Show black gold A 5 e rice grimsh aw 11 L L t BY jr artwin coria kam CIO THE STORY on a pleasure trip in eastern waters philip amory english world war veteran now a trader on the island of papua new guinea plunges overboard to save the life of a musical comedy actress known as gin sling amory becomes interested in P a laurier member of a wealthy new south wales family he teus tells her of his knowledge ot of a wonderful gold field on the ie Is land though he does not disclose the name of the place gin sling tells him pia pla Is engaged to sir richard Fl fanshaw anshaw amory however Is confident that the girl Is not indifferent to him his ills holiday ended he arrives back at daru he lie meets an anglish man spicer there on develop ment business tor for a syndicate ot of which fanshaw is head CHAPTER ill continued 6 there are such things as warnings and if ever I 1 felt a warning it wag was then I 1 felt how shall I 1 put it that this place was cot not good to be in there was a personality about it every one has felt such things though few care to say so and it as dis hostile of course that did not stop me from exploring I 1 had to find out where we were further I 1 was wet through without a change it was a tropic night but tropic nights with high wind blowing can be unpleasantly cool and I 1 shivered a bit aa as I 1 tramped the rough blown grasses I 1 should have been glad of a house wherein I 1 might tabe take shelter and find clothes to borrow I 1 rather rath er thought the island was innab cited in the moonlight I 1 had seen traces tracts of footsteps or what hat looked tike like footsteps in the grass I 1 I 1 had seen a pile of coconuts heaped up at the toot of a palm it would hae hane been about twenty minute minutes after landing when I 1 was setting getting well warmed up with exer else that I 1 ran across the houses they were viere two or three only mere hovels throw n together of brushwood and palm they seemed to me to be semi alive crouching as if afraid of my approach it may have been this fancy that urged me to take care walk delicately as I 1 neared them most were unlighted from one how ever came a taint faint red gleam through plaited platted walls somebody within was waking while the rest of the island slept the wind had risen was still rising it made an intolerable clamor masked by the noise I 1 walked right up to the house wall and peered through a chink I 1 do not know what I 1 expected to eee see something astonishing certainly but whatever it may have been it vi ras as less amazing than the reality I 1 saw a white man like myself a well bred looking man with a beard I 1 1 brown eyes and wavy brown bronn hair he ile was dressed in a most nary rig loincloth and jumper such aa as the natives use but of a pattern never worn by any nathe of the pa cefic world yellow with spots of black as big as dinner plates ugly con in the last degree and so coarse in texture that its folds were stiff as canvas camas ought to last a lifetime that rig I 1 I 1 thought bad sort of thing to go shooting or fishing in anything alive would spot you a hundred yards off why in does be he wear it the question was no sooner asked than answered he wasn gasn t going to wear it any longer than he could help he ile had been busy packing a email small bag when I 1 looked in now snapping the lock he began pulling off his hideous shirt and loosening the loincloth hung up on a rafter beside him I 1 saw a european suit crumpled and earth stained it looked almost as if it had been buried and dug up gain again the craik crack was narrow I 1 stretched forward to td look through and managed some somehow how 1 to stagger against the flimsy but awall it creaked and bent in as it it had been made of paper the man must have seen it moe with his arm half halt out of his shirt he made a snatch at a revolver that was lying beside the bag and swung round eyes glaring like a cat cats s when it see prey to face the spot where I 1 was standing I 1 did not stand long covered by the noise of the wind I 1 bolted as I 1 ard as I 1 could go for a tussock of hl hibiscus blaum bush and dropped into it by the time the man had bad got out of the I 1 tut ut I 1 wa lying low safe among the inter laced stems and peering through if I 1 d ed for it I 1 was going to knon know what all this was about tha the were dozens of tussocks lea u the house be lit must have seen the futility cf of s C to search them he stood in the doorway outlined by the smoky flame of his hurricane barri cane lamp I 1 and staring wildly about the spotted leopard le clothe clothes were fastened again they looked very odd with the sod s and boots he was wearing and the bat hat he held in one hand it was a hand some well bred hand but the little finger I 1 noticed had a detective defective and broken nail black he called in a cautious voice that scarcely carried through the wind black was vas that you I 1 thought he rather hoped it was black was arguing with himself that it t have been anyone else A freakish humor seized me I 1 slipped out at the back ot of the sock and showed my head yes I 1 answered aware that no man could identify another in that he made a snatch at a revolver that wa was lying beside the bag sag light under trees at fifty yards dis tance what the devil are you playing about then don t want to be been seen I 1 answered truthfully this seemed to satisfy him more or less Is the launch there he asked presently I 1 said it was go and get everything ready to start III be down in two minutes this was awkward I 1 could not be sure of safety once I 1 left the shelter of the bushes black might be inches taller or shorter pounds heavier or lighter g ter t than