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Show d r -mmmrr f I mm-- era- --, 5 ...L.tifiTiiif' A vast scimitar shaped thing, higher than the Holokai's booms; then it drove downward, disappearing in black water Karen's teeth were chattering. "I thought I thought you said sharks never harm brown men." "This thing isn't like other sharks! Nobody knows anything about him." The incredibly long, monstrous shape of Kai-Ale-Ale was snouting near to the swimmer now; Hokano must have seen it, but he swam straight on, unmindful. The boy manning the searchlight suddenly swung it aside, and held it unsteadily unsteadi-ly upon the monster. A long phosphorescent phos-phorescent gleam of turned water suddenly shone half the length of the whale shark's back emphasizing the unbelievable. Dick sighted upon the base of the great fin and fired four times. Suddenly Sud-denly the fin jerked rigid, and a great gout of water went up. The fin sunk from view; far back, incredibly in-credibly far back from where it disappeared, dis-appeared, the great tail fluke rose out of the sea. For a moment the searchlight held it a vast scimitar shaped thing, higher from the water than the Holokai's booms; then it drove downward, disappearing in black water as Kai-Ale-Ale sounded. "Stay down there a while," Dick said. "Did you kill it?" "You can't kill that thing." The searchlight found the boat again. It was rising and falling idly, and its bow rose clear of the water as the Kanakas hauled the slack body of Hokano over the transom. INSTALLMENT THIRTEEN THE STORY SO FAR: Karen Water-ion, Water-ion, who has come to Honolulu to press her claims to the Island estate of Alakoa, learns that she is not an heiress at all, as her grandfather, Garrett Waterson, Is still alive and on his way to the Island. She and Tonga Dick or Richard Wayne, a member of the Wayne family which has been in control of the property since her grandfather's disappearance, And they are In love and decide to leave the Island of Alakoa together. Out to sea, they discover that Lilua, a native house-girl house-girl has stowed away aboard ship. Karen accuses Dick of making love to the native girl and they quarrel. Angered, An-gered, Dick orders the ship to return to Alakoa. On the way back, LUua is found seriously hurt with a knife wound. Dick questions the Chinese mess boy regarding regard-ing the incident. Now continue with the story. "Has anyone gone out of here through the galley?" Dick asked. "No, sir." 'This girl has been hurt-stabbed. You stay here with her do anything any-thing you can for her, until I get back." The face of the Chinese was staring star-ing with confusion and alarm. Very probably he had never seen the girl before in his life, and now supposed that Dick himself had done her in. He remained silent, however, and stayed where he was told. Inyashi slid down the hand rail and landed at the foot of the ladder as Dick turned. . "Someone was knifed here a min-jite min-jite ago," Dick told him, "when you heard that scream. Has anyone come up the ladder since then?" "No, Captain Dick. But there's a man standing by the taff-rail. He acts queer maybe he is the one. He stands naked by the rail and looks at the sea, and the crew is afraid to go near him. Maybe he came up from here by the skylight?" Dick snatched a rifle from a rack upon the forward bulkhead. "That's it! Who is he do you know him?" "It's that big new Kanaka." "I hired no new Kanaka!" "He came over the side out of the water, just before we sailed; he said you sent him. His name is Hokano, I think." Dick seized Inyashi and pushed him up the ladder. "Stop your engines," en-gines," he ordered, following close on Inyashi's heels. "Full astern?" "No! If you do that the propellers will catch him as he jumps. Man the dinghy with the four Kanaka boys, and lower away." "Yes, Captain!" In a moment more everyone on the ship was snapped into action by Inyashi's shrill, sputtering commands. Emerging on the deck, Dick saw at once the immensely tall, broad-shouldered broad-shouldered figure of Hokano standing stand-ing against the rail in the extreme stern. Hokano faced the sea, motionless mo-tionless as a mast. The tall figure was no more than twenty-five feet away, and for a moment Dick was strongly tempted to try bringing down Hokano with the butt of his rifle. He gave up that idea; even if he succeeded in felling the big Kanaka Ka-naka before Hokano could leap into the sea, the stunned man would be extremely likely to slither over the rail and sink like a plummet. "Kamaku! Roll the searchlight out!" Karen was at his elbow, her face white and frightened. "What is it? What's happened?" "Lilu's lover has come after her and got her," Dick said. "She's killed?" "Probably." Her eyes were on the rifle in his hands. "What are you going to do?" "Going to call a policeman," he snapped at her. "Get that boat over! What are you waiting for?" Now the Diesel quit, so that the Holokai seemed suddenly silent. The rush of the water at her bows diminished dimin-ished as she lost way. As if awakened by the shutting down of the power, the motionless figure in the stern came to life abruptly. Hokano sprang lightly onto the rail itself, and for a moment poised upright. Then he launched into the night in a beautiful clean arc, arms outspread, turning downward down-ward to disappear almost silently into the black water. Now the big searchlight came trundling out on its unwieldy tripod. In a moment more it began to sweep the surface of the sea, searching for the place where the swimmer would come up. The Holokai's dinghy took to the water flounderingly, and immediately im-mediately shot astern. Dick said to Karen, "I knew he was going to do that." He walked after without hurry, and took his nlace at the rail where Hokano had stood "There wasn't any way to stop him. He'll be easier to handle ting no place. ' His whole soul was trying to jerk the Holokai out of the cling of the sea. He would have liked to lift her and throw her through space, and bring her against the beach of Alakoa like the thrust of a knife. He . was standing there, watching what seemed to him the slug-like process of the straining Holokai, when Karen came to his side. "I'm sorry," Karen said. "I'm terribly sorry. Dick, this has been a thing such as I have never seen." Dick said in a