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Show I By BEATRICE GHIVISIIAW " I Illustrations by Irwin flyers g Copyright by Hughea Massta ft Co. wnu Serrtc W 1 tT jg)tPiBa iytagCTjrffcBCTfeyjtfiigiii'.iitefags wVgfetrf,bBffaM-stpr.ii.ugtfrjyfBAgvQw-T. WHAT WENT BEFORE On a pleasure trip on a liner In astern waters, made possible by a lucky turn of fortune'a wheel, t!e. narrator, Philip Araory, Impecunious Impe-cunious but well-born youns Englishman, Eng-lishman, World war veteran, now a trader at Daru, on the Island of Fapua, New Guinea, plunges overboard over-board to save the life of a young musical comedy actress known on board as "Gin-Sling." Hailed as a hero by his fellow passengers, Amory is chiefly conscious of the warm regard of a girl In the assemblage, as-semblage, whom, on the instant their eyes meet, he feels Is the "only girl." He learns she Is Pia Laurier, member of a wealthy New South Wales family. He tells her something of his life In Papua wid of his knowledge of a wonderful gold field on the island. is-land. "Gln-Sllng" tells him Pla Is engaged to Sir Itlchard Fan-shaw, Fan-shaw, prominent In the Islands. His vacation ended, Amory returns re-turns to Daru. CHAPTER III Continued 4 I remember wondering, as I went through the garden, and into the croton walk, at a dog trot, if Spicer and his gang, perchance, had picked up smiie rumor of the secret that was my capital and my hope. I remember re-member telling myse'.f that it did not matter if they had. Nothing mattered except what I had, with shock and horror unspeakable, recalled. re-called. . . . NIneteen-nineteen the year: myself, newly demobilized, spending spend-ing my gratuity money in a hurried trip through the South Sea islands that I, in common with thousands of others, had always wished to know. Somebody who said "You should have seen The Islands years before, before the War ten years before. They're not what they were. Too many dashed tourists now. If you can handle boats, get a cutter with a bit of a cabin, and go away back. Where from? Anywhere Any-where almost. Out of reach of steamers and Cook tickets, that's all . . ." The cutter hired; a native or two engaged as crew. Weeks, then, of the happiness I bad come far to sock. "Through the Looking ;iass," I had gone like the child in the immortal tale and everyiliing now was magically changed. With delight, I learned what life can be when that tyrant. Time, is toppled off his throne; how in the year that Is a day, and the day that is a year, a man perhaps may lose his way, lrop the clews that lead through the tangled maze called life, and wander, timeless, aimless, till the dark. . . . It must have been about the sixth month of my journeying, when, with money running low, and mind almost al-most sated with tropic beauties and wonders so that I began to think I might soon, without regret, return re-turn to civilization I came upon a group of Islands that I shall call Omega. There is a town in the Omega group, a town that, for reasons I cannot give here, offers more commercial com-mercial interests and possibilities than most Island places. This Is important, and should be remembered; remem-bered; It has to do with what I am going to tell. The town appealed to me but little. It was the outer part of the archipelago that drew me ; thin atoll islands, barren and very bright ; islets with here and there a coconut palm, and here and there : a lost melancholy looking pandanus tree; shoal waters that were mauve . and sapphire, pearl and celadon- green I had bought the cutter by this time, with a small windfall of a legacy that came my way, and I had just enough money left to run her for a few more weeks. I hadn't cash for anything of a crew, however, how-ever, save one old silly fellow who was willing to come without wages. He professed to know the group from end to end, and though I was a little doubtful of his knowledge, I could not afford to quarrel with It, or him. After all, I thought, we shall get somewhere, and come away somehow, and that's all one really wants. . . . If I had known 1 It was on a windy, wicked afternoon, after-noon, with high clouds flying, that we got blown away from our course, such as it was; obliged to abandon all attempt to get to the group of atolls for which I had been aiming. I gave the tiller Into the hand of Tnvltl, the "crew," slung my two f sleeping boards across the seats, j and lay down with a rice sack un- 3 ler my head. Taviti was to call me at moonrise, which I judged to be about ten o'clock. s 1 didn't sleep for a while. The cutter pitched violently In the cross o sea raised by tide and wind, ham- 8 lnering with her bows on the water till you might have thought she ,, would stave herself In. It looked I ls ugly weather, I thought aud then, of a sudden, I slept I was awakened by the smothering smother-ing dash of salt water over my ' head, and a blow from the cutter's i- gunwale, that got me in the ribs as I. I was being swept overboard. 