I float the Martha I’ll return the service some day.'”
“And ‘bother your orders,’ said she to me,” Oleson cried. “‘I’m
your boss now,’ said she, ‘and you take your orders from me.’
‘Look at that load of ivory nuts,’ I said. ‘Bother them,’ said
she; ‘I’m playin’ for something bigger than ivory nuts. We’ll dump
them overside as soon as we get under way.'”
Sheldon put his hands to his ears.
“I don’t know what has happened, and you are trying to tell me the
tale backwards. Come up to the house and get in the shade and
begin at the beginning.”
“What I want to know,” Oleson began, when they were seated, “is IS
she your partner or ain’t she? That’s what I want to know.”
“She is,” Sheldon assured him.
“Well, who’d have believed it!” Oleson glanced appealingly at Dr.
Welshmere, and back again at Sheldon. “I’ve seen a few unlikely
things in these Solomons–rats two feet long, butterflies the
Commissioner hunts with a shot-gun, ear-ornaments that would shame
the devil, and head-hunting devils that make the devil look like an
angel. I’ve seen them and got used to them, but this young woman
of yours–”
“Miss Lackland is my partner and part-owner of Berande,” Sheldon
interrupted.
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“So she said,” the irate skipper dashed on. “But she had no papers
to show for it. How was I to know? And then there was that load
of ivory nuts-eight tons of them.”
“For heaven’s sake begin at the–” Sheldon tried to interrupt.
“And then she’s hired them drunken loafers, three of the worst
scoundrels that ever disgraced the Solomons–fifteen quid a month
each–what d’ye think of that? And sailed away with them, too!
Phew!–You might give me a drink. The missionary won’t mind. I’ve
been on his teetotal hooker four days now, and I’m perishing.”
Dr. Welshmere nodded in reply to Sheldon’s look of inquiry, and
Viaburi was dispatched for the whisky and siphons.
“It is evident, Captain Oleson,” Sheldon remarked to that refreshed
mariner, “that Miss Lackland has run away with your boat. Now
please give a plain statement of what occurred.”
“Right O; here goes. I’d just come in on the Flibberty. She was
on board before I dropped the hook–in that whale-boat of hers with
her gang of Tahiti heathens–that big Adamu Adam and the rest.
‘Don’t drop the anchor, Captain Oleson,’ she sang out. ‘I want you
to get under way for Poonga-Poonga.’ I looked to see if she’d been
drinking. What was I to think? I was rounding up at the time,
alongside the shoal–a ticklish place–headsails running down and
losing way, so I says, ‘Excuse me, Miss Lackland,’ and yells
for’ard, ‘Let go!’
“‘You might have listened to me and saved yourself trouble,’ says
she, climbing over the rail and squinting along for’ard and seeing
the first shackle flip out and stop. ‘There’s fifteen fathom,’
says she; ‘you may as well turn your men to and heave up.’
“And then we had it out. I didn’t believe her. I didn’t think
you’d take her on as a partner, and I told her as much and wanted
proof. She got high and mighty, and I told her I was old enough to
be her grandfather and that I wouldn’t take gammon from a chit like
her. And then I ordered her off the Flibberty. ‘Captain Oleson,’
she says, sweet as you please, ‘I’ve a few minutes to spare on you,
and I’ve got some good whisky over on the Emily. Come on along.
Besides, I want your advice about this wrecking business.
Everybody says you’re a crackerjack sailor-man’–that’s what she
said, ‘crackerjack.’ And I went, in her whale-boat, Adamu Adam
steering and looking as solemn as a funeral.
“On the way she told me about the Martha, and how she’d bought her,
and was going to float her. She said she’d chartered the Emily,
and was sailing as soon as I could get the Flibberty underway. It
struck me that her gammon was reasonable enough, and I agreed to
pull out for Berande right O, and get your orders to go along to
Poonga-Poonga. But she said there wasn’t a second to be lost by
any such foolishness, and that I was to sail direct for Poonga-
Poonga, and that if I couldn’t take her word that she was your
partner, she’d get along without me and the Flibberty. And right
there’s where she fooled me.
