Ewriting Format by Carl Peterson © 2001

CHAPTER I--SOMETHING
TO BE DONE
He was a very sick white man.

He rode pick-a-back on a woolly- headed,
black-skinned savage,
the lobes of whose ears had been pierced and stretched until one had torn out,
while the other carried a circular block of carved wood three inches in diameter.

The torn ear had been pierced again,
but this time not so ambitiously,

for the hole accommodated no more than a short clay pipe.

The man-horse was greasy and dirty,
and naked save
for an exceedingly narrow and dirty loin-cloth;
but the white man clung
to him closely and desperately.

At times,
from weakness,
his head drooped and rested on the woolly pate.

At other times he lifted his head and stared
with swimming eyes at the cocoanut palms that reeled and swung in the shimmering heat.

He was clad in a thin undershirt and a strip of cotton cloth,
that wrapped about his waist and descended
to his knees.

On his head was a battered Stetson,
known
to the trade as a Baden-Powell.

About his middle was strapped a belt,
which carried a large-calibred automatic pistol and several spare clips,
loaded and ready
for quick work.The rear was brought up by a black boy of fourteen or fifteen,
who carried medicine bottles,
a pail of hot water,
and various other hospital appurtenances.

They passed out of the compound through a small wicker gate,
and went on under the blazing sun,
winding about among new-planted cocoanuts that threw no shade.

There was not a breath of wind,
and the superheated,
stagnant air was heavy
with pestilence.

From the direction they were going arose a wild clamour,
as of lost souls wailing and of men in torment.

A long,
low shed showed ahead,
grass-walled and grass-thatched,
and it was from here that the noise proceeded.

There were shrieks and screams,
some unmistakably of grief,
others unmistakably of unendurable pain.

As the white man drew closer he could hear a low and continuous moaning and groaning.

He shuddered at the thought of entering,
and
for a moment was quite certain that he was going
to faint.


for that most dreaded of Solomon Island scourges,
dysentery,
had struck Berande plantation,
and he was all alone
to cope
with it.

Also,
he was afflicted himself.By stooping close,
still on man-back,
he managed
to pass through the low doorway.

He took a small bottle from his follower,
and sniffed strong ammonia
to clear his senses
for the ordeal.

Then he shouted,
"Shut up!" and the clamour stilled.

A raised platform of forest slabs,
six feet wide,

with a slight pitch,
extended the full length of the shed.

Alongside of it was a yard-wide run-way.

Stretched on the platform,
side by side and crowded close,
lay a score of blacks.

That they were low in the order of human life was apparent at a glance.

They were man-eaters.

Their faces were asymmetrical,
bestial;
their bodies were ugly and ape-like.

They wore nose-rings of clam-shell and turtle-shell,
and from the ends of their noses which were also pierced,
projected horns of beads strung on stiff wire.

Their ears were pierced and distended
to accommodate wooden plugs and sticks,
pipes,
and all manner of barbaric ornaments.

Their faces and bodies were tattooed or scarred in hideous designs.

In their sickness they wore no clothing,
not even loin-cloths,
though they retained their shell armlets,
their bead necklaces,
and their leather belts,
between which and the skin were thrust naked knives.

The bodies of many were covered
with horrible sores.

Swarms of flies rose and settled,
or flew back and forth in clouds.The white man went down the line,
dosing each man
with medicine.


to some he gave chlorodyne.

He was forced
to concentrate
with all his will in order
to remember which of them could stand ipecacuanha,
and which of them were constitutionally unable
to retain that powerful drug.

One who lay dead he ordered
to be carried out.

He spoke in the sharp,
peremptory manner of a man who would take no nonsense,
and the well men who obeyed his orders scowled malignantly.

One muttered deep in his chest as he took the corpse by the feet.

The white man exploded in speech and action.

It cost him a painful effort,
but his arm shot out,
landing a back- hand blow on the black's mouth."

What name you,
Angara?"

he shouted.

"What
for talk 'long you,
eh?

I knock seven bells out of you,
too much,
quick!"

with the automatic swiftness of a wild animal the black gathered himself
to spring.

The anger of a wild animal was in his eyes;
but he saw the white man's hand dropping
to the pistol in his belt.

The spring was never made.

The tensed body relaxed,
and the black,
stooping over the corpse,
helped carry it out.

This time there was no muttering."

Swine!" the white man gritted out through his teeth at the whole breed of Solomon Islanders.He was very sick,
this white man,
as sick as the black men who lay helpless about him,
and whom he attended.

He never knew,
each time he entered the festering shambles,
whether or not he would be able
to complete the round.

But he did know in large degree of certainty that,
if he ever fainted there in the midst of the blacks,
those who were able would be at his throat like ravening wolves.Part way down the line a man was dying.

He gave orders
for his removal as soon as he had breathed his last.

A black stuck his head inside the shed door,
saying,
-
"Four fella sick too much."


Fresh cases,
still able
to walk,
they clustered about the spokesman.

The white man singled out the weakest,
and put him in the place just vacated by the corpse.

Also,
he indicated the next weakest,
telling him
to wait
for a place until the next man died.

Then,
ordering one of the well men
to take a squad from the field- force and build a lean-
to addition
to the hospital,
he continued along the run-way,
administering medicine and cracking jokes in beche-de-mer English
to cheer the sufferers.

Now and again,
from the far end,
a weird wail was raised.

When he arrived there he found the noise was emitted by a boy who was not sick.

The white man's wrath was immediate."

What name you sing out alla time?"

he demanded."

Him fella my brother belong me," was the answer.

"Him fella die too much."


"You sing out,
him fella brother belong you die too much," the white man went on in threatening tones.

"I cross too much along you.

What name you sing out,
eh?

You fat-head make um brother belong you die dose up too much.

You fella finish sing out,
savvee?

You fella no finish sing out I make finish damn quick."


He threatened the wailer
with his fist,
and the black cowered down,
glaring at him
with sullen eyes."

Sing out no good little bit," the white man went on,
more gently.

"You no sing out.

You chase um fella fly.

Too much strong fella fly.

You catch water,
washee brother belong you;
washee plenty too much,
bime bye brother belong you all right.

Jump!" he shouted fiercely at the end,
his will penetrating the low intelligence of the black
with dynamic force that made him jump
to the task of brushing the loathsome swarms of flies away.Again he rode out in
to the reeking heat.

He clutched the black's neck tightly,
and drew a long breath;
but the dead air seemed
to shrivel his lungs,
and he dropped his head and dozed till the house was reached.

Every effort of will was torture,
yet he was called upon continually
to make efforts of will.

He gave the black he had ridden a nip of trade-gin.

Viaburi,
the house-boy,
brought him corrosive sublimate and water,
and he took a thorough antiseptic wash.

He dosed himself
with chlorodyne,
took his own pulse,
smoked a thermometer,
and lay back on the couch
with a suppressed groan.

It was mid-afternoon,
and he had completed his third round that day.

He called the house-boy."

