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Title: Seibert of the Island
Author: Young, Gordon Ray (1886-1948)
Date of first publication: 1924
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York: Grosset & Dunlap, undated
Date first posted: 17 December 2013
Date last updated: 17 December 2013
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1140

This ebook was produced by David T. Jones, Al Haines
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net






Seibert of the Island

BY

GORDON YOUNG




_Dedicated to the memory of_
MIDDLETON MANIGAULT





CHAPTER I


1

When Dan McGuire, ripened by years, was quite convinced that modesty,
which he seems to have somewhat lacked anyhow, was as burdensome as
other virtues, and the least useful of all, he wrote out the notes that
have been worked up into this story; and being more or less confused,
as authors frequently are, in how to start his story, he began in the
middle and tried to go both ways at once, like a crab that scurries
ahead backwards. He said plainly enough that it was not his story he
was trying to tell, but he nearly made himself out as a hero.

He was vain of his friendship with Williams, the famous sea captain,
much talked of some years ago throughout the South Pacific. He said
that Captain Williams did not really have much of a place in a story
about Seibert of Pulotu. This, however, is hardly true; for, though
Williams very soon disappears from the scene and does not reappear, it
is what he has done, and what people think he can do, and what they
would like to do to him, that greatly influences the narrative at
critical times.

McGuire came to know Seibert of Pulotu better than he was known by
anyone else. McGuire did not like Germans--"Dutchmen" he called them.

Though this enigmatic German and his affairs were almost forgotten
years ago by even the island planters with the longest memories,
McGuire remembers Seibert as a sort of prophetic figure whose
grotesqueness of character--the mingling of sentimentality, brutality,
odd simplicity, and indomitable bull-headness--somewhat typified the
nation that in recent times brought disaster upon itself, upon nearly
the whole world.

Any one of many incidents, widely scattered as to time and place, might
have been taken as the beginning; but McGuire chose a San Francisco
dance hall riot out of which he and the young stranger with whom he had
been talking escaped before the police got there. Soon they came to a
chowder house and went in.

The young fellow was a newcomer to San Francisco. He said that his name
was Paullen--John Paullen. McGuire had liked him at sight. He was thin,
straight, slight, with square shoulders, rather pale, unduly sober
for one of his years, and grey eyed. His eyes were a little too much
as a girl's ought to be, with lashes so long as to be the only lashes
McGuire ever before noticed on a man's face. He was the sort of boy
that women love almost instinctively.

Said McGuire, "Many such men in the world, and most o' them are
worthless--or worse."

But Paullen had a quiet, unmistakable air of manliness; there was no
softness in his features to bear out the unworthy suggestion of the
eyelashes.

Now he was no longer neat or even clean. Coat lining showed through the
mouth-like rip under his arm. A trousers leg was split at the knee. He
looked thoughtfully down along his clothes, brushing half-heartedly at
dirty splotches.

Presently he began searching his pockets, taking everything out,
and feeling about with the detached intentness of a man whose whole
attention is at his finger-tips.

"What's gone?" asked McGuire.

"I--it's gone--gone all right. It must have dropped on the floor back
there. I have--have left--forty cents," he said, examining the few
coins scooped up from a pocket's depth. "It's gone, and----"

Paullen smiled as best he could.

"Know anybody here?"

"No."

"You can get along somehow till you write home."

Paullen shook his head, and quietly said "No."

He was the sort of boy that must have had a home, that couldn't have
come from anywhere but a good home; the mark of hearthstone and
roof-tree was on him.

"But there's somebody on earth you know."

"No. Paullen--Paullen isn't my name."

McGuire eyed him appraisingly. McGuire was a redhead with a burned
skin, freckle-black. Always he had--or tried to have--a manner of
laziness, a sort of misty good-nature. His wide mouth was usually
fringed by an expression that was almost like a smile, yet not quite
detectable. His long, pointed nose gave an odd, whimsically impertinent
cast to his face; and the blue eyes, coloured with a sort of a
childhood blue, were partly hid by sleepy, drooping lids. They seemed
innocent eyes, though they had looked upon just about all the uglier
shapes of sin.

"Who are you, then?"

"Nobody. Just that. At least, to all the people that used to know me.
It makes no difference where I go--what I do."

One of McGuire's weaknesses was curiosity. "Who are you, then? What's
the matter with you?"

With reluctance Paullen said: "My father is an army officer; I was
expelled from West Point. He told me to go away to some place where I
wasn't known and take another name, and never to let him hear of me
again."

"He gave you some money--an' you've lost it?"

"Yes."

"Umh!" McGuire appeared to be reflecting. He liked the boy. "Paullen,
the South Sea trader I work for needs a man or two." McGuire got up
from his chair and laid a dollar on the table. "Here's a dollar; you
eat chowder till I get back. I'll go get some money to stake you till
he sails. You wait."

McGuire went out. Paullen saw his blurred, shadow-like form pass along
close to the moist window, and vanish.


2

Outside fog-dimmed gaslights spotted the street, and the yellow flames
burned dispiritedly under their glass housings.

McGuire cut across Pacific Street, then hurried along a narrow alley
into which rickety stairs opened, with faint blots of light lying at
the entrance-ways. Behind half-opened street doors women's figures
stood with motionless patience. He went along swiftly, but lonely
watchers from the doorways glimpsed his shadowed passing, and called to
him with quick words.

He went on, twisting and turning through the blurring fog-haze. On
the outskirts of the coast--Barbary Coast--within sound of St. Mary's
bells, also within sound of the jingle-banging music from gay houses,
he turned up a low flight of broad stone steps and pushed at an oaken
door, broad and barred with iron hinges, studded by nail-heads, as if
to keep out feudal raiders.

The house had been originally built for a lucky miner, who wanted
plenty of breathing-space in his rooms and halls. Like other houses
near by that had formerly been pretentious, it had fallen into a
bad state financially. A shade too close to a wholly respectable
neighbourhood to be used as yet by avowed sinners, it was far nearer
the bad ones of the city than could be lived in by those who wished to
appear good; and so, for all of its remnants of grandeur, it had become
a sort of second-class rooming-house, much used by officers and masters
of ships--fellows who seldom care a rap for what landmen think of their
goodness or badness.

McGuire entered into a hall--once a reception-hall; now nothing but
unprofitable space in a rooming-house. Stairs wide enough for three
people to have climbed arm in arm came down with a slow turn into the
hall. The chandelier that hung from the lofty ceiling was as big as
a small pine-tree, but it had been denuded of the glassy splendour
and shimmering twinkle that once had made the spacious entrance and
stairs festive. One thriftily low-turned jet burned at a tip of a bare
iron branch. The deep, empty hall disappeared into a gloom from which
strange shapes, ghost-like, might well have emerged in the silence that
was like an incantation.

Daylight, as truth too often does, showed that the interior was shabby,
cold, chill with meagreness. Old heavy wood in wainscotting was dulled
and lifeless from damp that was never reached by sunlight, never driven
away by heat. Some of the original furniture had been left, and such of
this as had been covered with plush now exposed the burlap-like lining.

McGuire went up the stairs and into another hall; not so large, but, if
possible, more dimly lighted than the one below. At the front room door
he paused a moment to fit a key, then, entering, pushed the door behind
him.

A jet with no more than a thread's thickness of blue flame burned over
a flat-topped table. By rising on tiptoes he could reach the jet; when
he turned this the flame came up with a flare, causing the shadows to
vanish backwards, as if scattered by fright. They clustered in corners
and against a far wall, for the room was very large.

There was a wide grate near the middle of the inner wall, where the
miner had wanted a fireplace that would be suitable to the home of one
who had slept by camp-fires on the mountain-side. Now the hearth was
dirtied with partly-burned and charred papers--handbills, discarded
letters, the litter of numberless transients that had come drifting in
off the seas and departed, unquestioned.

McGuire bent down to the bottom drawer of the table. With a strong
tugging pull he drew it half out. Something made a faint click and
clink, like the sleepy rustling of timid things when disturbed in the
dark; then the light struck shimmeringly down on a scattered heap of
gold coins. He knelt, picking out a few of the smaller coins, which are
the less conspicuous when being spent.

Everything that McGuire did was with a quiet, almost a furtive ease;
the manner was perhaps lazily smooth rather than furtive, but he always
moved quietly, as if he did not like the muscular effort of making a
clatter.

Suddenly he looked across his shoulder, staring. Nerves that did not
reach his ears had warned him, and he saw that the door had been
slightly opened. It had not clicked shut when he pushed it as he came
in. A nebulously veiled face was peering through.

He half turned, not rising, but shoving with his knee to close the
drawer. It would not close. He stood up, placing himself before it, his
hands behind him.

He said with an appearance of bold irritation, "Come in. Come on in if
you want, or get out!"

The door opened farther, swinging slowly back.

The woman seemed rather small, but she was heavily wrapped, either
against chill or as a disguise; perhaps something of both. She made
a dark, indistinct figure in the doorway; there was no break between
her dress and the shadows in which she stood. All of her was black
except the veil, that was like a mist across her face. That was grey. A
tingling of strange perfume reached him.

Slowly, watchfully, she detached herself from the shadows and came into
the room. Her attitude was that of both fear and menace, as when one
comes upon a thief at work. She demanded, "What are you doing?" but she
had no doubt of his thievery.

Said McGuire, almost too smoothly to be convincing: "A fine
question--in my own room!"

Through the veil he could see her eyes glisten. She was afraid, much
as if she had caught him robbing her own drawers; and her attitude was
that of a woman who will defend her own property, no matter with how
much fear.

"This isn't your room"--her glance fell and rose from the scattered
gold in the open drawer--"you thief!"

If she thought him merely a thief McGuire had nothing to fear from her;
so, pleasantly, he asked, "Who do you think lives here, if not I?"

"I know who. You put that money right down. I saw you come. I was
waiting for Captain Williams. At first I thought you were----"

A nervous stiffening ran through McGuire's slack, indolently loose
pose; and, speaking on the impulse, without thought, he said: "You've
made a mistake. Three doors down--to the right--Captain Williams. I
don't think he's in, but you might try. If you----"

He broke off, abruptly realising that, whatever else was done, the
woman must not be tricked away or frightened off until he had found out
what she wanted of Captain Williams.

She regarded him with perplexed intentness. The wrinkling between her
eyes was suggested, if not visible, through the grey veil; it could
be seen that she was much puzzled, and, not suspecting the depth of
McGuire's cunning, she was just about convinced of having made a
mistake when he, with the gesture of discarding something, said: "You
win. I thought I could fool you. This is his room, but mine, too."

"No, I do not believe that. The door was not quite shut, and I saw----"

Her gloved hand pointed toward the drawer strewn with the colour that
makes men mad.

She was hooded, veiled, wore gloves, and was wrapped in a long coat of
dark fur. The soft swiftness of her voice, rich, full of colour and
depth, stirred up misty memories in him that would not take shape. He
was sure that she was a total stranger, even to Williams; otherwise it
was likely that she would have recognised McGuire as his shadow.

In fact, no one was supposed to know that Williams was in San
Francisco. A man or two knew of a Captain Douglas who had come in off
the South Seas with a story of pearls and the need of being financed;
but Douglas was not a name to be mistaken for Williams.

McGuire absently took a step from the desk. Instantly she half turned
and swung the door closed. It shut with a heavy jar. Then she stood
against it, facing him.

"You are wrong. I do belong here."

"It looks like it." Her accusing finger slanted down at the drawer.

Something extremely familiar about her persisted in striking against
his senses; it was exasperatingly evasive, and again and again seemed
right at the point of being recognised.

With all the frankness that he had, and an almost ostentatious air of
laying his cards on the table, he said, "Perhaps I could help you. The
captain may not be back to-night."

"I'll wait--thank you."

"But I do belong here. Wait all you like. You'll see. Sit down and----"

As he began to pull a chair toward her, she again backed to the door
determinedly. When he left the chair she moved to it, dragged it a few
inches more nearly between him and the door, then sat down.

McGuire sagged against an edge of the desk, looking at her, studying
her, wanting to make her talk, to feel at ease and talk--say something,
anything, that would let him catch a glimmer of what she wanted.

"He doesn't like women, so you had better talk to me."

"Yes, I know. I know all about that. But there are some that he doesn't
dislike."

"But always the ones that are pretty. He won't listen to you."

"How gallant!" Her hand touched the veil. He could tell that she was
smiling. Without trusting him any more, though perhaps almost convinced
that he did belong there, she saw that McGuire was not the sort of
person of whom one needed to be afraid.

"But why this time of night? It must be important."

Her tone was quick, spirited. "It is--_very_."

"Ah!" said McGuire, as if he saw a bit of light. "We have been
expecting important news. Hardly thought it would be brought by a
woman, but----"

"Oh, but you have not expected the kind of news I bring!"

"How can you know that?"

"Because if you had expected it, you--or Captain Williams; I know
nothing of _you_ but what I saw"--she pointed to the drawer--"--would
not have waited for me to come, or anyone else!"

"But the skipper and I expect all sorts of things."

"No, not a woman, this time of night!"

"Just give me some idea. I'll tell you whether it is news or not."

"I did not come to tell you. I don't know anything of you."

"You nearly mistook me for--his name isn't Williams, anyway. It's
Douglas--Captain Douglas."

"For a moment, yes. It was very dark, and you came to this door. No
one would ever take you for Hurricane Williams!"

She was half scornful, somehow, as if with pride in Williams.

"I don't believe you ever saw him. I don't believe you would know him
if he came in now--except by the way he would scowl at you."

"Oh, no, he would not scowl at me. Captain Williams and I are old, very
old friends--more than friends. When we last parted he kissed me----"

McGuire turned away, waving an indifferent dismissal. This was absurd.
She laughed low, gaily, amusedly understanding.

It was more than absurd, this woman's--any woman's--saying that she had
been kissed by Hurricane Williams. For years, up and down and in and
out of all the odd places of the South and Eastern Seas, McGuire had
been at the heels of the outlawed Williams.

She sat in all the self-assurance of unruffled prettiness. The sharp
toes of her small feet were crossed. She leaned with chin to fingers,
elbow on the chair-arm, and she seemed amused.

She was someone he had never seen, he was sure of that; but everything
about her made him feel that he ought to remember something of
her--everything except the strange perfume that came as if in invisible
smoke-like weavings; for a moment it could be detected by a delicate
sting, then was gone.


3

Presently she sat up, her head half turned, alert, listening.

McGuire sagged more heavily against the table, watching the door. He
knew the footfall out there; it was not at all stealthy, yet like the
soft, firm pad of a jungle animal.

The door opened. Williams appeared. Whatever his age may have been,
nothing of youth was left. A short beard, always cropped, but usually
by being hacked away unevenly, curled down his cheeks. A glint of the
Saxon colour was there, a hint at blondness, but a slight, obscure
hint. Even his hair was sunburned. His eyes had the impact that madness
gives, and were deep-set and narrowed from much staring into sun and
wind. They widened with menace if anything challenging appeared. Tales
of brutal work were told of him; and at times he showed an inflexible
justice. Once he had been hanged; in McGuire's words, "He gave himself
to a woman, and she sewed him on to a hangman's rope--for a tassel!" So
it was said, but no one seemed really to know.

Now Williams paused for a moment, then slowly pushed the door behind
him; in that silence the gentle click of its closing was sharply
metallic. His eyes flashed from McGuire to the woman; they gleamed
from under the cap visor, and were piercingly fastened on the grey
veil. He stood tense, as if angered; his hands were thrust down into
the side-pockets of his dark, square-cut coat, and anyone would have
known that the hands were clenched. Moving only his eyes, he looked
inquiringly at McGuire.

The woman had stood up and was lifting her veil, pushing it up from the
sides of her cheeks, raising it over the tip of her nose. Her large,
dark eyes were expectantly on Williams, and the look was intent with
admiration, her whole attitude that of preparing a pleasing surprise.
She was only a young girl, pretty, richly dark in colouring, and now
almost radiant in her excitement.

"Skipper"--McGuire did not take his eyes from her--"she came out of the
dark there, looking for you. The devil knows why."

Williams turned slightly, not facing her, but standing as if ready to
walk away. His hard gaze went to her from an angle. He said nothing;
there was no interest, not even curiosity, nothing but raw discourtesy.