9 Everything about me was white 9 . foam and swallng water; I felt sand beneath my toes, but could not grip it, because the short, breaking waves had me at their will, and were knocking me about as a child hatters a toy. I fought, and got focthold at last. The cutter was lying on her side, smashing her mant and rigging as she swayed about with the seas. Taviti was Just crawling out onto a stone, like a rai escaped from the drowning pall. "Where are we?" I shouted to him, as I crawled out beside him. There was no use scolding him for his careless handling of the boat, now. Low tide would strand the cutter; till then, one could do little or nothing. "I d'know, Arlkl (chief)," mournfully mourn-fully answered the old man. Then, with a burst of animation "I think we somewheres." "Well, wherever we are," 1 said, "the first thing to do Is to get the cable of the boat fast to something." some-thing." And that, with considerable consider-able difficulty, we did, securing what was left of her to one of the big black stones, so that she might not be carried away by outgoing tide. Taviti, after this, found a little hole you could hardly call it cave among the rocks, and dragged himself Into It, covering his lean, wet body, so far as he could, with a mass of seaweed. I left him there, while I started to explore the place, and find out, if I could, where Tavlti's mad seamanship, sea-manship, backed by my own carelessness, care-lessness, had landed me. It was not much past full moon time; and nowhere on earth's surface does the moon shine with more effect, than on a coral island. I could see everything ev-erything about me almost as plainly as in the day. Aud I did not like what I saw. There are such things as warnings; warn-ings; and if ever 1 felt a warning, it was then. I felt (how shall I put it?) that this place was 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 was distinctly hostile. Of course, that did not stop me from exploring; I had to find out where we were. Further, I was wet through, without a change; it was a tropic night, but tropic nights, with high wind blowing, can be unpleasantly cool, and I shivered a bit, as 1 tramped the rough, blown grasses; I should have been glad of a house wherein 1 might take shelter, and find somebody's clothes to borrow. I rather thought the island was Inhabited. In the moonlight, 1 had seen traces of foolsteps, or what looked like footsteps, foot-steps, In the grass! I had seen a pile of coconuts heaped up at the foot of a palm. . . . It would have been about twenty minutes after landing, when I was getting well warmed up with exercise, exer-cise, that I ran across the houses. They were two or three only, mere hovels thrown together of brushwood brush-wood and pahf). They seemed to me to be seml-allve, seml-allve, crouching, as if afraid of my approach. It may have been this fancy that urged me to take care, walk delicately, as I" neared them. Most were unlighteaV; from one, however, came a faint red gleam through the plaited walls. Somebody, Some-body, within, was walking, while the rest of the Island slept. The wind had risen, was still rising. ris-ing. It made an intolerable clamor. Masked by the noise, I walked right up to the house wall and peered through a chink. I do not know what 1 expected to see ; something astonishing, certainly cer-tainly But whatever it may have been, it was less amazing than the reality. I saw a white man like myself; a well-bred looking man, with a beard, brown eyes, and wavy brown hair. He was dressed In a most extraordinary ex-traordinary rig loincloth and jumper, such as the natives use, but of a pattern never worn by any native of the Pacific world, yellow, with spots of black as big as dinner plates. Ugly, conspicuous In the last degree and so coarse In texture tex-ture that Its folds were stiff as canvas. can-vas. "Ought to last a lifetime, that rig," I thought "Bad sort of thing to go shooting or fishing In ; anything any-thing alive would spot you a hundred hun-dred yards off. Why In Tophet does he wear it?" The question was no sooner asked than answered. He wasn't going to wear it any longer than he could help. He had been busy packing a small bag, when 1 looked in; now, snapping the lock, he began pulling off his hideous shirt, and loosening the