Aroa waited stolidly. A leaping fish splashed far out on the water. A tiny wavelet murmured sleepily on the beach. The shadow of a flying-fox drifted by in velvet silence overhead. A light air fanned coolly on her cheek; it was the land-breeze beginning to blow.
«You go along quarters,» she said, starting to turn on her heel to enter the gate.
«You pay me,» said the boy.
«Aroa, you all the same one big fool. I no pay you. Now you go.»
But the black was unmoved. She felt that he was regarding her almost insolently as he repeated:
«I take 'm medicine. You pay me. You pay me now.»
Then it was that she lost her temper and cuffed his ears so soundly as to drive him back among his fellows. But they did not break up. Another boy stepped forward.
«You pay me,» he said.
His eyes had the querulous, troubled look such as she had noticed in monkeys; but while he was patently uncomfortable under her scrutiny, his thick lips were drawn firmly in an effort at sullen determination.
«What for?» she asked.
«Me Gogoomy,» he said. «Bawo brother belong me.»
Bawo, she remembered, was the sick boy who had died.
«Go on,» she commanded.
«Bawo take 'm medicine. Bawo finish. Bawo my brother. You pay me. Father belong me one big fella chief along Port Adams. You pay me.»
Joan laughed.
«Gogoomy, you just the same as Aroa, one big fool. My word, who pay me for medicine?»
She dismissed the matter by passing through the gate and closing it. But Gogoomy pressed up against it and said impudently:
«Father belong me one big fella chief. You no bang 'm head belong me. My word, you fright too much.»
«Me fright?» she demanded, while anger tingled all through her.
«Too much fright bang 'm head belong me,» Gogoomy said proudly.
And then she reached for him across the gate and got him. It was a sweeping, broad-handed slap, so heavy that he staggered sideways and nearly fell. He sprang for the gate as if to force it open, while the crowd surged forward against the fence. Joan thought rapidly. Her revolver was hanging on the wall of her grass house. Yet one cry would bring her sailors, and she knew she was safe. So she did not cry for help. Instead, she whistled for Satan, at the same time calling him by name. She knew he was shut up in the living room, but the blacks did not wait to see. They fled with wild yells through the darkness, followed reluctantly by Gogoomy; while she entered the bungalow, laughing at first, but finally vexed to the verge of tears by what had taken place. She had sat up a whole night with the boy who had died, and yet his brother demanded to be paid for his life.
«Ugh! the ungrateful beast!» she muttered, while she debated whether or not she would confess the incident to Sheldon.
CHAPTER XI-THE PORT ADAMS CROWD
CHAPTER XII-MR. MORGAN AND MR. RAFF
CHAPTER XIII-THE LOGIC OF YOUTH
«I beg pardon,» he said. «What's that you were saying?»
«You weren't listening to a word-I knew it,» she chided. «I was saying that the condition of the Flibberty-Gibbet was disgraceful, and that to-morrow, when you've told the skipper and not hurt his feelings, I am going to take my men out and give her an overhauling. We'll scrub her bottom, too. Why, there's whiskers on her copper four inches long. I saw it when she rolled. Don't forget, I'm going cruising on the Flibberty some day, even if I have to run away with her.»
While at their coffee on the veranda, Satan raised a commotion in the compound near the beach gate, and Sheldon finally rescued a mauled and frightened black and dragged him on the porch for interrogation.
«What fella marster you belong?» he demanded. «What name you come along this fella place sun he go down?»
«Me b'long Boucher. Too many boy belong along Port Adams stop along my fella marster. Too much walk about.»
The black drew a scrap of notepaper from under his belt and passed it over. Sheldon scanned it hurriedly.
«It's from Boucher,» he explained, «the fellow who took Packard's place. Packard was the one I told you about who was killed by his boat's-crew. He says the Port Adams crowd is out-fifty of them, in big canoes-and camping on his beach. They've killed half a dozen of his pigs already, and seem to be looking for trouble. And he's afraid they may connect with the fifteen runaways from Lunga.»
«In which case?» she queried.
«In which case Billy Pape will be compelled to send Boucher's successor. It's Pape's station, you know. I wish I knew what to do. I don't like to leave you here alone.»
«Take me along then.»
He smiled and shook his head.
«Then you'd better take my men along,» she advised. «They're good shots, and they're not afraid of anything-except Utami, and he's afraid of ghosts.»
The big bell was rung, and fifty black boys carried the whale-boat down to the water. The regular boat's-crew manned her, and Matauare and three other Tahitians, belted with cartridges and armed with rifles, sat in the stern-sheets where Sheldon stood at the steering-oar.
«My, I wish I could go with you,» Joan said wistfully, as the boat shoved off.
Sheldon shook his head.
«I'm as good as a man,» she urged.
«You really are needed here,» he replied.
«There's that Lunga crowd; they might reach the coast right here, and with both of us absent rush the plantation. Good-bye. We'll get back in the morning some time. It's only twelve miles.»
When Joan started to return to the house, she was compelled to pass among the boat-carriers, who lingered on the beach to chatter in queer, ape-like fashion about the events of the night. They made way for her, but there came to her, as she was in the midst of them, a feeling of her own helplessness. There were so many of them. What was to prevent them from dragging her down if they so willed? Then she remembered that one cry of hers would fetch Noa Noah and her remaining sailors, each one of whom was worth a dozen blacks in a struggle. As she opened the gate, one of the boys stepped up to her. In the darkness she could not make him out.
«What name?» she asked sharply. «What name belong you?»
«Me Aroa,» he said.
She remembered him as one of the two sick boys she had nursed at the hospital. The other one had died.
«Me take 'm plenty fella medicine too much,» Aroa was saying.
«Well, and you all right now,» she answered.
«Me want 'm tobacco, plenty fella tobacco; me want 'm calico; me want 'm porpoise teeth; me want 'm one fella belt.»
She looked at him humorously, expecting to see a smile, or at least a grin, on his face. Instead, his face was expressionless. Save for a narrow breech-clout, a pair of ear-plugs, and about his kinky hair a chaplet of white cowrie-shells, he was naked. His body was fresh-oiled and shiny, and his eyes glistened in the starlight like some wild animal's. The rest of the boys had crowded up at his back in a solid wall. Some one of them giggled, but the remainder regarded her in morose and intense silence.
«Well?» she said. «What for you want plenty fella things?»
«Me take 'm medicine,» quoth Aroa. «You pay me.»
And this was a sample of their gratitude, she thought. It looked as if Sheldon had been right after all. Aroa waited stolidly. A leaping fish splashed far out on the water. A tiny wavelet murmured sleepily on the beach. The shadow of a flying-fox drifted by in velvet silence overhead. A light air fanned coolly on her cheek; it was the land-breeze beginning to blow.
«You go along quarters,» she said, starting to turn on her heel to enter the gate.
«You pay me,» said the boy.
«Aroa, you all the same one big fool. I no pay you. Now you go.»
But the black was unmoved. She felt that he was regarding her almost insolently as he repeated:
«I take 'm medicine. You pay me. You pay me now.»
Then it was that she lost her temper and cuffed his ears so soundly as to drive him back among his fellows. But they did not break up. Another boy stepped forward.
«You pay me,» he said.
His eyes had the querulous, troubled look such as she had noticed in monkeys; but while he was patently uncomfortable under her scrutiny, his thick lips were drawn firmly in an effort at sullen determination.
«What for?» she asked.
«Me Gogoomy,» he said. «Bawo brother belong me.»
Bawo, she remembered, was the sick boy who had died.
«Go on,» she commanded.
«Bawo take 'm medicine. Bawo finish. Bawo my brother. You pay me. Father belong me one big fella chief along Port Adams. You pay me.»
Joan laughed.
«Gogoomy, you just the same as Aroa, one big fool. My word, who pay me for medicine?»
She dismissed the matter by passing through the gate and closing it. But Gogoomy pressed up against it and said impudently:
«Father belong me one big fella chief. You no bang 'm head belong me. My word, you fright too much.»
«Me fright?» she demanded, while anger tingled all through her.
«Too much fright bang 'm head belong me,» Gogoomy said proudly.
And then she reached for him across the gate and got him. It was a sweeping, broad-handed slap, so heavy that he staggered sideways and nearly fell. He sprang for the gate as if to force it open, while the crowd surged forward against the fence. Joan thought rapidly. Her revolver was hanging on the wall of her grass house. Yet one cry would bring her sailors, and she knew she was safe. So she did not cry for help. Instead, she whistled for Satan, at the same time calling him by name. She knew he was shut up in the living room, but the blacks did not wait to see. They fled with wild yells through the darkness, followed reluctantly by Gogoomy; while she entered the bungalow, laughing at first, but finally vexed to the verge of tears by what had taken place. She had sat up a whole night with the boy who had died, and yet his brother demanded to be paid for his life.