an L I 1 hesitated uncertain what to do it seemed that the man in the hut lint could not endure delay what are you messing and waiting about he demanded with an oath if I 1 im m caught so are you and its five years on the breakwater so I 1 in supposed to be committing a it crime I 1 wonder what I 1 though thought the freakish devil that had possession of me prompted me to reply at aj a venture what about the money this let loose a surprising flood of profanity I 1 judged that mr black whoever he was had been exacting in his demands money fiery interval mones 7 what do you want five hundred al ready and another five when you land me in valparaiso crumbs I 1 val paraiso in a launch 1 I 1 thought who has he been murdering and all the cursed expenses into the bargain and you want more I 1 iso N 0 I 1 shouted across the wind no 0 o im I 1 in going off to the launch the conversation I 1 thought was growing too exacting not much longer should I 1 be able to keep up my end of it and then there was that revolver in the hands of what seemed to be a desperate man A cloud was coming over the moon I 1 waited till it touched then made a bolt hurry up I 1 shouted as I 1 ran away devout ly hoping that be he would do nothing of the kind this I 1 thought 1 Is I clearly an island inhabited by criminals or mad men ret yet I 1 haven t heard beard of any con vict station nearer than new cale donia donla I 1 give it up I 1 was almost back on the sea beach by now it oc to me that I 1 might as well shin up one of the palm trees and see whether there was aa really anything in this talk of a launch the palm I 1 bad had chosen was tall but a little bent with age I 1 had not much difficulty in wriggling my way up into the crown I 1 waited wafted for clear moon light and made my survey cos goslin I 1 I 1 exclaimed there wai was undoubtedly a launch if one may so designate a fine thirty or forty ton boat schooner rigged Z and fitted with an engine well nell able to make the run to valparaiso or anyA anywhere here else in competent hands she was lying some way nay out at sea on the leeward side of the island beyond the inner lagoon I 1 could see a dinghy tile a little black water ter beetle creeping Ian landwards dwards from her side that I 1 I 1 thought I 1 will be black I 1 wonder what the two of them will make of it when they get together and the thought so intrigued me that I 1 fell to laughing and nearly lost my hold but when I 1 got down safe to ground again I 1 was mas more than sobered by the thought that came almost imme it if what he said Is true it he has given a man called black a thousand pounds and expenses crumbs what expenses they 11 bel to run him out of this there must have hane been dirty work somewhere and I 1 in mixed up in it I 1 could not help remembering somewhat unpleasantly the remark about five years on the breakwater omega I 1 must tell yon you but I 1 win tell no more than I 1 must belongs to a non british power which has a short way with offenders against its rather code of laws I 1 t know what you could be sent to the breakwater for but I 1 knew there was wa one in an out of the way domegan port and I 1 guessed that labor of the portland island kind conducted under a tropical sun was likely to be the kind of thing a wise man should avoid at any cost I 1 thought the matter out at length I 1 could arrive at only one conclusion whole knowledge was better than half whatever the risks might be of ex floring yet further this odd ant place it would be well for me to find out as much as possible as boon soon as possible and but that went with out saying get away as soon as possible afterwards after ards warda once more I 1 climbed the palm swung out among the clashing stem stems among the swaying butts of the leaves and looked for the launch she wae was off a long way out to sea I 1 saw her gliding black in the silver path of the moon 0 good I 1 thought and slid down again A few minutes rapid walking found me once more among the little sinister houses with their homed horned gables and their air of being huddled together for some evil deed the hut that had been lighted was dark now I 1 lit a match from the small reserve I 1 always kept in a bottle and looked in no one was there the place bore signs of hurried desertion a stretcher bed overturned with bed clothes flung on the ground a cabin trunk gaping open and gutted piles of gray ash suggesting papers destroyed in tl e middle of the floor lay a loin cloth and a shirt of coarse cotton bright yellow with black spots as big aa as plates I 1 stood in the doorway and looked till my match burned out I 1 did not strike another I 1 walked away and left the deserted hut to itself and once more mastering as a drug and heavy as a dream came over me that definite presage of in in the little hollow there were fit at teen other houses all small and rudely built of bush material I 1 looked at them for a minute swallowed in my throat for something very like fear had me and then thinking no longer but driving myself as one used to do over the top in the hour after dawn I 1 found a coconut stump for a torch lit it and carried it flaring furiously in the diminished wind to the first of the houses the door wag was not shut I 1 held the torch above my head and looked in I 1 looked for quite a long time at what I 1 saw mak ing sure that I 1 understood it and that my eyes bad had not in any way mie mis led me then dashing out the torch against the ground I 1 fled tor for the sea the clean sea it seemed to me that to be drowned in that clean sea would be a fate a man needa t quarrel with a fate ten thousand times better than the horror I 1 had left behind TO BE CONTINUED |