Show 01 old 0 G alij bea ti ici grimsh aw f i vs OY 7 J avi I 1 I 1 MYE ra A U corp r 0 L R V I 1 C P CHAPTER ill III continued 6 mere chore are such things as warnings I 1 if ever I 1 felt a warning it was in I 1 felt how shall I 1 put it it this place was not cot good to be in ghere was a personality about it i ry one has felt such things though illare ti care to say so and it was als atly hostile f course that did not stop me from iorli loring lor ipg I 1 had to find out where were further I 1 was wet through phout a change it was a tropic ht bt but tropic nights with high nd ad blowing can be unpleasantly I 1 I 1 a and nd I 1 shivered a bit as I 1 auld E ped the rough blown grasses I 1 id have been glad of a house lerein I 1 might take shelter and find clothes to borrow I 1 her thought the island was innab tl in the moonlight I 1 had seen lets of footsteps or what I 1 looked je footsteps in the grass I 1 I 1 had in a pile of coconuts heaped up at atoot of a palm it would have been about twenty autes after landing when I 1 was eting well warmed up with exerie I 1 aliat that I 1 ran across the houses ley were two or three only mere vels eels thrown together of brushwood d palm they seemed to me to be deml ive ve crouching as it if afraid of my p to bell it may have been this 10 ncy bey that urged me to take care uk ik delicately as I 1 neared them est t were unlighted from one how ser r came a faint red gleam through it silted cited walls somebody within was aking while the rest of the island fot tone be wind had risen was still rising a 1 made ade an intolerable clamor masked the noise I 1 walked right up ap to the use be wall and peered through a ink do not know what I 1 expected to t something astonishing certainly but ut whatever it may have been it ia less amazing than the reality I 1 saw a white man like myself a bred looking man with a beard sown wn eyes and wavy wary brown hair was dressed to in a most ry rig loincloth and jumper such the natives use tout hut of a pattern er worn by any native of the pac world yellow with spots of black big as dinner plates ugly con chous in the last degree and so arse ise in texture that its folds ere n as canyas ought to last fast a lifetime that rig bought cad bad sort of thing thin to go doting or fishing in anything alive uld spot you a hundred yards off ly in does he be wear it che he question was no sooner asked la answered lie ile going to lir r it any longer than lie he could lip ile he had been busy packing a atall big bag when I 1 looked in now aping the lok lock lie he bogan pulling his hideous shirt and loosening the cloth hung up on a rafter beside I 1 saw a european suit crumpled earth stained it looked almost as it t had find been buried and dug up in n sabe e crack was narrow I 1 stretched clied ward ard to look through and managed chow to stagger against the sy by hut wall it creaked and bent as it if it had been made of paper i man must have seen it move h his arm halt half out of his shirt he de e a snatch at a revolver that was nas ig g beside the ba bag 1 and swung round a glaring like a cats when it sees fey to face the spot where I 1 was ending ding did not stand long covered by S noise of the wind I 1 bolted as hard id could go for a tussock of eh h and dropped into it by the jl u the man inan bad got out of the but lias as ly lying dg low safe among the later inter ed d stems steins and w peering through it I 1 lied for it I 1 was going to know I 1 it t 11 it II this was about aare ere were cozens cozena of tussocks socks lear iea house bouse lie must have seen the alty lity of to search earch them he sod in n the do doorway arway outlined 57 the ky flaat of Us his lamp 1 tl and staring starine wildly about the spotted leopard clothes were fastened again they very verv odd with the socks aud and boots tie ne was wearing nud and the lint hat he held in one hand it was a handsome well bred hand but the little finger I 1 noticed notice cS had bad a defective and broken nail black he called in a cautious voice that scarcely curried carried through the wind ivind bank was that you I 1 thought li h rather hoped it was black was arguing with himself that it hae been annone else A freakish akish humor seized me I 1 slipped out at the back of the kocl soc lind and showed my head yes I 1 answered aware that no man could identify another in that ft 10 4 1 I 1 y re J 14 4 F i I 1 4 7 eo jv he made a snatch at a revolver that was vas lying beside the bag light under trees at lifty yards distance what the devil are you yon playing about then dont want to be 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 ill 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 than 1 I 1 I hesitated uncertain what to do it seemed that the man in the hut but could not endure delay what are you messing and waiting about he demanded with an oath if im caught cau glit so are you and its five years on the breakwater so im supposed to be committing a crime I 1 wonder what I 1 thought the freakish aci that had possession of me prompted me to reply at 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 aloney fiery interval internal money what do you want five hundred already and another five when you land me in valparaiso crumbs valparaiso in a launch 1 I 1 thought who has lie he been murdering 11 arid and all the cursed cipe expenses anses into anio the bargain and you want more no I 1 shouted across the wind no im 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 IT hoping that he would do nothing of the kind this I 1 thought la Is clearly an island inhabited by criminals or madmen yet I 1 heard beard of 0 any convict station nearer than new caledonia I 1 give five it up I 1 was almost back on the isea bea beach by now it occurred to me that I 1 might an ai well shin up one of the palm trees and see bee whether there was really anything wry thing in this talk of a launch the palm I 1 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 tor for clear moonlight and made my survey gosh I 1 exclaimed there was undoubtedly a launch if one may so designate a tine fine thirty or forty ton boat schooner rigged and fitted with an engine well able to make the run to valparaiso or anywhere else in competent hands she was lying somo some way out at sea on the leeward side of the island beyond the inner lagoon I 1 could see a dinghy like a little blade black water beetle creeping landwards lan dwards from her side that I 1 thought will be blade black I 1 wonder what the two of them win make of it when they get together and the thought so intrigued met me that I 1 fell to laughing and nearly lost my a old hold but when I 1 got down sato safe to ground again I 1 was more than sobered by the thought that came almost immediately lif if what he said Is true it if he has given a man called blade black a thousand pounds and expenses crumbs what expenses bet bel to run him film out of this there must have been dirty work somewhere and im 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 you but I 1 will tell no more than I 1 must belongs to a non british power which has a short wa way y with offenders against its rather Dra conle code of laws I 1 know what you could be sent to the breakwater for but I 1 knew there was 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 exploring yet further this odd unpleasant place it would be well bior tor me to find out as much as possible as soon as possible and but that went without saying get away as soon as possible afterwards once more I 1 climbed the palm swung out among the clashing stems among the swaying butts of the leaves and looked for the launch she was off a long way out to sea I 1 saw her all gliding alg black 1 in the silver path of at the moon 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 gables and their air of being huddled together for some evil deed the hut but 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 bedclothes flung on the ground a cabin trunk gaping open and gutted piles of gray ash suggesting papers destroyed st la in the middle of the floor lay a loincloth and a shirt of coarse cotton bright yellow with black spots as big 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 lite presage of ill in the little hollow there were fifteen other houses all small and rudely built of bush material I 1 looked at them tor for a minute swallowed in my y throat tor 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 was not shut I 1 held the torch above my head and looked in I 1 looked tor for quite a long time at what I 1 saw making sure that I 1 understood it and that my eyes had not in any way misled me then dashing out the torch against the ground I 1 fled for the sea the clean sea it seemed to me that to be drowned in that clean sea would be a fate a man quarrel with a fate ten thousand times better th than an the horror I 1 had left behind TO BE CONTINUED |