loincloth. Hung up on a rlfter beside him, I saw a European suit, crumpled and enrth-stalned ; it looked almost as If It had been buried and dug up again. The crack was nnrrow; I stretched forward to look through, and managed, somehow, to stagger against the flimsy hut wall. It creaked and bent in as If It had been made of paper. The man must have seen it move; with his arm half out of his shirt, he made a snatch at a revolver that was lying beside the bag, and swung around, eyes glaring like a cat's when It sees prey, to face the spot where I was standing. I did not stand long. Covered by the noise of the wind, I bolted as hard as I could go for a tussock of hibiscus bush, and dropped into it By the time the man had got out of the hut I was lying low, safe among the interlaced stems, and peering through. If I died for It, I Wits going to know what all this was about. There were dozens of tussocks near the house; he must have seen the futility of trying to search them. He stood In the doorway, outlined by the smoky flame of his hurricane lamp, and staring wildly about The spotted-leopard clothes were fastened again ; they looked very odd, with the socks and boots 1 he svas wearing, and the hat he held In one hand. It was a handsome, hand-some, well-bred hand, but the little finger, 1 noticed, had a defective and broken nail. "Black," he called in a cautious voice that scarcely carried through the wind. "Black was that you?" I thought he rather hoped It was Black; was arguing with himself that it couldn't have been anyone else. A freakish humor seized me. I slipped out at the back of the tus sock, and showed my head. "Yes," I answered, aware tliat no man could Identify another in that light, under trees, at fifty yards distance. dis-tance. "What the devil are you playing about, then?" "Don't want to be seen," I answered an-swered truthfully. This seemed to satisfy him, more or less. "Is the launch there?" he asked presently. I said It was. "Go and get everything ready to start I'll be down In two minutes." This was awkward. I could not be sure of safety, once I left the He Made a Snatch at a Revolver That Was Lying Beside the Bag. shelter of the bushes. Black might be Inches taller or shorter, pounds heavier or lighter, than I. I hesitated, hesi-tated, uncertain what to do. It seemed that the man in the hut could not endure delay. "What are you messing and waiting about?" he demanded, with an oath. "If I'm caught, so are you, and It's five years on the breakwater." breakwa-ter." ("So I'm supposed to be committing commit-ting a crime. I wonder what?" I thought.) The freakish devil 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 judged that Mr. Black, whoever he was, had been exacting In his demands. "Money?" (Fiery interval.) "Money? What do you want? Five hundred already, and another five when you land me in Valparaiso," ("Crumbs! Valparaiso in a launch I I thought. "Who has he been murdering?") " And all the cursed expenses into the bargain, and you want more !" "No," I shouted across the wind. "No. I'm going off to the launch." The conversation, I thought was growing too exacting; uot much longer should I 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 waited till it touched, then made a bolt, "nurry up," I shouted, as I ran away, devoutly hoping that he would do nothing of the kind. "This," 1 thought, "Is clearly an Island Inhabited by criminals or madmen. Yet I haven't heard of any convict station - nearer than New Caledonia. I give It up." 1 was almost back on the sea-beach by now; it occurred to me that I might as well shin up one of the palm trees, and see whether there was really anything In this talk of a launch. The palm I had chosen was tall, but a little bent with age, I had not much difficulty In wriggling my way up into the crown. I waited for clear moonlight, and made my survey. sur-vey. "Gosh !" 1 exclaimed. There was undoubtedly a launch, If one may so designate a 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 some way out at sea, on the leeward side of the island, beyond the inner lagoon. I could see a dinghy, like a little black water beetle", creeping landwards from her side. "That," I thought, "will be Black. I wonder what the two of them will make of it when they get together?" And the thought so intrigued me, that I fell to laughing, and nearly-lost nearly-lost my hold. But when I got down safe to ground again, I was more than sobered so-bered by thp thought that came almost al-most Immediately "If what he said Is true if lie has given a man called Black a thousand pounds, and expenses Crumbs, what expenses ex-penses they'll be I