themselves into quick graves, or survived so savagely that war vessels
were sometimes sent to curb their license.
But David Grief was a true son of the sun, and he flourished in all its
ways. He merely became browner with the passing of the years, though in
the brown was the hint of golden tint that glows in the skin of the
Polynesian. Yet his blue eyes retained their blue, his mustache its yellow,
and the lines of his face were those which had persisted through the
centuries in his English race. English he was in blood, yet those that
thought they knew contended he was at least American born. Unlike them,
he had not come out to the South Seas seeking hearth and saddle of his
own. In fact, he had brought hearth and saddle with him. His advent had
been in the Paurnotus. He arrived on board a tiny schooner yacht, master
and owner, a youth questing romance and adventure along the sun-washed
path of the tropics. He also arrived in a hurricane, the giant waves of
which deposited him and yacht and all in the thick of a cocoanut grove
A SON OF THE SUN
14
three hundred yards beyond the surf. Six months later he was rescued by a
pearling cutter. But the sun had got into his blood. At Tahiti, instead of
taking a steamer home, he bought a schooner, outfitted her with tradegoods
and divers, and went for a cruise through the Dangerous
Archipelago.
As the golden tint burned into his face it poured molten out of the ends of
his fingers. His was the golden touch, but he played the game, not for the
gold, but for the game’s sake. It was a man’s game, the rough contacts and
fierce give and take of the adventurers of his own blood and of half the
bloods of Europe and the rest of the world, and it was a good game; but
over and beyond was his love of all the other things that go to make up a
South Seas rover’s life—the smell of the reef; the infinite exquisiteness of
the shoals of living coral in the mirror-surfaced lagoons; the crashing
sunrises of raw colours spread with lawless cunning; the palm-tufted islets
set in turquoise deeps; the tonic wine of the tradewinds ; the heave and
send of the orderly, crested seas; the moving deck beneath his feet, the
straining canvas overhead; the flower-garlanded, golden-glowing men and
maids of Polynesia, half-children and halfgods; and even the howling
savages of Melanesia, head-hunters and man-eaters, half-devil and all
beast.
And so, favoured child of the sun, out of munificence of energy and sheer
joy of living, he, the man of many millions, forbore on his far way to play
the game with Harrison J. Griffiths for a paltry sum. It was his whim, his
desire, his expression of self and of the sun-warmth that poured through
him. It was fun, a joke, a problem, a bit of play on which life was lightly
hazarded for the joy of the playing.
IV
The early morning found the Wonder laying close-hauled along the coast
of Guadalcanar. She moved lazily through the water under the dying
breath of the land breeze. To the east, heavy masses of clouds promised a
renewal of the southeast trades, accompanied by sharp puff s and rain
squalls. Ahead, laying along the coast on the same course as the Wonder,
and being slowly overtaken, was a small ketch. It was not the Willi-Waw,
however, and Captain Ward, on the Wonder, putting down his glasses,
named it the Kauri.
Grief, just on deck from below, sighed regretfully.
,,if it had only been the Willi-Waw,” he said.
“You do hate to be beaten,” Denby, the supercargo, remarked
sympathetically.
A SON OF THE SUN
15
“I certainly do.” Grief paused and laughed with genuine mirth. “It’s my
firm conviction that Griffiths is a rogue, and that he treated me quite
scurvily yesterday. ‘Sign/ he says, ‘sign in full, at the bottom, and date it.’
And Jacobsen, the little rat, stood in with him. It was rank piracy, the days
of Bully Hayes all over again.”
“If you weren’t my employer, Mr. Grief, I’d like to give you a piece of my
mind,” Captain Ward broke in.
“Go on and spit it out,” Grief encouraged.
“Well, then—” The captain hesitated and cleared his throat. “With all the
money you’ve got, only a fool would take the risk you did with those two
curs. What do you do it for?”
“Honestly, I don’t know, Captain. I just want to, I suppose. And can you
give any better reason for anything you do?”