A trace of uneasiness, doubt perhaps, shadowed her face and was gone.
She smiled, and, raising both gloved hands half out to him, said in
Samoan: "My captain, I am Tom Combe's daughter--Nada!"

McGuire now saw how in vivacity and tone she resembled the island
girls, though in appearance she was very unlike a native; and he
understood her amused self-assurance, too. He knew of her, of both the
Combe girls.

He had seen the other--Orna, Arna, some such name--often out riding,
with pretence of solitary stylishness, twenty yards ahead of her
liveried groom, who was a small, ugly, impudent native; and she would
look neither to the right nor to the left as she passed grinning
natives, some of them relatives, as they trudged toward the village
on foot with vegetables and flowers and fruit. Day after day, with
the quiet _trop-trop-trop_ of the slender pony's hoof-beat, the dark,
haughty maiden rode by, aloof, remote, unhappily proud.

But when old Tom Combe looked at her he was proud. His daughter--and
like that!


4

Old Tom Combe was a curiously humble fellow, with square-cut
chin-whiskers and a round-shouldered slump. Almost everyone thought
that he was half-drunk most of the time, but he hardly drank at all--a
little rum now and then to warm his old bones, and that watered. He was
a gentle, helpless sort of secretive old fellow, with a strange haze in
his washed-out blue eyes. Life, after a hard drubbing, had surprised
him with wealth and two daughters, to whom he gave everything that he
had.

Years and years before--twenty-five or thirty--he and two other men
known as Brundage and Waller had come to Pulotu. No one knew anything
of them; not many people ever learned much, though in the course of
furtive whisperings it was said that they were escaped convicts from
Australia. Some fellow said that he had seen a scar on Waller's palm
that was put only on the worst convicts. A peculiar scar had been on
the inside of his hand.

Waller, a gaunt, bony giant of a man, set up as a trader. He had much
luck, though some of it was said to be of questionable legality. He was
a money-maker, with hard black eyes and a driving aggressiveness that
enabled him to do things that were not finely scrupulous. Nobody could
impose upon him, and he gave nothing to anybody--yet everything to
Combe, who sat about idly, chewing tobacco and dozing in shady places.

Combe married. Some said that Waller picked the girl, a child of
teasing sweetness, a native. Waller never married.

Waller built up a big plantation. He saw the increasing demand for
copra, and put in groves of cocoanuts--nothing but cocoanuts. He was
jealously determined to be the biggest planter on Pulotu, and he built
the biggest house on the island--a big barn of a place--where he and
the Combes lived together. Everyone with whom he came in contact was a
little afraid of him, excepting Combe, who knew him best. But Waller's
gaunt frame, his black eyes, the scar in his palm and what it was
supposed to denote, together with his aggressive manner, that might
easily be taken for menace, caused people to be uneasy about his anger.

For some reason Waller disliked the Germans. He, and everyone in
the islands in those days, called them "Dutchmen"--usually "damned
Dutchmen." The plantation that adjoined his on the north was owned by
a German named Seibert--Adolph Seibert. Waller was reported to have
said at some time or other--at any rate the remark was often credited
to him--that he was honestly entitled to anything he could get by hook
or crook out of a Dutchman; but as he was not the sort of man of whom
personal questions were asked, nobody inquired what he meant, or if,
indeed, he had said such a thing. The supposition among the Pulotu
idlers, who endlessly discussed other people's affairs, was that at
some time in his life Waller had been cheated by a German, and bore
the race a grudge. Some sort of quarrel, over money or land--perhaps
both--existed between Seibert and Waller.

Though Seibert was a large man, fleshy, of powerful body, he had
an appearance of perpetual good-nature, even of heartiness, and
seemed always trying to be agreeable. Waller had once called him "a
white-livered thief" in the hearing of many people, and for a moment
Seibert's big, full round face had been black with the rush of hot
blood; then he had turned and walked off, and everybody said that he
was a coward.

However, it was admitted that Seibert knew more about tropical
agriculture than any other planter, and more persistently than any
of the planters cleared out the jungle. Waller, with a sombre air of
triumph, frequently said that he would live to see Seibert ruin himself
because he raised flowers and shrubs, experimented with cotton, tried
coffee, grapes, planted corn and cane, and much else besides cocoanuts,
which Waller almost fiercely maintained was the only thing that the
island was good for.

But Waller's prophecy tragically failed him. While riding on a slippery
slope he had a fall that carried the horse and himself, beast over man,
down a mountain-side.

Natives plaited a hammock between two poles and carried him along
trails and through groves of his own planting to the barracks of a
house (he thought it a mansion) where he and the Combes lived, in great
rooms that seemed half empty because they were much too large for their
furniture.

The only physician on the island, Dr. Lemaitre, expected Waller to die
any minute. At the Pulotu Club, where idlers gathered to drink warm
champagne, Dr. Lemaitre who was short and rather stout, vowed with
excited emphasis that every bone between knees and neck was broken. Yet
Waller lived on, day after day. Combe and his wife, the dainty, dark,
and now sad Aiana, moved in helpless distress about his bedroom.

Waller would lie motionless, perhaps unconscious, for hours, even
half-days at a time; then for a little while he would know clearly of
what he talked of, but often he was out of his head and said strange
things. Whenever this began Combe, with a kind of agitated insistence,
a sort of fussy, nervous haste, would get out whoever was in the room
and close the door on them. Through all those days and nights he hardly
left Waller's bedside; and when Waller began muttering it was Combe who
grew feverish, and in a way very unlike his usual hazy-eyed manner he
would look about with startled anxiety, as if suspicious of what might
be lurking in the shadows.

Waller was a big-boned man, one of the indestructible kind, tougher for
the storms he had been through. When he appeared to know what he was
saying he advised Combe about business matters, warning him to stick to
cocoanuts, just cocoanuts, to plant more and more, and to remember how
people had gone to ruin by meddling with cotton and other ventures.

At times when Waller was quiet, sleeping, or in a stupor, lying
back half dead, old Combe would sit huddled, elbows on knees, and
pathetically stare at the table, littered with papers, catalogues,
bills, letters. A child among cuneiform tablets could not have known
less of their meaning. Combe scarcely knew one letter of the alphabet
from another.


5

One rainy night, when the wind was splashing among the palms and
mournful creaking went on all through the big house, in which three or
four families could have lived without crowding, Combe sat with a cold
pipe in his hand and dozed in a chair at the bedside. He sat upright,
but his head drooped like a dummy's on a broken neck. The lamp was
nearly out of oil, and the flame had sunk to a dirty yellow.

"Tom! Tom, that's rain I hear? It is rain?"

Combe sat up with a start, dropping his pipe, and looked quickly about,
as if coming out of a nightmare. Waller had been rambling strangely
during the day, and now for a long time he lay motionless, listening.
His sunken black eyes were full of fever.

"That _is_ rain? You're not just saying it? We played a trick on life,
eh, Tom? Now she's evening up on me. Damn life, anyway. I got the best
o' her. I'm dying rich--in a great fine house!

"It's all yours now, Tom. Everything. People'll try to rob you. Don't
ever trust anybody but Brundage and Williams. Don't you believe
Seibert, Tom. He says I owe him--no matter what he says, Tom, don't you
ever pay him anything. Hear me? Promise that. I swore I would take it
out on some Dutchman. I got the best of every one o' them on Pulotu! If
he crowds you, Tom, don't fight. You're no manager. You've been right
not to try. You just wait till you can get word to Williams. He'll
come. He'll never forget you!

"Ah, I'm glad it is rain--like it was that night in the prison yard
there, when they swung three o' them at sunset. Came near being
overlooked, we heard. Just did get 'em hung that day. Some kind of a
slip like they were always making, as when they gave you eighty lashes
for the man in the cell next yours.

"In the yard there they hung three o' them. He was the last. Our gang
was last, too. One after another they hung 'em, and us standing there
in the rain at sundown waiting for him to die so we could cart him off.

"Raining an' getting dark fast. Us with leg irons on, wearing yellow
an' black, me with arrowheads sewed on to show that I was bad. There we
stood in the mud, you an' me an' Brundage, waiting for him to die. An'
the doctor there, jiggling his big watch and cursing because he had to
wait for the third man to die 'fore he could go to his supper.

"An' we stood there in the dark an' rain, and him up there like a
darker something than the black sky, with lightning all about overhead.

"Then they kicked him off. He dropped--_cr-r-ack!_ No other sound like
the sound o' bones breaking in flesh. You don't hear it--you just sort
o' feel it in your own neck.

"Right off that doctor said, 'Dead an' damned--curse him! I'm late for
supper now!' And off he walked, splashing and slipping an' swearing.

"When we took him up all limber there in the dark, and the wet on him
made us think of blood, it was you; you whispered: 'God ha' mercy--this
lad's alive!'

"The warder he hears an' says, 'He won't be long when we stick him in
his hole. An' no more talking, or it's a supper o' cat tails for you,
all you!'

"Then we went slipping through the mud in the dark an' rain. By that
pile o' sacks and lumber Brundage he slipped down, tripping me, then
you stumbled, and he fell, too--off the cart. Brundage comes up with a
sack o' something--oakum, I think--instead of a man. An' I grabs hold.
You too. An' no word spoke but the curses to hide our feelings--and
on we go, holding our breath that the warder don't step on the body
there an' yell out. But on we go, with the warder just swearing at the
three of us there in the dark; and we dumped a sack of oakum in the
hole an' covered it with lime an' mud! The lime, it hissed like fire.
It knew it had been cheated, that lime.

"And he, before morning, he crawled in among the sacks and stuff. For
days he hid there. We knew he had crawled away an' was hiding, because
if he had been found we would have been beat to death. An' of course
nobody was searching for him. A lad we didn't know, an' had never seen
before, but we took the chance to do it just to cheat the damned old
gibbet an' the lime-hole that we hated!

"And you an' me an' Brundage, we saved bits of bread and dropped it
when we'd go by. Hungry we'd go to scatter it around that old lumber
pile. He crawled out nights to get it. He watched days, too, and put
our faces down in his head--watched an' saw who dropped the food, an'
knew by that who'd saved him from the lime-hole. An', Tom, we know he
never forgets.

"That morning a year an' more after, when we were breaking rock up the
creek for a road--of a sudden he comes out o' nowhere, with his hands
on that soldier's neck. Not a shot or a squeak! For weeks, Tom, he'd
been waiting, watching for a chance to get us off. That's his way. He
took off that soldier's clothes an' put 'em on himself. He took that
soldier's musket and marched us off. Guards saw us from a distance and
thought all was well. When we were in the woods he got out the chisels
and a hammer.

"We cheated life, us fellows, all of us. She's tried to even up, but we
got the best of her that day.

"He showed us the way back through the bush, an' fifteen miles up the
beach where his schooner was, an' we were free men!

"It was a German, a big fellow like that Seibert, that got me deported.
Ten years. But in prison I was bad. They put arrowheads on me an' kept
adding till it was life. But I've squared up all round. I've got the
best of life, an' of every Dutchman on this island, an' I'm dying
rich. And if Seibert crowds you, Tom, you send for Williams.

"That is rain. I like it. Mildew the copra--but that's your trouble
now."

He died a day or so afterwards, going out as a strong man goes, without
a word for his pain or a groan of fear as he looked across. He had been
cursed, whipped, and branded too much to care what lay beyond.


6

When Combe, in a puttering, unhappy sort of way, decided to do
something handsome for Waller he had the doctor, who was an atheist,
and the French padre, who was Dr. Lemaitre's closest friend, help him
to order a big tombstone. Combe's idea--and about the only one he had
in mind--was to secure something big, monumental. In time the tombstone
was sent from Paris.

Onlookers gathered about and made comments while it, covered with
grating and packing, was being laboriously hoisted out of the hold and
set down on the rickety wharf, already crowded with rum barrels and
copra that were to be taken on board.

Black boys from the plantation, with horses, chains, and a couple
of wagons, were brought down to the wharf's edge. Combe stood about
helplessly, while idling bystanders said what should be done. The
boys did little, and that sulkily. There was chattering, insult, and
ironical advice.

Adolph Seibert chanced to ride down to the beach on his grey stallion.
For his personal use he had big stallions; his weight would soon have
injured any but a powerful horse, for he was a heavy man, with a chest
like a barrel. Seibert had a big, round, cheerful face and a high,
bald forehead, a big voice, big, fleshy shoulders, and a grinning air
of worldly success that was like a rebuke to unthrifty idlers. He was
not popular at the Pulotu Club, where sometimes he would drop into a
veranda chair with an air of slight weariness and talk in a way that
disturbed the lotus-eaters dozing in their long cane chairs.

Talking with an aimless wave of his big hand, he would tell what
he had been doing--of the cinnamon grove he had been experimenting
with, of tobacco land he was clearing, of pepper vine holes he was
digging and manuring--he seemed to be always talking about manures and
fertiliser--of the new hillside that was going into cane; and of how he
had ridden or walked or climbed somewhere.

He would have a drink or two on the veranda--not sipped, just gulped
down with powerful suction in that hearty, healthy, fleshly way that
so exasperated the half-sickly, heat-stricken men about him on their
cane chairs; then with a few loud, careless words, a wave of the big
arm, a cut of the whip on boot-top to stir himself, as if his legs were
a part of somebody else that carried him along, and he would be gone,
leaving a kind of gasping irritation behind. People did not believe in
his grinning heartiness; and somehow he seemed trying to make everybody
feel insignificant, and with that burly, overbearing manner and
mask-like grin of his did so. In fact, he was now the big man of the
island. Hundreds of cannibal blacks worked on his plantation--and they
worked!

On the day that the great tombstone sat at the wharf's end and could
not be budged, Seibert had ridden down for a casual look at what was
going on. Presently, dismounting, he strode along the wharf and in
among the babblers and loafers. Spurs jangled at the heels of his high
boots, a long riding-whip swung from a wrist that was thicker than
Combe's arm.

"Ho, there is something that is wrong here, eh?" he said loudly to
Combe, who looked away nervously and mumbled something about nobody
seeming to know what to do.

Seibert grunted. "Huh! Is that so? I will show you somethings."

He began to give orders. A heavy-faced black foreman of Combe's gaped
stupidly, pretending not to understand. Seibert, with no sign of anger,
struck the fellow across the shoulders with the whip, and said loudly,
cheerfully: "There is no interpreter more better than this." The
monument moved. Seibert had cleared square miles and miles of jungle,
and knew all about moving things.

When the tombstone reached the little mound, already overgrown with
grass and weeds, and was set in place where only a stick had been
to mark the head, all Pulotu came to see. There was nothing like it
anywhere in any of the islands. It had an angel in flowing skirts, who
held a long trumpet to her lips; many wreaths had been chiselled; a
circlet of pretty cupid faces looked up from lily chalices; there was
an open Bible and the tablets of Moses.

A bystander remarked, "With all that on him, he'll have the devil of a
time crawlin' out when Gabriel toots."

Old Combe thought that it was beautiful. The ornamentation had been
left entirely to the Parisian firm, and the firm with extravagant
courtesy had tried to do enough. The one thing that was slightly wrong
was in the name. Life, as a final wallop, had taken advantage of the
dead man. The name deeply cut into the stone was "_Walter_," but
as Combe could not read he did not greatly mind the error. Everybody
knew who was meant, which was enough.

From that day on Seibert showed an aggressive neighbourliness for
Combe. The big German rode over every day, and soon had just about
taken charge of the plantation. He gave advice, and brought over men
from his own grounds to see that it was followed. He told Combe,
who knew nothing of accounts, that his affairs were in a bad mess;
moreover, that he wasn't getting what he should out of his groves, out
of his sales, out of his blacks; that the best thing would be to let
him manage the plantation, giving statements and figures of what could
be done that way. But Combe's muddled head was useless, though Seibert
was patient and cheerful--always cheerful--about explaining.

Combe, sure that Seibert planned to rob him, had, with the vague idea
of somewhat baffling his enemy, one night gathered up all the papers
and books and records Waller had used and hid them.

Then at this time an evil-hearted Fate made life worse for him. His
pretty little dark wife took consumption, and its fever ate her
rapidly. Combe, old enough to have been her father, went about in
pathetic dejection, trying in a fumbling, gentle, silently anguished
way to be of help. By the time she was buried Seibert had put his
own overseers on the Combe plantation, carried off all the papers and
accounts he found, and announced, as if the matter was settled, that
Combe ought to be pleased that the management was in good hands.

