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Show ? I 1 BLACK SHEEP'S GOLD , 5 by Beatrice Qrlnshaw ij Illustrated Jf Irwin Myor jj 'j Coorrlsht by Hughe I Maesle & Co. J 'WNU Service "i WHAT WENT BEFORE i . On a pleasure trip on a liner In eastern waters, made possible by 1 a lucky turn of fortune's wheel, 1 the narrator, Philip Amory, lmpe- I cunlous but well-born young Eng-.1 Eng-.1 llshman. World war veteran, now 4 a trader at Daru, on the Island of a Papua, New Guinea, plunges over-? over-? board to save the life of a young J musical comedy actress known on board as "Gin-Sling." Hailed as "f a hero by his fellow passengers, Amory Is chiefly conscious of the J warm" regard of a girl In the aa-semblage, aa-semblage, whom, on the Instant their eyes meet, he feels Is the s "only girl." He learns she Is Pia f Laurler, member of a wealthy New South Wales family. He tells &i her something of his life In Papua and of his knowledge of a lej wonderful gold field on the Island. Is-land. CHAPTER II Continued She whirled, one of her dancer whirls, and left me. "Come on, girls," I hear her crying, down the y deck. "Get the gramophone going again. 'Nother dance drink hearty, we'll soon be dead." So little did I understand what she meant, that I was conscious, at f first, only of relief. She had let ' me go; I could hunt up Pia Lau-:1 Lau-:1 rier, who had not been visible all i j afternoon. Part of my coinage of iv golden hours was still unspent : I ;"'t must husband It, use it wisely. Pia f-'jj Jinny I was hurrying toward the music i room, an excellent starteglc point ,4 for viewing the main companion j and the decks when the full mean-B mean-B lng of .TInny's remarks, and of her s3 fierce "Smoke that!" broke on me. Princess Mary had fancied a jj! square emerald for an engagement !Th ring. Princess Mary had made is. I square emerald engagement rings :j popular with the set to which Pia tr T.aurier belonged. Pia wore a square emerald ring I remembered fatally I remembered now on jnM her third left finger, jjgu Three times, then by my poverty, pov-erty, by her position, and by the significance of that ring Pia was not for me. I believed what Jinny had said; S3 1 was very sure she was no liar. It was merely a determination to leave no stone unturned, that made me decide I would see Pia once jjw more only once before I left the j 1) ship, and ask her to her face If Ij.ji what I heard was true. 'I Once, across the saloon that ,3 night. 1 saw the clear profile,, the i beautifully shaped black head. Once, on deck, the rose-geranium II perfume that Pia Laurler used. came floating across a little space . of dark, and I saw a pale dress pass hesitate go on again. I did 41 not move: I said no word. If I am jf.( angry, I am angry. That night, I had liefer taken the velvet neck of v-.j Pia In my hands, and twisted It back till It gave way, cracking. In 14 my hnntls' 'ns ' nave twisted the ,j neck of a German, rolling together in trench mud) than held her and '. kissed her B9 I had' not yet done; J as, I knew now, I never should. J It was very early when the en- glnes came to rest next morning, and the ship, her way stopped, lay still upon the celadon-blue waters jnffl that surround Goode island. , Here the tender from Thursday ,V was to meet us,' and here my false splendors were to end. Phil Amory, t bit of war wastage, trader from the back end of nowhere, was "to be V taken to the place from whence he V came." And If, once arrived there, JtM he chose to hang himself by the !HJ neck till he was dead, it would be - ' nobody's business but his own. 'y suitcases were on deck, my ? steward tipped, the tender rising w and falling below the ladder, on j which I was Just about to set foot, fl when the sound of my name, clear-,j clear-,j ly and almost precisely spoken, "y made me look round. ! Pia was there, at the head of the accommodation ladder, holding lted out her hand, the hand that did not ield ' Dcar t,ie emerald ring. atioM 1 could not refuse to take It 1 felt her cool fingers In mine, for one everlasting moment ; and It was as If they came, In that moment, home, where they had always be-longed. be-longed. I don't know which of us first let go. 1 know that In one a moment, with the tender dancing below and the luggage gone, and the passengers who were to Join coming up the ladder, I realized , that I had been an incredible fool, y i and that it was too late to do any-j any-j thing at all about it. If she was -4 engaged if she wasn't she liked f me. Me. She had not been fllrt-; fllrt-; lng. Her eyes were dark with ( i sleeplessness, and the shadow that k comes of love denied. She looked at me, and made the little move-( move-( , ment with her lips that means . . . rou know. And I would have given five years of my life for the chance Impossible now of taking her In 11 my "nils and kissing her very breath away. All round us there were deck- - , h&uils scrubbing, stewards carrying -. J things, the fourth officer was post- ed at the head of the ladder, a stewardess, armored in white . s,i"ch God knows what she want-V want-V e'' "'ore-was gaping in the near- ' i ?f doorway. Passengers, new