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Show llpllf1 IB The girl let the sway of the ship take her then. She swayed against the doorway's stanchion, and stayed there. INSTALLMENT TWELVE THE STORY SO FAR: Karen Water-son, Water-son, convinced by her lawyer, John Colt, that she has a claim to the island estate of her grandfather, Garrett Waterson, comes with him to Honolulu and meets Tonga Dick or Richard Wayne, a member mem-ber of the Wayne famUy which has been in control of the property since her grandfather's disappearance. Dick's nn- j cle, James Wayne, manager of this is-land, is-land, Alakoa, dies from overwork and ! Dick attempts to work out a compromise compro-mise settlement of Karen's claim. This is refused. Meantime Karen has learned that both Colt and Dick are in love with her. Dick reveals that Karen is not heiress heir-ess at a as Garrett Waterson is alive and on ffis way to Alakoa. Dick and Karen leave the island together and some distance out find that Lilua, a native house-girl, has stowed away in the boat. Dick questions her regarding her actions. Now continue with the story. "I want to know how you got onto my boat," Dick said. "I swam," Lilua tossed at him in a quick, almost contemptuous aside. She went on talking to Karen, lev-elly, lev-elly, her face quiet except for the flame in her eyes, and her body quiet except for that easy, unconscious uncon-scious sway that balanced her to the lift of the sea. "You have nothing to give him," Lilua said in that inexorable, steady voice. "You can only think ot position, posi-tion, and land, and money. Would you want him if you had first seen him sick, and helpless, and alone? You know your eyes would not have seen him at all. This is my man. If he were dead, I would make myself my-self die. Would you?" Suddenly ' Dick was unable to speak. He stood weaponless, humble, hum-ble, and without any particular recourse re-course or hope. Diffidently he turned his eyes to Karen. Karen Waterson had gone perfectly perfect-ly white whiter than sea foam, whiter than the knit linen of the little lit-tle hat she wore. Her mouth was oddly distorted, but her eyes were blank. She seemed to have lost all power of motion exactly where she stood. Then the reel of the little ship unbalanced her, and by its very unkindness seemed to return her the gift of movement. Karen turned, literally fled. At the foot of the ladder lad-der she flung Dick one irrational, unreadable un-readable glance; then ran away from them into the upper night CHAPTER XI Dick Wayne was left facing Lilua alone. For a moment Lilua's eyes remained fixed upon the companion-way companion-way where Karen had disappeared. Then her eyes turned to Dick, and for a moment they looked at each other. "Lilu', Lilu'," Dick said, "what have you done to me?" For one brief moment the sharp, spear-like flames in the eyes of Lilua broke down; she looked at Tonga Dick pathetically, pitifully, with no defense behind her eyes, no barriers at all. Dick's voice was cool, definite as a strakc. "Stop it, you hear me? Forget it cut it out!" The girl let the sway of the ship take her, then. She swayed against the doorway's stanchion, and stayed there. Dick took the ladder in long, reluctant re-luctant strides. A glance told him that Karen was in the point of the bow. He stood a minute by the swaying mainmast, trying to gather himself, but without any effect. Then he walked forward to the rail where Karen stood. Close to her at the rail, he drew her close against his side, easily and naturally; it had always seemed to him that she belonged be-longed nowhere else but there. "Karen" She took herself away from him sharply out of the curve of his arm, out of contact with him in more ways than one; and they stood alone, as individual as the unrelated stars. "Karen," Dick said, "I guess you are right; I don't know how you knew, but you knew. In a way, you foretold this, Karen." "Perhaps," Karen said, "it's better bet-ter for both of us that this happened just as it did." That stopped him for a moment but he came on again. "What are you saying? In God's name, up helm! Do I mean so little to you" "Whatever you may mean to me, it seems that you have made yourself your-self mean more to this this Kanaka." "I don't think you're so very charitable, char-itable, either to her or to me. Not even to yourself." "To myself?" He was silent. "She's beautiful, Dick," Karen said. "I can see that. But I hate her, Dick. When I look at the dark, coppery color of her skin, and think of you touching her it seems to me that I can never look at a brown skin again without" "Stop it! You don't know what you're saying." "Well, she is of a different color." "Karen that girl is your cousin." A few seconds passed while she comprehended that; then she whirled sharply toward him. "You mean to tell me " "You wondered why Lilu' has charge of the whole house on Alakoa? Ala-koa? You wondered if there wasn't a special answer to that? Well, now you know the right answer. Lilu' is Garrett Waterson' s granddaughter just the same as you." He faced her squarely. Her whole body seemed to have gone tense, but for the moment she was unable to speak; and he never found out what she would" have asked him first. From within the ship issued a thin, small, and somehow distant sound unrecognizable and inarticulate, inarticu-late, but so thoroughly unaccountable unaccounta-ble in the ordinary world of reality that every figure upon the deck ol the Holokai was instantly struck motionless. mo-tionless. Even the perpetually trotting trot-ting Inyashi stopped, and' stood frozen fro-zen on the swaying deck. They were waiting to hear if that sound should come again, once more cutting through the laboring of the little ship, and the great, persistent rush and wallop of the sea. It did not come again; but after a moment Dick knew that what he had heard was a woman's terrified scream. It was Dick himself who burst into action. He raced aft, sprang into the ladder well, and in a second more was in the main cabin, where he, and Karen, and Lilua had faced each other such a little while ago; and here he stood, for a moment balancing to the sea . . . He didn't see her at first. That cabin, deep, but narrow as the little ship, seemed strangely empty; he had paced alone here a thousand times, without ever sensing the utter ut-ter vacancy that was here now. The door of his