Combe complained to everybody in Pulotu. He was told on all sides
what he already believed--that Seibert was after his property, which
was to be the property of his two small daughters. About the only
fellow that stood up for Seibert was a labour recruiter, a man that
furnished blacks to planters, and his own reputation was not of the
best; but he said that the half-cracked Combe was lucky to have a man
like Seibert take charge of things; that he himself had had lots of
dealings with Seibert, and asked for nothing better than the German's
word. But this recruiter was known to be pretty much of a ruffian, and
it was known that Seibert was not very particular about how his blacks
were obtained, for he was perpetually in need of labourers. Besides,
Seibert was not popular on Pulotu. His grinning and heartiness were not
convincing, and, though he was always talking of his experiments with
an air of triumph, it was pretty generally known that the only thing he
made much money on was cocoanuts.


7

One hot, sultry afternoon two strange men appeared at Seibert's house,
which sat well back in a large tropical park, where a gravelled
driveway wound up from the road through trees and along terraces until,
half circling a spread of lawn, it passed the wide veranda.

A native boy tried warningly to tell them that the big master was
taking his after-dinner sleep; but the lean, taller man took the
servant by the ear and said, "Lead on"; and they were led.

Seibert in a darkened room lay on his back, breathing heavily and
perspiring. His big, round, darkly-red face was moist; his undershirt
was wet.

The tall, lean man, with a sort of authoritative roughness, prodded
him in the side, saying, "Wake up, wake up, Seibert. We're here on
business with you."

Seibert grunted in a kind of confused anger and sat up, staring
blankly, with a sort of slow-witted daze, and apparently with wrath
gathering at the back of his head. He often had dealings with
hard-faced strangers; that was the way he got many of his black
labourers; but nobody had ever taken insulting liberties with him.
These fellows had the aspect of ruffians; there was a quiet but
unmistakable air of menace about them.

The tall, lean man, with the shaven and more sinister face, introduced
himself abruptly as Brundage, Tom Combe's new manager; adding: "We've
come for a settlement!"

"You are scoundrels!" Seibert shouted, standing up in dazed
wrathfulness. "I know you, you Brundage fellow!"

"And we know you," Brundage replied coldly.

"You are a scoundrel, too, like that Waller was!"

"Quiet!" the other man said, with a sharpness as startling as the
unexpected discharge of a gun.

Seibert for the first time gave him a careful look, and recognised
him, partly from descriptions, and perhaps partly because inter-island
rumour frequently connected Brundage's name with Captain Williams,
who was a sort of pirate, greatly disliked by planters owing to his
practice of taking what he needed in the way of stores and equipment
from "blackbirders"--recruiters that furnished labour for plantations.
Nearly all the plantations winked encouragement to rascals that sailed
under the American, or German, or French flag, so they would not have
to obey British labour recruiting laws. Williams was said to have
caught recruiters and made them even put their black cargoes back on
the beach; it was also said that he was mad; that he hated white men;
that he had been more or less casually hunted and chased so many years
without success because cannibals everywhere regarded him as a friend,
and he could safely stop in remote bays and be supplied with food,
water, and wood where only a heavily armed vessel would have dared to
drop anchor.

"You have been a thief," said Williams, his eyes like the polished
muzzles of two rifles.

Seibert's big body appeared actually to swell, to enlarge, as if anger
had a distending force; his round, darkly-red face grew purplish; and
his hands, crumpling into huge fists, came half-way up. He shouted:
"That is a lie! A lie, you pirate Williams!"

At that, Brundage, who had a lean, cold, sinister face, cast an
apprehensive glance at his captain; but Williams remained motionless
as, with almost the rapidity of repeating the multiplication table, he
began to check off, from memory, the amount of copra Seibert had sold
from the Combe plantation, when and to whom, and the inadequate sum he
had returned to Combe. It showed that he had, in some way, checked up
on Seibert with amazing precision.

Several times Seibert appeared trying to interrupt. His big mouth, with
its coarse, stiff lips, would open, gape, close, re-open, as Williams
went from fact to fact, speaking without gestures and in a low, hard,
cold voice.

Brundage had turned to a pigeon-holed desk that was in the room, and
with the careless swiftness of a thief, indifferent as to the state in
which he leaves things, began to go through the papers.

"Here! Here, you keep from that!" Seibert shouted, taking a step toward
the desk; but Williams placed himself before Seibert, who then glared
blankly, as if he had suddenly lost what he had in mind and must search
through all of his thoughts to find it again.

With almost a roar, as if the idea had come propulsively back into
mind: "Waller he owed me more than what I took. For years I must wait
to get my money. I made money for old Combe, who is a fool, to pay
myself back too. Look how I cleaned his groves and spread manure!"

"Why not?" said Brundage grimly across his shoulder. "At the rate you
were going you would have owned it all in a year or two!"

"Waller owed you?" Williams demanded. It was evident that he did not
believe such a thing.

"_Ach!_ It was a Yankee trick."

"Waller was a friend to me. Prove his debt and I'll pay it."

"Bah! You think in a swindle he would give me proofs, that fellow? No,
not that fellow. That money he owed me twelve years, then he died!"

"Tell your story."

"You I will tell, though I have told nobody. He come to me and he
said, 'Seibert, you have been looking for a schooner.' 'Yes, that is
everybody's business. They all know it.' 'Seibert, there is one young
trader over in town, and this fellow needs money bad. His schooner--she
is over a hundred tons and five years old--is in the bay. I have here
the option on her. You need a schooner to carry all your copra to Apia.'

"So I do need a schooner."

"Waller he says, 'I paid him one thousand dollars for the option. The
price is fixed at four, and that is cheap. He is a fine young fellow,
and needs the money quick. I don't need a boat, so you I will let have
the option for just what I have paid.'

"Waller he showed me that option, and I know that four is cheap for a
schooner like that. I need that schooner, so I pay him one thousand
dollars. With the option made over to my name I go to the bay to find
my schooner. In the bay it is all right--in the bottom of the bay. That
trader fellow is gone to Apia. She had bumped herself on the reef. To
that rascal Waller I take myself.

"'Waller, that was a fine joke. Here is that option thing, and I want
my thousand dollars.' He says, 'Oh, is that so?' and he takes the
option. Then he says, 'I am glad you think it was a good joke. So do
I, for I have made another damn Dutchman squeal. Besides, that young
fellow needed the money, and I couldn't afford to lose the thousand I
give him.'"

Brundage, with his hands full of papers, turned and chuckled grimly:
"Clever, clever, Seibert. You lost a thousand, and you have taken four
from Combe in six months. You grow rich by such losses."

"To good interest I have the right. I lose that money for twelve years
when I need money. I told Combe, too, I must have something too for my
making him some more money. I put my labourers over there. I took ten
per cent., and in two years I would have made his yield bigger than
twenty more. In a few years by himself he will have no things left but
beetles and weeds."

"Strange, Seibert"--Williams was speaking with slow intensity--"that
you never told anyone of that until now."

"Think I want to be laughed at for a damn fool? I keep my mouth shut
when I have troubles."

Seibert appeared to have lost his anger, and he seemed almost
good-natured, agreeable; there was even a trace of awkward heartiness
in his slightly rueful manner of relating the trick that he said
Waller had played him, as if he wanted to smooth matters over; and his
attitude was not convincing. He was a big, powerful man, round-faced,
coarsely featured, with front teeth as large as an average man's
thumbnail, with no ease of manner or smoothness of gesture; and his
effort to be pleasant at this time appeared almost grossly affected.

"Why didn't you make _him_ pay? Why steal it from poor old Tom Combe
over a man's grave?" Brundage sneered coldly. Brundage's face was lined
and lean and hard.

"Bah! That would have been a fight, and I am no pirate, to kill
somebody for some money!"

"No," Brundage answered contemptuously, "but you steal it from a poor,
broken-down old devil."

"Nothings I steal, you Brundage! I take what is mine and make no
troubles."

Williams answered with finality, "You have lied."

Seibert made a hoarse, deep-throated noise--something of a grunt and
growl--and half lifted one of his thick arms. His face now became, not
purplish as before, but vividly red, as if shame mingled with anger;
and for a moment it appeared that he was about to strike at Williams,
who remained perfectly motionless, his hands at his sides, and he met
Seibert with a challenging glare that had in it the strange look of
madness.

Presently Seibert lowered his arm, and, turning away, dropped bulkily
into a chair, where he sat with downcast sullenness, seemingly a little
dazed, his face otherwise heavy and mask-like.

He said nothing more, and it was only at parting that either of them
spoke to him again; then Brundage said: "Seibert, hear this and
remember it. Keep clear of old Tom Combe, whether I stay on the place
or not. And if you try to make trouble over this, every white man from
Apia to Sydney will learn just what kind of a low thief you have been!"

Seibert sprang from his chair, rising with remarkable quickness for one
of his great size; his arms flew out, and the muscles of his thick,
heavy face worked as if he was being strangled; but a moment or two
later his manner changed abruptly; discretion, self-control, fear,
whatever it was, influenced him, so that almost in an instant his arms
fell, and his face again became dully expressionless, his eyes a little
dazed.


8

That afternoon old Combe walked moodily about his house, up and down
the veranda, in and out of doors, all through the great, lonely,
barn-like building. When night came, and his friends had not returned,
he grew afraid that something had happened, and walked out among the
trees to the road. The stars danced overhead in twinkling multitudes.

Combe was sure that something must have gone wrong. Seibert was a
powerful man, with servants about him, and overseers that went armed.

For all of his years as a convict, Combe had never hurt anything
more than a few hares in his boyhood poaching days, for which he
had been deported; and though there was no sternness in his nature,
his helplessness was not due to a lack of courage, but rather to a
fuddling uncertainty of purpose. But now, as fears increased, and dread
gave stimulation to his imaginings, he suddenly wished there were no
children in his home; then, with a chill, ague-like feeling all through
his body, he upraised his trembling arms in the shadows and swore that
if his friends had come to harm, that he would take a pistol and go to
Seibert and shoot him. The excitement of thinking such a thing caused
him to shake from head to feet, and his mouth became so dry that he
could not speak his oath aloud, though he tried.

Presently he heard the soft clatter of hoofs--the _cloof-cloof,
cloof-cloof, cloof-cloof_ of men riding rapidly and easily. Dark forms
emerged against the skyline as the road along which Combe peered came
over a rise, and he saw that they were returning.

They swung themselves from the saddles, and, without speaking, walked
rapidly to the house, where Combe, shambling nervously, went before
them into the "office," saying that he would make a light.

This had been Waller's bedroom, and the bed remained. He had built a
house large as a barracks, and used but one room of it.

Combe fumbled with a lamp, breaking two or three sulphur matches that
he tried to light; and when the wick took fire he puttered for a time,
trying to trim it by pinching with his fingers, then couldn't recall
where he had set the chimney; and searched from table-top to the floor.
He adjusted and readjusted the chimney, doing what he could to delay
facing about, for he was sure that they had failed or they would have
spoken.

Then Brundage, with long, unhurried step, crossed to the desk and threw
down a package of papers as he said in dry, hard tones: "Tom, you're a
damned old skinflint. Seibert says he'll pay, just to be neighbourly,
but if he'd known this was the way you were going to treat him he'd
never have come near you. He won't any more, ever. He said so."

Williams said nothing. He was grim, silent, alert, waiting to go. Combe
stood tremulously--the lamp was behind him--looking from Brundage to
Williams, trying to say something, wanting to offer something, to give
up something; but there was nothing that he could offer, and little
that he could say, for his was not a glib tongue.

With an air of putting himself out of the scene, Brundage sat down
in the chair by the desk, stretched out his long legs, leaned back,
and, scratching his leathery chin, looked with a glint of amusement at
Combe's troubled awkwardness.

He took two or three aimless steps forward. His stoopshouldered
silhouette was blotted against the lamplight, so that the agitated old
fellow appeared grotesque.

He said to Wiliams, "You know how I feel, but it don't matter 'bout
me. I--I----" His voice got away from him and squeaked. "I--I'm
old--but----" Again the squeak. "It's _them_. I want them to have what
money gets. I want----". An idea came. His voice rose shrilly. "I'll
get them--it's for them to thank 'ee!"

He shuffled to the door. His arms hung loosely, as if tied to his
shoulders, and jerked shakily as he walked. He opened the door only a
little, and edged through hurriedly, as if slipping away. He called,
but no answer came. He went along the wide, dark hall, calling.

From far off through the gloom there was a child's thin answer.

"Come here! Come here! Or'na dear, Nada darlin', come t' daddy!"

A hurrying patter of bare feet over the mats, then two lithe little
shapes emerged from the darkness with a bound, and grasped him,
clinging fast, holding on with impetuous expectancy, demanding why he
had called. He often tried to surprise them in this way with something
that they wanted.

He brought them along with him down the gloomy hall. They were at once
a little awed by the silence and strangeness in his manner, and held
tightly to his arms. He seemed so changed that it brought to them the
feeling that their mother had died again.

He opened the door wide and urged them in; but they timidly held
back, peering through with animal shyness at the stranger, grim and
motionless, his grey eyes on them.

Combe coaxed anxiously, but they would not move except to shrink more
closely against his legs, until Brundage, from across the room, spoke.
They crossed to him with a breathless little scurry, and Oreena, the
younger got around behind him, but Nada stood between his knees. She
felt companionable with Brundage. Very few persons ever did.

The ill-trimmed lamp fretted smokily, so that shadows bounced and
leaped about the room like bodiless devils trying to dodge through the
light. The children gazed with a kind of wide-eyed shyness at the
strange, roughly-bearded man, whose eyes alarmed them; and Brundage
leaned back with a half-smile at Combe, who, now near the centre of the
room, felt the need of making something of a speech, of saying what
would impress his children so that they would always remember this
moment, and something, too, that would be valued by the sternly silent
man of whom Combe himself was always a little in awe.

"Children--Nada, Or'na dear--I want you--here----"

He gestured boldly, forgot what he meant to say, paused with bearded
mouth a-droop, waiting for the next word to come through, and it did
not come.

After a moment's hesitation he blurted desperately: "He's done more for
you than your old daddy's ever done----"

This made the children open their eyes a little wider in distrust, for
there are few things that childhood resents so much as a rival to one
that is loved.

"No matter what we ever do, we ain't begun to pay him back----"

It was painfully like a hopeless, dreary debt that would follow one
down to the grave, and old Combe's voice was pitched to melancholic
shrillness.

Brundage smiled that hard, lined smile of his, eyeing Combe.

"We wouldn't ha' had no house 'r home but for him, an'----"

Williams showed something very like a trace of discomfort. He shifted
his feet slightly, raised a hand no higher than his shoulder, and,
glaring with disconcerting severity, said in an abrupt, unchallengeable
way: "Combe, I'm leaving for the bay and need another horse."

Combe, relieved by an excuse to get away, almost stumbled over his own
feet in hurrying through the door as he went to call up a horse for the
hard climb across the ridge to a well-hidden bay where a little black
schooner lay concealed.

Then with a slight gesture, and "I'm off," to Brundage, Williams turned
to go. They knew each other too well to need handshakes and fair words
at parting.

But Brundage called, "Skipper, here are these two young ladies that
want to meet you. Children, this is Captain Williams--Hurricane
Williams."

Their father--it had been like him to do just that--had neglected to
say who this stern, forbidding man was; but at the sound of his name
they knew him for that half-legendary personage always mentioned in
their home with praise and a touch of awe. He was to them like a remote
guardian, a powerful, just man, associated in their childish fancies as
an equal with many figures in historical stories.

Under the pressure of Brundage's hand, Oreena, a slim little thing of
seven, edged forward as the patient, heat-faded governess had taught
her, making a dainty curtsey which looked very odd in that nickering
lamplight, coming from a bare-legged little maid with loose hair
flowing down her back.

Williams, half stooping, looked at her with an intentness like great
hunger; but before he spoke she had backed away, afraid of his eyes.
Nada the impetuous, the elder by two years, swept at him with arms
out-reaching and closed on his neck.

Straightening, he raised her, held her, looked at her, pressed his face
to her cheek, and put her down without a word.

Abashed by her sudden daring, she darted back to Brundage and hid her
face against his breast.

Williams did not speak, but turned and went from the room.

