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?”
ADVENTURE
21
He frowned, tightened his lips, then burst into laughter, in which
she joined.
“It’s my own fault,” he confessed. “I shouldn’t have baited you.
I’ll be careful in the future.”
“In the meantime go on laughing, and I’ll see about breakfast. Is
there anything you would fancy?”
He shook his head.
“It will do you good to eat something. Your fever has burned out,
and you are merely weak. Wait a moment.”
She hurried out of the room in the direction of the kitchen,
tripped at the door in a pair of sandals several sizes too large
for her feet, and disappeared in rosy confusion.
“By Jove, those are my sandals,” he thought to himself. “The girl
hasn’t a thing to wear except what she landed on the beach in, and
she certainly landed in sea-boots.”
CHAPTER V–SHE WOULD A PLANTER BE
Sheldon mended rapidly. The fever had burned out, and there was
nothing for him to do but gather strength. Joan had taken the cook
in hand, and for the first time, as Sheldon remarked, the chop at
Berande was white man’s chop. With her own hands Joan prepared the
sick man’s food, and between that and the cheer she brought him, he
was able, after two days, to totter feebly out upon the veranda.
The situation struck him as strange, and stranger still was the
fact that it did not seem strange to the girl at all. She had
settled down and taken charge of the household as a matter of
course, as if he were her father, or brother, or as if she were a
man like himself.
“It is just too delightful for anything,” she assured him. “It is
like a page out of some romance. Here I come along out of the sea
and find a sick man all alone with two hundred slaves–”
“Recruits,” he corrected. “Contract labourers. They serve only
three years, and they are free agents when they enter upon their
contracts.”
“Yes, yes,” she hurried on. “–A sick man alone with two hundred
recruits on a cannibal island–they are cannibals, aren’t they? Or
is it all talk?”
“Talk!” he said, with a smile. “It’s a trifle more than that.
Most of my boys are from the bush, and every bushman is a
cannibal.”
“But not after they become recruits? Surely, the boys you have
ADVENTURE
22
here wouldn’t be guilty.”
“They’d eat you if the chance afforded.”
“Are you just saying so, on theory, or do you really know?” she
asked.
“I know.”
“Why? What makes you think so? Your own men here?”
“Yes, my own men here, the very house-boys, the cook that at the
present moment is making such delicious rolls, thanks to you. Not
more than three months ago eleven of them sneaked a whale-boat and
ran for Malaita. Nine of them belonged to Malaita. Two were
bushmen from San Cristoval. They were fools–the two from San
Cristoval, I mean; so would any two Malaita men be who trusted
themselves in a boat with nine from San Cristoval.”
“Yes?” she asked eagerly. “Then what happened?”
“The nine Malaita men ate the two from San Cristoval, all except
the heads, which are too valuable for mere eating. They stowed
them away in the stern-locker till they landed. And those two
heads are now in some bush village back of Langa Langa.”
She clapped her hands and her eyes sparkled. “They are really and
truly cannibals! And just think, this is the twentieth century!
And I thought romance and adventure were fossilized!”
He looked at her with mild amusement.
“What is the matter now?” she queried.
“Oh, nothing, only I don’t fancy being eaten by a lot of filthy
niggers is the least bit romantic.”
“No, of course not,” she admitted. “But to be among them,
controlling them, directing them, two hundred of them, and to
escape being eaten by them–that, at least, if it isn’t romantic,
is certainly the quintessence of adventure. And adventure and
romance are allied, you know.”
“By the same token, to go into a nigger’s stomach should be the
quintessence of adventure,” he retorted.
“I don’t think you have any romance in you,” she exclaimed.
“You’re just dull and sombre and sordid like the business men at
home. I don’t know why you’re here at all. You should be at home
placidly vegetating as a banker’s clerk or–or–”
“A shopkeeper’s assistant, thank you.”
“Yes, that–anything. What under the sun are you doing here on the
edge of things?”
“Earning my bread and butter, trying to get on in the world.”
ADVENTURE
23
“‘By the bitter road the younger son must tread, Ere he win to
hearth and saddle of his own,'” she quoted. “Why, if that isn’t
romantic, then nothing is romantic. Think of all the younger sons
out over the world, on a myriad of adventures winning to those same
hearths and saddles. And here you are in the thick of it, doing
it, and here am I in the thick of it, doing it.”
“I–I beg pardon,” he drawled.
“Well, I’m a younger daughter, then,” she amended; “and I have no
hearth nor saddle–I haven’t anybody or anything–and I’m just as
far on the edge of things as you are.”
“In your case, then, I’ll admit there is a bit of romance,” he
confessed.
He could not help but think of the preceding nights, and of her
sleeping in the hammock on the veranda, under mosquito curtains,
her bodyguard of Tahitian sailors stretched out at the far corner
of the veranda within call. He had been too helpless to resist,
but now he resolved she should have his couch inside while he would
take the hammock.
“You see, I had read and dreamed about romance all my life,” she
was saying, “but I never, in my wildest fancies, thought that I
should live it. It was all so unexpected. Two years ago I thought
there was nothing left to me but. . . .” She faltered, and made a
moue of distaste. “Well, the only thing that remained, it seemed
to me, was marriage.”
“And you preferred a cannibal isle and a cartridge-belt?” he
suggested.
“I didn’t think of the cannibal isle, but the cartridge-belt was
blissful.”
“You wouldn’t dare use the revolver if you were compelled to. Or,”
noting the glint in her eyes, “if you did use it, to–well, to hit
anything.”
She started up suddenly to enter the house. He knew she was going
for her revolver.
“Never mind,” he said, “here’s mine. What can you do with it?”
“Shoot the block off your flag-halyards.”
He smiled his unbelief.
“I don’t know the gun,” she said dubiously.
“It’s a light trigger and you don’t have to hold down. Draw fine.”
“Yes, yes,” she spoke impatiently. “I know automatics–they jam
when they get hot–only I don’t know yours.” She looked at it a
moment. “It’s cocked. Is there a cartridge in the chamber?”
ADVENTURE
24
She fired, and the block remained intact.
“It’s a long shot,” he said, with the intention of easing her
chagrin.
But she bit her lip and fired again. The bullet emitted a sharp
shriek as it ricochetted into space. The metal block rattled back
and forth. Again and again she fired, till the clip was emptied of
its eight cartridges. Six of them were hits. The block still
swayed at the gaff-end, but it was battered out of all usefulness.
Sheldon was astonished. It was better than he or even Hughie