«Ugh! the ungrateful beast!» she muttered, while she debated whether or not she would confess the incident to Sheldon.
CHAPTER XI-THE PORT ADAMS CROWD
«And so it was all settled easily enough,» Sheldon was saying. He was on the veranda, drinking coffee. The whale-boat was being carried into its shed. «Boucher was a bit timid at first to carry off the situation with a strong hand, but he did very well once we got started. We made a play at holding a court, and Telepasse, the old scoundrel, accepted the findings. He's a Port Adams chief, a filthy beggar. We fined him ten times the value of the pigs, and made him move on with his mob. Oh, they're a sweet lot, I must say, at least sixty of them, in five big canoes, and out for trouble. They've got a dozen Sniders that ought to be confiscated.»
«Why didn't you?» Joan asked.
«And have a row on my hands with the Commissioner? He's terribly touchy about his black wards, as he calls them. Well, we started them along their way, though they went in on the beach to kai-kai several miles back. They ought to pass here some time to-day.»
Two hours later the canoes arrived. No one saw them come. The house-boys were busy in the kitchen at their own breakfast. The plantation hands were similarly occupied in their quarters. Satan lay sound asleep on his back under the billiard table, in his sleep brushing at the flies that pestered him. Joan was rummaging in the store-room, and Sheldon was taking his siesta in a hammock on the veranda. He awoke gently. In some occult, subtle way a warning that all was not well had penetrated his sleep and aroused him. Without moving, he glanced down and saw the ground beneath covered with armed savages. They were the same ones he had parted with that morning, though he noted an accession in numbers. There were men he had not seen before.
He slipped from the hammock and with deliberate slowness sauntered to the railing, where he yawned sleepily and looked down on them. It came to him curiously that it was his destiny ever to stand on this high place, looking down on unending hordes of black trouble that required control, bullying, and cajolery. But while he glanced carelessly over them, he was keenly taking stock. The new men were all armed with modern rifles. Ah, he had thought so. There were fifteen of them, undoubtedly the Lunga runaways. In addition, a dozen old Sniders were in the hands of the original crowd. The rest were armed with spears, clubs, bows and arrows, and long-handled tomahawks. Beyond, drawn up on the beach, he could see the big war-canoes, with high and fantastically carved bows and sterns, ornamented with scrolls and bands of white cowrie shells. These were the men who had killed his trader, Oscar, at Ugi.
«What name you walk about this place?» he demanded.
At the same time he stole a glance seaward to where the Flibberty– Gibbet reflected herself in the glassy calm of the sea. Not a soul was visible under her awnings, and he saw the whale-boat was missing from alongside. The Tahitians had evidently gone shooting fish up the Balesuna. He was all alone in his high place above this trouble, while his world slumbered peacefully under the breathless tropic noon.
Nobody replied, and he repeated his demand, more of mastery in his voice this time, and a hint of growing anger. The blacks moved uneasily, like a herd of cattle, at the sound of his voice. But not one spoke. All eyes, however, were staring at him in certitude of expectancy. Something was about to happen, and they were waiting for it, waiting with the unanimous, unstable mob-mind for the one of them who would make the first action that would precipitate all of them into a common action. Sheldon looked for this one, for such was the one to fear. Directly beneath him he caught sight of the muzzle of a rifle, barely projecting between two black bodies, that was slowly elevating toward him. It was held at the hip by a man in the second row.
«What name you?» Sheldon suddenly shouted, pointing directly at the man who held the gun, who startled and lowered the muzzle.
Sheldon still held the whip hand, and he intended to keep it.
«Clear out, all you fella boys,» he ordered. «Clear out and walk along salt water. Savvee!»
«Me talk,» spoke up a fat and filthy savage whose hairy chest was caked with the unwashed dirt of years.
«Oh, is that you, Telepasse?» the white man queried genially. «You tell 'm boys clear out, and you stop and talk along me.»
«Him good fella boy,» was the reply. «Him stop along.»
«Well, what do you want?» Sheldon asked, striving to hide under assumed carelessness the weakness of concession.
«That fella boy belong along me.» The old chief pointed out Gogoomy, whom Sheldon recognized.
«White Mary belong you too much no good,» Telepasse went on. «Bang 'm head belong Gogoomy. Gogoomy all the same chief. Bimeby me finish, Gogoomy big fella chief. White Mary bang 'm head. No good. You pay me plenty tobacco, plenty powder, plenty calico.»
«You old scoundrel,» was Sheldon's comment. An hour before, he had been chuckling over Joan's recital of the episode, and here, an hour later, was Telepasse himself come to collect damages.
«Gogoomy,» Sheldon ordered, «what name you walk about here? You get along quarters plenty quick.»
«Me stop,» was the defiant answer.
«White Mary b'long you bang 'm head,» old Telepasse began again. «My word, plenty big fella trouble you no pay.»
«You talk along boys,» Sheldon said, with increasing irritation. «You tell 'm get to hell along beach. Then I talk with you.»
Sheldon felt a slight vibration of the veranda, and knew that Joan had come out and was standing by his side. But he did not dare glance at her. There were too many rifles down below there, and rifles had a way of going off from the hip.
Again the veranda vibrated with her moving weight, and he knew that Joan had gone into the house. A minute later she was back beside him. He had never seen her smoke, and it struck him as peculiar that she should be smoking now. Then he guessed the reason. With a quick glance, he noted the hand at her side, and in it the familiar, paper-wrapped dynamite. He noted, also, the end of fuse, split properly, into which had been inserted the head of a wax match.
«Telepasse, you old reprobate, tell 'm boys clear out along beach. My word, I no gammon along you.»
«Me no gammon,» said the chief. «Me want 'm pay white Mary bang 'm head b'long Gogoomy.»
«I'll come down there and bang 'm head b'long you,» Sheldon replied, leaning toward the railing as if about to leap over.
An angry murmur arose, and the blacks surged restlessly. The muzzles of many guns were rising from the hips. Joan was pressing the lighted end of the cigarette to the fuse. A Snider went off with the roar of a bomb-gun, and Sheldon heard a pane of window– glass crash behind him. At the same moment Joan flung the dynamite, the fuse hissing and spluttering, into the thick of the blacks. They scattered back in too great haste to do any more shooting. Satan, aroused by the one shot, was snarling and panting to be let out. Joan heard, and ran to let him out; and thereat the tragedy was averted, and the comedy began.
Rifles and spears were dropped or flung aside in a wild scramble for the protection of the cocoanut palms. Satan multiplied himself. Never had he been free to tear and rend such a quantity of black flesh before, and he bit and snapped and rushed the flying legs till the last pair were above his head. All were treed except Telepasse, who was too old and fat, and he lay prone and without movement where he had fallen; while Satan, with too great a heart to worry an enemy that did not move, dashed frantically from tree to tree, barking and springing at those who clung on lowest down.
«I fancy you need a lesson or two in inserting fuses,» Sheldon remarked dryly.
Joan's eyes were scornful.
«There was no detonator on it,» she said. «Besides, the detonator is not yet manufactured that will explode that charge. It's only a bottle of chlorodyne.»
She put her fingers into her mouth, and Sheldon winced as he saw her blow, like a boy, a sharp, imperious whistle-the call she always used for her sailors, and that always made him wince.
«They're gone up the Balesuna, shooting fish,» he explained. «But there comes Oleson with his boat's-crew. He's an old war-horse when he gets started. See him banging the boys. They don't pull fast enough for him.»
«And now what's to be done?» she asked. «You've treed your game, but you can't keep it treed.»
«No; but I can teach them a lesson.»
Sheldon walked over to the big bell.
«It is all right,» he replied to her gesture of protest. «My boys are practically all bushmen, while these chaps are salt-water men, and there's no love lost between them. You watch the fun.»
He rang a general call, and by the time the two hundred labourers trooped into the compound Satan was once more penned in the living– room, complaining to high heaven at his abominable treatment. The plantation hands were dancing war-dances around the base of every tree and filling the air with abuse and vituperation of their hereditary enemies. The skipper of the Flibberty-Gibbet arrived in the thick of it, in the first throes of oncoming fever, staggering as he walked, and shivering so severely that he could scarcely hold the rifle he carried. His face was ghastly blue, his teeth clicked and chattered, and the violent sunshine through which he walked could not warm him.
«I'll s-s-sit down, and k-k-keep a guard on 'em,» he chattered. «D-d-dash it all, I always g-get f-fever when there's any excitement. W-w-wh-what are you going to do?»
«Gather up the guns first of all.»
Under Sheldon's direction the house-boys and gang-bosses collected the scattered arms and piled them in a heap on the veranda. The modern rifles, stolen from Lunga, Sheldon set aside; the Sniders he smashed into fragments; the pile of spears, clubs, and tomahawks he presented to Joan.