Take um big fella look along Jessie," he commanded.The boy carried the long telescope out on the veranda,
and searched the sea."

One fella schooner long way little bit," he announced.

"One fella Jessie."


The white man gave a little gasp of delight."

You make um Jessie,
five sticks tobacco along you," he said.There was silence
for a time,
during which he waited
with eager impatience."

Maybe Jessie,
maybe other fella schooner," came the faltering admission.The man wormed
to the edge of the couch,
and slipped off
to the floor on his knees.

By means of a chair he drew himself
to his feet.

Still clinging
to the chair,
supporting most of his weight on it,
he shoved it
to the door and out upon the veranda.

The sweat from the exertion streamed down his face and showed through the undershirt across his shoulders.

He managed
to get in
to the chair,
where he panted in a state of collapse.

In a few minutes he roused himself.

The boy held the end of the telescope against one of the veranda scantlings,
while the man gazed through it at the sea.

At last he picked up the white sails of the schooner and studied them."

No Jessie," he said very quietly.

"That's the Malakula."


He changed his seat
for a steamer reclining-chair.

Three hundred feet away the sea broke in a small surf upon the beach.


to the left he could see the white line of breakers that marked the bar of the Balesuna River,
and,
beyond,
the rugged outline of Savo Island.

Directly before him,
across the twelve-mile channel,
lay Florida Island;
and,
farther
to the right,
dim in the distance,
he could make out portions of Malaita--the savage island,
the abode of murder,
and robbery,
and man-eating--the place from which his own two hundred plantation hands had been recruited.

Between him and the beach was the cane-grass fence of the compound.

The gate was ajar,
and he sent the house-boy
to close it.

Within the fence grew a number of lofty cocoanut palMs. On either side the path that led
to the gate stood two tall flagstaffs.

They were reared on artificial mounds of earth that were ten feet high.

The base of each staff was surrounded by short posts,
painted white and connected by heavy chains.

The staffs themselves were like ships' masts,

with topmasts spliced on in true nautical fashion,

with shrouds,
ratlines,
gaffs,
and flag-halyards.

From the gaff of one,
two gay flags hung limply,
one a checkerboard of blue and white squares,
the other a white pennant centred
with a red disc.

It was the international code signal of distress.On the far corner of the compound fence a hawk brooded.

The man watched it,
and knew that it was sick.

He wondered idly if it felt as bad as he felt,
and was feebly amused at the thought of kinship that somehow penetrated his fancy.

He roused himself
to order the great bell
to be rung as a signal
for the plantation hands
to cease work and go
to their barracks.

Then he mounted his man-horse and made the last round of the day.In the hospital were two new cases.


to these he gave castor-oil.

He congratulated himself.

It had been an easy day.

Only three had died.

He inspected the copra-drying that had been going on,
and went through the barracks
to see if there were any sick lying hidden and defying his rule of segregation.

Returned
to the house,
he received the reports of the boss-boys and gave instructions
for next day's work.

The boat's crew boss also he had in,

to give assurance,
as was the custom nightly,
that the whale-boats were hauled up and padlocked.

This was a most necessary precaution,

for the blacks were in a funk,
and a whale-boat left lying on the beach in the evening meant a loss of twenty blacks by morning.

Since the blacks were worth thirty dollars apiece,
or less,
according
to how much of their time had been worked out,
Berande plantation could ill afford the loss.

Besides,
whale-boats were not cheap in the Solomons;
and,
also,
the deaths were daily reducing the working capital.

Seven blacks had fled in
to the bush the week before,
and four had dragged themselves back,
helpless from fever,

with the report that two more had been killed and kai-kai'd {1} by the hospitable bushmen.

The seventh man was still at large,
and was said
to be working along the coast on the lookout
to steal a canoe and get away
to his own island.Viaburi brought two lighted lanterns
to the white man
for inspection.

He glanced at them and saw that they were burning brightly
with clear,
broad flames,
and nodded his head.

One was hoisted up
to the gaff of the flagstaff,
and the other was placed on the wide veranda.

They were the leading lights
to the Berande anchorage,
and every night in the year they were so inspected and hung out.He rolled back on his couch
with a sigh of relief.

The day's work was done.

A rifle lay on the couch beside him.

His revolver was within reach of his hand.

An hour passed,
during which he did not move.

He lay in a state of half-slumber,
half-coma.

He became suddenly alert.

A creak on the back veranda was the cause.

The room was L-shaped;
the corner in which stood his couch was dim,
but the hanging lamp in the main part of the room,
over the billiard table and just around the corner,
so that it did not shine on him,
was burning brightly.

Likewise the verandas were well lighted.

He waited without movement.

The creaks were repeated,
and he knew several men lurked outside."

What name?"

he cried sharply.The house,
raised a dozen feet above the ground,
shook on its pile foundations
to the rush of retreating footsteps."

They're getting bold," he muttered.

"Something will have
to be done."


The full moon rose over Malaita and shone down on Berande.

Nothing stirred in the windless air.

From the hospital still proceeded the moaning of the sick.

In the grass-thatched barracks nearly two hundred woolly-headed man-eaters slept off the weariness of the day's toil,
though several lifted their heads
to listen
to the curses of one who cursed the white man who never slept.

On the four verandas of the house the lanterns burned.

Inside,
between rifle and revolver,
the man himself moaned and tossed in intervals of troubled sleep.


CHAPTER II--SOMETHING IS DONE
In the morning David Sheldon decided that he was worse.

That he was appreciably weaker there was no doubt,
and there were other symptoms that were unfavourable.

He began his rounds looking
for trouble.

He wanted trouble.

In full health,
the strained situation would have been serious enough;
but as it was,
himself growing helpless,
something had
to be done.

The blacks were getting more sullen and defiant,
and the appearance of the men the previous night on his veranda--one of the gravest of offences on Berande--was ominous.

Sooner or later they would get him,
if he did not get them first,
if he did not once again sear on their dark souls the flaming mastery of the white man.He returned
to the house disappointed.

No opportunity had presented itself of making an example of insolence or insubordination--such as had occurred on every other day since the sickness smote Berande.

The fact that none had offended was in itself suspicious.

They were growing crafty.

He regretted that he had not waited the night before until the prowlers had entered.

Then he might have shot one or two and given the rest a new lesson,
writ in red,

for them
to con.

It was one man against two hundred,
and he was horribly afraid of his sickness overpowering him and leaving him at their mercy.

He saw visions of the blacks taking charge of the plantation,
looting the store,
burning the buildings,
and escaping
to Malaita.

Also,
one gruesome vision he caught of his own head,
sun-dried and smoke-cured,
ornamenting the canoe house of a cannibal village.

Either the Jessie would have
to arrive,
or he would have
to do something.The bell had hardly rung,
sending the labourers in
to the fields,
when Sheldon had a visitor.

He had had the couch taken out on the veranda,
and he was lying on it when the canoes paddled in and hauled out on the beach.

Forty men,
armed
with spears,
bows and arrows,
and war-clubs,
gathered outside the gate of the compound,
but only one entered.