Now, something over ten years later, Nada had come to him in a San
Francisco lodging-house.


9

Nada, eagerly half-smiling, waited expectantly for him to speak. The
veil had been bunched in cobwebby layers on the red velvet hood,
exposing her face, rich with dark colouring. The black strings of the
hood were tied in a bow at one side of her chin.

Williams looked at her with piercing intensity, as if he was trying to
get through the years that overlay this woman and see again the child
of ten years before. Now he saw a girl of small, shapely body, dark
eyed, with full, soft, flexible lips, and every curve and line of her
little amber-tinted face hinted at a merry impulsiveness; but he looked
at her so long, so penetratingly, that she began to feel a little
uncertain, and her pretty face clouded.

Afterwards, when he knew her well, McGuire said, "A child then, with no
harm in you. And you'd come back to him a woman, something he dreads,
hates, is afraid of. The ten years between were half your life. To
him they were hardly more than the wakeful passing of a night. An' he
didn't know what you wanted--just to have somebody killed, or another
kiss."

At last, making quite as much statement as question of it, Williams
said: "You are in trouble?"

Nada's lips burst into a smile, and a little gloved hand darted out at
him, as quickly she said: "No; you are!"

He was stiff as an iron man, and watchful; far from sure of her, though
she was from among his friends.

"How!" he asked, without interest.

A moment before her lips had flashed into a smile and her eyes had
sparkled; this instant her face was slightly shadowed, and a glow of
sadness appeared far in the depths of the dark eyes, as if there was
something unpleasant in why she had come. Her glance turned inquiringly
toward McGuire, then again to Williams. No one spoke or gestured, but
she knew then that McGuire, too, was expected to hear whatever she had
come to tell. He had edged back upon a corner of the desk, and waited
with an appearance of idling.

"To-night I came here straight from Alan Penwenn----"

McGuire straightened, turning quickly toward Williams; but not a
flickering of surprise had crossed Williams's face, and he merely
continued to look at her and wait.

Penwenn was the owner of many ships. It was through the great wide
doors of his firm's warehouses that much of the Orient's exotic
merchandise came into the States. The fortune of the Penwenn family
had been founded by a hard-boned Scotch grandfather, who had been a
great sea-gambler and married the daughter of an old Spanish family.
Young Penwenn, as his father and grandfather had done, occasionally
turned from regular business to buy up wrecks, listen to tales of
lost treasure, and he liked a bit of a gamble--a wee little bit of a
gamble; not much of one, for he was cautious, and thought himself a far
shrewder man than his father had been.

"'Nada,' Alan said to me not two hours ago, 'you are a little South Sea
savage, and you have heard of Hurricane Williams?'

"'Heard of Hurricane Williams!' I said, and would have told him what I
really knew, but he gave me no chance.

"He said, 'The Penwenns are seamen, Nada, and right now I am to
windward of that rascal. I've got him--just like _that_!'

"And he pressed his finger and thumb together right up against my eyes
to show me how he had you, Captain Williams.

"He said, 'And it is Alan Penwenn that will have his name in all the
papers for capturing that blasted pirate. It's in the Penwenn blood to
do things on the sea. That old grand-dad of mine made it lively for
rascals. Then won't you be proud of me, Nada?'

"Then I most surely did not tell him anything! I got him to talk, and I
came at once here to tell you. Look out for him, Captain Williams!"

In some way hardly visible, Williams's expression toward her had
changed without softening. It may have been that his feeling was sensed
and nothing seen.

McGuire liked her, liked the flashing movement of her pretty lips,
the impulsiveness, the emotion in her; the little body was vibrantly
intense, and her small hands had flown about in expressive gestures,
acting out her scorn.


10

This was how Williams had come to have dealings with Alan Penwenn.

In his prowling and dodging about, criss-crossing from one
out-of-the-way place to another a little more out of the way, Williams
had from time to time found oyster-beds well worth fishing. Fine shell
was as good as gold ore if got to market; pearls better than nuggets,
and far more scarce.

Williams had made trouble for many persons, and as he was known to most
of them by sight he could not very well go into port himself and sell
his shell, and if he turned it over to a trader on a share-and-share
basis the chances were that the trader took what care he could not to
meet with Williams again.

Now, feeling an unusually strange need for a comparatively large amount
of money, Williams had ventured on a new plan. He hid the pirate under
Captain Douglas, South Sea trader, and hoped to interest some man that
had large affairs on the sea, and who could easily dispose of shell
in whatever quantities it might be brought. As he was more likely to
be recognised in an Australian port than elsewhere he had come to San
Francisco, bringing a hundred pounds or so of good specimen shell.

He called first at the office of Penwenn, Penwenn & Co.

An old, one-armed fellow with a roll in his legs and bright buttons on
his coat took the name of Captain Douglas to Mr. Penwenn; and after
a long time he came back with an air of humbleness to say that Mr.
Penwenn would see him at once.

The one-armed man led on, rolling down the wide hall like a dismasted
clipper in a seaway. They passed an open door, where bareheaded men
with pens behind their ears lay peeringly against a high, sloping desk,
as if grappling and pinning down the ledgers before them; and still
another doorway, that showed a cavernous store-room in which queer
odours mingled, swirling the thoughts to far Eastern market-places. A
row of closed doors, then one with a highly-polished brass plate: "Mr.
Penwenn, Jr."

Mr. Penwenn, Jr., had become the only Penwenn; but the firm's name
remained unchanged, and "Jr." stayed on the brass plate, which was
shined by the one-armed sailor every morning.

The office was small and filled with big chairs, worn slick by the
heavy bodies of sea captains, for a captain just ashore sits in a chair
with much more weight than can be accounted for by gravitation. Many
dust-covered things were set about on the shelves--a broken nautilus;
a small jade god--or demon perhaps; a lacquered box or two; a chunk
of sandalwood; and strange plumes from an unknown bird. Under glass
was the model of a Penwenn ship, and about on the walls were pictures
of other ships and shipping scenes. On the top of Mr. Penwenn's desk
the photograph of a pretty young woman smiled perpetually through a
heavy silver frame, through which the faces of other women, one after
another, had peered, and listened to the strange jargon of sea-trading,
echoes of storms that had smashed things, mutterings of unruly crews
more dangerous than the storms.

A tall, slightly stooped man, somewhat above thirty, got up cordially
to meet Williams.

Mr. Penwenn was something of a polished man, though when out for a
pleasurable evening--and he went out frequently--he liked the gaiety
to have a good deal of noise. His rather long face was angular, with
all the bones showing. The light eyes--a chilling blue--were steady as
bits of crockery, and as lifeless. His fingers were long and bony--very
long, yet not without a certain grace in their movement.

It was told of him that he never forgave an injury. His grandfather
had been a granite-headed Scotchman, and the Scotch blood had come
down to him mixed with Spanish. In his dealings with men he was smooth
of manner, a little overly gracious at times, yet proud of his inner
contempt for them. Socially he presented a smoothly careless aspect,
engagingly polite, but somehow ironic except toward women that pleased
him. He was fastidious, very careful of his personal appearance, and
with a poise that suggested a rather supercilious air when he was not
deliberately courteous. His friends knew that he had a weakness for
ideas that seemed shrewd; that he liked to be praised, even pretty
thickly, and talked about favourably; and that if his vanity was hurt
he was implacable.

He said with a thin-lipped smile that he was pleased to meet Captain
Douglas. Would he not sit? And have a cigar? Penwenn flipped open the
lid with a generous flourish. No? Ah, excellent tobacco though. And
what could he do for the captain?

Williams told him in few words, and showed a small handful of pearls,
each wrapped separately in a little chamois bag, and an ounce or so of
seed pearls. He mentioned the specimen shell on the _Islander_, out in
the bay. He knew the elder Penwenn had occasionally gone into ventures
of the kind, and Williams offered to show the way to the grounds and
get the shell out if Penwenn would do the marketing and furnish a ship.

It was, if a little unusual, not an unreasonable offer. The main thing
was that Penwenn could market the shell at a better advantage, and
sell what pearls they found at three or more times the price a trading
captain could demand, since such a captain would be at the mercy of
swindling buyers; also Penwenn could furnish a hold that would bear off
more than a little trading schooner, and the grounds could be stripped
the first trip.

Mr. Penwenn was remarkably easy to interest. He spoke of his pleasure
in taking a chance on out-of-the-way ventures. His father and
grandfather, he said, had put ships to sea. It was in his blood.

Mr. Penwenn's interest soon grew to enthusiasm. The next time that
Williams called he was even more cordial, and extended an invitation to
dinner, hinting that it would be a lively dinner; and Williams, with no
grace at all, refused.

To bind the bargain between them, Penwenn gave a cheque and took the
pearls; this was accepted, cashed, supplies bought for the _Islander_,
and the remainder of the money Williams threw into the desk drawer.

Penwenn had said that they would have to wait until the _Molly
McDonald_, overdue with grain and wool, from Sydney, arrived. She would
be the ship for the clean-up.

Williams had waited; and McGuire, dipping from time to time into the
drawer, loafed about and drank more than would have been good for two
men.

This very day the _Molly McDonald_ had come. A Penwenn tug met her
outside the bay, took her by the nose, and, impatiently hustling her
through the Golden Gate, shoved and bumped her into the dock where she
belonged, and, lazy hussy, should have been long before.

Nada, at the eleventh hour, came to them with the story of Penwenn's
treachery.


11

"What does Penwenn intend to do?" McGuire asked.

Nada answered, but addressed Williams: "He said that if you were
arrested here, in San Francisco, a policeman or two would get all the
credit. It is the credit he wants. He likes to be talked about.

"He told me that at first he planned to go on the _Molly McDonald_ and
when all the shell was on board to take you prisoner. He thought it
would be a great joke, he said, to keep the shell and pearls and get
the reward, too, for capturing you."

McGuire made a slight, queer, chuckling sound.

"But he said that would take two months at least, and he said that he
could not take so much time away from his business. So----"

"So?" This from McGuire. Williams continued to listen as if it was of
someone other than himself that she talked.

"So"--her lips moved like little ripples in the wind--"for fear you
might grow suspicious or try to go away on your schooner--just slip
out some night--he got you to tie up at one of his wharves. Now, he
says, you can't slip away without pulling into the current with a
rowboat, and he has men watching the _Islander_ to stop you if you try
to do that. And he isn't going to use the _Molly McDonald_ at all. He
is going to tell you to start first on the _Islander_, and the _Molly
McDonald_ will follow, but his yacht is out in the bay, and he says
that it is the fastest schooner anywhere on the Pacific Coast, and he
has put cannons on his yacht. 'Six pounders' he called them. And about
two hours after you are outside the Golden Gate he intends to follow on
his yacht, the _Flying Gull_, because he wants to catch you on the high
seas. He told me that you did not have a cannon on your _Islander_,
and that it would be easy."

Harshly, with distrust, Williams said: "You have his intimate
confidence, it appears."

Nada's face flushed, and a wounded look came into her eyes before they
glanced down for a moment to her hands. Her fingers plucked nervously
at one another. Then, lifting her head, she replied: "He knows that my
father is a planter, and that all planters hate you, Captain Williams.
And he _does_ like me." Quickly, defensively: "But I never, never have
liked him--much. Now I _hate_ him!"

Williams nodded once, slightly, but what he meant no one could have
told; and he looked at her steadily, recalling the photograph that he
had seen on Penwenn's desk.

"But how the devil," McGuire cried, "did he find out the skipper was
Williams?"

"The doorman--an old sailor--knew him."

McGuire swore a mild oath, striking his knuckles against the desk top.
"Your usual luck, skipper!"

Williams looked at him, then at Nada; but he said nothing, and a moment
later walked away, while they followed him with their eyes. He went to
the end of the enormous room and was lost in the dimness.

"What will he do?" Nada asked breathlessly.

"He'll come back pretty soon as though nothing had happened. That's
about all--all you'll see, anyhow."

A small gloved hand reached McGuire's arm, gripping it; and she
demanded eagerly, in whispered excitement: "But what will he do--just
_what_?" From her early childhood she had heard stories of his daring.

McGuire smiled mistily, shaking his head and casting a gesture toward
the end of the room: "There's no knowing what he is going to do--ever."

"But what do you think he might do? He will do something!"

"Oh, yes, he always does something. The _Flying Gull_--he knows her--is
out in the bay. She is fast, isn't she? Nobody is watching her, is
there? Three or four sailors on board, perhaps, but not expecting
visitors, are they? Well?"

Nada's dark eyes stared at him, questioning his meaning, expecting that
he would continue, say something more; then she glimpsed the idea, and
cried softly: "Oh, he will steal the yacht." She was almost gleeful.

"No, no, oh, no! No--oh," said McGuire. "The skipper wouldn't do that.
But since Penwenn's taken such a fancy to the _Islander_--why, Williams
might trade with him. I've seen him do a little trading that way now
and then."

"Who are you?"

"Oh, I'm Dan McGuire."

Nada regarded him with admiring surprise. She knew of him, but could
never have imagined that the McGuire who sailed with Williams would be
like this lazy-mannered, half-clownish fellow with a long, slightly
twisted nose and drooping eyelids. In an instant he was like a friend,
an old friend; he knew her island and the people that she knew, and
soon she was telling him of herself. Her grey veil lay like mist on
the red of the velvet hood, so demure of shape and flagrant in colour.
Her voice was vibrant, eager; the words sped along as if blown by gay
breath.

"Oh, dear old dad is all broken up. I haven't been home in so long I
don't know what all is the matter. The first letter in months came a
few days ago. He can't write, you know. Dr. Lemaitre wrote for him.
Oreena married to some man that he doesn't like--I've been away so
long----

"You see, father--we _were_ little savages; I was, in any case!--sent
us to Virginia, to a young ladies' seminary. It was terrible! They
called us 'niggers'--those sweet, delicate Southern girls; would put
handkerchiefs to their noses and turn away. Oreena nearly died, but
she wouldn't say a word. I said a word--lots of words--you can just be
sure! I called them--I had read in history--no Southern history though,
I should say not!--how their great-great-grandmothers had been dumped
on the beach like spoiled fruit because they were--well, just _that_!
Then they almost died, those sweet, delicate girls that called us
'niggers.'

"Poor dear old dad hadn't known any better. Some stranger he had drunk
with at the club had told him that we ought to be sent to Virginia,
that there's where the finest ladies were. Oh, father did so want us
to be ladies. I believe that man must have known just what a joke it
would be for us to go there. It _was_ a joke. I have laughed over it
myself since. But Oreena, it almost killed her. She wouldn't let them
know that it hurt so much, but she nearly died. I didn't cry at all.
I talked back to them in good plain beachcomber English--about their
grandmothers.

"We had to leave, of course. But it took so long to write father and
get an answer, and they just couldn't throw us out in the street. We
came on here to San Francisco and stopped with Mrs. Collins. You know
of her, don't you?"

Anyone that Kate Collins liked had a good friend. She was a San
Francisco woman of prominent family; and though in her younger days the
family had made all the trouble that a prominent family can make when
it sees the favourite daughter throwing herself away on a mere nobody,
she married a young sea captain and sailed with him. When she liked
anyone the world could go hang before she would change her opinion for
its approval. She had often been at Pulotu, knew the Combes--knew all
about them. Oreena and Nada had visited her on their way to Virginia;
they stayed with her again on their return. The sisters were much
alike in appearance, but Mrs. Collins loved one and intensely disliked
the other. By some such artifice as only a resourceful woman could
have imagined, she had induced Oreena to want to return home, and had
persuaded Nada to stay on with her. This was accomplished without at
all offending Oreena, otherwise Nada, who had always given up anything
at any time for her sister, would not have remained.

"Oreena went home and wrote me how miserable she was. I should have
gone, too, and kept her company, but I've had the most wonderful time.
Kate Collins is a darling. I haven't heard from Oreena for a long, long
time, but she is married--been married for months. Poor old dad is
all broken up. Oreena was the pride of his life. She was so much like
a fine lady, and she married a German. How father does hate Germans!
Feels toward them as I do toward Southern ladies. But this one--he
feels Seibert married my sister to spite him."

Nada stopped on becoming aware of Williams, who had approached
unnoticed. His hands remained in his side-pockets; the visor of his cap
still shadowed his eyes; but in some way, though it was by no change of
expression, she knew that he was pleased with her.