ar- rivals, bejran to shove past Pin and 1 myself, coming between us. "Sir," said some cursed person, "if von want to go ashore, you'd belter not keep the tender; captain's - . nnxioiis to get awav." j) I don't know what Td have done missed my passage, maybe, and tcr'! trusted to hick to see me back nse froul tl,e East when I had spent 'er c ort every coin I owned, getting there If, nt that minute, a very tall, thin man had not come up the ladder, pushed determinedly between Pia and myself, and taken her by both hands. He kept pumping her wrists tip and down, and staring nt her us If he could never have enough of It. He was extremely handsome glinrp regular features, somewhat mnrred by n brief George V board, chestnut hair clipped close to keep It from waving, large, brown, hard eyes, figure of an athlete. I could have cheerfully split his skull with an ax. I knew who he was without asking; but if confirmation was needed, I had It when au obsequious obsequi-ous steward rushed forward, treading tread-ing on my toes as he went, and bleated "What cabin, Sir Richard? Rich-ard? Shall I take your luggage, Sir Richard?" Instantly the whole weight of the social system by and In which the clan of Lnurlers lived, seemed to press down upon me like a giant hand, pushing, relentlessly, Pia and myself apart. I saw In one thousand-facetted vision, the world my people had owned and lost; Its myriad reserves, defences, shibboleths, shib-boleths, its fierce prides and pitiless piti-less scorns ; Its solid pedestal of property, lifting all who belonged to it far, very far above the mnd and dust In which we others must go. The tense moment passed. Sir Richard had let go Pla's hand; was bnsying himself with the traveler's travel-er's eternal preoccupation of baggage. bag-gage. I had seen what I had seen, nnd 1 knew, as well as If I had had an hour to think It all out, Instead of a couple of seconds, that what was for Pia was best. I could wreck her engagement If I chose of this I was sure but I was equally sure that If I could, I would not I would drop out of her world as I had dropped In. The male Cindrella's pumpkin coach was ready ; his hour had struck ; back to the ashes I and let the fairy princess stay In her palace, pal-ace, undisturbed. If I was sick at heart, as 1 went down that endless stairs, I was doubtless no worse than many millions mil-lions elsewhere who were sick at heart that day, and of the same disease. So I tried to tell myself, when the tender was reached, and I had found a seat on the roof of the cabin, and the engine was beginning be-ginning to turn over with loud spatting and drumming noises. So I tried to believe, when I saw the face of Pia looking down at me from the rail, a long, long way above, and felt her eyes fall on me like the light of a star, strange, sad, remotely fair. I, who was merry enough by nature, had no laughter left In me that day, else I think I must have been amused at the sudden sight of Mrs. Laurler, Lau-rler, arrived too late, shooting her celebrated death-ray at me "with intent," as she stood, kimono-clad, in the alleyway door. Or at the other, fairer vision on the ship's sacred bridge I knew at once that only Jinny could thus profane the high altar holding an Imaginary glass to Its lips, waving an arm at me, and shouting what I guessed at, but could not hear "Drink hearty, we'll soon be dead !" Then the tender champed and fussed away, and the ship receded taster nnd faster, and that thipter of my life was done. CHAPTER III I CAME back to Daru, off western Papua, on a brimming tide, that masker1 the mud-flats with acres of reflected island, miles of bright mirrored mir-rored sky. The dream that I had dreamed on the great liner clung about me still, but only as the aftermath aft-ermath of an opium carouse may cling about a man who has left behind be-hind him, days and miles away, the place where he drank, and dreamed. I reached the Daru roadstead, anchored, slung my dinghy out (for I had made the hundred-nnd-twenty-mile run across from Australia, alone) got pratique from the thin, young government official who rowed out to meet me. and changed with him the news of the Islands. Py and by I slung my gear together, to-gether, looked to the cable of the cutter, rowed myself ashore and pulled the dinghy upon the stones. I walked up the endless stretch of Daru jetty. The tide, now, was running fast away to sea, and the coming sunset was reflected In sheets of muddy flame upon the dais left bare. I had slipped through the magic door, got myself Into the Fourth Dimensioual world that lies beyond the world that most men know. If the thought of Pia Laurier came back to me, In my trading store, behind the beach of Daru, I think It came as a chime of bells comes, from some distant clock tower, sounding often, scarcely heard ; part of one's life, yet scarcely scarce-ly remembered, unless, for any reason, its music is withdrawn. Possibly I would have told anyone who asked, that I did not think of her. She nnd gone through my life it seemed ns a sudden gust of wind goes through a house, scattering scatter-ing the common things of hourly use, breaking the mirrors, slamming