They knew the law of Berande,
as every native knew the law of every white man's compound in all the thousand miles of the far-flung Solomons.

The one man who came up the path,
Sheldon recognized as Seelee,
the chief of Balesuna village.

The savage did not mount the steps,
but stood beneath and talked
to the white lord above.Seelee was more intelligent than the average of his kind,
but his intelligence only emphasized the lowness of that kind.

His eyes,
close together and small,
advertised cruelty and craftiness.

A gee-string and a cartridge-belt were all the clothes he wore.

The carved pearl-shell ornament that hung from nose
to chin and impeded speech was purely ornamental,
as were the holes in his ears mere utilities
for carrying pipe and tobacco.

His broken-fanged teeth were stained black by betel-nut,
the juice of which he spat upon the ground.As he talked or listened,
he made grimaces like a monkey.

He said yes by dropping his eyelids and thrusting his chin forward.

He spoke
with childish arrogance strangely at variance
with the subservient position he occupied beneath the veranda.

He,

with his many followers,
was lord and master of Balesuna village.

But the white man,
without followers,
was lord and master of Berande--ay,
and on occasion,
single-handed,
had made himself lord and master of Balesuna village as well.

Seelee did not like
to remember that episode.

It had occurred in the course of learning the nature of white men and of learning
to abominate them.

He had once been guilty of sheltering three runaways from Berande.

They had given him all they possessed in return
for the shelter and
for promised aid in getting away
to Malaita.

This had given him a glimpse of a profitable future,
in which his village would serve as the one depot on the underground railway between Berande and Malaita.Unfortunately,
he was ignorant of the ways of white men.

This particular white man educated him by arriving at his grass house in the gray of dawn.

In the first moment he had felt amused.

He was so perfectly safe in the midst of his village.

But the next moment,
and before he could cry out,
a pair of handcuffs on the white man's knuckles had landed on his mouth,
knocking the cry of alarm back down his throat.

Also,
the white man's other fist had caught him under the ear and left him without further interest in what was happening.

When he came to,
he found himself in the white man's whale-boat on the way
to Berande.

At Berande he had been treated as one of no consequence,

with handcuffs on hands and feet,

to say nothing of chains.

When his tribe had returned the three runaways,
he was given his freedom.

And finally,
the terrible white man had fined him and Balesuna village ten thousand cocoanuts.

After that he had sheltered no more runaway Malaita men.

Instead,
he had gone in
to the business of catching them.

It was safer.

Besides,
he was paid one case of tobacco per head.

But if he ever got a chance at that white man,
if he ever caught him sick or stood at his back when he stumbled and fell on a bush- trail--well,
there would be a head that would fetch a price in Malaita.Sheldon was pleased
with what Seelee told him.

The seventh man of the last batch of runaways had been caught and was even then at the gate.

He was brought in,
heavy-featured and defiant,
his arms bound
with cocoanut sennit,
the dry blood still on his body from the struggle
with his captors."

Me savvee you good fella,
Seelee," Sheldon said,
as the chief gulped down a quarter-tumbler of raw trade-gin.

"Fella boy belong me you catch short time little bit.

This fella boy strong fella too much.

I give you fella one case tobacco--my word,
one case tobacco.

Then,
you good fella along me,
I give you three fathom calico,
one fella knife big fella too much."


The tobacco and trade goods were brought from the store-room by two house-boys and turned over
to the chief of Balesuna village,
who accepted the additional reward
with a non-committal grunt and went away down the path
to his canoes.

Under Sheldon's directions the house-boys handcuffed the prisoner,
by hands and feet,
around one of the pile supports of the house.

At eleven o'clock,
when the labourers came in from the field,
Sheldon had them assembled in the compound before the veranda.

Every able man was there,
including those who were helping about the hospital.

Even the women and the several pickaninnies of the plantation were lined up
with the rest,
two deep--a horde of naked savages a trifle under two hundred strong.

In addition
to their ornaments of bead and shell and bone,
their pierced ears and nostrils were burdened
with safety-pins,
wire nails,
metal hair-pins,
rusty iron handles of cooking utensils,
and the patent keys
for opening corned beef tins.

Some wore penknives clasped on their kinky locks
for safety.

On the chest of one a china door-knob was suspended,
on the chest of another the brass wheel of an alarm clock.Facing them,
clinging
to the railing of the veranda
for support,
stood the sick white man.

Any one of them could have knocked him over
with the blow of a little finger.

Despite his firearms,
the gang could have rushed him and delivered that blow,
when his head and the plantation would have been theirs.

Hatred and murder and lust
for revenge they possessed
to overflowing.

But one thing they lacked,
the thing that he possessed,
the flame of mastery that would not quench,
that burned fiercely as ever in the disease- wasted body,
and that was ever ready
to flare forth and scorch and singe them
with its ire."

Narada!

Billy!" Sheldon called sharply.Two men slunk unwillingly forward and waited.Sheldon gave the keys of the handcuffs
to a house-boy,
who went under the house and loosed the prisoner."

You fella Narada,
you fella Billy,
take um this fella boy along tree and make fast,
hands high up," was Sheldon's command.While this was being done,
slowly,
amidst mutterings and restlessness on the part of the onlookers,
one of the house-boys fetched a heavy-handled,
heavy-lashed whip.

Sheldon began a speech."

This fella Arunga,
me cross along him too much.

I no steal this fella Arunga.

I no gammon.

I say,
'All right,
you come along me Berande,
work three fella year.' He say,
'All right,
me come along you work three fella year.' He come.

He catch plenty good fella kai-kai,
{2} plenty good fella money.

What name he run away?

Me too much cross along him.

I knock what name outa him fella.

I pay Seelee,
big fella master along Balesuna,
one case tobacco catch that fella Arunga.

All right.

Arunga pay that fella case tobacco.

Six pounds that fella Arunga pay.

Alle same one year more that fella Arunga work Berande.

All right.

Now he catch ten fella whip three times.

You fella Billy catch whip,
give that fella Arunga ten fella three times.

All fella boys look see,
all fella Marys {3} look see;
bime bye,
they like run away they think strong fella too much,
no run away.

Billy,
strong fella too much ten fella three times."


The house-boy extended the whip
to him,
but Billy did not take it.

Sheldon waited quietly.

The eyes of all the cannibals were fixed upon him in doubt and fear and eagerness.

It was the moment of test,
whereby the lone white man was
to live or be lost.

"Ten fella three times,
Billy," Sheldon said encouragingly,
though there was a certain metallic rasp in his voice.Billy scowled,
looked up and looked down,
but did not move."

Billy!"
Sheldon's voice exploded like a pistol shot.

The savage started physically.

Grins overspread the grotesque features of the audience,
and there was a sound of tittering."

S'pose you like too much lash that fella Arunga,
you take him fella Tulagi," Billy said.

"One fella government agent make plenty lash.

That um fella law.

Me savvee um fella law."


It was the law,
and Sheldon knew it.