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“Down in the Emily’s cabin was them three soaks–you know them–
Fowler and Curtis and that Brahms chap. ‘Have a drink,’ says she.
I thought they looked surprised when she unlocked the whisky locker
and sent a nigger for the glasses and water-monkey. But she must
have tipped them off unbeknownst to me, and they knew just what to
do. ‘Excuse me,’ she says, ‘I’m going on deck a minute.’ Now that
minute was half an hour. I hadn’t had a drink in ten days. I’m an
old man and the fever has weakened me. Then I took it on an empty
stomach, too, and there was them three soaks setting me an example,
they arguing for me to take the Flibberty to Poonga-Poonga, an’ me
pointing out my duty to the contrary. The trouble was, all the
arguments were pointed with drinks, and me not being a drinking
man, so to say, and weak from fever . . .
“Well, anyway, at the end of the half-hour down she came again and
took a good squint at me. ‘That’ll do nicely,’ I remember her
saying; and with that she took the whisky bottles and hove them
overside through the companionway. ‘That’s the last, she said to
the three soaks, ’till the Martha floats and you’re back in Guvutu.
It’ll be a long time between drinks.’ And then she laughed.
“She looked at me and said–not to me, mind you, but to the soaks:
‘It’s time this worthy man went ashore’–me! worthy man! ‘Fowler,’
she said–you know, just like a straight order, and she didn’t
MISTER him–it was plain Fowler–‘Fowler,’ she said, ‘just tell
Adamu Adam to man the whale-boat, and while he’s taking Captain
Oleson ashore have your boat put me on the Flibberty. The three of
you sail with me, so pack your dunnage. And the one of you that
shows up best will take the mate’s billet. Captain Oleson doesn’t
carry a mate, you know.’
“I don’t remember much after that. All hands got me over the side,
and it seems to me I went to sleep, sitting in the stern-sheets and
watching that Adamu steer. Then I saw the Flibberty’s mainsail
hoisting, and heard the clank of her chain coming in, and I woke
up. ‘Here, put me on the Flibberty,’ I said to Adamu. ‘I put you
on the beach,’ said he. ‘Missie Lackalanna say beach plenty good
for you.’ Well, I let out a yell and reached for the steering-
sweep. I was doing my best by my owners, you see. Only that Adamu
gives me a shove down on the bottom-boards, puts one foot on me to
hold me down, and goes on steering. And that’s all. The shock of
the whole thing brought on fever. And now I’ve come to find out
whether I’m skipper of the Flibberty, or that chit of yours with
her pirating, heathen boat’s-crew.”
“Never mind, skipper. You can take a vacation on pay.” Sheldon
spoke with more assurance than he felt. “If Miss Lackland, who is
my partner, has seen fit to take charge of the Flibberty-Gibbet,
why, it is all right. As you will agree, there was no time to be
lost if the Martha was to be got off. It is a bad reef, and any
considerable sea would knock her bottom out. You settle down here,
skipper, and rest up and get the fever out of your bones. When the
Flibberty-Gibbet comes back, you’ll take charge again, of course.”
After Dr. Welshmere and the Apostle departed and Captain Oleson had
turned in for a sleep in a veranda hammock, Sheldon opened Joan’s
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letter.
DEAR MR. SHELDON,–Please forgive me for stealing the Flibberty-
Gibbet. I simply had to. The Martha means everything to us.
Think of it, only fifty-five pounds for her, two hundred and
seventy-five dollars. If I don’t save her, I know I shall be able
to pay all expenses out of her gear, which the natives will not
have carried off. And if I do save her, it is the haul of a life-
time. And if I don’t save her, I’ll fill the Emily and the
Flibberty-Gibbet with recruits. Recruits are needed right now on
Berande more than anything else.
And please, please don’t be angry with me. You said I shouldn’t go
recruiting on the Flibberty, and I won’t. I’ll go on the Emily.
I bought two cows this afternoon. That trader at Nogi died of
fever, and I bought them from his partner, Sam Willis his name is,