«A really unique addition to your collection,» he smiled; «picked up right on the battlefield.»
Down on the beach he built a bonfire out of the contents of the canoes, his blacks smashing, breaking, and looting everything they laid hands on. The canoes themselves, splintered and broken, filled with sand and coral-boulders, were towed out to ten fathoms of water and sunk.
«Ten fathoms will be deep enough for them to work in,» Sheldon said, as they walked back to the compound.
Here a Saturnalia had broken loose. The war-songs and dances were more unrestrained, and, from abuse, the plantation blacks had turned to pelting their helpless foes with pieces of wood, handfuls of pebbles, and chunks of coral-rock. And the seventy-five lusty cannibals clung stoically to their tree-perches, enduring the rain of missiles and snarling down promises of vengeance.
«There'll be wars for forty years on Malaita on account of this,» Sheldon laughed. «But I always fancy old Telepasse will never again attempt to rush a plantation.»
«Eh, you old scoundrel,» he added, turning to the old chief, who sat gibbering in impotent rage at the foot of the steps. «Now head belong you bang 'm too. Come on, Miss Lackland, bang 'm just once. It will be the crowning indignity.»
«Ugh, he's too dirty. I'd rather give him a bath. Here, you, Adamu Adam, give this devil-devil a wash. Soap and water! Fill that wash-tub. Ornfiri, run and fetch 'm scrub-brush.»
The Tahitians, back from their fishing and grinning at the bedlam of the compound, entered into the joke.
«Tambo! Tambo!» shrieked the cannibals from the trees, appalled at so awful a desecration, as they saw their chief tumbled into the tub and the sacred dirt rubbed and soused from his body.
Joan, who had gone into the bungalow, tossed down a strip of white calico, in which old Telepasse was promptly wrapped, and he stood forth, resplendent and purified, withal he still spat and strangled from the soap-suds with which Noa Noah had gargled his throat.
The house-boys were directed to fetch handcuffs, and, one by one, the Lunga runaways were haled down out of their trees and made fast. Sheldon ironed them in pairs, and ran a steel chain through the links of the irons. Gogoomy was given a lecture for his mutinous conduct and locked up for the afternoon. Then Sheldon rewarded the plantation hands with an afternoon's holiday, and, when they had withdrawn from the compound, permitted the Port Adams men to descend from the trees. And all afternoon he and Joan loafed in the cool of the veranda and watched them diving down and emptying their sunken canoes of the sand and rocks. It was twilight when they embarked and paddled away with a few broken paddles. A breeze had sprung up, and the Flibberty-Gibbet had already sailed for Lunga to return the runaways.
«Why didn't you?» Joan asked.
«And have a row on my hands with the Commissioner? He's terribly touchy about his black wards, as he calls them. Well, we started them along their way, though they went in on the beach to kai-kai several miles back. They ought to pass here some time to-day.»
Two hours later the canoes arrived. No one saw them come. The house-boys were busy in the kitchen at their own breakfast. The plantation hands were similarly occupied in their quarters. Satan lay sound asleep on his back under the billiard table, in his sleep brushing at the flies that pestered him. Joan was rummaging in the store-room, and Sheldon was taking his siesta in a hammock on the veranda. He awoke gently. In some occult, subtle way a warning that all was not well had penetrated his sleep and aroused him. Without moving, he glanced down and saw the ground beneath covered with armed savages. They were the same ones he had parted with that morning, though he noted an accession in numbers. There were men he had not seen before.
He slipped from the hammock and with deliberate slowness sauntered to the railing, where he yawned sleepily and looked down on them. It came to him curiously that it was his destiny ever to stand on this high place, looking down on unending hordes of black trouble that required control, bullying, and cajolery. But while he glanced carelessly over them, he was keenly taking stock. The new men were all armed with modern rifles. Ah, he had thought so. There were fifteen of them, undoubtedly the Lunga runaways. In addition, a dozen old Sniders were in the hands of the original crowd. The rest were armed with spears, clubs, bows and arrows, and long-handled tomahawks. Beyond, drawn up on the beach, he could see the big war-canoes, with high and fantastically carved bows and sterns, ornamented with scrolls and bands of white cowrie shells. These were the men who had killed his trader, Oscar, at Ugi.
«What name you walk about this place?» he demanded.
At the same time he stole a glance seaward to where the Flibberty– Gibbet reflected herself in the glassy calm of the sea. Not a soul was visible under her awnings, and he saw the whale-boat was missing from alongside. The Tahitians had evidently gone shooting fish up the Balesuna. He was all alone in his high place above this trouble, while his world slumbered peacefully under the breathless tropic noon.
Nobody replied, and he repeated his demand, more of mastery in his voice this time, and a hint of growing anger. The blacks moved uneasily, like a herd of cattle, at the sound of his voice. But not one spoke. All eyes, however, were staring at him in certitude of expectancy. Something was about to happen, and they were waiting for it, waiting with the unanimous, unstable mob-mind for the one of them who would make the first action that would precipitate all of them into a common action. Sheldon looked for this one, for such was the one to fear. Directly beneath him he caught sight of the muzzle of a rifle, barely projecting between two black bodies, that was slowly elevating toward him. It was held at the hip by a man in the second row.
«What name you?» Sheldon suddenly shouted, pointing directly at the man who held the gun, who startled and lowered the muzzle.
Sheldon still held the whip hand, and he intended to keep it.
«Clear out, all you fella boys,» he ordered. «Clear out and walk along salt water. Savvee!»
«Me talk,» spoke up a fat and filthy savage whose hairy chest was caked with the unwashed dirt of years.
«Oh, is that you, Telepasse?» the white man queried genially. «You tell 'm boys clear out, and you stop and talk along me.»
«Him good fella boy,» was the reply. «Him stop along.»
«Well, what do you want?» Sheldon asked, striving to hide under assumed carelessness the weakness of concession.
«That fella boy belong along me.» The old chief pointed out Gogoomy, whom Sheldon recognized.
«White Mary belong you too much no good,» Telepasse went on. «Bang 'm head belong Gogoomy. Gogoomy all the same chief. Bimeby me finish, Gogoomy big fella chief. White Mary bang 'm head. No good. You pay me plenty tobacco, plenty powder, plenty calico.»
«You old scoundrel,» was Sheldon's comment. An hour before, he had been chuckling over Joan's recital of the episode, and here, an hour later, was Telepasse himself come to collect damages.
«Gogoomy,» Sheldon ordered, «what name you walk about here? You get along quarters plenty quick.»
«Me stop,» was the defiant answer.
«White Mary b'long you bang 'm head,» old Telepasse began again. «My word, plenty big fella trouble you no pay.»
«You talk along boys,» Sheldon said, with increasing irritation. «You tell 'm get to hell along beach. Then I talk with you.»
Sheldon felt a slight vibration of the veranda, and knew that Joan had come out and was standing by his side. But he did not dare glance at her. There were too many rifles down below there, and rifles had a way of going off from the hip.
Again the veranda vibrated with her moving weight, and he knew that Joan had gone into the house. A minute later she was back beside him. He had never seen her smoke, and it struck him as peculiar that she should be smoking now. Then he guessed the reason. With a quick glance, he noted the hand at her side, and in it the familiar, paper-wrapped dynamite. He noted, also, the end of fuse, split properly, into which had been inserted the head of a wax match.
«Telepasse, you old reprobate, tell 'm boys clear out along beach. My word, I no gammon along you.»
«Me no gammon,» said the chief. «Me want 'm pay white Mary bang 'm head b'long Gogoomy.»
«I'll come down there and bang 'm head b'long you,» Sheldon replied, leaning toward the railing as if about to leap over.
An angry murmur arose, and the blacks surged restlessly. The muzzles of many guns were rising from the hips. Joan was pressing the lighted end of the cigarette to the fuse. A Snider went off with the roar of a bomb-gun, and Sheldon heard a pane of window– glass crash behind him. At the same moment Joan flung the dynamite, the fuse hissing and spluttering, into the thick of the blacks. They scattered back in too great haste to do any more shooting. Satan, aroused by the one shot, was snarling and panting to be let out. Joan heard, and ran to let him out; and thereat the tragedy was averted, and the comedy began.
Rifles and spears were dropped or flung aside in a wild scramble for the protection of the cocoanut palms. Satan multiplied himself. Never had he been free to tear and rend such a quantity of black flesh before, and he bit and snapped and rushed the flying legs till the last pair were above his head. All were treed except Telepasse, who was too old and fat, and he lay prone and without movement where he had fallen; while Satan, with too great a heart to worry an enemy that did not move, dashed frantically from tree to tree, barking and springing at those who clung on lowest down.