But he wanted
to live this day and the next day and not
to die waiting
for the law
to operate the next week or the week after."

Too much talk along you!" he cried angrily.

"What name eh?

What name?"


"Me savvee law," the savage repeated stubbornly."

Astoa!"
Another man stepped forward in almost a sprightly way and glanced insolently up.

Sheldon was selecting the worst characters
for the lesson."

You fella Astoa,
you fella Narada,
tie up that fella Billy alongside other fella same fella way."


"Strong fella tie," he cautioned them."

You fella Astoa take that fella whip.

Plenty strong big fella too much ten fella three times.

Savvee!"
"No," Astoa grunted.Sheldon picked up the rifle that had leaned against the rail,
and cocked it."

I know you,
Astoa," he said calmly.

"You work along Queensland six years."


"Me fella missionary," the black interrupted
with deliberate insolence."

Queensland you stop jail one fella year.

White fella master damn fool no hang you.

You too much bad fella.

Queensland you stop jail six months two fella time.

Two fella time you steal.

All right,
you missionary.

You savvee one fella prayer?"


"Yes,
me savvee prayer," was the reply."

All right,
then you pray now,
short time little bit.

You say one fella prayer damn quick,
then me kill you."


Sheldon held the rifle on him and waited.

The black glanced around at his fellows,
but none moved
to aid him.

They were intent upon the coming spectacle,
staring fascinated at the white man
with death in his hands who stood alone on the great veranda.

Sheldon has won,
and he knew it.

Astoa changed his weight irresolutely from one foot
to the other.

He looked at the white man,
and saw his eyes gleaming level along the sights."

Astoa," Sheldon said,
seizing the psychological moment,
"I count three fella time.

Then I shoot you fella dead,
good-bye,
all finish you."


And Sheldon knew that when he had counted three he would drop him in his tracks.

The black knew it,
too.

That was why Sheldon did not have
to do it,

for when he had counted one,
Astoa reached out his hand and took the whip.

And right well Astoa laid on the whip,
angered at his fellows
for not supporting him and venting his anger
with every stroke.

From the veranda Sheldon egged him on
to strike
with strength,
till the two triced savages screamed and howled while the blood oozed down their backs.

The lesson was being well written in red.When the last of the gang,
including the two howling culprits,
had passed out through the compound gate,
Sheldon sank down half- fainting on his couch."

You're a sick man," he groaned.

"A sick man."


"But you can sleep at ease to-night," he added,
half an hour later.


CHAPTER III--THE JESSIE
Two days passed,
and Sheldon felt that he could not grow any weaker and live,
much less make his four daily rounds of the hospital.

The deaths were averaging four a day,
and there were more new cases than recoveries.

The blacks were in a funk.

Each one,
when taken sick,
seemed
to make every effort
to die.

Once down on their backs they lacked the grit
to make a struggle.

They believed they were going
to die,
and they did their best
to vindicate that belief.

Even those that were well were sure that it was only a mater of days when the sickness would catch them and carry them off.

And yet,
believing this
with absolute conviction,
they somehow lacked the nerve
to rush the frail wraith of a man
with the white skin and escape from the charnel house by the whale-boats.

They chose the lingering death they were sure awaited them,
rather than the immediate death they were very sure would pounce upon them if they went up against the master.

That he never slept,
they knew.

That he could not be conjured
to death,
they were equally sure--they had tried it.

And even the sickness that was sweeping them off could not kill him.
with the whipping in the compound,
discipline had improved.

They cringed under the iron hand of the white man.

They gave their scowls or malignant looks
with averted faces or when his back was turned.

They saved their mutterings
for the barracks at night,
where he could not hear.

And there were no more runaways and no more night-prowlers on the veranda.Dawn of the third day after the whipping brought the Jessie's white sails in sight.

Eight miles away,
it was not till two in the afternoon that the light air-fans enabled her
to drop anchor a quarter of a mile off the shore.

The sight of her gave Sheldon fresh courage,
and the tedious hours of waiting did not irk him.

He gave his orders
to the boss-boys and made his regular trips
to the hospital.

Nothing mattered now.

His troubles were at an end.

He could lie down and take care of himself and proceed
to get well.

The Jessie had arrived.

His partner was on board,
vigorous and hearty from six weeks' recruiting on Malaita.

He could take charge now,
and all would be well
with Berande.Sheldon lay in the steamer-chair and watched the Jessie's whale- boat pull in
for the beach.

He wondered why only three sweeps were pulling,
and he wondered still more when,
beached,
there was so much delay in getting out of the boat.

Then he understood.

The three blacks who had been pulling started up the beach
with a stretcher on their shoulders.

A white man,
whom he recognized as the Jessie's captain,
walked in front and opened the gate,
then dropped behind
to close it.

Sheldon knew that it was Hughie Drummond who lay in the stretcher,
and a mist came before his eyes.

He felt an overwhelming desire
to die.

The disappointment was too great.

In his own state of terrible weakness he felt that it was impossible
to go on
with his task of holding Berande plantation tight-gripped in his fist.

Then the will of him flamed up again,
and he directed the blacks
to lay the stretcher beside him on the floor.

Hughie Drummond,
whom he had last seen in health,
was an emaciated skeleton.

His closed eyes were deep-sunken.

The shrivelled lips had fallen away from the teeth,
and the cheek-bones seemed bursting through the skin.

Sheldon sent a house-boy
for his thermometer and glanced questioningly at the captain."

Black-water fever," the captain said.

"He's been like this
for six days,
unconscious.

And we've got dysentery on board.

What's the matter
with you?"


"I'm burying four a day," Sheldon answered,
as he bent over from the steamer-chair and inserted the thermometer under his partner's tongue.Captain Oleson swore blasphemously,
and sent a house-boy
to bring whisky and soda.

Sheldon glanced at the thermometer."

One hundred and seven," he said.

"Poor Hughie."


Captain Oleson offered him some whisky."

Couldn't think of it--perforation,
you know," Sheldon said.He sent
for a boss-boy and ordered a grave
to be dug,
also some of the packing-cases
to be knocked together in
to a coffin.

The blacks did not get coffins.

They were buried as they died,
being carted on a sheet of galvanized iron,
in their nakedness,
from the hospital
to the hole in the ground.

Having given the orders,
Sheldon lay back in his chair
with closed eyes."

It's ben fair hell,
sir," Captain Oleson began,
then broke off
to help himself
to more whisky.

"It's ben fair hell,
Mr. Sheldon,
I tell you.

Contrary winds and calMs. We've ben driftin' all about the shop
for ten days.

There's ten thousand sharks following us
for the tucker we've ben throwin' over
to them.

They was snappin' at the oars when we started
to come ashore.

I wisht
to God a nor'wester'd come along an' blow the Solomons clean
to hell."


"We got it from the water--water from Owga creek.

Filled my casks
with it.

How was we
to know?

I've filled there before an' it was all right.

We had sixty recruits-full up;
and my crew of fifteen.

We've ben buryin' them day an' night.

The beggars won't live,
damn them!