McGuire turned toward him, and, half laughing in an odd way, said:
"Skipper, Oreena Combe has married Seibert at Pulotu."

Williams barely nodded. He had overheard that much.

"Dr. Lemaitre wrote to me--such a funny little letter. But father is
all broken up."

"He would be," said McGuire. "He'll be more broken up than that
when----"

He looked toward Williams significantly, and a little amused; there was
no response in the short-bearded, hard, bronzed face, and McGuire left
his sentence unfinished.

McGuire thought the queer patterns that Fate made as she pushed people
about were often ironically amusing; he now grinned aimlessly, merely
through seeing how, because of Seibert, they had come to Penwenn,
and because of Penwenn Nada had come to them, and by her coming they
learned of Seibert's incomprehensible marriage. One more arc was
added to this intricate circle when Williams, with a manner of stern
kindliness that meant a great deal from him, asked if there was now
anything that could be done for her.

At first she smiled a little, and thoughtfully said, "No, no, I think
not," as if wanting it to be evident that she had been moved by no
impulse but that of loyalty to him, and his friendship with her
family; then suddenly, without a thought before the words were out, as
if the idea was flying up from a secret place within her, she cried
eagerly: "Yes. Oh, let me go home with _you_! I am so homesick I shall
die here, and I never, never can look at Alan Penwenn again! I want
to go now--with _you_! You will take his _Flying Gull_, won't you?
And--please, you must let me go too!"

Ever since Dr. Lemaitre's letter, and without hardly being aware of
what she was doing, Nada had been thinking of her island, of her
childhood, of how she and Oreena would scramble together on a pony's
back and go splashing across the stream in a runaway gallop down
the palm-pillared roadway; and of how they had often climbed to the
base of a hilltop rock, and lay dreamily watching the big waves that
crumbled on the reefs; far-away hills would be wrapped in purple haze;
below, a hundred palms would rustle their heads together, passing from
one to another among themselves the gossip as told by the wind. Nada
had once believed that trees talked to each other, and often lay very
still, breathless, trying to overhear what they said. And her father,
puttering anxiously about when he found that no one knew where the
children had gone--it had been fun to hide and make him poke about and
call. The great rambling house, always lonely and depressing, would now
be more so; and with Oreena gone there would be no one there but her
father, and the servants never paid attention to him. Nada wanted to go
home.

Williams regarded her with inscrutable severity, unaware, of course,
that McGuire had suggested the _Flying Gull_ to her. Perhaps he felt
that her readiness to discover the way that he would leave confirmed
her right to go, and it may be that he also had Penwenn, and Penwenn's
chagrin, in mind when his head moved faintly toward her, nodding assent.


12

The _Flying Gull_ was easily secured. Being in their home port,
some of her crew and all of her officers were on shore as usual the
next evening when Williams and five of his native sailors from the
_Islander_ came alongside in a rowboat. He was on board, with a gun
at the head of the man on watch before that fellow could do more than
cry out; and though other members of the crew came running out on
deck, they were not expecting anything like piracy in a peaceful bay,
with vessels all about; and they, having no arms at hand, were quickly
subdued without being hurt. An hour or two later McGuire, two other
native sailors from the _Islander_, Nada, and the boy John Paullen,
came on board. Williams then took advantage of the tide and darkness;
and strong rowers towed the schooner from among the ships anchored
off the city; then, making sail, crept to the Golden Gate, and were
ready for the dash to sea as soon as the _Flying Gull's_ sailors were
released in a rowboat. It was from them that Penwenn, and the city at
large, learned what had been done.




CHAPTER II


1


In shape Pulotu had rather the appearance of a German sausage nibbled
by rats, being long and narrow, with pieces pounded out of the
shore-line. The town was known by the island's name. Traders came to
sell to the agents of the big German firm, Godeffroys, then celebrate,
loaf for a time, outfit, and go again. A wharf like a big centipede,
all legs and backbone, straddled out into the bay. Among the frond
shadows a thin semicircle of houses peeped, as if a little afraid of
the big, squat, sheet-iron warehouses and centipede.

There was a tall flag-pole on the beach; but this pole was never used,
because Pulotu, being "independent," had no flag; and each of the three
or four consuls--present less for consular duties than to keep any one
of their number from establishing a protectorate--would have regarded
with avowed suspicion and distrust even the temporary presence of any
flag but his own. It was not that Pulotu was important as a spot on the
map; but it was important to each European Government that no rival
should have successes anywhere on the map. Everybody knew that sooner
or later some one of those Governments would establish a protectorate,
or something of the sort, as a preliminary to ownership. That was the
reason there were consuls, armed with unusual, vague, discretionary
powers, at so inconspicuous an island as Pulotu; and the reason why
warships called with impressive frequency; and why also, in a miniature
fashion, off on this wayside spot of the earth the pawns played among
themselves at the diplomats' chess game.

The Germans had wedged themselves in, as they were crowding through
the islands wherever there were commercial chances. There were, of
course, some English. There always are, no matter what the loneliness
and distance. And a twinkling of French presence remained. Where
the French have planted seed the lotus has the sweetest flavour, and
deadliest.

Everybody in the town took an interest in the arrival of every craft,
and any news that she brought was haggled to pieces for days. Whenever
a ship swung around the treacherous, low-lying horn of the bay, deeply
thrust into the channel like a dagger, all the town knew of its coming.
On the cool twilight side of the club veranda men would stir faintly
on long cane chairs, and mutter among themselves; the house boy would
be sent off with a telescope, and from his description of her rig the
eaters of the lotus and drinkers of the highball would dispute without
energy and without anger, bet this or that, usually in champagne;
then with the slow, stiff listlessness of corpses getting off their
slabs, these idle shapes in ghostly duck would pass through their cool
shadows, and come into the sun, where they mingled with other shapes
from other shadows, on the way to the beach.


2

Williams did not enter Pulotu bay. He landed through the surf on the
other side of the narrow island, about a mile below the slope where
Waller had built his house.

McGuire had never been so miserable on a voyage as on this one, but he
had only increased misery by the way it ended; and all because of John
Paullen.

"What of him?" Williams had demanded, with the merest jerk of a thumb,
toward Paullen in the dawn of the first morning out of San Francisco.
He had been watching Paullen. The boy then stood amidships, with
something of the loneliness in his face that the landsman feels when he
sees the shore-line vanishing for the first time.

"West Point, skipper. Kicked out--head first. Family chopped him off.
Oo-ey--git! Just that way, like a stray dog. Father told him to take
some other name. Just what he did I don't know--yet. But you see for
yourself, skipper, he's the sort that wouldn't cheat at cards, steal a
horse, hurt a woman. He must have thrown a book at a teacher. Well, he
was on the waterfront without a friend or a dollar. Hell-ward bound in
any case. I thought he might as well come along with us."

"You told him?" Williams's eye struck hard.

"Not a word!" said McGuire quickly, sensing trouble.

"He thinks all ships go to sea by being rowed out in the dark."

"You, you knowing he runs the risk of imprisonment--and worse!"

"But, skipper, time and again I've brought men aboard when we could use
them. And I thought----"

"Not his kind!"

"If I had told him he would have come, anyhow. He isn't the kind that
quits if----"

"If you had told _me_ he would not have come."

"But _you_ let Nada come, and----"

"That was to pay Penwenn in bitter coin. He loves her. With less than
half the truth told, no court would hold her. But this boy----"

McGuire then told Paullen the truth--who the skipper was, the ship
he was on, the risk he ran by being there; and Paullen accepted the
circumstances, not with any degree of cheerfulness, but at least
without a word of reproach. But McGuire every day increasingly felt
that he had lost favour with Williams.

Then Paullen one day, jumping aloft in a squall--as he really had no
business to do, being the greenest of sailors--had a fall that nearly
knocked the life out of him, and which did fracture a rib or two.
Though he was carefully stowed away in a bunk, with Nada to wait on
him, Paullen did his best to sicken and die; and, being a stubborn
young fellow, he nearly succeeded. At least, that was how it appeared
to McGuire.

But one of the witchcraft-like mysteries of the sea has to do with sick
men such as Paullen, who very often, for not much of any reason at all,
will turn up their toes and waste away unless a land breeze freshens
their faces. They grow wistfully indifferent, for Death is a kindly
old hag in some ways, and often she makes the sick man like a hungry
child, eager to be snuggled to even her empty dugs.

True, there were Paullen's ribs; but these knitted away as young bones
do. He had the land-fever, and his sense of disgrace worked on his
spirits, so that much of the time he was out of his head and talked of
home.

In order that Paullen might as soon as possible be detached from any
connection with piracy, Williams from the first day at sea had intended
to put him ashore at Pulotu; but, after the boy became ill, McGuire was
given to understand that he, too, would be put ashore.

Williams as much as said: "You got him into this. You go on shore and
see that he gets out of it, too. Stay by him. A boy such as he would
waste his life by settling down on an island like Pulotu, so you see
that he keeps clear of that sort of thing!"

McGuire understood perfectly; but he tried to point out that Paullen
should not be ashore at all; that Nada would have him all to herself,
flat on his back, helpless. Williams glared and made a gesture of
impatient dismissal.

McGuire had always got along so easily with the rigorous Williams
because of a nearly complete understanding of his character, and he had
known that a boy of Paullen's type would at once engage his sympathy,
but he had miscalculated its extent and nature.

McGuire did not like the outlook. He had no eagerness to go through
a month and more of the dirty, stinking work of oyster fishing, for
Williams was going on after shell since he had a debt to pay, and
would pay it as best he could; but Pulotu was not even a good place
to loaf. However, it was the best place at which a sick boy could be
put on shore that the _Flying Gull_ (now no longer the _Flying Gull_,
but the _Hans Haasbruck_--for Williams often used the name of another
ship, as it did much to confuse those who searched for him) for many a
long month perhaps would be near. It was bad enough to be responsible
for one who was sick, but he foresaw that Paullen was sure to be much
harder to look after if he got well; and his mission, the place where
he was going, with its great, dark, rotting house and uncared-for
grounds, his separation from Williams, and almost every condition that
he anticipated, dispirited McGuire.


3

There was no anchorage off the beach where Williams landed, and McGuire
was at the wheel while the schooner was being brought to.

Nada came on deck, dressed for a triumphant landing, though it was to
be through the surf, and she must tramp a mile pretty well up-hill
before astonishing her household. She felt a little ridiculous in
such preposterous finery as a hat aglow with flowers and feathers,
glittering with rhinestones, a tight-fitting jacket sort of waist with
a row of large buttons down the front, a long, full skirt that both
hands could hardly keep from trailing, white gloves that reached to her
elbows; but she knew how her father would have pride if she came in
such an array, and how the servants would gape. Her sparkling, polished
shoes were tied together, and hung across her shoulders. For the walk
up the trail she wore flat-footed slippers.

When McGuire from behind the wheel first saw her he said unkind things
about her appearance; but she knew that he was in the dumps, and
forgave him with laughter that was calculated to make him feel worse.
Already they understood and liked each other well enough to pretend to
quarrel.

Five natives were at the oars of the boat that took Nada and McGuire
ashore; and it shot the surf with bound on bound; and when its bottom
scraped, the largest of these natives, Sanniuu, carried her twenty
yards over the dry shingle. She gave his bare shoulders a rewarding
pat, and was placed down with hardly a drop of spray having touched her.

The boat went back to the schooner, returning with Williams, and
Paullen on a stretcher made of sail and oars.

Nada was excited by the familiar landmarks, and she pointed about,
talking rapidly. Everything that she saw meant something. Childhood
came back with a rush; for a little while it was almost as if she had
merely dreamed of the places and people known in her absence.

"There. Ooo-oo! Right there, out of that tree, I saw a _pili_ fall on
a man--a white man, too! I was standing by father, my hand in his,
here where we are now! The man laughed, and killed the little lizard.
You know, its touch is the warning of death. He went on down to the
beach--this very beach. He was a good swimmer, but what of that? The
surf broke him on the coral. They carried his body up--right up this
trail as they are now carrying----"

"Stop it!" said McGuire. "You're a heathen."

"I wasn't more than six--so big----"

"Are no older now. An' less civilised!"

She ran aside with beskirted clumsiness to a flowering tree, soiling
her gloves and snatching at sprays, getting her hat twisted and awry in
the branches; then put the sprays in the litter for Paullen to smell.
He smiled at her.

"Your hat is spoiled!" said McGuire, with an air of satisfaction.

They came up into the grounds, and though it was a bright, warm day,
gloom and dilapidation that was like a chill, as if the place had
taken on something of old Combe's puttering shiftlessness, pervaded
everything.

On three sides of the immense old house a wide veranda ran under a
covering of thatch; and this shut out light from the rooms that were
always dark, and where voices and footsteps resounded with echoing
hollowness. The second story was thrust among palms; their leaves
fumbled like blind men's fingers against the roof, and at times of
storm beat ragefully, as if the blind men had lost patience. One of the
veranda posts was broken, and the roof sagged. The bottom steps that
led on to the veranda had long ago rotted. Trees locked their branches
and laced their leaves together, as if to keep the sun from finding out
what went on below. An echoing emptiness answered their voices, even
outside the house. A shout through a doorway, to rouse up whoever might
be there, was like a voice down a rain-barrel.

"So changed," said Nada dispiritedly.

It was really less the change than the fact that the gloomy
dilapidation to which she had been imperceptibly accustomed from
childhood (after Waller's death) seemed to have all taken place during
her absence, since now for the first time she realised its run-down and
dismal condition.

No one appeared to welcome her. Quite bewildered, she looked about
from across the veranda rail. Her polished shoes dangled from over her
shoulders; it had not seemed worth while to put them on. She laughed
nervously, being that near to crying; and she said almost hopefully,
"There is no one here," as if that would give her an excuse for not
remaining.

Williams disappeared inside the house. The big Sanniuu and another
native vanished hurriedly, looking for somebody, anybody. Sanniuu had
the determined air of a pursuer, and presently came back with a fat
native woman. He walked slightly behind her, like a suspicious warder,
afraid that she might try to get away. The woman was sullenly curious,
a little uneasy, and still looked sleepy.

Nada rushed to her and stopped short. She did not know the woman.
The woman did not know her. Nada's thwarted eagerness changed to an
expression of pain; and bad news from an old, astonished, loving
servant would have been less shocking than the doubtful answers of this
dull creature, who stared with misgiving.

"Where is my father?" Nada cried, almost accusingly; and, without
pausing, asked of her sister, and for name after name of old servants.

The fat woman was in a loose wrapper that had once been red, but was
now merely dirty. Her hair was down. She stared distrustfully at the
strange girl in American finery, and was fascinated by the hat. Her
dull black eyes went doubtfully again and again toward McGuire.

Mr. Combe, she said, was at the town. He was there most of the time.
Mr. Grinnell, the manager, was over there--and her heavy hand moved
vaguely. Miss Combe was married. She did not come to the house any
more. Nobody lived here now but Mr. Combe.

"Who are you?" McGuire asked.

"I am Lily."

"Well, flower of the English hedgerow, what do you do around here
besides eat and sleep?"

"I am married," she answered, with unruffled dullness.

"An' your sisters an' brothers an' uncles an' aunts--where does the
family stay?"

The woman uncomfortably recognised his familiarity with island ways;
there was rather a lazy swarm dependent on Lily and her husband for
provisions from the Combe kitchen.

With dignity she replied: "My husband is a white man, as you are."

Williams reappeared on the veranda and called up some of his sailors.
They moved a bed to the veranda and rigged a mosquito netting above it.
Paullen, relieved of the sickly rocking of the sea, had already fallen
into a sleep, and was placed in the bed without fully awakening.

Williams might have sent a message to the town, some eight miles across
the island, for Combe; but he had nothing necessary to say to Combe,
and it was important that he go on his way.

All of the parting that he had with McGuire was: "Paullen will be up
and about in two or three weeks. Urge him to go home--to his home,
wherever it is, for whoever his father is makes no difference. There is
no sternness that can resist the return of a boy like that. There is
honour in him, and courage. Take care of him, McGuire. You wait here
till I come."

"Aye, skipper," said McGuire.


4

It was dark when Combe arrived home, and, wondering at the lights he
saw in the house, came shambling along the veranda. Nada ran to him and
threw her arms about his neck; and he stood bewildered, unresponsive,
pushing feebly to get free.