slam-ming windows nnd doors, and making mak-ing the place look as If nothing would ever be the same again. But winds pass by, and household house-hold goods are gathered and set up once more. The wind that was Pia had blowu, nnd passed I thought. One trace It had left. I could not keep from thinking of Sir Richard Fanshaw. tie troubled me. Not so much because he was going to marry pia, though that was a spot of raw-pain, never unnecessarily to be touched bin because of a certain, cer-tain, odd, floating resemblance in his face to something, some one undetermined, un-determined, that had struck me, in those few moments upon the ladder of the ship. It worried me ns a name, half forgotten, worries; and that Is like a loose tooib In the mouth. It troubled me at the oddest mo-I mo-I ruents. My store I think I have not told you was almost on the bench. It stood perched upon high piles, witli a flight of rough steps leading up and In. The interior was one large dusky cave, with light that fell from doors set at each end. At first, you didn't see much; in a minute or two, the shining shin-ing clusters of tin hillycans and pannikins lu the roof, and the piled strata of cotlons, red, yellow, pink and green, and the loin cloths and the yard-long knives, and the strings of beads, like strange Utile fruits, and the phues and the In litems li-tems and the sacks of rice and the towers of tinned meats and fish, became dimly visible, each In lis place. There was always a wind blowing blow-ing through, from door to door, and there was a mossy and fishy smell from the reef, not unpleasant, and a warm whiff of franglpannl flowers; flow-ers; for Dnru Is full of these. . . . Daru, Daru by the western bound- My Store I Think I Have Not Told You Was Almost on the Beach; ary of Papua, where civilization stops, ships come seldom, and time is marked by rise and set of sun Daru, an Island, filled with the spirit of the islands, holds in Its heart, though It Is Western Pacific, the secret of the true South Seas. All very well, and I felt It, as I moved about among my cottons and tins, bargaining with wild fellows from the Fly for a canoe load of coconuts, selling tinned meat for turtleshell, rice for a catch of tro-cas. tro-cas. I felt It, and liked It, for I had tasted the honey of the South Sea world, and its flavor was pleasant pleas-ant to recall, though in truth the strong liquor of the Western Islands suited me best. But why why was the store, and tlie blaze of green bush and dazzle of seawater, seen through Its open doorway, and the smell of reef and shell and franglpannl frangl-pannl flower ay, and the very winds that blew unendingly from door to door why was all this connected con-nected in my mind with Richard Fanshaw, airman, company promoter, pro-moter, wealthy man and future custodian cus-todian of Pia Laurier's life? I could not tell. Often I did not think of it. I was reasonably busy as a trader, and my beat, up and down the coast In a cutter, was a long one; the crucial peak of solvency sol-vency had just been reached, and passed and I was beginning to send money up to Port Moresby bank. Not much, heaven knows but still, it was prosperity, or the dawn of that pleasant condition; and it promised, in due time, the fulfillment fulfill-ment of my dream of exploration. Nothing in the world to do with Sir Richard Fanshaw, far above me and my little affairs, as Pin Laurier was above us both. Where was the connection? I would have given much to know. Rut weeks passed, and I was no nearer recalling the vague, three-pnrts three-pnrts forgotten thing hat linked Sir Richard Fanshaw rJh Daru nnd Its sen-scents and windy doorways, and my little trading store. And now I hnve to relate when, and In what manner, fnlighrenment came. I had gone up to the Residency, on an afternoon when there was something doing more than usual ; the It. M. (resident magistrate) was back from a wild patrol beyond the utmost rim of clvillzi-tion or knowledge; knowl-edge; an A. R. M. (assistant resident resi-dent magistrate) nnd a patrol officer of-ficer happened to be "in" nt the same time, and this was an occurrence occur-rence so unusual n to warrant, fairly, a dinner party. David Bas-sett. Bas-sett. the R. M., a very good friend of mine, had sent a prisoner to my store with a note "Dear Amory : "Come around to dinner If you can. Northangor i.nU Purchase are back. No particular food, but a good deal of yarning. Have yon an egg? If so, ser 3 or bring It, under careful escort. "Yours, "D. Bnssett." I sent him all the eggs I could muster. In Papua, Jou must know, eggs nre the test of popularity, the medium by which friendship, servility, ser-vility, hope, esteem, a'l find expression. expres-sion. You borrow fggs from prudent pru-dent people; beg tlem from anyone any-one who you tii I nk piay be fool enough to give; buy wiere you can (hut that is seldor), present to your sweetheart, your chum, your friend in hospital; bring, with a servile grin, to the man In high position, the man wl-o has lent you money, or can get jjnu promotion. Eggs, in Papua, are he true social barometer. ... I had eggs, and always gave Bassett some when he