They die out of spite.

Only three of my crew left on its legs.

Five more down.

Seven dead.

Oh,
hell!

What's the good of talkin'?"


"How many recruits left?"

Sheldon asked."

Lost half.

Thirty left.

Twenty down,
and ten tottering around."


Sheldon sighed."

That means another addition
to the hospital.

We've got
to get them ashore somehow.--Viaburi!

Hey,
you,
Viaburi,
ring big fella bell strong fella too much."


The hands,
called in from the fields at that unwonted hour,
were split in
to detachments.

Some were sent in
to the woods
to cut timber
for house-beams,
others
to cutting cane-grass
for thatching,
and forty of them lifted a whale-boat above their heads and carried it down
to the sea.

Sheldon had gritted his teeth,
pulled his collapsing soul together,
and taken Berande plantation in
to his fist once more."

Have you seen the barometer?"

Captain Oleson asked,
pausing at the bottom of the steps on his way
to oversee the disembarkation of the sick."

No," Sheldon answered.

"Is it down?"


"It's going down."


"Then you'd better sleep aboard to-night," was Sheldon's judgment.

"Never mind the funeral.

I'll see
to poor Hughie."


"A nigger was kicking the bucket when I dropped anchor."


The captain made the statement as a simple fact,
but obviously waited
for a suggestion.

The other felt a sudden wave of irritation rush through him."

Dump him over," he cried.

"Great God,
man!

don't you think I've got enough graves ashore?"


"I just wanted
to know,
that was all," the captain answered,
in no wise offended.Sheldon regretted his childishness."

Oh,
Captain Oleson," he called.

"If you can see your way
to it,
come ashore to-morrow and lend me a hand.

If you can't,
send the mate."


"Right O.

I'll come myself.

Mr. Johnson's dead,
sir.

I forgot
to tell you--three days ago."


Sheldon watched the Jessie's captain go down the path,

with waving arms and loud curses calling upon God
to sink the Solomons.

Next,
Sheldon noted the Jessie rolling lazily on the glassy swell,
and beyond,
in the north-west,
high over Florida Island,
an alpine chain of dark-massed clouds.

Then he turned
to his partner,
calling
for boys
to carry him in
to the house.

But Hughie Drummond had reached the end.

His breathing was imperceptible.

By mere touch,
Sheldon could ascertain that the dying man's temperature was going down.

It must have been going down when the thermometer registered one hundred and seven.

He had burned out.

Sheldon knelt beside him,
the house-boys grouped around,
their white singlets and loin-cloths peculiarly at variance
with their dark skins and savage countenances,
their huge ear-plugs and carved and glistening nose-rings.

Sheldon tottered
to his feet at last,
and half-fell in
to the steamer-chair.

Oppressive as the heat had been,
it was now even more oppressive.

It was difficult
to breathe.

He panted
for air.

The faces and naked arms of the house-boys were beaded
with sweat."

Marster," one of them ventured,
"big fella wind he come,
strong fella too much."


Sheldon nodded his head but did not look.

Much as he had loved Hughie Drummond,
his death,
and the funeral it entailed,
seemed an intolerable burden
to add
to what he was already sinking under.

He had a feeling--nay,
it was a certitude--that all he had
to do was
to shut his eyes and let go,
and that he would die,
sink in
to immensity of rest.

He knew it;
it was very simple.

All he had
to do was close his eyes and let go;

for he had reached the stage where he lived by will alone.

His weary body seemed torn by the oncoming pangs of dissolution.

He was a fool
to hang on.

He had died a score of deaths already,
and what was the use of prolonging it
to two-score deaths before he really died.

Not only was he not afraid
to die,
but he desired
to die.

His weary flesh and weary spirit desired it,
and why should the flame of him not go utterly out?
But his mind that could will life or death,
still pulsed on.

He saw the two whale-boats land on the beach,
and the sick,
on stretchers or pick-a-back,
groaning and wailing,
go by in lugubrious procession.

He saw the wind making on the clouded horizon,
and thought of the sick in the hospital.

Here was something waiting his hand
to be done,
and it was not in his nature
to lie down and sleep,
or die,
when any task remained undone.The boss-boys were called and given their orders
to rope down the hospital
with its two additions.

He remembered the spare anchor- chain,
new and black-painted,
that hung under the house suspended from the floor-beams,
and ordered it
to be used on the hospital as well.

Other boys brought the coffin,
a grotesque patchwork of packing-cases,
and under his directions they laid Hughie Drummond in it.

Half a dozen boys carried it down the beach,
while he rode on the back of another,
his arms around the black's neck,
one hand clutching a prayer-book.While he read the service,
the blacks gazed apprehensively at the dark line on the water,
above which rolled and tumbled the racing clouds.

The first breath of the wind,
faint and silken,
tonic
with life,
fanned through his dry-baked body as he finished reading.

Then came the second breath of the wind,
an angry gust,
as the shovels worked rapidly,
filling in the sand.

So heavy was the gust that Sheldon,
still on his feet,
seized hold of his man-horse
to escape being blown away.

The Jessie was blotted out,
and a strange ominous sound arose as multitudinous wavelets struck foaming on the beach.

It was like the bubbling of some colossal cauldron.

From all about could be heard the dull thudding of falling cocoanuts.

The tall,
delicate-trunked trees twisted and snapped about like whip-lashes.

The air seemed filled
with their flying leaves,
any one of which,
stem-on could brain a man.

Then came the rain,
a deluge,
a straight,
horizontal sheet that poured along like a river,
defying gravitation.

The black,

with Sheldon mounted on him,
plunged ahead in
to the thick of it,
stooping far forward and low
to the ground
to avoid being toppled over backward."

'He's sleeping out and far to-night,'" Sheldon quoted,
as he thought of the dead man in the sand and the rainwater trickling down upon the cold clay.So they fought their way back up the beach.

The other blacks caught hold of the man-horse and pulled and tugged.

There were among them those whose fondest desire was
to drag the rider in the sand and spring upon him and mash him in
to repulsive nothingness.

But the automatic pistol in his belt
with its rattling,
quick- dealing death,
and the automatic,
death-defying spirit in the man himself,
made them refrain and buckle down
to the task of hauling him
to safety through the storm.Wet through and exhausted,
he was nevertheless surprised at the ease
with which he got in
to a change of clothing.

Though he was fearfully weak,
he found himself actually feeling better.

The disease had spent itself,
and the mend had begun."

Now if I don't get the fever," he said aloud,
and at the same moment resolved
to go
to taking quinine as soon as he was strong enough
to dare.He crawled out on the veranda.

The rain had ceased,
but the wind,
which had dwindled
to a half-gale,
was increasing.

A big sea had sprung up,
and the mile-long breakers,
curling up
to the over-fall two hundred yards from shore,
were crashing on the beach.

The Jessie was plunging madly
to two anchors,
and every second or third sea broke clear over her bow.

Two flags were stiffly undulating from the halyards like squares of flexible sheet-iron.

One was blue,
the other red.