«I fancy you need a lesson or two in inserting fuses,» Sheldon remarked dryly.
Joan's eyes were scornful.
«There was no detonator on it,» she said. «Besides, the detonator is not yet manufactured that will explode that charge. It's only a bottle of chlorodyne.»
She put her fingers into her mouth, and Sheldon winced as he saw her blow, like a boy, a sharp, imperious whistle-the call she always used for her sailors, and that always made him wince.
«They're gone up the Balesuna, shooting fish,» he explained. «But there comes Oleson with his boat's-crew. He's an old war-horse when he gets started. See him banging the boys. They don't pull fast enough for him.»
«And now what's to be done?» she asked. «You've treed your game, but you can't keep it treed.»
«No; but I can teach them a lesson.»
Sheldon walked over to the big bell.
«It is all right,» he replied to her gesture of protest. «My boys are practically all bushmen, while these chaps are salt-water men, and there's no love lost between them. You watch the fun.»
He rang a general call, and by the time the two hundred labourers trooped into the compound Satan was once more penned in the living– room, complaining to high heaven at his abominable treatment. The plantation hands were dancing war-dances around the base of every tree and filling the air with abuse and vituperation of their hereditary enemies. The skipper of the Flibberty-Gibbet arrived in the thick of it, in the first throes of oncoming fever, staggering as he walked, and shivering so severely that he could scarcely hold the rifle he carried. His face was ghastly blue, his teeth clicked and chattered, and the violent sunshine through which he walked could not warm him.
«I'll s-s-sit down, and k-k-keep a guard on 'em,» he chattered. «D-d-dash it all, I always g-get f-fever when there's any excitement. W-w-wh-what are you going to do?»
«Gather up the guns first of all.»
Under Sheldon's direction the house-boys and gang-bosses collected the scattered arms and piled them in a heap on the veranda. The modern rifles, stolen from Lunga, Sheldon set aside; the Sniders he smashed into fragments; the pile of spears, clubs, and tomahawks he presented to Joan.
«A really unique addition to your collection,» he smiled; «picked up right on the battlefield.»
Down on the beach he built a bonfire out of the contents of the canoes, his blacks smashing, breaking, and looting everything they laid hands on. The canoes themselves, splintered and broken, filled with sand and coral-boulders, were towed out to ten fathoms of water and sunk.
«Ten fathoms will be deep enough for them to work in,» Sheldon said, as they walked back to the compound.
Here a Saturnalia had broken loose. The war-songs and dances were more unrestrained, and, from abuse, the plantation blacks had turned to pelting their helpless foes with pieces of wood, handfuls of pebbles, and chunks of coral-rock. And the seventy-five lusty cannibals clung stoically to their tree-perches, enduring the rain of missiles and snarling down promises of vengeance.
«There'll be wars for forty years on Malaita on account of this,» Sheldon laughed. «But I always fancy old Telepasse will never again attempt to rush a plantation.»
«Eh, you old scoundrel,» he added, turning to the old chief, who sat gibbering in impotent rage at the foot of the steps. «Now head belong you bang 'm too. Come on, Miss Lackland, bang 'm just once. It will be the crowning indignity.»
«Ugh, he's too dirty. I'd rather give him a bath. Here, you, Adamu Adam, give this devil-devil a wash. Soap and water! Fill that wash-tub. Ornfiri, run and fetch 'm scrub-brush.»
The Tahitians, back from their fishing and grinning at the bedlam of the compound, entered into the joke.
«Tambo! Tambo!» shrieked the cannibals from the trees, appalled at so awful a desecration, as they saw their chief tumbled into the tub and the sacred dirt rubbed and soused from his body.
Joan, who had gone into the bungalow, tossed down a strip of white calico, in which old Telepasse was promptly wrapped, and he stood forth, resplendent and purified, withal he still spat and strangled from the soap-suds with which Noa Noah had gargled his throat.
The house-boys were directed to fetch handcuffs, and, one by one, the Lunga runaways were haled down out of their trees and made fast. Sheldon ironed them in pairs, and ran a steel chain through the links of the irons. Gogoomy was given a lecture for his mutinous conduct and locked up for the afternoon. Then Sheldon rewarded the plantation hands with an afternoon's holiday, and, when they had withdrawn from the compound, permitted the Port Adams men to descend from the trees. And all afternoon he and Joan loafed in the cool of the veranda and watched them diving down and emptying their sunken canoes of the sand and rocks. It was twilight when they embarked and paddled away with a few broken paddles. A breeze had sprung up, and the Flibberty-Gibbet had already sailed for Lunga to return the runaways.
CHAPTER XII-MR. MORGAN AND MR. RAFF
Sheldon was back in the plantation superintending the building of a bridge, when the schooner Malakula ran in close and dropped anchor. Joan watched the taking in of sail and the swinging out of the boat with a sailor's interest, and herself met the two men who came ashore. While one of the house-boys ran to fetch Sheldon, she had the visitors served with whisky and soda, and sat and talked with them.
They seemed awkward and constrained in her presence, and she caught first one and then the other looking at her with secret curiosity. She felt that they were weighing her, appraising her, and for the first time the anomalous position she occupied on Berande sank sharply home to her. On the other hand, they puzzled her. They were neither traders nor sailors of any type she had known. Nor did they talk like gentlemen, despite the fact that there was nothing offensive in their bearing and that the veneer of ordinary social nicety was theirs. Undoubtedly, they were men of affairs– business men of a sort; but what affairs should they have in the Solomons, and what business on Berande? The elder one, Morgan, was a huge man, bronzed and moustached, with a deep bass voice and an almost guttural speech, and the other, Raff, was slight and effeminate, with nervous hands and watery, washed-out gray eyes, who spoke with a faint indefinable accent that was hauntingly reminiscent of the Cockney, and that was yet not Cockney of any brand she had ever encountered. Whatever they were, they were self-made men, she concluded; and she felt the impulse to shudder at thought of falling into their hands in a business way. There, they would be merciless.
She watched Sheldon closely when he arrived, and divined that he was not particularly delighted to see them. But see them he must, and so pressing was the need that, after a little perfunctory general conversation, he led the two men into the stuffy office. Later in the afternoon, she asked Lalaperu where they had gone.
«My word,» quoth Lalaperu; «plenty walk about, plenty look 'm. Look 'm tree; look 'm ground belong tree; look 'm all fella bridge; look 'm copra-house; look 'm grass-land; look 'm river; look 'm whale-boat-my word, plenty big fella look 'm too much.»
«What fella man them two fella?» she queried.
«Big fella marster along white man,» was the extent of his description.
But Joan decided that they were men of importance in the Solomons, and that their examination of the plantation and of its accounts was of sinister significance.
At dinner no word was dropped that gave a hint of their errand. The conversation was on general topics; but Joan could not help noticing the troubled, absent expression that occasionally came into Sheldon's eyes. After coffee, she left them; and at midnight, from across the compound, she could hear the low murmur of their voices and see glowing the fiery ends of their cigars. Up early herself, she found they had already departed on another tramp over the plantation.
«What you think?» she asked Viaburi.
«Sheldon marster he go along finish short time little bit,» was the answer.
«What you think?» she asked Ornfiri.
«Sheldon marster big fella walk about along Sydney. Yes, me t'ink so. He finish along Berande.»
All day the examination of the plantation and the discussion went on; and all day the skipper of the Malakula sent urgent messages ashore for the two men to hasten. It was not until sunset that they went down to the boat, and even then a final talk of nearly an hour took place on the beach. Sheldon was combating something– that she could plainly see; and that his two visitors were not giving in she could also plainly see.
«What name?» she asked lightly, when Sheldon sat down to dinner.
He looked at her and smiled, but it was a very wan and wistful smile.
«My word,» she went on. «One big fella talk. Sun he go down– talk-talk; sun he come up-talk-talk; all the time talk-talk. What name that fella talk-talk?
«Oh, nothing much.» He shrugged his shoulders. «They were trying to buy Berande, that was all.»
She looked at him challengingly.
«It must have been more than that. It was you who wanted to sell.»
«Indeed, no, Miss Lackland; I assure you that I am far from desiring to sell.»
«Don't let us fence about it,» she urged. «Let it be straight talk between us. You're in trouble. I'm not a fool. Tell me. Besides, I may be able to help, to-to suggest something.»
In the pause that followed, he seemed to debate, not so much whether he would tell her, as how to begin to tell her.
«I'm American, you see,» she persisted, «and our American heritage is a large parcel of business sense. I don't like it myself, but I know I've got it-at least more than you have. Let us talk it over and find a way out. How much do you owe?»
«A thousand pounds, and a few trifles over-small bills, you know. Then, too, thirty of the boys finish their time next week, and their balances will average ten pounds each. But what is the need of bothering your head with it? Really, you know-«
«What is Berande worth?-right now?»
