to its anchorage, peering at the dim tree-line of the shore,
judging the deceitful night-distances, feeling on his cheek the
first fans of the land breeze that was even then beginning to blow,
weighing, thinking, measuring, gauging the score or more of ever-
shifting forces, through which, by which, and in spite of which he
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directed the steady equilibrium of his course. She knew it because
she loved it, and she was alive to it as only a sailor could be.
Twice she heard the splash of the lead, and listened intently for
the cry that followed. Once a man’s voice spoke, low, imperative,
issuing an order, and she thrilled with the delight of it. It was
only a direction to the man at the wheel to port his helm. She
watched the slight altering of the course, and knew that it was for
the purpose of enabling the flat-hauled sails to catch those first
fans of the land breeze, and she waited for the same low voice to
utter the one word “Steady!” And again she thrilled when it did
utter it. Once more the lead splashed, and “Eleven fadom” was the
resulting cry. “Let go!” the low voice came to her through the
darkness, followed by the surging rumble of the anchor-chain. The
clicking of the sheaves in the blocks as the sails ran down, head-
sails first, was music to her; and she detected on the instant the
jamming of a jib-downhaul, and almost saw the impatient jerk with
which the sailor must have cleared it. Nor did she take interest
in the two men beside her till both lights, red and green, came
into view as the anchor checked the onward way.
Sheldon was wondering as to the identity of the craft, while Tudor
persisted in believing it might be the Martha.
“It’s the Minerva,” Joan said decidedly.
“How do you know?” Sheldon asked, sceptical of her certitude.
“It’s a ketch to begin with. And besides, I could tell anywhere
the rattle of her main peak-blocks–they’re too large for the
halyard.”
A dark figure crossed the compound diagonally from the beach gate,
where whoever it was had been watching the vessel.
“Is that you, Utami?” Joan called.
“No, Missie; me Matapuu,” was the answer.
“What vessel is it?”
“Me t’ink Minerva.”
Joan looked triumphantly at Sheldon, who bowed.
“If Matapuu says so it must be so,” he murmured.
“But when Joan Lackland says so, you doubt,” she cried, “just as
you doubt her ability as a skipper. But never mind, you’ll be
sorry some day for all your unkindness. There’s the boat lowering
now, and in five minutes we’ll be shaking hands with Christian
Young.”
Lalaperu brought out the glasses and cigarettes and the eternal
whisky and soda, and before the five minutes were past the gate
clicked and Christian Young, tawny and golden, gentle of voice and
look and hand, came up the bungalow steps and joined them.
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CHAPTER XVI–THE GIRL WHO HAD NOT GROWN UP
News, as usual, Christian Young brought–news of the drinking at
Guvutu, where the men boasted that they drank between drinks; news
of the new rifles adrift on Ysabel, of the latest murders on
Malaita, of Tom Butler’s sickness on Santa Ana; and last and most
important, news that the Matambo had gone on a reef in the
Shortlands and would be laid off one run for repairs.
“That means five weeks more before you can sail for Sydney,”
Sheldon said to Joan.
“And that we are losing precious time,” she added ruefully.
“If you want to go to Sydney, the Upolu sails from Tulagi to-morrow
afternoon,” Young said.
“But I thought she was running recruits for the Germans in Samoa,”
she objected. “At any rate, I could catch her to Samoa, and change
at Apia to one of the Weir Line freighters. It’s a long way
around, but still it would save time.”
“This time the Upolu is going straight to Sydney,” Young explained.
“She’s going to dry-dock, you see; and you can catch her as late as
five to-morrow afternoon–at least, so her first officer told me.”
“But I’ve got to go to Guvutu first.” Joan looked at the men with
a whimsical expression. “I’ve some shopping to do. I can’t wear
these Berande curtains into Sydney. I must buy cloth at Guvutu and
make myself a dress during the voyage down. I’ll start
immediately–in an hour. Lalaperu, you bring ‘m one fella Adamu
Adam along me. Tell ‘m that fella Ornfiri make ‘m kai-kai take
along whale-boat.” She rose to her feet, looking at Sheldon. “And
you, please, have the boys carry down the whale-boat–my boat, you
know. I’ll be off in an hour.”