little cabin, wedged into the stern, was flapping loosely against its latch swinging half unearned fortune. A girl proud without background, arrogant without with-out attainment . . . But still behind that, like a mist-figure mist-figure seen beyond steel cogs and wheels, hovered persistently his own conception of what this girl might have been perhaps still could be. He was obsessed by the haunting belief be-lief that if what he had hunted for always was not in this girl, then it was somehow lost out of the world. "And now," Karen said, "I think you might put back to Alakoa don't you? Because you said " "No," Dick answered. "I ask you to turn back." "I'm not going to put back. At least not yet. Not until you come to your senses, Karen." He didn't know why he told her that. The impulse was jerking at him to do as she said, and take himself him-self well out of this thing forever; to turn back to John Colt, and be rid of her once and for all. He could see Lilua's steady eyes and no man could ever forget what she had said. He honestly supposed that it would have been better for him to relax into the world of Lilua to lose himself him-self by day in the casual adventures of the warm sea, and by night in the arms of an island woman who doubted nothing, asked nothing could be well-content with food and a man. But something stubborn within with-in him held on. Karen said incisively, "You promised prom-ised you'd turn back if I asked.". "Not yet. Later, if you want. Not yet." N He had given up ever hearing any expression from her again, before she spoke. "I guess " she said "I guess, Dick, I don't blame you." Of all things on earth, he had least expected to hear that. Inanely Inane-ly he said, "Again, please?" "Men are what they are," Karen said, her voice somehow distant, yet not unfriendly "and women are what they are. People who hunt for the absolute are fools." "Always?" "Oh, yes; always. But maybe I'm a fool, too. I think " Her tone wavered, wa-vered, but steadied again. "I think maybe you'd better go on. Go on to Hilo and give me a little time. We'll still come out, Dick, I think." "Listen," Dick said, "I want you to have this decently straight. I give you my word and I wouldn't offer proof if I could: I never made love to this girl in my life, nor so much as laid a hand on her." No?" He didn't even bother to answer that; he knew what to expect from this girl by now. He held on still because to him only one adventure was conceivable, and that adventure was Karen literally, for she was more than an epitome: she was the adventure itself. open, then banging shut again without with-out catching, with the perversity oi all doors. He sprang the length of the cabin with a furious activity; and booted that door into its wall-catch, wall-catch, once and for all; but there was no one in the camped stall where he usually slept. Then, turning, he saw her; and was instantly by her side. Lilua lay in a little crumped heap at the end of the table, and half under it. He had seen death many times; but it seemed to him now that he had never nev-er seen anyone so utterly lifeless, so completely slumped into an unutterable unut-terable oblivion, as Lilua's form seemed there, dropped like seaweed left on the beach. He picked her up in his arms gently as he could, but so handicapped handi-capped by the Holokai's roll that he cursed the helmsman for not holding hold-ing the vessel steadier into the seas. He got her down onto his own bunk at last. He kissed her mouth as he laid her down, then sought the source of the blood that was staining his shirt, and the bunk upon which he had placed her. There was a knite wound under Lilua's left breast-how breast-how deep he could not tell. He snatched cotton from an emergency cabinet nailed to the wall, and crammed it deep into the wound. She stiffened convulsively when he did that. It was his first intimation that she was alive. He tucked a blanket over her tightly, so that she would not be rolled by the Holokai's pitch, and stepped to the door. The Chinese mess boy had appeared uncertainly from the pantry; Dick seized him, and pulled him into the bunk room. (TO BE CONTINUED) "I don't see why" Karen began. The rushing sound of the Holokai through the uneven sea seemed to come between them again, so that he never knew what she had started to say. Suddenly he turned, and shouted for Inyashi; the little Japanese came running along the deck. "Get get ready to put about." "Yes, Captain." Almost at once the voice of the ship altered, slacking off and quieting. quiet-ing. "So," Karen said, "it was you who changed your mind, after all!" Dick said thickly, "You're going to have to believe the truth when I tell it to you." "Either," she said, "I'll take you as you really are, or I'll never take you at all." "You'll never take me, or I you," Dick said harshly, "on the basis of any. such lie as is in your mind." "The Polynesians are known everywhere ev-erywhere as a mild, easygoing race. Am I supposed to think that this Kanaka woman, without any encouragement encour-agement or any past relationship with you, suddenly runs wild, and goes to passionate, extreme lengths" "Lilua is not all Polynesian, Karen." Kar-en." "I have no doubt she's a little of everything." "Karen, it's grotesque that a native na-tive brat" ' "A brat is a child, Dick. This girl is anything but a child." "What does it matter what she is? If you and I ". "Perhaps it matters everything what she is. Perhaps-she's what you made her. I don't know how old she is. But that's a woman, Dick. If you've made her your own, as it seems you have" Her words died in her throat; but she had said enough. For a moment then. Tonga Dick Wayne .-altered. The cool chiseled lines of Karen Waterson seemed infinitely in-finitely far away. For a moment he was able to hope-even to believe -that he could put her out of b s mind, out of his heart. For a UtUe while this girl had become to him like a dream of the stars-but a dream that he would have been glad 'Vastly1' be could see her as she literally was-there was no doubt about that. He could see her as a hin Idied, thin-faced San Franc co stenographer, sharp-edged in mind and manner because any girl needs to be, making her own way. He could see her in the light of the reason that she was here-a short cutting little adventuress, willingly e6 herself to the Predac.oM brain of John Colt in the hunt for |