«Whatever Morgan and Raff are willing to pay for it.» A glance at her hurt expression decided him. «Hughie and I have sunk eight thousand pounds in it, and our time. It is a good property, and worth more than that. But it has three years to run before its returns begin to come in. That is why Hughie and I engaged in trading and recruiting. The Jessie and our stations came very near to paying the running expenses of Berande.»
«And Morgan and Raff offered you what?»
«A thousand pounds clear, after paying all bills.»
«The thieves!» she cried.
«No, they're good business men, that is all. As they told me, a thing is worth no more than one is willing to pay or to receive.»
«And how much do you need to carry on Berande for three years?» Joan hurried on.
«Two hundred boys at six pounds a year means thirty-six hundred pounds-that's the main item.»
«My, how cheap labour does mount up! Thirty-six hundred pounds, eighteen thousand dollars, just for a lot of cannibals! Yet the place is good security. You could go down to Sydney and raise the money.»
He shook his head.
«You can't get them to look at plantations down there. They've been taken in too often. But I do hate to give the place up-more for Hughie's sake, I swear, than my own. He was bound up in it. You see, he was a persistent chap, and hated to acknowledge defeat. It-it makes me uncomfortable to think of it myself. We were running slowly behind, but with the Jessie we hoped to muddle through in some fashion.»
«You were muddlers, the pair of you, without doubt. But you needn't sell to Morgan and Raff. I shall go down to Sydney on the next steamer, and I'll come back in a second-hand schooner. I should be able to buy one for five or six thousand dollars-«
He held up his hand in protest, but she waved it aside.
«I may manage to freight a cargo back as well. At any rate, the schooner will take over the Jessie's business. You can make your arrangements accordingly, and have plenty of work for her when I get back. I'm going to become a partner in Berande to the extent of my bag of sovereigns-I've got over fifteen hundred of them, you know. We'll draw up an agreement right now-that is, with your permission, and I know you won't refuse it.»
He looked at her with good-natured amusement.
«You know I sailed here all the way from Tahiti in order to become a planter,» she insisted. «You know what my plans were. Now I've changed them, that's all. I'd rather be a part owner of Berande and get my returns in three years, than break ground on Pari-Sulay and wait seven years.»
«And this-er-this schooner. . . . « Sheldon changed his mind and stopped.
«Yes, go on.»
«You won't be angry?» he queried.
«No, no; this is business. Go on.»
«You-er-you would run her yourself?-be the captain, in short?– and go recruiting on Malaita?»
«Certainly. We would save the cost of a skipper. Under an agreement you would be credited with a manager's salary, and I with a captain's. It's quite simple. Besides, if you won't let me be your partner, I shall buy Pari-Sulay, get a much smaller vessel, and run her myself. So what is the difference?»
«The difference?-why, all the difference in the world. In the case of Pari-Sulay you would be on an independent venture. You could turn cannibal for all I could interfere in the matter. But on Berande, you would be my partner, and then I would be responsible. And of course I couldn't permit you, as my partner, to be skipper of a recruiter. I tell you, the thing is what I would not permit any sister or wife of mine-«
«But I'm not going to be your wife, thank goodness-only your partner.»
«Besides, it's all ridiculous,» he held on steadily. «Think of the situation. A man and a woman, both young, partners on an isolated plantation. Why, the only practical way out would be that I'd have to marry you-«
«Mine was a business proposition, not a marriage proposal,» she interrupted, coldly angry. «I wonder if somewhere in this world there is one man who could accept me for a comrade.»
«But you are a woman just the same,» he began, «and there are certain conventions, certain decencies-«
She sprang up and stamped her foot.
«Do you know what I'd like to say?» she demanded.
«Yes,» he smiled, «you'd like to say, 'Damn petticoats!'»
She nodded her head ruefully.
«That's what I wanted to say, but it sounds different on your lips. It sounds as though you meant it yourself, and that you meant it because of me.»
«Well, I am going to bed. But do, please, think over my proposition, and let me know in the morning. There's no use in my discussing it now. You make me so angry. You are cowardly, you know, and very egotistic. You are afraid of what other fools will say. No matter how honest your motives, if others criticized your actions your feelings would be hurt. And you think more about your own wretched feelings than you do about mine. And then, being a coward-all men are at heart cowards-you disguise your cowardice by calling it chivalry. I thank heaven that I was not born a man. Good-night. Do think it over. And don't be foolish. What Berande needs is good American hustle. You don't know what that is. You are a muddler. Besides, you are enervated. I'm fresh to the climate. Let me be your partner, and you'll see me rattle the dry bones of the Solomons. Confess, I've rattled yours already.»
«I should say so,» he answered. «Really, you know, you have. I never received such a dressing-down in my life. If any one had ever told me that I'd be a party even to the present situation. . . . Yes, I confess, you have rattled my dry bones pretty considerably.»
«But that is nothing to the rattling they are going to get,» she assured him, as he rose and took her hand. «Good-night. And do, do give me a rational decision in the morning.»
They seemed awkward and constrained in her presence, and she caught first one and then the other looking at her with secret curiosity. She felt that they were weighing her, appraising her, and for the first time the anomalous position she occupied on Berande sank sharply home to her. On the other hand, they puzzled her. They were neither traders nor sailors of any type she had known. Nor did they talk like gentlemen, despite the fact that there was nothing offensive in their bearing and that the veneer of ordinary social nicety was theirs. Undoubtedly, they were men of affairs– business men of a sort; but what affairs should they have in the Solomons, and what business on Berande? The elder one, Morgan, was a huge man, bronzed and moustached, with a deep bass voice and an almost guttural speech, and the other, Raff, was slight and effeminate, with nervous hands and watery, washed-out gray eyes, who spoke with a faint indefinable accent that was hauntingly reminiscent of the Cockney, and that was yet not Cockney of any brand she had ever encountered. Whatever they were, they were self-made men, she concluded; and she felt the impulse to shudder at thought of falling into their hands in a business way. There, they would be merciless.
She watched Sheldon closely when he arrived, and divined that he was not particularly delighted to see them. But see them he must, and so pressing was the need that, after a little perfunctory general conversation, he led the two men into the stuffy office. Later in the afternoon, she asked Lalaperu where they had gone.
«My word,» quoth Lalaperu; «plenty walk about, plenty look 'm. Look 'm tree; look 'm ground belong tree; look 'm all fella bridge; look 'm copra-house; look 'm grass-land; look 'm river; look 'm whale-boat-my word, plenty big fella look 'm too much.»
«What fella man them two fella?» she queried.
«Big fella marster along white man,» was the extent of his description.
But Joan decided that they were men of importance in the Solomons, and that their examination of the plantation and of its accounts was of sinister significance.
At dinner no word was dropped that gave a hint of their errand. The conversation was on general topics; but Joan could not help noticing the troubled, absent expression that occasionally came into Sheldon's eyes. After coffee, she left them; and at midnight, from across the compound, she could hear the low murmur of their voices and see glowing the fiery ends of their cigars. Up early herself, she found they had already departed on another tramp over the plantation.
«What you think?» she asked Viaburi.
«Sheldon marster he go along finish short time little bit,» was the answer.
«What you think?» she asked Ornfiri.
«Sheldon marster big fella walk about along Sydney. Yes, me t'ink so. He finish along Berande.»
All day the examination of the plantation and the discussion went on; and all day the skipper of the Malakula sent urgent messages ashore for the two men to hasten. It was not until sunset that they went down to the boat, and even then a final talk of nearly an hour took place on the beach. Sheldon was combating something– that she could plainly see; and that his two visitors were not giving in she could also plainly see.
«What name?» she asked lightly, when Sheldon sat down to dinner.
He looked at her and smiled, but it was a very wan and wistful smile.
«My word,» she went on. «One big fella talk. Sun he go down– talk-talk; sun he come up-talk-talk; all the time talk-talk. What name that fella talk-talk?
«Oh, nothing much.» He shrugged his shoulders. «They were trying to buy Berande, that was all.»
She looked at him challengingly.
«It must have been more than that. It was you who wanted to sell.»
«Indeed, no, Miss Lackland; I assure you that I am far from desiring to sell.»
«Don't let us fence about it,» she urged. «Let it be straight talk between us. You're in trouble. I'm not a fool. Tell me. Besides, I may be able to help, to-to suggest something.»
In the pause that followed, he seemed to debate, not so much whether he would tell her, as how to begin to tell her.
«I'm American, you see,» she persisted, «and our American heritage is a large parcel of business sense. I don't like it myself, but I know I've got it-at least more than you have. Let us talk it over and find a way out. How much do you owe?»