Both Sheldon and Tudor looked at their watches.
“It’s an all-night row,” Sheldon said. “You might wait till
morning–”
“And miss my shopping? No, thank you. Besides, the Upolu is not a
regular passenger steamer, and she is just as liable to sail ahead
of time as on time. And from what I hear about those Guvutu
sybarites, the best time to shop will be in the morning. And now
you’ll have to excuse me, for I’ve got to pack.”
“I’ll go over with you,” Sheldon announced.
“Let me run you over in the Minerva,” said Young.
She shook her head laughingly.
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“I’m going in the whale-boat. One would think, from all your
solicitude, that I’d never been away from home before. You, Mr.
Sheldon, as my partner, I cannot permit to desert Berande and your
work out of a mistaken notion of courtesy. If you won’t permit me
to be skipper, I won’t permit your galivanting over the sea as
protector of young women who don’t need protection. And as for
you, Captain Young, you know very well that you just left Guvutu
this morning, that you are bound for Marau, and that you said
yourself that in two hours you are getting under way again.”
“But may I not see you safely across?” Tudor asked, a pleading note
in his voice that rasped on Sheldon’s nerves.
“No, no, and again no,” she cried. “You’ve all got your work to
do, and so have I. I came to the Solomons to work, not to be
escorted about like a doll. For that matter, here’s my escort, and
there are seven more like him.”
Adamu Adam stood beside her, towering above her, as he towered
above the three white men. The clinging cotton undershirt he wore
could not hide the bulge of his tremendous muscles.
“Look at his fist,” said Tudor. “I’d hate to receive a punch from
it.”
“I don’t blame you.” Joan laughed reminiscently. “I saw him hit
the captain of a Swedish bark on the beach at Levuka, in the Fijis.
It was the captain’s fault. I saw it all myself, and it was
splendid. Adamu only hit him once, and he broke the man’s arm.
You remember, Adamu?”
The big Tahitian smiled and nodded, his black eyes, soft and deer-
like, seeming to give the lie to so belligerent a nature.
“We start in an hour in the whale-boat for Guvutu, big brother,”
Joan said to him. “Tell your brothers, all of them, so that they
can get ready. We catch the Upolu for Sydney. You will all come
along, and sail back to the Solomons in the new schooner. Take
your extra shirts and dungarees along. Plenty cold weather down
there. Now run along, and tell them to hurry. Leave the guns
behind. Turn them over to Mr. Sheldon. We won’t need them.”
“If you are really bent upon going–” Sheldon began.
“That’s settled long ago,” she answered shortly. “I’m going to
pack now. But I’ll tell you what you can do for me–issue some
tobacco and other stuff they want to my men.”
An hour later the three men had shaken hands with Joan down on the
beach. She gave the signal, and the boat shoved off, six men at
the oars, the seventh man for’ard, and Adamu Adam at the steering-
sweep. Joan was standing up in the stern-sheets, reiterating her
good-byes–a slim figure of a woman in the tight-fitting jacket she
had worn ashore from the wreck, the long-barrelled Colt’s revolver
hanging from the loose belt around her waist, her clear-cut face
like a boy’s under the Stetson hat that failed to conceal the heavy
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masses of hair beneath.
“You’d better get into shelter,” she called to them. “There’s a
big squall coming. And I hope you’ve got plenty of chain out,
Captain Young. Good-bye! Good-bye, everybody!”
Her last words came out of the darkness, which wrapped itself
solidly about the boat. Yet they continued to stare into the
blackness in the direction in which the boat had disappeared,
listening to the steady click of the oars in the rowlocks until it
faded away and ceased.
“She is only a girl,” Christian Young said with slow solemnity.
The discovery seemed to have been made on the spur of the moment.