asked for them. Bassett was It. M., and could be useful to me; besides which, I liked him; furthermore, on this occasion, I was going to be asked to eat the eggs, or help to do so. Following my cg'S, I went up to the Residency. Several men, like large joints of meat enclosed In a rather small meat safe, were sitting sit-ting within the transparent hesslan walls. I had exported three, but 1 saw four. Who else, besides Northangor Nor-thangor and Purchase, I wondered, was "in"? "Hello, here's Black Sheep," somebody said ; and my host began Introducing. "Northanger, Purchase, you know the Black Sheep. Mr. Spiccr, Mr. Amory." The newcomer he was a fattlsh man with extremely flat feet nnd a sleeked head of fairish hair; young, good looking in a disgusting sort of way, nnd dowered with an excess of the manner sometimes miscalled "Oxford" fixed me with a cool stare, and demanded of the R. M. "Why do yoo call him Black Sheep?" "Mostly because his eyes are blnck, nnd his hnlr, and pnrtly because be-cause he's a decent sort of chap," replied Bassett, staring back, at the fattlsh man. Mr. Spicer immediately dropped me out of notice, took a watch from his pocket, and yawned. Bassett rang the bell for dinner. "Who Is he?" I asked, In a whisper, whis-per, of Northanger, as we went Into In-to the dining room, a clean, polished, pol-ished, rather prisonlike apartment that shouted In every foot of lis barren expanse, Its owner's bachelor bache-lor condition. "Fellow who's come across to make arrangements for some mineral min-eral prospecting crowd," answered Northanger, a little wearily. We tiled In. "Why did you ask him?" 1 found time to demand of Bassett. And Bassett, looking at me with large sad eyes, answered simply "I never did ; he wished himself onto the party," and took his seat Through the turtle soup we are usually sick of turtle soup in Daru through the fish (we are almost always tired of fish, because we get it plentifully, and free) through the roast of dugong, and the Inevitable custard pudding and tinned pears, Mr. Spicer talked, Willi just so many pauses as would allow of his eating an excellent dinner. It seemed that he had acquaintances among most of the titled families of England; that they all valued him highly, and that he had been chosen to come ahead and "organize" "or-ganize" the expedition, by a mass-meeting mass-meeting of marquises, dukes and earls. "This," he did not forget to tell us, "is Empiah stuff. Nothing colonial co-lonial about It Development of the British Empiah, on which the sun never sets. "Our chief, Sir Richard Fanshaw Fan-shaw " At this point, my slack attention tightened. "Your what?" I rapped. "Who did you say?" For I thought being bored half asleep that my ears were playing me false. So often had that name hummed in my head, belween sleeping and waking, that I could not believe I was hear- lng it actually spoken by some one else. r "Sir Richard Fanshaw, K. O. V. O. Celebrated airman In the War. Extremely successful manager of companies devoted to the extension of Empiah Interests. Chief in this matter, If any one Is chief but myself. my-self. I expect him to follow very shortly, via Port Moresby." I don't know what it was maybe the new interest, the fresh channel of feeling opened up, by Spicer and his tnlk ; maybe the mention, from an unexpected quarter, of Fan-shaw's Fan-shaw's name hut something, at that moment, set off a fuse beneath the long dormant part of my memory, mem-ory, and exploded it Into action. I knew, with certainty, where and how I had seen Sir Richard Fanshaw Fan-shaw before my G d, I knew 1 In Che glass that hung opposite the table, I saw my face turn to something like a piece of white blotting paper, with black blots for eyes and brows. I didn't know that I saw it ; I remembered that after. At the moment, I was only concerned con-cerned with getting out of the house. Spicer, the R. M., Northanger and Purchase, might all have been taken out and drowned together to-gether In a bag, for what I cared. There was nothing that I cared about, nothing that I knew, save that mad instinct to bolt off the course and get away. We had done dinner, and were Just moving hack into the miscalled mosquito room. I touched my host on the shoulder. "Sorry," I lied, "but I've got a touch of fever; I'll haie to go home." "You do look most awfully sick, Black Sheep. Better get to bed ; you might be going down with black water." "Night !" 1 said, and slipped away. As I descended the veranda steps, the loud, high voice of Spicer was still holding forth. "Where you have failed," he was telling Northanger and Purchase, who had mapped out enough new country tc deserve a dozen It. G. S. medals "Where you have all of you given way" (there was not a man In the room but had performed feats of surprise, attack, capture among the wild cannibals of the interior, enough to furnish plots to a dozen "movies")"! shall succeed; I and my chief. We shall plant the flag of the British Empiah where never flag has waved before. We are organized; or-ganized; prepared, for 'anything that may happen. What we expect to find. . . ." 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