«A thousand pounds, and a few trifles over-small bills, you know. Then, too, thirty of the boys finish their time next week, and their balances will average ten pounds each. But what is the need of bothering your head with it? Really, you know-«
«What is Berande worth?-right now?»
«Whatever Morgan and Raff are willing to pay for it.» A glance at her hurt expression decided him. «Hughie and I have sunk eight thousand pounds in it, and our time. It is a good property, and worth more than that. But it has three years to run before its returns begin to come in. That is why Hughie and I engaged in trading and recruiting. The Jessie and our stations came very near to paying the running expenses of Berande.»
«And Morgan and Raff offered you what?»
«A thousand pounds clear, after paying all bills.»
«The thieves!» she cried.
«No, they're good business men, that is all. As they told me, a thing is worth no more than one is willing to pay or to receive.»
«And how much do you need to carry on Berande for three years?» Joan hurried on.
«Two hundred boys at six pounds a year means thirty-six hundred pounds-that's the main item.»
«My, how cheap labour does mount up! Thirty-six hundred pounds, eighteen thousand dollars, just for a lot of cannibals! Yet the place is good security. You could go down to Sydney and raise the money.»
He shook his head.
«You can't get them to look at plantations down there. They've been taken in too often. But I do hate to give the place up-more for Hughie's sake, I swear, than my own. He was bound up in it. You see, he was a persistent chap, and hated to acknowledge defeat. It-it makes me uncomfortable to think of it myself. We were running slowly behind, but with the Jessie we hoped to muddle through in some fashion.»
«You were muddlers, the pair of you, without doubt. But you needn't sell to Morgan and Raff. I shall go down to Sydney on the next steamer, and I'll come back in a second-hand schooner. I should be able to buy one for five or six thousand dollars-«
He held up his hand in protest, but she waved it aside.
«I may manage to freight a cargo back as well. At any rate, the schooner will take over the Jessie's business. You can make your arrangements accordingly, and have plenty of work for her when I get back. I'm going to become a partner in Berande to the extent of my bag of sovereigns-I've got over fifteen hundred of them, you know. We'll draw up an agreement right now-that is, with your permission, and I know you won't refuse it.»
He looked at her with good-natured amusement.
«You know I sailed here all the way from Tahiti in order to become a planter,» she insisted. «You know what my plans were. Now I've changed them, that's all. I'd rather be a part owner of Berande and get my returns in three years, than break ground on Pari-Sulay and wait seven years.»
«And this-er-this schooner. . . . « Sheldon changed his mind and stopped.
«Yes, go on.»
«You won't be angry?» he queried.
«No, no; this is business. Go on.»
«You-er-you would run her yourself?-be the captain, in short?– and go recruiting on Malaita?»
«Certainly. We would save the cost of a skipper. Under an agreement you would be credited with a manager's salary, and I with a captain's. It's quite simple. Besides, if you won't let me be your partner, I shall buy Pari-Sulay, get a much smaller vessel, and run her myself. So what is the difference?»
«The difference?-why, all the difference in the world. In the case of Pari-Sulay you would be on an independent venture. You could turn cannibal for all I could interfere in the matter. But on Berande, you would be my partner, and then I would be responsible. And of course I couldn't permit you, as my partner, to be skipper of a recruiter. I tell you, the thing is what I would not permit any sister or wife of mine-«
«But I'm not going to be your wife, thank goodness-only your partner.»
«Besides, it's all ridiculous,» he held on steadily. «Think of the situation. A man and a woman, both young, partners on an isolated plantation. Why, the only practical way out would be that I'd have to marry you-«
«Mine was a business proposition, not a marriage proposal,» she interrupted, coldly angry. «I wonder if somewhere in this world there is one man who could accept me for a comrade.»
«But you are a woman just the same,» he began, «and there are certain conventions, certain decencies-«
She sprang up and stamped her foot.
«Do you know what I'd like to say?» she demanded.
«Yes,» he smiled, «you'd like to say, 'Damn petticoats!'»
She nodded her head ruefully.
«That's what I wanted to say, but it sounds different on your lips. It sounds as though you meant it yourself, and that you meant it because of me.»
«Well, I am going to bed. But do, please, think over my proposition, and let me know in the morning. There's no use in my discussing it now. You make me so angry. You are cowardly, you know, and very egotistic. You are afraid of what other fools will say. No matter how honest your motives, if others criticized your actions your feelings would be hurt. And you think more about your own wretched feelings than you do about mine. And then, being a coward-all men are at heart cowards-you disguise your cowardice by calling it chivalry. I thank heaven that I was not born a man. Good-night. Do think it over. And don't be foolish. What Berande needs is good American hustle. You don't know what that is. You are a muddler. Besides, you are enervated. I'm fresh to the climate. Let me be your partner, and you'll see me rattle the dry bones of the Solomons. Confess, I've rattled yours already.»
«I should say so,» he answered. «Really, you know, you have. I never received such a dressing-down in my life. If any one had ever told me that I'd be a party even to the present situation. . . . Yes, I confess, you have rattled my dry bones pretty considerably.»
«But that is nothing to the rattling they are going to get,» she assured him, as he rose and took her hand. «Good-night. And do, do give me a rational decision in the morning.»
CHAPTER XIII-THE LOGIC OF YOUTH
«I wish I knew whether you are merely headstrong, or whether you really intend to be a Solomon planter,» Sheldon said in the morning, at breakfast.
«I wish you were more adaptable,» Joan retorted. «You have more preconceived notions than any man I ever met. Why in the name of common sense, in the name of . . . fair play, can't you get it into your head that I am different from the women you have known, and treat me accordingly? You surely ought to know I am different. I sailed my own schooner here-skipper, if you please. I came here to make my living. You know that; I've told you often enough. It was Dad's plan, and I'm carrying it out, just as you are trying to carry out your Hughie's plan. Dad started to sail and sail until he could find the proper islands for planting. He died, and I sailed and sailed until I arrived here. Well,»-she shrugged her shoulders-«the schooner is at the bottom of the sea. I can't sail any farther, therefore I remain here. And a planter I shall certainly be.»
«You see-« he began.
«I haven't got to the point,» she interrupted. «Looking back on my conduct from the moment I first set foot on your beach, I can see no false pretence that I have made about myself or my intentions. I was my natural self to you from the first. I told you my plans; and yet you sit there and calmly tell me that you don't know whether I really intend to become a planter, or whether it is all obstinacy and pretence. Now let me assure you, for the last time, that I really and truly shall become a planter, thanks to you, or in spite of you. Do you want me for a partner?»
«But do you realize that I would be looked upon as the most foolish jackanapes in the South Seas if I took a young girl like you in with me here on Berande?» he asked.
«No; decidedly not. But there you are again, worrying about what idiots and the generally evil-minded will think of you. I should have thought you had learned self-reliance on Berande, instead of needing to lean upon the moral support of every whisky-guzzling worthless South Sea vagabond.»
He smiled, and said, –
«Yes, that is the worst of it. You are unanswerable. Yours is the logic of youth, and no man can answer that. The facts of life can, but they have no place in the logic of youth. Youth must try to live according to its logic. That is the only way to learn better.»
«There is no harm in trying?» she interjected.
«But there is. That is the very point. The facts always smash youth's logic, and they usually smash youth's heart, too. It's like platonic friendships and . . . and all such things; they are all right in theory, but they won't work in practice. I used to believe in such things once. That is why I am here in the Solomons at present.»
Joan was impatient. He saw that she could not understand. Life was too clearly simple to her. It was only the youth who was arguing with him, the youth with youth's pure-minded and invincible reasoning. Hers was only the boy's soul in a woman's body. He looked at her flushed, eager face, at the great ropes of hair coiled on the small head, at the rounded lines of the figure showing plainly through the home-made gown, and at the eyes-boy's eyes, under cool, level brows-and he wondered why a being that was so much beautiful woman should be no woman at all. Why in the deuce was she not carroty-haired, or cross-eyed, or hare-lipped?
«Suppose we do become partners on Berande,» he said, at the same time experiencing a feeling of fright at the prospect that was tangled with a contradictory feeling of charm, «either I'll fall in love with you, or you with me. Propinquity is dangerous, you know. In fact, it is propinquity that usually gives the facer to the logic of youth.»
«If you think I came to the Solomons to get married-« she began wrathfully. «Well, there are better men in Hawaii, that's all. Really, you know, the way you harp on that one string would lead an unprejudiced listener to conclude that you are prurient-minded-«
She stopped, appalled. His face had gone red and white with such abruptness as to startle her. He was patently very angry. She sipped the last of her coffee, and arose, saying, –
«I'll wait until you are in a better temper before taking up the discussion again. That is what's the matter with you. You get angry too easily. Will you come swimming? The tide is just right.»