"Why, father!" she cried, stepping back, sadly astonished.

"I'm glad 'o see you, Nada--I'm glad 'o see you. You're all I got now,
child. Or'na she's not my daughter any more."

He shook his drooping head.

"Don't say that! No matter whom she's married she's still _my_ sister!"

"I won't have it! I won't! Don't you go going over there, Nada. I
won't have it! How'd you get home here anyhow? Ah, McGuire, _where's
Williams_?"

He almost screamed the question, half-triumphantly.

"He has gone on," said McGuire, coming forward.

"Gone?"

"He put Nada ashore and a sick boy."

"But he knew Seibert had stole Or'na. He knew it! You tol' him, Nada?
You tol' him what Dr. Lemater wrote you? Wasn't _that_ why he come? An'
he didn't stay to see that feller----"

It was incredible. Combe simply could not believe it.

Most of his time he loitered in colourless misery at the Pulotu Club
and complained of Seibert, the big, hearty man, his son-in-law. It had
become so that the languid idlers would stir and vanish at the sound of
his melancholy voice. Combe drank little or nothing himself, and seldom
stood drinks, which made the idlers feel they had been cheated after an
hour of listening to his unending lamentation.

The club loungers would, in pretended sympathy for the son-in-law,
often repeat all that Combe had said, and more, in the hope that it
would annoy Seibert; but the old fellow's mumbling and grumbling might
have been a fly buzzing for all that he seemed to care.

"His place it is going all to weeds and rot," Seibert would say,
grinning with mask-like cheerfulness.

Which was largely true. Combe, shuffling, vague-eyed, made out as best
he could in the gathering and splitting of cocoanuts with whatever
superintendent it pleased the Lord to send him; though the one he now
had was sent by Brundage a year or two before. This was Mr. Grinnell,
one of England's younger sons--very young--who knew but little of his
work, yet remained honest and sober.

Mr. Grinnell, like many of the younger sons of England, had been pushed
from the nest and told to fly. After some awkward fluttering about
he had landed flat on his back in a hot, wet, dirty, Santa Cruzian
village. There a tall, grim old man with a sinister face had taken
charge of Mr. Grinnell and set him on his feet. A Yankee trader came
along, and the lean old man put Mr. Grinnell and his traps on board
her, paid his passage, and gave him a letter to "Tom Combe, Pulotu."

After shifting from one trader to another two or three times, Mr.
Grinnell finally reached Pulotu, and found Combe on the club veranda.
Combe seemed so peculiarly mild and helpless that Mr. Grinnell's first
impression was that the old fellow must be awfully shrewd. He presented
the letter.

"Read it," said Combe. "I ain't got my specs."

He unfolded the letter, and with blinking surprise read:


     "_Tom_,--Give this boy a try. He can't be worse than
     anybody you would pick to run your business.--_Brundage._"


"A'right," said Combe, as if nothing unusual had taken place. "You're
my manager. Come on out an' go to work. Jake Brundage was always saving
of his words."

"Most extr'ordinary!" said Mr. Grinnell.

"Un-hunh, ain't it? I got a manager out there now, an' he's no good.
Drunk all the time, an' wants to fight. You go an' kick him off the
place an' take his job. I got to try out your executive 'bility," said
Combe, with a gentle, wary effort at being business-like. He could not
discharge anybody. He had no fear; just a helpless shrinking from any
kind of clash.

So Mr. Grinnell, believing that "his chance" had come, went out and
found a squatty thick-faced Englishman asleep in a hammock. The squatty
Englishman blustered and showed temper; but Brundage had seen the
backbone down under Grinnell's fever-stained hide; so the squatty
Englishman, in a profane way, called heaven and earth to witness
his joy at being done with the blasted plantation. He then seemed
determined to weep on Mr. Grinnell's neck out of sheer sympathy for the
misery that lay before this "poor young 'un."

"Let's 'ave a drink to show no 'ard feelin's," said the ex-manager.

"No," said Mr. Grinnell. "I'm a teetotaller!"

The squatty Englishman eyed him in amazed disgust. Evidently he had
never seen a teetotaller before. It was as if Mr. Grinnell had said, "I
am a cannibal."

"God blime me!" he cried. "I knowed some'at were wrong with yer!"

He edged off in a wary circle, insultingly making believe that he
thought Mr. Grinnell might spread a vile contagion, like small-pox. But
at a distance he turned and shouted through the gloomy grounds, "If you
stay sober th' worry o' it will kill yer!" He had weakened into giving
the young fellow the best of his parting advice.

At the end of nearly two years it had nearly killed Mr. Grinnell; but
he was chock-a-block with Dr. Lemaitre's quinine, and in a state of
preoccupied worriment over weeds, bugs, failing crops, the lack of
manures, the ineradicable laziness of labourers.

The one point of conflict between Combe and his manager lay in Mr.
Grinnell's opinion of Seibert; for the young fellow, having that
backbone Brundage had seen, bluntly told his employer:

"Seibert knows more about tropical agriculture than any man north of
Australia. And he works harder. Pulotu loafers all hate him; they jolly
well hate anybody that gets ahead."

When Combe turned to a fretful iteration of his unending grudge, and
told of how Seibert had tried to get hold of the plantation years
before, Mr. Grinnell would answer: "Been a tiptop thing for you if you
had taken him on as partner!"

The night of Nada's return, as long as she would listen, her father
talked on and on in a way that was very like drunken maundering about
Seibert. He had stolen Oreena to get the plantation. Seibert knew that
Brundage was dead; that was why the fellow had dared to steal his
poor little daughter. But she was no longer his daughter. He would
not own her. Seibert was a rascal. He wore grins to fool people. And
Williams--and Williams, knowing his troubles, had gone away without
again settling with that fellow, as if a daughter could be returned
by force. And didn't Williams know that Seibert was his worst enemy,
talked against him all the time, contributed to the reward got up at
Apia after Williams had run off with a shipload of recruits and took
them home?

The club idlers, full of whisky and soda, occasionally revenged
themselves a little on Seibert's worldly success by bringing up the
story of how Williams and Brundage had visited him. They may not have
really believed it, but they could quote old Combe and ask Seibert how
about it.

Seibert at times would sweat like a squeezed sponge, but he never got
angry. Always that air of heartiness that did not convince. His hide
seemed thick as a cocoanut husk. It was unmanly, positively unmanly,
not to lose one's temper at times. In the tropics, and a Dutchman at
that! Some of the idlers said that he had a nest of devils in his heart.


5

The next morning Dr. Lemaitre came bouncing out from town, with
saddle-bags a-flop, and nearly fell off his fat pony to see old Combe,
who had sent word that he had eaten crab meat again and was dying,
shuffling back and forth at the gate.

"Well, well, well, well!" cried Dr. Lemaitre, getting off his pony.
"You are so near death you come out to get your powders the quicker. I
wish so much sense was in everybody!"

"My daughter has come home. Did that fool boy go an' tell you _I_ was
sick?"

"Your daughter! She has made the escape from Herr Seibert!" Dr.
Lemaitre nodded rapidly, as one who has known all along that the thing
must happen. "Let us hasten. The poor child!"

At the mention of Seibert Combe began to pour out his woe. Dr. Lemaitre
patted him gently, as one pats an aged dog. His poor friend was a
little cracked.

"No, Dr. Lemater. Or'na ain't my daughter. Nada, she has come home."

"Oh, oh, oh! Nada! Yes, little Nada. I had not heard. Those rascals
that get sick so far from the town--I must let them die without my
help. I am away so much that I do not hear half the news. Not half!
Little Nada is sick. Tuh-tuh-tuh!" Addressing his pony, "Hear that?
Little Nada is sick! You shall gallop all the way back to make up for
your pokiness. A physician should have a thin horse, then people will
think he comes quickly."

Combe explained that she wasn't sick, either. A trader who had not had
the time to come down the other side of the coast had landed her on the
beach, and landed one of his seamen. It was the seaman who was sick.
Combe was secretive, though ever since Waller's accident Dr. Lemaitre
had been his close friend.

Dr. Lemaitre was the only physician on the island excepting a young,
blear-eyed veterinary that Seibert kept to look after his stock--and
blacks. The little doctor was round, and had the look of cherubic
gentleness, though he was a terrible atheist, with his untidy house
full of wicked books.

Now he bustled along rapidly, the worn black bag so full of powerful
mystery to the natives in one hand, and the panama in the other and
flopping at his warm, red face. The doctor was growing bald and grey
together, as a hilltop is harvested as the grain ripens.

McGuire kept out of sight, but Nada, who knew him almost as well as she
knew her father, rushed into his short arms, kissing his red face and
bald head until he was puffing happily, though a little flustered.

He made her stand off and turn round, exclaiming in amazement that she
was a woman! Tuh-tuh-tuh! Who could believe it? Little Nada was just so
high only yesterday!

Indeed, it seemed such a few years before, such a very few, when the
gaunt Waller himself had come riding through the rainy night, leading
a horse on which Dr. Lemaitre was to go back with him. What a ride! He
had held on for dear life with eyes shut--it was too dark to see in any
case--galloping through the rain over a slippery road. His legs had
not been long enough for the stirrups. They beat and flopped, those
stirrups, as if the devil with a club ran behind and urged the horse
on. Dr. Lemaitre clung to the saddle, eyes shut, teeth clenched, hands
desperately tight. What a ride! For months, especially after an evening
of a little too much Monsieur Voltaire, roasted fowl, and Burgundy, Dr.
Lemaitre would think of it in his sleep and struggle half the night to
keep on the bounding saddle.

At the end of the ride, while Combe, old even then, shuffled about
outside the room, muttering prayers that had the sound of curses, Dr.
Lemaitre had helped Nada to crawl into this ragged, topsy-turvy world.

In the way that doctors do feel toward those they have helped to grow
tall in life, she seemed partly to belong to him; but he did not have a
feeling of quite the same kind toward her sister.

Dr. Lemaitre, with Nada on his arm, went to Paullen's bed.

He yanked up the mosquito netting, which kept flies off in the day,
and, bending over with a pleasant smile and cheerful greeting,
searchingly scanned the boy's face. Right off this little doctor seemed
to understand something, and he removed his iron-rimmed spectacles,
wiping them briskly and peering down at Nada, who busily adjusted the
coverlet.

He then examined Paullen's ribs, where only a little tenderness
remained, then his tongue, pulse, took his temperature, and said:
"Orange juice, all that he can drink"; after which he doled out some
white powders, a half-dozen pills of a deadly green, and used a few
pharmaceutical words by way of assisting the handsome boy to believe in
him.

"Yes, yes, yes. He is all right," Dr. Lemaitre told Nada when she went
with him to his pony. "Such a nurse. He has pleasure in being sick.
That is what is the matter!"

Laughingly she blushed.


6

Nada had discarded the finery of her homecoming; and, having ransacked
the moth-proof boxes stored with clothing, her own and Oreena's, and
choosing a dark divided skirt with a brilliant sash-belt (Oreena always
used a side-saddle, and would never touch a divided skirt), Nada
immediately after lunch mounted a horse Mr. Grinnell chose for her and
went galloping over the road that led northward.

She would have known, without remembering landmarks, when she passed
from her father's ground to Seibert's, that rose and fell up hill-slope
and valley, with ordered fields and groves rigidly spaced, like great
bodies of soldiery, stationed at strategic places, menacing the jungle.

As she clattered over the corduroy bridge across the ravine that
divided the plantations the horse shied, and with a sidling jump and
snort came to a stiff-legged stop. A dozen black, half-naked shapes
with cannibal faces looked up from the roadside. They were clearing
weeds. A man in a dirty white suit, with a blue handkerchief fluttering
at his neck, stared at her from under a pith helmet--a man from
somewhere near the far Baltic, blonde-bearded, blackened by the tropic
sun--one of Seibert's overseers. He was on foot, with the reins of his
horse carelessly across his arm. An open holster sagged on his hip.
Two heavily-jawed dogs lay resting in the shade. It was the man that
growled, and the blacks with sullen slowness stirred their long hoes.

Nada clucked coaxingly, with a gentle handstroke to the horse's neck,
and the horse with wary step edged past the suit of dirty white and
fluttering handkerchief, then bolted.

She rode on. Everywhere men were at work, or had left the signs of
where they had been at work. Even the untamable spots of jungle had
the appearance of having been crowded down cliff-sides or to sharp
hilltops, like the last refuge of something vanquished. On her father's
side the jungle was creeping back in through much of the land from
which Waller, gaunt and powerful, had driven it; but he had never
cleaned with the relentless hewing and grubbing and burning and
ploughing and hoeing of Seibert, who used all the blacks that he could
get. A recruiter could sell him a cargo that he wouldn't have dared to
take even into Peru; and some of the incorrigible natives from other
plantations on other islands were brought to Seibert.

As Nada entered the grounds about Seibert's house she pulled down her
horse on the white coral-built roadway, caught her breath, and cried,
"Oh-o!" She rode along slowly, looking from side to side, and was
enchanted by the terraces, the paths and winding drives, the rows and
masses of flowering shrubs, the beds of flowers, and she faintly heard
the sleepy murmur of running water, and passed along a small stream
that was fed from hillside springs.

"Oh-o! I don't blame her!"

Every step of the way seemed to add explanation of the puzzling wonder
that she had felt ever since learning of Oreena's marriage to Seibert,
whom Nada remembered as a huge, ugly man. She had seen him only a few
times, then at a distance; that is, since she was more than a child.

The driveway came out before a broad, low, white house, vividly white,
with blue trim; the house was almost covered with clustering, cool
vines, and sat before an open space of neatly scythed lawn.

No one was in sight. She felt a slight tremor of loneliness, and
wondered if she should have come without having sent word.

As she approached the house a bareheaded man raised himself into view.
Without coming from anywhere, he simply appeared behind the balled bay
in a large urn on the veranda. He was a huge man, with no hair near his
forehead, and a round, fleshy, reddishly black face. His coat was off.
The open collar showed a thick, strong neck with folds of flesh. He
was in stockinged feet, and the spurred boots lay on the floor by the
jack. The man's body was big, with the muscular curves that bulls have.
He held spectacles in one hand and a paper in the other, and remained
motionless while she rode up. Two or three dogs came out of the shadows
and peered at her, then lazily disappeared. They were trained to bark
at blacks and blacks only.

Seibert stared at her blankly; then, partly by her resemblance to her
sister and partly by recognising where the horse she rode belonged, he
knew who she was. His lips came back over the big, strong, white teeth,
and for a moment his mouth was opened, as if he had forgotten how to
speak; the corners of the blue eyes wrinkled, and a big, half-bare arm,
went into the air with an open-handed, welcoming gesture. The arm
waved about vaguely, even after he had shouted: "Thunder of heaven,
Miss Combe. My sister--ah!"

Then he called loudly, with hearty mastery, summoning servants:
"Ho, Lalua--Lalua! Your mistress, tell your mistress her sister has
come--her sister!" Cupping his hands, the big voice boomed across the
grounds: "Tono! Tono! Tono!" From far off a faint answer came. "Here,
take this horse. Come! Fast, you lazy loafer!"

His voice was loud with good nature, yet one knew by the thin, quick
answers that he got, and by the running gait of the little black man
who had a bandage on his face and came for Nada's horse, that something
more than good nature ruled here.

He showed a hearty pride, a flourish of pride, in calling up servants
and booming through the silent grounds. There was no pretence at not
being proud. At once he was demanding what she thought of it all. His
hand swept out and circled before him, as if laying it all before her;
and at the moment she noticed how awkward his gestures. Fine, wasn't
it? Wouldn't think it possible, would you? Hundreds of varieties of
trees--rare trees--sent to him from all over the world. All done right
in the heart of the jungle! Nothing but jungle! People had laughed. Now
look! She had seen as she rode along. What did she think? Great, wasn't
it?

All morning he had been out in the pepper field. Was going to put
out thousands of pepper vines. They would do well--this time. He had
experimented. Five thousand holes, five thousand poles to be set--and
manured.

He shouted all the while he sat down on the couch where he had been
lying to read and got into his boots, and while he stood up, stamping
heavily to set his feet. The spurs clicked when he stamped.

Then he strode to the veranda steps and greeted her.