He knew their meaning in the Berande private code--"What are your instructions?

Shall I attempt
to land boat?"

Tacked on the wall,
between the signal locker and the billiard rules,
was the code itself,
by which he verified the signal before making answer.

On the flagstaff gaff a boy hoisted a white flag over a red,
which stood for--"Run
to Neal Island
for shelter."


That Captain Oleson had been expecting this signal was apparent by the celerity
with which the shackles were knocked out of both anchor-chains.

He slipped his anchors,
leaving them buoyed
to be picked up in better weather.

The Jessie swung off under her full staysail,
then the foresail,
double-reefed,
was run up.

She was away like a racehorse,
clearing Balesuna Shoal
with half a cable- length
to spare.

Just before she rounded the point she was swallowed up in a terrific squall that far out-blew the first.All that night,
while squall after squall smote Berande,
uprooting trees,
overthrowing copra-sheds,
and rocking the house on its tall piles,
Sheldon slept.

He was unaware of the commotion.

He never wakened.

Nor did he change his position or dream.

He awoke,
a new man.

Furthermore,
he was hungry.

It was over a week since food had passed his lips.

He drank a glass of condensed cream,
thinned
with water,
and by ten o'clock he dared
to take a cup of beef-tea.

He was cheered,
also,
by the situation in the hospital.

Despite the storm there had been but one death,
and there was only one fresh case,
while half a dozen boys crawled weakly away
to the barracks.

He wondered if it was the wind that was blowing the disease away and cleansing the pestilential land.By eleven a messenger arrived from Balesuna village,
dispatched by Seelee.

The Jessie had gone ashore half-way between the village and Neal Island.

It was not till nightfall that two of the crew arrived,
reporting the drowning of Captain Oleson and of the one remaining boy.

As
for the Jessie,
from what they told him Sheldon could not but conclude that she was a total loss.

Further
to hearten him,
he was taken by a shivering fit.

In half an hour he was burning up.

And he knew that at least another day must pass before he could undertake even the smallest dose of quinine.

He crawled under a heap of blankets,
and a little later found himself laughing aloud.

He had surely reached the limit of disaster.

Barring earthquake or tidal-wave,
the worst had already befallen him.

The Flibberty-Gibbet was certainly safe in Mboli Pass.

Since nothing worse could happen,
things simply had
to mend.

So it was,
shivering under his blankets,
that he laughed,
until the house- boys,

with heads together,
marvelled at the devils that were in him.


CHAPTER IV--JOAN LACKLAND
By the second day of the northwester,
Sheldon was in collapse from his fever.

It had taken an unfair advantage of his weak state,
and though it was only ordinary malarial fever,
in forty-eight hours it had run him as low as ten days of fever would have done when he was in condition.

But the dysentery had been swept away from Berande.

A score of convalescents lingered in the hospital,
but they were improving hourly.

There had been but one more death--that of the man whose brother had wailed over him instead of brushing the flies away.On the morning of the fourth day of his fever,
Sheldon lay on the veranda,
gazing dimly out over the raging ocean.

The wind was falling,
but a mighty sea was still thundering in on Berande beach,
the flying spray reaching in as far as the flagstaff mounds,
the foaming wash creaming against the gate-posts.

He had taken thirty grains of quinine,
and the drug was buzzing in his ears like a nest of hornets,
making his hands and knees tremble,
and causing a sickening palpitation of the stomach.

Once,
opening his eyes,
he saw what he took
to be an hallucination.

Not far out,
and coming in across the Jessie's anchorage,
he saw a whale-boat's nose thrust skyward on a smoky crest and disappear naturally,
as an actual whale-boat's nose should disappear,
as it slid down the back of the sea.

He knew that no whale-boat should be out there,
and he was quite certain no men in the Solomons were mad enough
to be abroad in such a storm.But the hallucination persisted.

A minute later,
chancing
to open his eyes,
he saw the whale-boat,
full length,
and saw right in
to it as it rose on the face of a wave.

He saw six sweeps at work,
and in the stern,
clearly outlined against the overhanging wall of white,
a man who stood erect,
gigantic,
swaying
with his weight on the steering-sweep.

This he saw,
and an eighth man who crouched in the bow and gazed shoreward.

But what startled Sheldon was the sight of a woman in the stern-sheets,
between the stroke-oar and the steersman.

A woman she was,

for a braid of her hair was flying,
and she was just in the act of recapturing it and stowing it away beneath a hat that
for all the world was like his own "Baden-Powell."


The boat disappeared behind the wave,
and rose in
to view on the face of the following one.

Again he looked in
to it.

The men were dark-skinned,
and larger than Solomon Islanders,
but the woman,
he could plainly see,
was white.

Who she was,
and what she was doing there,
were thoughts that drifted vaguely through his consciousness.

He was too sick
to be vitally interested,
and,
besides,
he had a half feeling that it was all a dream;
but he noted that the men were resting on their sweeps,
while the woman and the steersman were intently watching the run of seas behind them."

Good boatmen," was Sheldon's verdict,
as he saw the boat leap forward on the face of a huge breaker,
the sweeps plying swiftly
to keep her on that front of the moving mountain of water that raced madly
for the shore.

It was well done.

Part full of water,
the boat was flung upon the beach,
the men springing out and dragging its nose
to the gate-posts.

Sheldon had called vainly
to the house-boys,
who,
at the moment,
were dosing the remaining patients in the hospital.

He knew he was unable
to rise up and go down the path
to meet the newcomers,
so he lay back in the steamer-chair,
and watched
for ages while they cared
for the boat.

The woman stood
to one side,
her hand resting on the gate.

Occasionally surges of sea water washed over her feet,
which he could see were encased in rubber sea-boots.

She scrutinized the house sharply,
and
for some time she gazed at him steadily.

At last,
speaking
to two of the men,
who turned and followed her,
she started up the path.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 in
to 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 in
to 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 mosqui
to 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 in
to 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 in
to 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 mosqui
to 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 in
to 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 in
to 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 in
to 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 in
to 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 in
to 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."


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 in
to 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 in
to 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 in
to 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 in
to 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.One evening a terrific uproar arose in the barracks,
and Sheldon,
aided by Joan's sailors,
succeeded in rescuing two women whom the blacks were beating
to death.


to save them from the vengeance of the blacks,
they were guarded in the cook-house
for the night.

They were the two women who did the cooking
for the labourers,
and their offence had consisted of one of them taking a bath in the big cauldron in which the potatoes were boiled.

The blacks were not outraged from the standpoint of cleanliness;
they often took baths in the cauldrons themselves.

The trouble lay in that the bather had been a low,
degraded,
wretched female;

for
to the Solomon Islander all females are low,
degraded,
and wretched.Next morning,
Joan and Sheldon,
at breakfast,
were aroused by a swelling murmur of angry voices.

The first rule of Berande had been broken.

The compound had been entered without permission or command,
and all the two hundred labourers,

with the exception of the boss-boys,
were guilty of the offence.

They crowded up,
threatening and shouting,
close under the front veranda.