«If she were a man I'd bundle her off the plantation root and crop, whale-boat, Tahitian sailors, sovereigns, and all,» he muttered to himself after she had left the room.
But that was the trouble. She was not a man, and where would she go, and what would happen to her?
He got to his feet, lighted a cigarette, and her Stetson hat, hanging on the wall over her revolver-belt, caught his eye. That was the devil of it, too. He did not want her to go. After all, she had not grown up yet. That was why her logic hurt. It was only the logic of youth, but it could hurt damnably at times. At any rate, he would resolve upon one thing: never again would he lose his temper with her. She was a child; he must remember that. He sighed heavily. But why in reasonableness had such a child been incorporated in such a woman's form?
And as he continued to stare at her hat and think, the hurt he had received passed away, and he found himself cudgelling his brains for some way out of the muddle-for some method by which she could remain on Berande. A chaperone! Why not? He could send to Sydney on the first steamer for one. He could –
Her trilling laughter smote upon his reverie, and he stepped to the screen-door, through which he could see her running down the path to the beach. At her heels ran two of her sailors, Papehara and Mahameme, in scarlet lava-lavas, with naked sheath-knives gleaming in their belts. It was another sample of her wilfulness. Despite entreaties and commands, and warnings of the danger from sharks, she persisted in swimming at any and all times, and by special preference, it seemed to him, immediately after eating.
He watched her take the water, diving cleanly, like a boy, from the end of the little pier; and he watched her strike out with single overhand stroke, her henchmen swimming a dozen feet on either side. He did not have much faith in their ability to beat off a hungry man-eater, though he did believe, implicitly, that their lives would go bravely before hers in case of an attack.
Straight out they swam, their heads growing smaller and smaller. There was a slight, restless heave to the sea, and soon the three heads were disappearing behind it with greater frequency. He strained his eyes to keep them in sight, and finally fetched the telescope on to the veranda. A squall was making over from the direction of Florida; but then, she and her men laughed at squalls and the white choppy sea at such times. She certainly could swim, he had long since concluded. That came of her training in Hawaii. But sharks were sharks, and he had known of more than one good swimmer drowned in a tide-rip.
The squall blackened the sky, beat the ocean white where he had last seen the three heads, and then blotted out sea and sky and everything with its deluge of rain. It passed on, and Berande emerged in the bright sunshine as the three swimmers emerged from the sea. Sheldon slipped inside with the telescope, and through the screen-door watched her run up the path, shaking down her hair as she ran, to the fresh-water shower under the house.
On the veranda that afternoon he broached the proposition of a chaperone as delicately as he could, explaining the necessity at Berande for such a body, a housekeeper to run the boys and the storeroom, and perform divers other useful functions. When he had finished, he waited anxiously for what Joan would say.
«Then you don't like the way I've been managing the house?» was her first objection. And next, brushing his attempted explanations aside, «One of two things would happen. Either I should cancel our partnership agreement and go away, leaving you to get another chaperone to chaperone your chaperone; or else I'd take the old hen out in the whale-boat and drown her. Do you imagine for one moment that I sailed my schooner down here to this raw edge of the earth in order to put myself under a chaperone?»
«But really . . . er . . . you know a chaperone is a necessary evil,» he objected.
«We've got along very nicely so far without one. Did I have one on the Miele? And yet I was the only woman on board. There are only three things I am afraid of-bumble-bees, scarlet fever, and chaperones. Ugh! the clucking, evil-minded monsters, finding wrong in everything, seeing sin in the most innocent actions, and suggesting sin-yes, causing sin-by their diseased imaginings.»
«Phew!» Sheldon leaned back from the table in mock fear.
«You needn't worry about your bread and butter,» he ventured. «If you fail at planting, you would be sure to succeed as a writer– novels with a purpose, you know.»
«I didn't think there were persons in the Solomons who needed such books,» she retaliated. «But you are certainly one-you and your custodians of virtue.»
He winced, but Joan rattled on with the platitudinous originality of youth.
«As if anything good were worth while when it has to be guarded and put in leg-irons and handcuffs in order to keep it good. Your desire for a chaperone as much as implies that I am that sort of creature. I prefer to be good because it is good to be good, rather than because I can't be bad because some argus-eyed old frump won't let me have a chance to be bad.»
«But it-it is not that,» he put in. «It is what others will think.»
«Let them think, the nasty-minded wretches! It is because men like you are afraid of the nasty-minded that you allow their opinions to rule you.»
«I am afraid you are a female Shelley,» he replied; «and as such, you really drive me to become your partner in order to protect you.»
«If you take me as a partner in order to protect me . . . I . . . I shan't be your partner, that's all. You'll drive me into buying Pari-Sulay yet.»
«All the more reason-« he attempted.
«Do you know what I'll do?» she demanded. «I'll find some man in the Solomons who won't want to protect me.»
Sheldon could not conceal the shock her words gave him.
«You don't mean that, you know,» he pleaded.
«I do; I really do. I am sick and tired of this protection dodge. Don't forget for a moment that I am perfectly able to take care of myself. Besides, I have eight of the best protectors in the world-
–my sailors.»
«You should have lived a thousand years ago,» he laughed, «or a thousand years hence. You are very primitive, and equally super– modern. The twentieth century is no place for you.»
«But the Solomon Islands are. You were living like a savage when I came along and found you-eating nothing but tinned meat and scones that would have ruined the digestion of a camel. Anyway, I've remedied that; and since we are to be partners, it will stay remedied. You won't die of malnutrition, be sure of that.»
«If we enter into partnership,» he announced, «it must be thoroughly understood that you are not allowed to run the schooner. You can go down to Sydney and buy her, but a skipper we must have– »
«At so much additional expense, and most likely a whisky-drinking, irresponsible, and incapable man to boot. Besides, I'd have the business more at heart than any man we could hire. As for capability, I tell you I can sail all around the average broken captain or promoted able seaman you find in the South Seas. And you know I am a navigator.»
«But being my partner,» he said coolly, «makes you none the less a lady.»
«Thank you for telling me that my contemplated conduct is unladylike.»
She arose, tears of anger and mortification in her eyes, and went over to the phonograph.
«I wonder if all men are as ridiculous as you?» she said.
He shrugged his shoulders and smiled. Discussion was useless-he had learned that; and he was resolved to keep his temper. And before the day was out she capitulated. She was to go to Sydney on the first steamer, purchase the schooner, and sail back with an island skipper on board. And then she inveigled Sheldon into agreeing that she could take occasional cruises in the islands, though he was adamant when it came to a recruiting trip on Malaita. That was the one thing barred.
And after it was all over, and a terse and business-like agreement (by her urging) drawn up and signed, Sheldon paced up and down for a full hour, meditating upon how many different kinds of a fool he had made of himself. It was an impossible situation, and yet no more impossible than the previous one, and no more impossible than the one that would have obtained had she gone off on her own and bought Pari-Sulay. He had never seen a more independent woman who stood more in need of a protector than this boy-minded girl who had landed on his beach with eight picturesque savages, a long– barrelled revolver, a bag of gold, and a gaudy merchandise of imagined romance and adventure.
«I wish you were more adaptable,» Joan retorted. «You have more preconceived notions than any man I ever met. Why in the name of common sense, in the name of . . . fair play, can't you get it into your head that I am different from the women you have known, and treat me accordingly? You surely ought to know I am different. I sailed my own schooner here-skipper, if you please. I came here to make my living. You know that; I've told you often enough. It was Dad's plan, and I'm carrying it out, just as you are trying to carry out your Hughie's plan. Dad started to sail and sail until he could find the proper islands for planting. He died, and I sailed and sailed until I arrived here. Well,»-she shrugged her shoulders-«the schooner is at the bottom of the sea. I can't sail any farther, therefore I remain here. And a planter I shall certainly be.»
«You see-« he began.
«I haven't got to the point,» she interrupted. «Looking back on my conduct from the moment I first set foot on your beach, I can see no false pretence that I have made about myself or my intentions. I was my natural self to you from the first. I told you my plans; and yet you sit there and calmly tell me that you don't know whether I really intend to become a planter, or whether it is all obstinacy and pretence. Now let me assure you, for the last time, that I really and truly shall become a planter, thanks to you, or in spite of you. Do you want me for a partner?»
«But do you realize that I would be looked upon as the most foolish jackanapes in the South Seas if I took a young girl like you in with me here on Berande?» he asked.
«No; decidedly not. But there you are again, worrying about what idiots and the generally evil-minded will think of you. I should have thought you had learned self-reliance on Berande, instead of needing to lean upon the moral support of every whisky-guzzling worthless South Sea vagabond.»
He smiled, and said, –
«Yes, that is the worst of it. You are unanswerable. Yours is the logic of youth, and no man can answer that. The facts of life can, but they have no place in the logic of youth. Youth must try to live according to its logic. That is the only way to learn better.»
