OCR Text |
Show Black 1 M Sheep's CS Gold U Beatrice Gr imshawWpSlill .1 ILLUSTRATIONS BY ff f'MSsST'J CofMTKryusXn Kami i fcn.vice- the two. let out a sudden shriek. Hung herself half across the tent, and slapped her fingers ou Sruithsun's babbling bab-bling mouth. "Hold your tongue, fool," she cried. To Pia. "He don't mean anything. I mean, he means that the moon makes him worse , than he Is. It's like that with loonies of all sorts. He gets sort of wild. You know." She had pulled herself together with marvelous completeness ; was lighting and smoking a cigarette. She did not look at Pia any more. "Don't mind us," she said. "We're rough, but we're honest. Rough diamonds, me and him. You'll excuse us, please. I'll get him back to the field for you ; I'm fed up with prospecting. v I made love to him. and got him to come away with me, because I wanted him to work for me; you can put that in your pipe and smoke it if you like." She stood due and sufficient cause, made void a claim. Smlthson who couldn't resist drink or girls was here In the forest, for-est, two days away from Tatatata. with Jinny, and Jinny's (or Spicer's) cases of champagne. There were no calendars In the bush drinkers' memories mem-ories are treacherous. If you wanted to stay away thirty days, guessing wouldn't do. But if you did not guess, If you counted by something that wouldn't drop a dny here or there; If you left at new moon, and gave over your reckoning to something that was sure to come back in exactly twenty-eight twenty-eight days, something that every native na-tive In sight would hail with salutations saluta-tions and loud cries then you might be perfectly sure that you would stay away Just long enough. "Sergeant Simoi!" said Pia. "Go and get me one of Mr. Sniithson's carriers." car-riers." "Yessir," replied Simoi, as If she had asked for a handkerchief, "I bring hlra dead or I bring him live, Slna-bada-Sir?" "Alive, of course; and don't let anyone see you getting him." . "Right-Sir." , The sergeant melted Into the bush. It was some minutes before he returned, re-turned, driving before him an extremely extreme-ly scared and very naked Papuan. "Come on, you black cow," encouraged encour-aged Simoi. "You like I handcuff him, Slnabada?" "No, certainly not. Don't frighten him. Ask him when they left the field, and be sure you get the right answer." "Me savvy," nodded Simoi. An Interchange In-terchange of questions and answer followed. "Slnabada," said the sergeant, saluting, salut-ing, "him say this man, this woman leavem Tatatata thass time the new moon come, bee-fore. Him leavem twel' o'clock, sun he stop-on-top." "Give him some tobacco, and let him go. Sergeant! Tell him not to talk about this." "I tellem all right," proffered the sergeant, on returning. "I tellem I takem head belong him, cleanem head all same pish, sookem along pire, stickem him head up along my dubu (clubhouse) suppose him too much talk. . . . Sinabada!" "Well, sergeant?" "Whassamasser ?" Pia looked into the face anxious, kindly, shrewd of the dark Kiwai sergeant, the "savage dressed in serge," and recognized a man. Simoi had sensed, without understanding, the crisis in which she found herself;' was offering, blindfolded his help. "It's this, sergeant," she said briefly. "Mr. Smithson was left to look out after my husband's gold. If he runs away from it for one nioou and two clays, another man can steal it ; then there is no gold for my man, no gold for me. Sergeant, do you know the way to the fielc1 I mean, know it j well?" "I no savvy him too much, Sinabada. Sina-bada. One carrier he savvy plenty, village belong him stop two. day along bush." "What ! you've got a Tatatata man !" "My word, yes, Slnabada. Bee-fore, him killem one white man, along Tatatata Ta-tatata road him go to jail along Daru ; this man he good man. he savvy plenty." "Get him here," Pia ordered. Another wild, naked creature was herded up. "Yes," he said, in answer to the sergeant "Me savvy load (road)- too much. . . . Tatatata? Tomorrow we walk, we walk strong, nother day we walk, we walk strong, nighttime we sleep, morning time sun he come up big, we come up along Tatatata. sun he go down, we come along gole fiel'." "Twenty-eight days today," counted Pia. "Twenty-nine tomorrow. Thirty the day after. Thirty-one to arrive .... Sergeant I Ask him does he know another way a shorter way." "No savvy," said the carrier promptly. prompt-ly. Pia watched him ; he seemed to her mind, a little too prompt. "Offer double pay," she ordered. "No savvy," was the resultnot without a touch of temper. Pia turned her back, and walked off to her tent. Her man, his fortune, were hanging in the balance. The cat streak that hides In all women came to the surface. She became be-came cruel, In defense of her own. "Make him talk." she dung over her shoulder, as she went. "My word, me blanky well make him," was the sergeant's reply. He reached for a strip of lawyer cane. It was only a minute or two before the ex-murderer appeared, sulking, shaking, whimpering, driven by Simoi. Pia, sitting on her camp bed as on ' a bench of Justice, questioned him, and the sergeant translated. "Is there another road?" Simoi replied. "Him say, yes. Plenty bad road, full up along devil." (TO BE CONTINUED) j I CHAPTER XII Continued -21- To the pair within the tent, drunk-i drunk-i enly singing, drunkenly caressing one J another, the sight of Pia In the open doorway, Pia slim, erect, rigid as a young soldier In her sporting khaki, . Pia with cold accusing eyes beneath a heavy patrol helmet, came as a disturbing dis-turbing vision from some other world. . They sprang apart, and It would be hard to say whether the man or the . girl uttered the foulest words. "You shuttem head belong you," i bellowed Sergeant Simoi, enraged. "What-name (why) you talk bad j along my Sinabada? Ry-n-by me break you froat along bayonet." ; "That's enough, sergeant." warned i Pia. "Wait outside for me." She ! stepped Into the tent, and fixed a I steady accusing gaze on Smithson, who suddenly sobered, had risen to his i feet. "It's the missis, by " he mut-j mut-j tered, leaning one hand on the dis- ordered supper table and staring un-j un-j der his tattered locks of hair, j "Mr. Smithson," asked Pia. with ! cold courtesy, "will you kindly tell me why you pre not at my husband's I claim?' j "Plenty of time," retorted Smithson, picking up courage, under a secret nudge from Jinny. "Going back to it i when I get good and ready." "I believe you are a gold miner. Don't you know that a claim is forfeited for-feited if left without just cause, for thirty days?" "He don't need you to learn him," I came Jinny's shrill voice. Pia did not i Ignore her. She turned toward Jinny, and sent her a glance, In which pity, kindness and a certain fear the chaste woman's Irrepressible fear of the unchaste un-chaste were strangely mingled. "You are Mrs. Spicer," she said. "I'm sorry to see you encouraging this mab In neglect of his duty." "Mrs. Spicer as much as Mrs. Anybody," Any-body," said Jinny. "More Mrs. Spicer than you're Mrs. Amory, by all accounts." ac-counts." She laughed coarsely. Pia ignored that. She was feeling for her feet In this strange medium. She remembered Jinny remembered her well. How the girl had altered since those days on the great liner I How her beauty had coarsened, how the slim, firm graces of her dancer's figure had slackened into ugly lines! So thin was Jinny, always, that perfect per-fect condition was her only chance of grace. It had gone; the grace was going with it; youth and beauty, too soon were passing away from Genevieve Gene-vieve Treacher. In the first moment, Pia could not account for so great a change. But Jinny, uncomfortable beneath be-neath that pitying gaze, seized her half-filled champagne glass, and emptied emp-tied It at a gulp, hoarsely crying as she took It from her lips. "What's yours? Drink hearty, we'll soon be dead !" And Pia saw that the vice of Jinny's kind, long avoided, had caught her up at last. She was indeed in-deed "drinking hearty" now she was even well on the way to fulfill the latter lat-ter half of her famous war-cry. "Champagne for the lady," proclaimed pro-claimed Smithson, still not quite him- self, though considerably sobered. He reached for a bottle. "Thanks, no," fell from Pia's lips like an Icicle. "You haven't told me yet, Mr. Smithson, why you come to be here. I might as well tell you that I hold my husband's power of attorney, and am going up to the field to act for him." "I came to be here," answered Smithson, with painful effort, "because "be-cause I came to be here." He offered t this brightly, as a complete explanation. explana-tion. "We're prospecting," contributed Jinny, putting down her glass, and fixing a defiant stare upon Pia. "Me and he. There's other gold beside ! that on Tatatata, which don't belong to my friend anyhow. As for powers of attorney," she went on, hurriedly pouring out more wine, and keeping her face turned somewhat away "I reckon this is a free country ; I reckon my friend don't have to run when anybody whistles even Mrs. Philip Amory." She loaded each word with contempt. If Pia. in her presence, pres-ence, was shaken, somewhat, by the fear of the chaste for the unchaste, Jinny, on her part, was consumed bj the light woman's burning and perfectly perfect-ly genuine scorn for an Innocent girl. "Here, don't you ladles get quarreling quar-reling over me," thickly said Smithson Supporting himself by the tent poles, he had moved over towards the door; was looking owlishly, yet with a curious curi-ous Interest, at the velvet, star-be-sprlnkled sky. "1 came away," he said, "because this lady wanted to go and One gold mines. I let her go fine gol' mines all alone? Naw! She and m, and the whisky and the champagne n ha's that poetry about a Jug of wine and a case of whisky, and Gin-Sling alngln' alongside of you? She and me and d n the new moon." At that. Jinny, much the soberer of "Don't Mind Us," She Said, "We're Rough, but We're Honest." with her hands on her lean hips, staring star-ing at Pia ; Pia, straight, helmeted, armed, as a young Joan of Arc, with blue, pure eyes burning in a face of mountain snow, paused, still as the night outside, her mind on full stretch over this new problem. What had the moon to do with it? There was small chance of finding out anything, here, In this reeking tent, from the half drunk pair who were certainly not prospecting, whatever what-ever their business in the bush might be. Without a word, Pia turned and walked away, followed by the sergeant ser-geant She lingered a little on the way back to the camp. The carriers were noisy; she could hear them shouting and singing. How tbey were shouting shout-ing 1 Dancing, too. When she came out Into the open clearing, she could see, by the light of the (ires, dark forms whirling and leaping as If possessed pos-sessed by demons. They made such a noise that, at first, she could not distinguish dis-tinguish what they were singing, although al-though some words seemed strangely familiar. Then, over the uncornpre-hended uncornpre-hended shouts of the Ma tuba re and Yassi-Yassi carriers, came loud and clear the cry of some Port Moresby boys "SaiI-0 1 Sail-O!" Pia knew the custom of saluting the new moon with that cry. She glanced to westward, where the forest, sloping down, showed a wide stretch of sky. There. In the west, almost gone, hung one clear small trlp of silver, like a light peeling dropped from some fairy fruit. New moon I . . . What had those people In the tent said, about the moon? Why had Jinny Treacher struck Smithson. when he spoke of it? Why must she. Pia, know nothing about the moon the moou which measured off months "Oh !" It was a sudden cry. Leaping Leap-ing over a hundred unnoticed links, her mind had sprung to the end of the chain of thought. She knew. Thirty days, of desertion, without |