Sheldon leaned over the veranda railing,
looking down upon them,
while Joan stood slightly back.

When the uproar was stilled,
two brothers stood forth.

They were large men,
splendidly muscled,
and
with faces unusually ferocious,
even
for Solomon Islanders.

One was Carin-Jama,
otherwise The Silent;
and the other was Bellin-Jama,
The Boaster.

Both had served on the Queensland plantations in the old days,
and they were known as evil characters wherever white men met and gammed."

We fella boy we want 'm them dam two black fella Mary," said Bellin-Jama."

What you do along black fella Mary?"

Sheldon asked."

Kill 'm," said Bellin-Jama."

What name you fella boy talk along me?"

Sheldon demanded,

with a show of rising anger.

"Big bell he ring.

You no belong along here.

You belong along field.

Bime by,
big fella bell he ring,
you stop along kai-kai,
you come talk along me about two fella Mary.

Now all you boy get along out of here."


The gang waited
to see what Bellin-Jama would do,
and Bellin-Jama stood still."

Me no go," he said."

You watch out,
Bellin-Jama," Sheldon said sharply,
"or I send you along Tulagi one big fella lashing.

My word,
you catch 'm strong fella."


Bellin-Jama glared up belligerently."

You want 'm fight," he said,
putting up his fists in approved,
returned-Queenslander style.Now,
in the Solomons,
where whites are few and blacks are many,
and where the whites do the ruling,
such an offer
to fight is the deadliest insult.

Blacks are not supposed
to dare so highly as
to offer
to fight a white man.

At the best,
all they can look
for is
to be beaten by the white man.A murmur of admiration at Bellin-Jama's bravery went up from the listening blacks.

But Bellin-Jama's voice was still ringing in the air,
and the murmuring was just beginning,
when Sheldon cleared the rail,
leaping straight downward.

From the top of the railing
to the ground it was fifteen feet,
and Bellin-Jama was directly beneath.

Sheldon's flying body struck him and crushed him
to earth.

No blows were needed
to be struck.

The black had been knocked helpless.

Joan,
startled by the unexpected leap,
saw Carin-Jama,
The Silent,
reach out and seize Sheldon by the throat as he was half-way
to his feet,
while the five-score blacks surged forward
for the killing.

Her revolver was out,
and Carin-Jama let go his grip,
reeling backward
with a bullet in his shoulder.

In that fleeting instant of action she had thought
to shoot him in the arm,
which,
at that short distance,
might reasonably have been achieved.

But the wave of savages leaping forward had changed her shot
to the shoulder.

It was a moment when not the slightest chance could be taken.The instant his throat was released,
Sheldon struck out
with his fist,
and Carin-Jama joined his brother on the ground.

The mutiny was quelled,
and five minutes more saw the brothers being carried
to the hospital,
and the mutineers,
marshalled by the gang-bosses,
on the way
to the fields.When Sheldon came up on the veranda,
he found Joan collapsed on the steamer-chair and in tears.

The sight unnerved him as the row just over could not possibly have done.

A woman in tears was
to him an embarrassing situation;
and when that woman was Joan Lackland,
from whom he had grown
to expect anything unexpected,
he was really frightened.

He glanced down at her helplessly,
and moistened his lips."

I want
to thank you," he began.

"There isn't a doubt but what you saved my life,
and I must say--"
She abruptly removed her hands,
showing a wrathful and tear-stained face."

You brute!

You coward!" she cried.

"You have made me shoot a man,
and I never shot a man in my life before."


"It's only a flesh-wound,
and he isn't going
to die," Sheldon managed
to interpolate."

What of that?

I shot him just the same.

There was no need
for you
to jump down there that way.

It was brutal and cowardly."


"Oh,
now I say--" he began soothingly."

Go away.

Don't you see I hate you!

hate you!

Oh,
won't you go away!"
Sheldon was white
with anger."

Then why in the name of common sense did you shoot?"

he demanded."

Be-be-because you were a white man," she sobbed.

"And Dad would never have left any white man in the lurch.

But it was your fault.

You had no right
to get yourself in such a position.

Besides,
it wasn't necessary."


"I am afraid I don't understand," he said shortly,
turning away.

"We will talk it over later on."


"Look how I get on
with the boys," she said,
while he paused in the doorway,
stiffly polite,

to listen.

"There's those two sick boys I am nursing.

They will do anything
for me when they get well,
and I won't have
to keep them in fear of their life all the time.

It is not necessary,
I tell you,
all this harshness and brutality.

What if they are cannibals?

They are human beings,
just like you and me,
and they are amenable
to reason.

That is what distinguishes all of us from the lower animals."


He nodded and went out."

I suppose I've been unforgivably foolish," was her greeting,
when he returned several hours later from a round of the plantation.

"I've been
to the hospital,
and the man is getting along all right.

It is not a serious hurt."


Sheldon felt unaccountably pleased and happy at the changed aspect of her mood."

You see,
you don't understand the situation," he began.

"In the first place,
the blacks have
to be ruled sternly.

Kindness is all very well,
but you can't rule them by kindness only.

I accept all that you say about the Hawaiians and the Tahitians.

You say that they can be handled that way,
and I believe you.

I have had no experience
with them.

But you have had no experience
with the blacks,
and I ask you
to believe me.

They are different from your natives.

You are used
to Polynesians.

These boys are Melanesians.

They're blacks.

They're niggers--look at their kinky hair.

And they're a whole lot lower than the African niggers.

Really,
you know,
there is a vast difference."


"They possess no gratitude,
no sympathy,
no kindliness.

If you are kind
to them,
they think you are a fool.

If you are gentle
with them they think you are afraid.

And when they think you are afraid,
watch out,

for they will get you.

Just
to show you,
let me state the one invariable process in a black man's brain when,
on his native heath,
he encounters a stranger.

His first thought is one of fear.

Will the stranger kill him?

His next thought,
seeing that he is not killed,
is:

Can he kill the stranger?

There was Packard,
a Colonial trader,
some twelve miles down the coast.

He boasted that he ruled by kindness and never struck a blow.

The result was that he did not rule at all.

He used
to come down in his whale-boat
to visit Hughie and me.

When his boat's crew decided
to go home,
he had
to cut his visit short
to accompany them.

I remember one Sunday afternoon when Packard had accepted our invitation
to stop
to dinner.

The soup was just served,
when Hughie saw a nigger peering in through the door.

He went out
to him,

for it was a violation of Berande custom.

Any nigger has
to send in word by the house-boys,
and
to keep outside the compound.

This man,
who was one of Packard's boat's-crew,
was on the veranda.

And he knew better,
too.

'What name?' said Hughie.

'You tell 'm white man close up we fella boat's-crew go along.

He no come now,
we fella boy no wait.

We go.' And just then Hughie fetched him a clout that knocked him clean down the stairs and off the veranda."


"But it was needlessly cruel," Joan objected.

"You wouldn't treat a white man that way."


"And that's just the point.

He wasn't a white man.