“You’ll get your bally head shot off some fine day,” Captain Ward
growled in answer, as he stepped to the binnacle and took the bearing of a
peak which had just thrust its head through the clouds that covered
Guadalcanar.
The land breeze strengthened in a last effort, and the Wonder, slipping
swiftly through the water, ranged alongside the Kauri and began to go by.
Greetings flew back and forth, then David Grief called out:
“Seen anything of the Willi-Waw?”
The captain, slouch-hatted and barelegged, with a rolling twist hitched the
faded blue lava-lava tighter around his waist and spat tobacco juice
overside.
“Sure,” he answered. “Griffiths lay at Savo last night, taking on pigs and
yams and filling his water-tanks. Looked like he was going for a long
cruise, but he said no. Why? Did you want to see him?”
“Yes; but if you see him first don’t tell him you’ve seen me.”
The captain nodded and considered, and walked for’ard on his own deck to
keep abreast of the faster vessel.
“Say!” he called. “Jacobsen told me they were coming down this afternoon
to Gabera. Said they were going to lay there to-night and take on sweet
potatoes.”
A SON OF THE SUN
16
“Gabera has the only leading lights in the Solomons,” Grief said, when his
schooner had drawn well ahead. “Is that right, Captain Ward?”
The captain nodded.
“And the little bight just around the point on this side, it’s a rotten
anchorage, isn’t it?”
“No anchorage. All coral patches and shoals, and a bad surf. That’s where
the Molly went to pieces three years ago.”
Grief stared straight before him with lustreless eyes for a full minute, as if
summoning some vision to his inner sight. Then the corners of his eyes
wrinkled and the ends of his yellow mustache lifted in a smile.
“We’ll anchor at Gabera,” he said. “And run in close to the little bight this
side. I want you to drop me in a whaleboat as you go by. Also, give me six
boys, and serve out rifles. I’ll be back on board before morning.”
The captain’s face took on an expression of suspicion, which swiftly slid
into one of reproach.
“Oh, just a little fun, skipper,” Grief protested with the apologetic air of a
schoolboy caught in mischief by an elder.
Captain Ward grunted, but Denby was all alertness.
“I’d like to go along, Mr. Grief,” he said.
Grief nodded consent.
“Bring some axes and bush-knives,” he said. “And, oh, by the way, a
couple of bright lanterns. See they’ve got oil in them.”
V
An hour before sunset the Wonder tore by the little bight. The wind had
freshened, and a lively sea was beginning to make. The shoals toward the
beach were already white with the churn of water, while those farther out
as yet showed no more sign than of discoloured water. As the schooner
went into the wind and backed her jib and staysail the whaleboat was
swung out. Into it leaped six breech-clouted Santa Cruz boys, each armed
with a rifle. Denby, carrying the lanterns, dropped into the stern-sheets.
Grief, following, paused on the rail.
“Pray for a dark night, skipper,” he pleaded.
A SON OF THE SUN
17
“You’ll get it,” Captain Ward answered. “There’s no moon anyway, and
there won’t be any sky. She’ll be a bit squally, too.”
The forecast sent a radiance into Grief’s face, making more pronounced
the golden tint of his sunburn. He leaped down beside the supercargo.
“Cast off!” Captain Ward ordered. “Draw the headsails! Put your wheel
over! There! Steady! Take that course!”
The Wonder filled away and ran on around the point for Gabera, while the
whaleboat, pulling six oars and steered by Grief, headed for the beach.
With superb boatmanship he threaded the narrow, tortuous channel which
no craft larger than a whaleboat could negotiate, until the shoals and
patches showed seaward and they grounded on the quiet, rippling beach.
The next hour was filled with work. Moving about among the wild
cocoanuts and jungle brush, Grief selected the trees.
“Chop this fella tree; chop that fella tree,” he told his blacks. “No chop that
other fella,” he said, with a shake of head.
In the end, a wedge-shaped segment of jungle was cleared. Near to the