«There is no harm in trying?» she interjected.
«But there is. That is the very point. The facts always smash youth's logic, and they usually smash youth's heart, too. It's like platonic friendships and . . . and all such things; they are all right in theory, but they won't work in practice. I used to believe in such things once. That is why I am here in the Solomons at present.»
Joan was impatient. He saw that she could not understand. Life was too clearly simple to her. It was only the youth who was arguing with him, the youth with youth's pure-minded and invincible reasoning. Hers was only the boy's soul in a woman's body. He looked at her flushed, eager face, at the great ropes of hair coiled on the small head, at the rounded lines of the figure showing plainly through the home-made gown, and at the eyes-boy's eyes, under cool, level brows-and he wondered why a being that was so much beautiful woman should be no woman at all. Why in the deuce was she not carroty-haired, or cross-eyed, or hare-lipped?
«Suppose we do become partners on Berande,» he said, at the same time experiencing a feeling of fright at the prospect that was tangled with a contradictory feeling of charm, «either I'll fall in love with you, or you with me. Propinquity is dangerous, you know. In fact, it is propinquity that usually gives the facer to the logic of youth.»
«If you think I came to the Solomons to get married-« she began wrathfully. «Well, there are better men in Hawaii, that's all. Really, you know, the way you harp on that one string would lead an unprejudiced listener to conclude that you are prurient-minded-«
She stopped, appalled. His face had gone red and white with such abruptness as to startle her. He was patently very angry. She sipped the last of her coffee, and arose, saying, –
«I'll wait until you are in a better temper before taking up the discussion again. That is what's the matter with you. You get angry too easily. Will you come swimming? The tide is just right.»
«If she were a man I'd bundle her off the plantation root and crop, whale-boat, Tahitian sailors, sovereigns, and all,» he muttered to himself after she had left the room.
But that was the trouble. She was not a man, and where would she go, and what would happen to her?
He got to his feet, lighted a cigarette, and her Stetson hat, hanging on the wall over her revolver-belt, caught his eye. That was the devil of it, too. He did not want her to go. After all, she had not grown up yet. That was why her logic hurt. It was only the logic of youth, but it could hurt damnably at times. At any rate, he would resolve upon one thing: never again would he lose his temper with her. She was a child; he must remember that. He sighed heavily. But why in reasonableness had such a child been incorporated in such a woman's form?
And as he continued to stare at her hat and think, the hurt he had received passed away, and he found himself cudgelling his brains for some way out of the muddle-for some method by which she could remain on Berande. A chaperone! Why not? He could send to Sydney on the first steamer for one. He could –
Her trilling laughter smote upon his reverie, and he stepped to the screen-door, through which he could see her running down the path to the beach. At her heels ran two of her sailors, Papehara and Mahameme, in scarlet lava-lavas, with naked sheath-knives gleaming in their belts. It was another sample of her wilfulness. Despite entreaties and commands, and warnings of the danger from sharks, she persisted in swimming at any and all times, and by special preference, it seemed to him, immediately after eating.
He watched her take the water, diving cleanly, like a boy, from the end of the little pier; and he watched her strike out with single overhand stroke, her henchmen swimming a dozen feet on either side. He did not have much faith in their ability to beat off a hungry man-eater, though he did believe, implicitly, that their lives would go bravely before hers in case of an attack.
Straight out they swam, their heads growing smaller and smaller. There was a slight, restless heave to the sea, and soon the three heads were disappearing behind it with greater frequency. He strained his eyes to keep them in sight, and finally fetched the telescope on to the veranda. A squall was making over from the direction of Florida; but then, she and her men laughed at squalls and the white choppy sea at such times. She certainly could swim, he had long since concluded. That came of her training in Hawaii. But sharks were sharks, and he had known of more than one good swimmer drowned in a tide-rip.
The squall blackened the sky, beat the ocean white where he had last seen the three heads, and then blotted out sea and sky and everything with its deluge of rain. It passed on, and Berande emerged in the bright sunshine as the three swimmers emerged from the sea. Sheldon slipped inside with the telescope, and through the screen-door watched her run up the path, shaking down her hair as she ran, to the fresh-water shower under the house.
On the veranda that afternoon he broached the proposition of a chaperone as delicately as he could, explaining the necessity at Berande for such a body, a housekeeper to run the boys and the storeroom, and perform divers other useful functions. When he had finished, he waited anxiously for what Joan would say.
«Then you don't like the way I've been managing the house?» was her first objection. And next, brushing his attempted explanations aside, «One of two things would happen. Either I should cancel our partnership agreement and go away, leaving you to get another chaperone to chaperone your chaperone; or else I'd take the old hen out in the whale-boat and drown her. Do you imagine for one moment that I sailed my schooner down here to this raw edge of the earth in order to put myself under a chaperone?»
«But really . . . er . . . you know a chaperone is a necessary evil,» he objected.
«We've got along very nicely so far without one. Did I have one on the Miele? And yet I was the only woman on board. There are only three things I am afraid of-bumble-bees, scarlet fever, and chaperones. Ugh! the clucking, evil-minded monsters, finding wrong in everything, seeing sin in the most innocent actions, and suggesting sin-yes, causing sin-by their diseased imaginings.»
«Phew!» Sheldon leaned back from the table in mock fear.
«You needn't worry about your bread and butter,» he ventured. «If you fail at planting, you would be sure to succeed as a writer– novels with a purpose, you know.»
«I didn't think there were persons in the Solomons who needed such books,» she retaliated. «But you are certainly one-you and your custodians of virtue.»
He winced, but Joan rattled on with the platitudinous originality of youth.
«As if anything good were worth while when it has to be guarded and put in leg-irons and handcuffs in order to keep it good. Your desire for a chaperone as much as implies that I am that sort of creature. I prefer to be good because it is good to be good, rather than because I can't be bad because some argus-eyed old frump won't let me have a chance to be bad.»
«But it-it is not that,» he put in. «It is what others will think.»
«Let them think, the nasty-minded wretches! It is because men like you are afraid of the nasty-minded that you allow their opinions to rule you.»
«I am afraid you are a female Shelley,» he replied; «and as such, you really drive me to become your partner in order to protect you.»
«If you take me as a partner in order to protect me . . . I . . . I shan't be your partner, that's all. You'll drive me into buying Pari-Sulay yet.»
«All the more reason-« he attempted.
«Do you know what I'll do?» she demanded. «I'll find some man in the Solomons who won't want to protect me.»
Sheldon could not conceal the shock her words gave him.
«You don't mean that, you know,» he pleaded.
«I do; I really do. I am sick and tired of this protection dodge. Don't forget for a moment that I am perfectly able to take care of myself. Besides, I have eight of the best protectors in the world-
–my sailors.»
«You should have lived a thousand years ago,» he laughed, «or a thousand years hence. You are very primitive, and equally super– modern. The twentieth century is no place for you.»
«But the Solomon Islands are. You were living like a savage when I came along and found you-eating nothing but tinned meat and scones that would have ruined the digestion of a camel. Anyway, I've remedied that; and since we are to be partners, it will stay remedied. You won't die of malnutrition, be sure of that.»
«If we enter into partnership,» he announced, «it must be thoroughly understood that you are not allowed to run the schooner. You can go down to Sydney and buy her, but a skipper we must have– »
«At so much additional expense, and most likely a whisky-drinking, irresponsible, and incapable man to boot. Besides, I'd have the business more at heart than any man we could hire. As for capability, I tell you I can sail all around the average broken captain or promoted able seaman you find in the South Seas. And you know I am a navigator.»
«But being my partner,» he said coolly, «makes you none the less a lady.»
«Thank you for telling me that my contemplated conduct is unladylike.»
She arose, tears of anger and mortification in her eyes, and went over to the phonograph.
«I wonder if all men are as ridiculous as you?» she said.
He shrugged his shoulders and smiled. Discussion was useless-he had learned that; and he was resolved to keep his temper. And before the day was out she capitulated. She was to go to Sydney on the first steamer, purchase the schooner, and sail back with an island skipper on board. And then she inveigled Sheldon into agreeing that she could take occasional cruises in the islands, though he was adamant when it came to a recruiting trip on Malaita. That was the one thing barred.
And after it was all over, and a terse and business-like agreement (by her urging) drawn up and signed, Sheldon paced up and down for a full hour, meditating upon how many different kinds of a fool he had made of himself. It was an impossible situation, and yet no more impossible than the previous one, and no more impossible than the one that would have obtained had she gone off on her own and bought Pari-Sulay. He had never seen a more independent woman who stood more in need of a protector than this boy-minded girl who had landed on his beach with eight picturesque savages, a long– barrelled revolver, a bag of gold, and a gaudy merchandise of imagined romance and adventure.