to run him out of this, there must have been dirty work somewhere, and I'm mixed up in it." I could not help remembering, remem-bering, somewhat unpleasantly, the remark about "Ave year3 on the breakwater." Omega, I must tell you but 1 will tell no more than I must belongs be-longs to a non-British power, which has a short way with offenders against its rather Draconic code of laws. I didn't kuow what you could be sent to the breakwater for, but 1 knew there was one, In an out-of-tlie way Omegan port, and I guessed that labor of the Portland Island kind, conducted under a tropical sun, was likely to be the kind of a thing a wise man should avoid, at any cost. I thought the matter out at length. I could arrive at only one conclusion. Whole knowledge was better than half. Whatever the risks might be of exploring yet further fur-ther this odd, unpleasant place, It would be well for me to find out as much as possible, as soon as possible pos-sible and (but that went without saying) get away as soon as possible pos-sible afterwards. Once more I 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 saw her gliding, black in the silver path of the moon. "Good," I thought, and slid down again. A few minutes' rapid walking walk-ing found me once more among the little, sinister houses, with their horned gables and their air of being be-ing huddled together for some evil deed. The hut that had been lighted, light-ed, was dark now. I lit a match from the small reserve I always kept in a bottle, and looked la. No one was there. The place bore signs of hurried desertion a stretched bed overturned; a cabin trunk gaping open, and gutted; piles of gray ash suggesting papers destroyed. In the middle of the floor lay a loin-cloth and a shirt of coarse cotton, cot-ton, bright yellow, with black spots as big as plates. 1 stood In the doorway and looked, till my match burned out. I did not strike another. I 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 ill. In the little hollow there were fifteen other houses, all small and built of bush material. I looked at them for a minute, swallowed in my throat for something very like fear had me and then, thinking think-ing no longer, but driving myself as one used to do "over the top," in the hour after dawn, I 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 held the torch above my head and looked In. I looked for quite a long time at what I saw, making sure that I understood it, and that my eyes had not In any way misled me. Then dashing out the torch against the ground, I 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 needn't quarrel with a fate ten thousand times better than the horror I had left behind. The tide was down, and the cutter cut-ter aground. I cannot tell with what anxiety I examined her. I would almost have set sail on a tree trunk, if nothing else could be had to get away. . . . Beyond all belief, I found the hull sound enough to float, with a bit of bailing. The mast was smashed, hut I thought we could rig one up with the boom, setting the jib behind it. I went to look for Taviti; found him sleeping peacefully In his hole, and dragged him out by one leg. "Hurry, Taviti," 1 nrged. "The tide's on the turn, and we'll never get the boat down unless we catch It She'll float Come on." "Ariki," he objected, "me old. me hungerry. want to go look for some house I get kai-kai" (food). There was nothing for it but a He. I had already decided that Taviti should know nothing; what he did not know, be could Dot spread abroad. "This is a desert Island," I told him coolly. "Full of ghosts, up to the brim and spilling over. Let's get away, sharp. And you can pick a few coconuts to take along, If you're as hungry as all that. Not the coconuts on the ground, Taviti! . . . those are ghost coconuts. Get them off the tree." We loaded the boat with nuts, and started work on the broken mast I was mad to get away. It was not yet dawn, but the moon seemed paling, and I heard, among ' the palm tree tops, Inland, the first faint notes of waking parrakeets. If "They" were to hear us if "They" came out my secret was lost. And I had some Idea, by this time, as to how the Power that owned Omega regarded people who poked Inquisitive noses Into secrets; se-crets; how they might be likely to treat me, if I was caught. Taviti and I got the large fair-weather fair-weather Jib set, with the gaff for boom, and got under way. In the new yellow dawn, a mile distant, I saw the Island clearly small, low, pricked with palms; one like a thousand others. And I judged that Taviti would never know he had not laDded on Tnri, after all. (TO BE CONTINUED) |