To Nada it seemed more like coming home than the return to her father's
house had been; but she had arrived a little suspicious of Seibert, and
had expected to be watchful of him and keep aloof. She had felt that
she owed that much to her father; besides, because of her father and
the old enmity she had hardly expected Seibert would want her to come.
Germans, she knew, could be brusque in their displeasure.

But with both hands--muscular, uncalloused, huge hands--out-thrust,
with massive shoulders thrown back, and his whole face in a grin of
welcome, he took her little gloved fingers and shook them, patted
them with snap and slap that almost stung as he gazed at her with
frank enjoyment; and he told her, just about as he had told her of the
peppers, that she was beautiful--as much like her sister as two flowers
from the same gardenia.

With a big hand under her arm he pushed her along the veranda. His
spurs jangled. He talked. The voice was loud. The free hand waved about
in hospitable flourishes.

She saw servant faces peering at her from beside moving curtains; then
Oreena appeared in a doorway.

Oreena's little face was perfect as a cameo, and coloured as if the
cameo was cut in amber. She had been sleeping, and now for a moment she
looked with a puzzled, unseeing stare into the sunlight. Her small body
was wrapped about from chin to heels in blue silk, and the gown's long,
wide sleeves fell below her hands.

"Eii! Nada!"

Floppy slippers dropped from her feet, and she made a running leap for
Nada, and there was an instant's tossing of tumbled hair, the streaming
flash of blue silk as it swept away from her small, lithe body. She
clutched Nada's neck, springing at her, on her, as if mad with joy.
Only the fact that Seibert's hand supported her kept Nada from being
thrown backwards. He laughed loudly, approving. The pat on Nada's back
that he gave was like the affectionate slap on a horse's shoulder, and
almost knocked out her breath. Oreena, too, seemed trying to squeeze
her to death.

Nada had never seen her sister so tempestuously affectionate, and she
was made delightfully happy.

"Come in," cried Seibert. "Come into the house here. A great fine house
we have. Eh, Or'na?"

He stood massively. A big arm held open the door, and he grinned
broadly as the entwined sisters went by. He followed them.


7

Oreena sat cross-legged like a little Hindu on a divan, and every few
minutes would snatch Nada to her in a smothering embrace, questioning
and scolding, and all with so lively a play of tongue and gesture that
one who had seen Oreena only in her haughty posing would not have
thought it could possibly be the same small person.

Seibert sat close by, watching them, listening, smiling broadly.

The first moment that he was across the big room, anything like
out of earshot, Nada asked, "You are happy?" and inclined her head
significantly.

"Finest man in the world!" said Oreena quickly.

Nada, eyeing the back of the finest man, who had gone for a cigar, saw
his massive shoulders stiffen in pride.

"Nothing he doesn't do for me. Like a great, fine dream, Nada. A great,
fine dream," she repeated, with meditative lowering of her voice.

Seibert, when his cigar was smoked, left them. He must go, he had said,
to see about the new tobacco field. One field hadn't been successful.
Now he had cleared the jungle out of a low, hot valley. New seed
was coming from Havana. He told Nada approximately how many tens of
thousands of years the jungle in this valley had been dropping leaf
mould, preparing the soil for him.

"This cigar"--he held up the smouldering stump--"is of leaf from
Vuelta-abajo. I can raise as good as they do in Cuba."

He struck his chest, as if pointing out who he was; then, with a
parting handshake, making her feel as heartily welcome as when she
came, and telling her to come often, to stay, to live at their house,
he strode out. His big shoulders were squared. He seemed to know that
the women were watching him go. As soon as he got beyond the rug his
spurs jangled importantly; then he stepped on a mat in the hall, and
the jangle was lost. The heavy screen slammed on the veranda. Seibert
was gone.

Oreena instantly raised both hands in a sweeping gesture, and sighed.
Her little face was comically wry.

"Why--this?" Nada mimicked her.

"Shh-hh." Then Oreena called softly, sweetly: "Lalua?" There was no
answer.

Quite stealthily she got up, and, slipping to a curtained doorway,
jerked back the curtain. No one was behind it.

"You can never tell--until you have looked," she said. "That Lalua, she
is part Chinaman or something. And she hates me. I know she does!"

"Who?"

"Just a servant."

"Why keep her?"

"The others are as bad."

She threw herself on Nada, clutching her, and whispered fiercely: "Why
did you let _me_ come from San Francisco? Why did you let me leave you?
I should have stayed, too."

"But you were eager to come."

"No. I knew you didn't want me with you, and----"

"Oreena!"

"Oh, I've thought of you a thousand times a day--and the men--men have
loved you. And I--here! Remember how we used to spill rum on sugar and
watch the flies get drunk? I wish I had men like that over me. Oh,
Nada, if I had only even a fly to love me!"

"But aren't you happy?"

"Happy? Me--here!"

"But you said----"

"I knew he'd hear. I said 'a great, fine dream.' That's just it. Now I
am awake. Love _him_? Why, he's a fat old man--and sweats! He says it's
healthy to sweat. And fertiliser. Talks about manures at breakfast,
manures at dinner; at night manures. He smells of them. I'm so sick of
it all I've wanted to die! Honestly, I've wanted to kill myself--to
jump from a rock and die!"

"But he loves you, Oreena! I can see that he loves you."

"You just say that to put me in the wrong. Oh, Nada, I thought from you
I would have sympathy."

"Oreena."

"I hate him. Love--with hands like that? You call it love to be grabbed
and--you can't move! If I try to tease, 'Don't be a fool!' Other men
aren't that way."

"You don't know men, my dear," said Nada, perhaps pretending to a
little more wisdom than she had, in the hope of being consoling.

"No, I don't! I've been penned up on this wretched island, and you--it
must have been wonderful for you in San Francisco. All I can do is
go up by the waterfall and cry. Nobody can hear me cry with all that
splashing, and cold water is there to wash my eyes when I am done.

"He knows that I go there--I say I like the place--and now he is making
plans to dig it up--the bank, you know--and put in some of his old
flowers. He is always going up there, just to decide what to do. It
isn't for me. I know it isn't for me. He likes digging and planting.
Oh, I hate these gardens and groves, all in rows, as if waiting to
march. I want to get off in the jungle. It is the native in me. Don't
you ever feel that way?"

"No, I should say not! I hate the jungle!"

"Then _you_ should have married him. So does he. But _you_ can't
know how _I_ feel, for you have been loved all your life. Everybody
has loved you. I used to say, 'Nada is a little fool. She listens to
anybody that says, "I love you."'"

"Oh, nothing of the kind."

"You did. And I wish I had. I haven't even friends, Nada. What friends
_can_ I have here? The natives I won't look at. I never would. You know
that. The whites, down in the town, they won't look at me--not the
women. They think I feel above them, and always did. Oh, I have paid
for my 'airs,' as those seminary wretches called----"

"But why did you marry him? There are other men, and----"

"Oh, listen, Nada. When I first came home there _was_ a man. Black hair
and black eyes he had. When I was riding I used to see him watching
me. Out of the corners of my eyes I could see how he stared. Then one
day he got on horseback just so he could meet me. He couldn't ride,
but he wanted to talk to me, so he had come on a horse. He rode right
up, and just began talking. Oh, it was wonderful! He said, 'Look here,
you're the prettiest thing I've seen, and I've looked at 'em all from
Singapore to 'Frisco, 'Frisco to hell an' back!'

"That was what he said! To me! I nearly fainted. Oh, it was wonderful!

"'Miss Combe'--he had learned my name--'I've got a ship and a sack of
dollars. You come with me, and we'll take this old world by the tail
and whirl it over our heads. These fools around here say you are cold;
they don't know a red-hot heart when they see it!'

"Oh, Nada, for one wild minute I wanted to do it! But I froze my lips,
and I rode by him. I did not even speak. If I had opened my mouth I
would have said, 'Yes!' He wasn't handsome, but I liked him. If he had
been handsome I might have done it. I wish I had. I learned afterwards
that he was a wild one. I wish I had!"

"Why, Oreena, what has got into you!"

"I never see anybody, not a soul--I mean to speak to. Once I pretended
to be sick. I thought Dr. Lemaitre would come. I was just hungry for
somebody I had known all my life. Mr. Seibert sent for him. He really
did. I afterwards gave the boy a dollar to tell me honest, and Mr.
Seibert had told him to bring Dr. Lemaitre, but he wouldn't come. He
sent back word that there was a sick baby he couldn't leave. That made
me so angry that I pretended to be worse. And then Mr. Seibert brought
in a young idiot that he has to doctor the _blacks_ and _horses_!
Manure smell was on his clothes, too. The fool held my hand, pretending
to feel my pulse! Oh, but he is an ugly thing, with glasses thick as my
thumb. When Mr. Seibert wasn't looking the wretch kissed my hand! Oh,
how I slapped him! It sounded like a shot. Mr. Seibert turned around.
My, but that fellow was scared! So was I. I clapped my hands together,
as if I was in pain, and moaned. I don't know why I did it. I just did
it. Mr. Seibert would have killed him, and I wouldn't have cared, but
I clapped my hands--like that!"

The little palms came together--_smack_!

Oreena laughed nervously; and Nada smiled, trying not to show that she
was vaguely saddened.


8

Oreena told everything that Nada asked to know; and she told much of it
with cynical frankness.

Seibert from the first had seemed old to her; and he was not handsome,
with his huge, fleshy body and sunburned redness, big white teeth
always showing in unconvincing cheerfulness; but he had a heartiness
very like contempt for all people, and this had satisfied her dislike
of them; he drove his blacks and their overseers, and this was like
mastery; his groves grew in straight rows that climbed hills and down
again, which was wealth.

Northward lay destiny; and she trotted forth from her father's dark,
gloomy house and advanced over Seibert's well-made roads, deliberately
to find him.

On the first day that they met he spoke, sweeping off his broad-brimmed
panama, showing the hairless, sunburned forehead. She answered aloofly,
but she answered. Then with a flaring gesture of a big muscular arm he
put the road at her feet, and mentioned the outlook from the hilltop
three miles farther on. She thanked him, and rode on until she came to
the sweeping view of the great estate which seemed fitting to her hopes.

Not regularly, but often, she rode on his land. They met from time to
time. Presently she knew that he was watching out for her. They began
to ride together, he boasting and pointing, always respectful; but soon
she was aware that he had determined on ownership, and somehow it made
her uneasy; she had obscure doubts, felt hesitant, ached for something
unknown. Nevertheless, she continued now to ride across to him every
morning, though she dreaded the big hands that waved and groped in
air, as if blindly reaching, and some day must close. She was a little
puzzled by the delay, since by the signs which a woman only can read
she knew what lay ahead.

Then one day down at Pulotu a great quantity of crated stuff was taken
out of a ship and put on the wharf for Seibert. Wagon-loads of it went
creaking up the roads and to his house, which had been enlarged and
freshly painted, with blue trim. Sweating and shouting, but delighted
in a big, ponderous way, he stood about, ordering this and that into
place. He had brought out half a shipload of furnishings. Then he
offered it all to her.

She trembled with refusal, but could not speak. Something about
him--she didn't know what, but something in the beaming red face and
big roundness of body--made her physically dread to refuse.

She had dropped her head and leaned against him. He laughed
good-naturedly, and the big, muscular hands closed.

They were married by the dark, consumptive missionary who was brought
out from Pulotu. That was all; and Seibert became her husband--a big
man, with no youth, wearied day after day by riding and climbing and
striding among black labourers that shrank instinctively.

In the morning he would go over accounts and reports, swearing with
abruptness, but somehow unangered even when displeased; then he rode
out to see for himself what was being done. Always he rode a powerful
horse. It had to be powerful to carry him.

After dinner he would doze over a cigar and snore, sweating as he slept
in the heat of the day. After supper he smoked and dozed and snored.
The house was pervaded (she said) with stable smells, the odour of soil
and stale tobacco.

Sometimes he would say, "Come here," and she came. He was not gentle
and not rough, and would often stare at her with a sort of stupid
dullness, as she had seen him staring at flowers.

When he ate a roasted fowl at the table, he would take it by a leg in
each hand and tear it open good-naturedly.

"I've looked at picked bones on his plate and shivered, I don't know
why. He treats me like a child, and I am a woman--older than the jungle
that he hates, and a part of it!"

Seibert had a peculiar liking for blue, and this was everywhere
apparent. There were borders of blue lobelia, and great masses of blue
hydrangeas; but it was in the house that his preference for this colour
was especially seen. Oreena was inescapably shut in by blue; she would
have liked something more blazing; but even in her room it was his
taste that dominated. There was a daintiness about blue and white that
was difficult to associate with a man so gross in appearance, and even
more so in manners; and in this room that she used more than any other
as her "very own" (Seibert thought it foolishness that she should want
one room to herself when the entire house was hers) the colour was
chillingly blue; or, at least, Oreena felt that it was chilling.

True, in this room there were many other than blue objects; but she
thought these absurd, all excepting the cuckoo clock, which she liked.
On the shelves, on the table, on the stand before her mirror, were many
pieces of German ware fashioned to represent little boys in bright
clothes, a Gretchen or two with long, plaited, golden hair, odd little
men in strange jackets with staffs in their hands and standing beside
hollow tree-stumps--all strangely clean, meaningless, and to Oreena
colourless. These were things of a sort that Seibert had admired in
shop-windows years before, and remembered when he set about furnishing
his house for her.

For all of his apparent good nature--and he was always beaming when
near her--Seibert was as hard as iron. Whatever he wanted done was
done. There was no flexibility about his wishes, even those inspired by
a desire to please her, as in the matter of colour, and the waterfall,
where she wanted the jungle roughness of overgrown foliage. He knew how
such things should be landscaped. He really did. And what he thought
best had to be done; always, and in just the way that he wished.

"I hate him! I want to be loved, and he makes me afraid. He smiles
like----" She grinned, mocking his cheerfulness. "You never know when
he's angry or happy or what. Always----" She savagely repeated the
caricature of his grinning.


9

Nada, in telling of various people and happenings, told of Paullen,
whom McGuire had said was a gentleman ("which," said McGuire, "will
handicap 'im all his life"); of how he had been hurt and his sickness,
and of how handsome he was.

"You love him!" Oreena cried instantly.

"No. Indeed not! He had been sick, that's all."

Oreena asked questions about him with unabashed intensity, demanding to
know his age, how he looked, how ill he was, who he was, and whatever
else she could think of.

"I see no one," she wailed petulantly. "I am dying for a glimpse of
something human. You will bring him, you will, won't you? Just once,
anyway? Promise! You will, won't you? Poor boy--in _that_ house. I
would have died if I had stayed longer. I know you haven't a decent
servant. I have a China boy I can spare. He's a fine cook, and just
the one for an invalid. I'll send him over with you right to-day. And
anything else? What do you need? When he can ride, you will come by
this way some time, won't you? Just so I can wave at you. Won't you?"

When Nada rode home that afternoon a hairy little pony jogged
dispiritedly along behind her with a Chinaman on it. Lu Lung he was
called. As he intoned a sort of grunt to whatever was said in his
presence, and gave hardly any other sort of answer to anything, the
name did very well. His cheeks were full; his eyes were dark and
expressionless. He was a well-fed Chinaman, as those who do kitchen
work usually are. A peaked, stiff-strawed hat sheltered his coiled
queue, and he wore a loose black blouse and short, tight trousers. A
bundle no bigger than a husked cocoanut, done Up in a clean dark cloth
and tied by the four corners, was fastened at the saddle-horn, which he
gripped with thin, yellow, womanish hands.

Nada was glad to have him; and he was glad to go from the white house
with the blue trim, though before leaving he had stopped by the bed
of slender lilies, whose fragrant clusters seemed merrily ringing
inaudible chimes as they swung to the rhythm of a soft wind. He had
looked down for a furtive moment, as if something had been lost there;
then he went away.




CHAPTER III


1

Within a few days Paullen had begun taking slow, wobbly walks up and
down the veranda, sniffing the tropic strangeness, with Nada at his
elbow. A week later he was meandering through the grounds, and being
pampered at meal-times by the cook Oreena had sent. Wherever he went,
Nada was his shadow.

McGuire saw clearly enough how things were going, and he let them go.
He idled about, dreaming away the hours with wastrel ease. Nothing
troubled him except the approaching shuffling scrape of old Combe's
heavy feet. The vaguest sound of these made McGuire jump, and duck off
the veranda like a surprised thief. But sometimes he dozed and was
caught, and must listen.