He was a low black nigger,
and he was deliberately insulting,
not alone his own white master,
but every white master in the Solomons.

He insulted me.

He insulted Hughie.

He insulted Berande."


"Of course,
according
to your lights,

to your formula of the rule of the strong--"
"Yes," Sheldon interrupted,
"but it was according
to the formula of the rule of the weak that Packard ruled.

And what was the result?

I am still alive.

Packard is dead.

He was unswervingly kind and gentle
to his boys,
and his boys waited till one day he was down
with fever.

His head is over on Malaita now.

They carried away two whale-boats as well,
filled
with the loot of the store.

Then there was Captain Mackenzie of the ketch Minota.

He believed in kindness.

He also contended that better confidence was established by carrying no weapons.

On his second trip
to Malaita,
recruiting,
he ran in
to Bina,
which is near Langa Langa.

The rifles
with which the boat's-crew should have been armed,
were locked up in his cabin.

When the whale-boat went ashore after recruits,
he paraded around the deck without even a revolver on him.

He was tomahawked.

His head remains in Malaita.

It was suicide.

So was Packard's finish suicide."


"I grant that precaution is necessary in dealing
with them," Joan agreed;
"but I believe that more satisfactory results can be obtained by treating them
with discreet kindness and gentleness."


"And there I agree
with YOU,
but you must understand one thing.

Berande,
bar none,
is by far the worst plantation in the Solomons so far as the labour is concerned.

And how it came
to be so proves your point.

The previous owners of Berande were not discreetly kind.

They were a pair of unadulterated brutes.

One was a down- east Yankee,
as I believe they are called,
and the other was a guzzling German.

They were slave-drivers.


to begin with,
they bought their labour from Johnny Be-blowed,
the most notorious recruiter in the Solomons.

He is working out a ten years' sentence in Fiji now,

for the wanton killing of a black boy.

During his last days here he had made himself so obnoxious that the natives on Malaita would have nothing
to do
with him.

The only way he could get recruits was by hurrying
to the spot whenever a murder or series of murders occurred.

The murderers were usually only too willing
to sign on and get away
to escape vengeance.

Down here they call such escapes,
'pier-head jumps.' There is suddenly a roar from the beach,
and a nigger runs down
to the water pursued by clouds of spears and arrows.

Of course,
Johnny Be-blowed's whale- boat is lying ready
to pick him up.

In his last days Johnny got nothing but pier-head jumps."

And the first owners of Berande bought his recruits--a hard-bitten gang of murderers.

They were all five-year boys.

You see,
the recruiter has the advantage over a boy when he makes a pier-head jump.

He could sign him on
for ten years did the law permit.

Well,
that's the gang of murderers we've got on our hands now.

Of course some are dead,
some have been killed,
and there are others serving sentences at Tulagi.

Very little clearing did those first owners do,
and less planting.

It was war all the time.

They had one manager killed.

One of the partners had his shoulder slashed nearly off by a cane-knife.

The other was speared on two different occasions.

Both were bullies,
wherefore there was a streak of cowardice in them,
and in the end they had
to give up.

They were chased away--literally chased away--by their own niggers.

And along came poor Hughie and me,
two new chums,

to take hold of that hard-bitten gang.

We did not know the situation,
and we had bought Berande,
and there was nothing
to do but hang on and muddle through somehow."

At first we made the mistake of indiscreet kindness.

We tried
to rule by persuasion and fair treatment.

The niggers concluded that we were afraid.

I blush
to think of what fools we were in those first days.

We were imposed on,
and threatened and insulted;
and we put up
with it,
hoping our square-dealing would soon mend things.

Instead of which everything went from bad
to worse.

Then came the day when Hughie reprimanded one of the boys and was nearly killed by the gang.

The only thing that saved him was the number on top of him,
which enabled me
to reach the spot in time."

Then began the rule of the strong hand.

It was either that or quit,
and we had sunk about all our money in
to the venture,
and we could not quit.

And besides,
our pride was involved.

We had started out
to do something,
and we were so made that we just had
to go on
with it.

It has been a hard fight,

for we were,
and are
to this day,
considered the worst plantation in the Solomons from the standpoint of labour.

Do you know,
we have been unable
to get white men in.

We've offered the managership
to half a dozen.

I won't say they were afraid,

for they were not.

But they did not consider it healthy--at least that is the way it was put by the last one who declined our offer.

So Hughie and I did the managing ourselves."


"And when he died you were prepared
to go on all alone!" Joan cried,

with shining eyes."

I thought I'd muddle through.

And now,
Miss Lackland,
please be charitable when I seem harsh,
and remember that the situation is unparalleled down here.

We've got a bad crowd,
and we're making them work.

You've been over the plantation and you ought
to know.

And I assure you that there are no better three-and-four-years-old trees on any other plantation in the Solomons.

We have worked steadily
to change matters
for the better.

We've been slowly getting in new labour.

That is why we bought the Jessie.

We wanted
to select our own labour.

In another year the time will be up
for most of the original gang.

You see,
they were recruited during the first year of Berande,
and their contracts expire on different months.

Naturally,
they have contaminated the new boys
to a certain extent;
but that can soon be remedied,
and then Berande will be a respectable plantation."


Joan nodded but remained silent.

She was too occupied in glimpsing the vision of the one lone white man as she had first seen him,
helpless from fever,
a collapsed wraith in a steamer-chair,
who,
up
to the last heart-beat,
by some strange alchemy of race,
was pledged
to mastery."

It is a pity," she said.

"But the white man has
to rule,
I suppose."


"I don't like it," Sheldon assured her.

"
to save my life I can't imagine how I ever came here.

But here I am,
and I can't run away."


"Blind destiny of race," she said,
faintly smiling.

"We whites have been land robbers and sea robbers from remotest time.

It is in our blood,
I guess,
and we can't get away from it."


"I never thought about it so abstractly," he confessed.

"I've been too busy puzzling over why I came here."


CHAPTER VIII--LOCAL COLOUR
At sunset a small ketch fanned in
to anchorage,
and a little later the skipper came ashore.

He was a soft-spoken,
gentle-voiced young fellow of twenty,
but he won Joan's admiration in advance when Sheldon told her that he ran the ketch all alone
with a black crew from Malaita.

And Romance lured and beckoned before Joan's eyes when she learned he was Christian Young,
a Norfolk Islander,
but a direct descendant of John Young,
one of the original Bounty mutineers.

The blended Tahitian and English blood showed in his soft eyes and tawny skin;
but the English hardness seemed
to have disappeared.

Yet the hardness was there,
and it was what enabled him
to run his ketch single-handed and
to wring a livelihood out of the fighting Solomons.Joan's unexpected presence embarrassed him,
until she herself put him at his ease by a frank,
comradely manner that offended Sheldon's sense of the fitness of things feminine.

News from the world Young had not,
but he was filled
with news of the Solomons.

Fifteen boys had stolen rifles and run away in
to the bush from Lunga plantation,
which was farther east on the Guadalcanar coast.
<