muffled way, "You don't know what you're saying. How would you know?" "Dick," Karen said, "I should never nev-er have come into the Pacific above all, I should never have come to Alakoa. I bring nobody anything but sorrow, and trouble, and death." "Yes," said Dick brutally. "I think," Karen said, "if it hadn't been for this mongrel girl, it would have been all right. We're an awfully aw-fully long way apart, I guess; but except for her I think you and 1 would have got together, in the end." Dick Wayne's elbows rested on the rail. The Holokai was throwing everything ev-erything she had into kicking the sea behind her, and the white boil of her wake stretched into a path that failed only with night vision; but Tonga Dick was looking at something some-thing beyond its utmost reach. He spoke thickly, with an unaccustomed incoherence. "That girl knew what it was to love something," he said. It required a conscious effort of Karen's mind to know what girl he meant; but when she had done that she was ready for what he said next, even before he said it. "Without "With-out demanding anything, without ever any questions, or any terms. None of this everlasting doubt, and wavering, and indecision. Once and for all, she gave everything she had, and asked for nothing." "I suppose you mean," Karen said, "that this half caste girl, this cousin of mine, as you say" "It matters a lot to you, doesn't it," Dick said bitterly, "exactly who this girl is? I would rather ask a woman what she thinks and feels, than who she is." "And so," Karen said, with something some-thing like a tone of despair, "if a brown woman, or a black woman, can let herself go, more fully than I can, your answer is ?" "Karen," Dick said, "if ever any woman has to ask herself if she loves a man, the answer is 'No.' " The stubborn silence that fell between be-tween them then was broken very gratefully for them both by the impetuous projection of Inyashi between be-tween them. It always seemed that whatever Inyashi did was high-pressured, and sudden. "Captain Dick, a vessel is coming in; she's three points off the quarter, quar-ter, now. I think it may be the boat you look for. Hard to tell yet, from just the lights." The two at the taffrail, swinging their eyes to the left, could now see on the horizon a speck of light that CHAPTER XH Hokano, that tall unhappy man who had tried to end Lilua's life and his own, presently lay bound with wet cordage in a foc'sle bunk. One of his brother Kanakas had bashed him over the head with an oar, as Hokano had turned, treading water, to look at Kai-Ale-Ale. Tonga Dick Wayne had been right in sending a Kanaka crew in the boat to pick up Hokano; the maxim of South Sea sailors was true that no one knew how to handle a Kanaka Ka-naka except a Kanaka. Hokano, naked though he looked, had his knife slung about his neck by a sennet sen-net cord, and he would have slashed the wrist tendons of anyone who laid hands on him from the boat while he was conscious. After one of them had knocked him out with an oar, another Kanaka had dived to rescue res-cue him, and had stopped the sinking sink-ing of the inert form It would have been weird watching, watch-ing, for anyone, to see those simple, casual maneuvers the Kanaka boys standing with easy, natural balance in the reeling little boat on the swells of the sea, letting the dinghy stand on the heel of her scant hull while they dragged Hokano in, without any one of them ever losing his superb balance, and never shipping a quart of water. Nobody not a Kanaka could ever understand the easy affinity affin-ity of that amphibious people to the sea; sea-riding a small boat, or a canoe, or a floating stick, as easily as a haole walks on asphalt pavement, pave-ment, or handles his knife and Bound with cords that cut too deep ever to slip, Hokano lay in a foc'sle bunk, awake and impassive. Aft, in Dick Wayne's bed, lay the girl Hokano had tried to kill, fighting for her life; the intense native vitality vi-tality of Lilua's body held onto life avidly, regardless of how little Lilua herself cared whether she lived or died. Karen Waterson sat beside Lilua, and Inyashi and the Chinese mess boy hovered behind Karen, useful chiefly to hold Lilua down when she could no longer be controlled. Lilua was not out of her head entirely; she babbled unceasingly in the Hawaiian Ha-waiian tongue. Dick went away, unable to listen any more; Lilua was talking as if her heart would break and kill her if her wound did not. He went on deck and stood at the stern, swaying to a sea he did not feel. The Holokai when full out had always had the character of a crazed animal, able to drive across the surface sur-face of the sea like a thing possessed, pos-sessed, knocking the swells into spume'; but it seemed to Dick now that she wallowed like a slug, get- showed winking in the rise and fall of the sea the high running lights of a ship quartering in from beyond. "All right," Dick said. "When we've anchored, I'll go out and pilot her in." When Inyashi had moved away, Dick and Karen stood silent for a little while. When Karen spoke it was apparent that she was steadier, better poised than he. "Can't you be fair to me?" she said. "Can't you be honest? If you and I can't be frank and honest with each other, who in the world can?" "Honest?" "You haven't always been honest with me, Dick. If you had told me at the first that Garrett Waterson was alive " "More honest, I think, than you with me." "I can't imagine what you mean." "You've played your hand alone or else with John Colt; never with me. I've protected you in situations that you tried to conceal from me altogether." (TO BE CONTINUED) in the water. Would he try-" Karen gasped-"could gasped-"could he possibly swim all the way b3"0f se not He doesn't expect t0The "searchlight picked up the swimmer now, fifty yards back in tte Hoai's wake. In moments vL the waves favored, those on ThP dect of Te vessel could glimpse a flash of tet shoulders, but nothing Le Hokano was swimming face n taking advantage of the swells down taking a sfeerage way. and was rolling sickly swells Dick braced a knee rgauTstTe rail and brought his rifle UKaren cried out, "Would you shoot - he jumps into the air? HE flredVarntotheTef ofllokTo. sprang up far to the 1 ieu SThen0t:nWfinatof3 Kai-A.e-Ale S V could'not see his sight, |