Every day Tono came over with a bottle of wine or something from the
Seibert pantry; often with flowers, too, and always with a note.

Tono had been Oreena's groom. Seibert did not like him. He was an
impertinent little old fellow, who had been spoiled by her. To
Seibert's way of thinking he remained worthless, but at least he had
learned to do as he was told, and quickly. Tono now wore a bandage on
an eye where he had been slapped for giving himself airs. Hardly a
bluish sign of the blow remained, but Tono wanted everybody to know
that he had been struck.

The note invariably asked Nada to come to-morrow, spoke of how lonely
it was, and asked about the young sick man.

Every two or three days Nada would ride over to see her sister; but
only once did she again meet Seibert, and he welcomed her with gusto,
asking why she did not come to their house to live. He appeared to mean
it. In fact, Nada rather liked him, though she understood her sister's
dislike. As a husband he would be unlovely, so huge and sunburned, and
he _did_ smell of fertiliser. He was more than fifty; fifty-two Oreena
had said. Still a young man, he called himself, with an outward thrust
of chest, which he smote with a big fist to show how solid it was.

Paullen, before he was strong enough to try to ride, had looked at the
horses on the place with the interest that a man has for something he
knows about; and he smiled, but Nada felt not quite happily, as he
said, "I almost had a saddle for a cradle. My father used to hold me on
before him. He was in the cavalry."

Mr. Grinnell very seriously, and with approval, told her that "the boy"
(he was probably about thirty months younger than Mr. Grinnell himself)
was quite intelligent on horse-flesh. This pleased Nada more than if
Mr. Grinnell had told her that she was pretty. Mr. Grinnell did not
tell her anything of the sort. He had his hands full of other troubles
than women.

The _coccus_ had got into the cocoanuts, and Mr. Grinnell had already
cut down and burned more than a hundred trees. He said to Nada, "Some
time, when visiting your sister, you just ask Mr. Seibert what's best
to do with that damn scale after it's gone this far. I've jolly well
tried everything I know or have heard of. It just seems to fatten up
the pest--all I do."

Nada promised, and meant to do as asked; for wasn't it her property?
She never did.

Nada had talked of her sister to Paullen, of the house and gardens, of
Oreena's loveliness, of Seibert's hearty welcome (Grinnell had talked
of his fine horses); and she said that as soon as he could ride they
would go over.

In this they had pretty much the air of innocent conspirators, for old
Combe grumbled at any show of neighbourliness. His objections weren't
important to Nada, but they were annoying. Her father maintained, in
his futile stubborn mumbling, that as long as Oreena was Mrs. Seibert
she wasn't his daughter. He loved her more than anything else on earth;
it was the love that hurt and made him stubborn.

It was not long before Paullen was on horseback and riding about on
the Combe plantation; then the day was set for visiting Seibert's.

Mr. Grinnell, younger son of good family and sober, with the tenacity
that an educated Englishman has everywhere, had held to good clothes,
which are somehow or other a symbol of caste, and keep up self-respect,
even when packed away and growing mouldy in airtight boxes. In the
generous, embarrassed way of a man offering something to wear to
an equal whom he does not know very well, Mr. Grinnell placed his
wardrobe, full of creases and camphor in a sheet-iron covered box, at
Paullen's disposal. The dark Lily laid aside enough of her dignity to
do a washing in the pool of running water, where, for all her laziness,
she bathed every day; and by the help of Lu Lung's hot iron in the
kitchen Paullen was fitted out.

Then he and Nada vanished among the shadows of upland roads.


2

Their horses were plodding and nodding at a walk, coming up to the
highest point reached by the twisted road where it rounded under the
crest of a bluff that men had gouged and half blown away to make room
for passers-by. Then the road again bent waveringly down into the
valley.

"Look!" said Paullen, as he raised his arm ahead.

"I know. It took my breath the first day. It was all jungle."

"No. See? There is someone."

Much farther on and above them a man on horseback was at the edge of
the road under the gouged bluff. Below him the country was diminished
by distance until it lay like toy-land. In a far-off haze of silver the
ocean shimmered restlessly.

"That is Seibert."

"I thought it must be," he said.

The road curved before them, and when they came in sight of him again
they were much nearer, but he had not yet seemed to notice their
coming.

They watched him, not the view. As if by some accidental trick of
position, some chance arrangement of bluff, vista, and the sky, the
motionless horse and rider were massive in outline, without details,
the figure without personality, and seemed more than a big man on an
enormous black stallion; they seemed something monumental, something
fittingly expressive of the conqueror, looking out across the hills and
slopes he had broken to the plough.

They were quite close before Seibert turned to look at them, and he
appeared to be surprised that anyone was near. He pulled back into the
road, flourished an arm over his head, and shouted, "Ho-oh there!" as
though they were a mile off.

From afar an echo caught the shout and threw it back with impudent
mimicry: "O-o-there!" as if the echo knew something that ought to be
mocked.

Nada lifted her hand in the flutter of a reply. Already, before they
could have spoken, Seibert was talking in a loud, rapid voice. With a
flourish he pushed his hat far back, showing the hairless red forehead,
dotted with sweat.

Paullen thoughtfully regarded him. He had heard of Seibert from
everyone. His personality stirred people. Mr. Grinnell was an admirer,
and wouldn't deny that the man did boast, but he had jolly well done
something to spread himself a bit if he liked! McGuire, in a sort of
indolent perverseness, took the other side to what anybody said. Nada
had told him something of how her sister felt, and why; but she was
really a little sorry for Seibert, which was the last feeling in the
world anybody would have thought he could inspire. Out of painful
courtesy Paullen had even listened clear through old Combe's complaint;
though, true enough, that had been before he could walk very well.
He had expected that Seibert would be full of perfectly transparent
brutality, and that he would dislike him intensely on sight--and he
did. After the first thrill of the powerful horse and motionless rider,
Paullen suspected that Seibert had seen them coming far below and
waited as he did just to show off. This idea deeply disgusted Paullen,
and seemed to justify, somehow, all the dislike that he had heard
expressed.

Seibert's stallion was an ill-tempered beast near other horses, and
now champed his bit, rattled the bridle chains, pawed, tossing his head
with eyes ablaze, threatening to rear or bolt.

Seibert talked loud. What he said was important enough in a way but he
spoke with loud-mouthed emptiness, waving an arm that did not have the
least gestural force. The whip that he never rode without dangled from
his gauntleted wrist not unlike a symbol.

He had been thinking, he said, of his first climb to this very spot.
Twenty-two years before--and looked down on jungle, nothing but jungle.
_Ach!_ how time goes fast! Every tree down there, every year, was fed
fertiliser. His secret: roust the weeds and use manure!

The stallion backed clear off the road, so close to the edge of the
bluff's shelf that a hind foot loosened small rocks. They went rattling
down for hundreds of feet.

Seibert gave a swinging cut at the flank and drove in his spurs--these
spurs that jingled so when he walked. The stallion bounded, then was
jerked back on his haunches in the middle of the road. Seibert kept on
talking. Between Bismarck and his rider there was no doubt as to which
of them held the reins.

"Showing off!" thought Paullen, who recognised horsemanship--a bit
brutal, but nevertheless horsemanship.

In grudging honesty he later said to Nada, "That horse would kill an
ordinary man"--pause--"but perhaps he's the bigger brute, that fellow."

Paullen did not like the way Seibert's eyes and thick-lipped grin
beamed at him: "So this was the sick sailor? From the _Hans Haasbruck_,
yes?" To him, this heartiness was unconvincing. He noticed, too, that
Seibert's expression had a way of dying out for a second or two, as if
his thoughts slipped away, even while he was gesturing, almost while
speaking.

"This view, I made it!" A big fist struck against his chest.

There wasn't a tree he hadn't personally inspected when he set it
out. Not one. And fertilised. That was the secret. Take any man, even
of good stock, that had to have his fingers all the time groping
about like little roots for food, just to keep himself alive, barely
alive--never bore good books, good music, good pictures, that fellow!
Same with trees, if they had to hunt for food. Look at the races that
were hunters, all savages. _Gott_, yes! Civilisation was a matter of
the food supply. Food a matter of manure. Eh? Well-fed people ruled the
earth. Trees had to be of good stock, otherwise a waste of manure, like
feeding savages.

He rode along with them for a while, then with a preoccupied flourish
and a big, empty-voiced good-bye turned off toward where many black
shapes were moving slowly as crippled ants at their unending work; ugly
creatures, with the leer of hatred in their faces.

Paullen and Nada, as they went on, almost lost their tempers over
dissimilar ideas in talking of him. Paullen put down the blatant
heartiness and vague flourishes of the big arm, with that ominous quirt
dangling, to a crafty insincerity.

"It's just a mask. He's hiding something. I _know_ it!"

Nada tossed her head; the little lips moved rapidly. "Nothing of the
kind. He's just proud of what he's done--can you blame him?--and wants
to be liked."

"And _you_ like him."

"I don't! I--my sister isn't happy. That's enough to keep me from
liking any man."

"He's appallingly conceited."

"All men are!"

"Some have good manners, at any rate. There's Mr. Grinnell, who
wouldn't----"

"Who can't even get rid of a few cocoanut beetles, and"--hastily,
without really any wish to disparage Mr. Grinnell, but because she
had a point to win--"I don't see that Mr. Grinnell has anything to be
conceited over."

"You _do_ like him."

"I don't!"

"You stand up for him."

"I hate him!"

At which Paullen dropped his hands in sarcastic helplessness, much like
surrender. He was not quite old enough to understand that a woman does
not need to mean what she says to win an argument.


3

Oreena expected them, and for a long time had been watching through the
grounds from the veranda's swing. Yesterday Tono had brought word that
this was to be the day. As they did not come as soon as she had thought
they would, she pulled the mirror many times from under her cushion for
a last look.

Oreena knew that her face was flawless. She had pleasure in seeing day
after day, a score of times a day, that her ripe little lips curved
adorably, that her nose was straight and not in the least thickened by
her native blood, that her dark, moist eyes were filled with light; her
hair had a silken bushiness, her skin was of a deep, rich sun-brown.

Anybody's visit would have been exciting. Nothing happened from one
month's end to another. Seibert had his groves and jungle, and for him
something was always happening, even in the flower-beds. He would go
stamping in his spur-studded boots along the gravel walks to look at
the bud of some carefully-nurtured plant the gardener had petted from
a seedling; and perhaps he would say: "Ah, to-morrow it will bloom."
No doubt the plant would overhear; by to-morrow it was sure to be in
bloom. There was passion in him for flowers--and fertiliser.

One flower was not exactly like another to Oreena, for she thought that
some looked better than others in her hair; but she had quickly become
indifferent to flowers except as flowers, and did not ever greatly care
for the artificial arrangement, the walks, terraces, clumps, masses of
bloom, which were Seibert's pride.

She felt that he regarded her as something of an odd, pretty little
plant. It was pleasant to be admired, but she wanted love; and not from
him. She wanted the strangling, fiery caress of youth to youth. There
was no youth in Seibert.

Any attempt to disturb his heavy weariness when he did not feel like
being disturbed was "foolishness," and so called. She resented his
dominance, which came so naturally to him that he did not recognise it
as dominance.

Now for a long time her attitude toward him had been that of a woman
who is trying to make a good showing in a doubtful bargain; but young
women, full of life and love-hunger, when they have been bad bargainers
seldom possess the worldly wisdom to realise that food, shelter, bodily
warmth, and a man indifferent enough not to be cruel are not wisely to
be gambled away for even love.

Oreena was as ready to have a hand reach up for her as a pear dead
ripe--any hand, preferably not too muscular or soiled by stable odours.

John Paullen was a name given to her fancy when it was ravenously
empty. She made reveries about him, began to fashion his face in her
mind; at times, as she walked, her little body swung in the thrilling
play that this young stranger stood by and looked at her. She was
determined to be loved; and a certain physical fastidiousness was her
nearest approach to caution. Less has saved many a girl's soul. More
would not have saved Oreena's. A tropic girl, half uncivilised at birth
and still nothing but a child, she was mad for love.


4

Oreena looked up from her mirror. In the distance, through the latticed
space of tree-trunk and shrub foliage, she could see them coming. The
horses walked idly, as if dozing between steps.

A shadow of petulance fell on her face; slim little fingers closed
into fists, grasping and holding something not there. She was waiting
impatiently, and had been waiting a long time; and they loitered, as if
pleased enough with each other not to be much interested in where they
were going.

This tingle of jealousy revived a sense of unfairness in things, like
desperation. Tears came out, venturing almost to the edge of her dark
eyes. Oreena was about to drive them back, since beauty is not at its
best when dampened; but she was caught by an intuitive subtlety as
she bent to her mirror and peered at her saddened expression. Neither
gaiety nor aloofness had ever made her face so appealing. This was
something that she had never before realised.

Oreena convinced herself in an instant that it was so, that she _was_
miserable and saddened, a chilled plant in the shadow of something
unlovely and unmovable.

So it was that Nada first called out gaily, then, anxiously jumping
from her horse without touching Paullen's extended hand, she hurried
with outstretched arms toward Oreena, asking what was the matter, what
had happened, what was wrong?

Oreena smiled, spoke sweetly, seemed glad, but not happy. She denied
that anything was wrong, but her denial was in such a manner as to
confirm her sadness. Her greeting of Paullen was subdued, without
eagerness; but the soft, deep dark eyes stayed lingeringly on his face
in a way that made him feel that she was quite dispirited, and made him
sure that he knew why. Nada had told what purported to be "all about"
her attractive sister, but he could not imagine how Nada had been so
unseeing as to say that Seibert seemed to be good to her. Unhappy, yes;
Nada had admitted that of the marriage; but not without what appeared
to be almost a liking for Seibert; certainly a kind of respect was
included in her opinion of him.

At this very first exchange of glances with her, Paullen recalled the
powerful horsemanship that had set the stallion on his haunches. That
jerk and dangling whip were connected, if only symbolically, with the
furtive sadness in Oreena's face; and he pitied her.

Lalua, a tall, straight, immobile native girl with slanting eyes,
shuffled out in grass slippers, and brought a tray set with glasses of
cool wine and little cakes sprinkled with aniseed.

Seibert had an arrangement of canvas and dripping water that very well
took the place of ice. He had grapes on a sandy slope, and from these
he made wine--not this, but a less delicate wine. Once the blacks had
got hold of some soured casks. For half the night there was a dreadful
time--yelling and rushing about; big fires going. Some of the blacks
went off into the bush with a dog they had killed. She had heard one
of the servants say that it wasn't a dog at all! Seibert expected
eventually to make grape brandy. There was a market, he thought,
throughout the South Seas for grape brandy, cheap and strong. He was
trying now to get more blacks--another hundred or two. She hoped,
almost, that he would not be able to get them. Much work was planned,
and could not be carried on for lack of labour.

Oreena told them all this as they nibbled cakes and sipped wine. She
tasted the wine lightly, and with dainty nervousness moved a little
cake about on her plate with the tip of a small finger. She did not
raise the cake to her mouth. Her excitement was intense. A crumb would
have been choking. Yet she spoke quietly, with now and then the slow
smile of a tired child that really wants to be gracious.

Nada tried to think of a way to have her alone for a few minutes and
find out what was wrong. Oreena had never been like this--just sad.

Presently Nada suggested that someone show John (she had been calling
him John for many days) the stables. These, she said, were really
wonderful stables, and he was interested in horses.

Tono was sent for. "Poor Tono," Oreena murmured, as they saw him
coming. Nothing more was said, but Tono's story as to why he wore the
bandage had been told at Combe's.

As he stood up to leave them, Paullen asked: "That night when the
blacks were loose, what did Mr. Seibert--how did he manage?"

Oreena felt that much of her future depended on her answer. He was
asking, not to know what had been done, but what to think of Seibert;
it was the difference between generalship and personality. She sensed
the importance of the reply.

Her eyes fluttered to the little cake, gazing thoughtfully there while
she tapped it, as if hesitating to say. And she was.

At last: "He put overseers and natives that could be trusted on guard
around the buildings. He said that he did not want any of the labourers
hurt--that he needed them. We had a terrible night, knowing that the
men on guard were not expected to shoot!"

Nada, reaching for more cakes, casually put in: "That was sensible."

Oreena lifted her glance doubtfully to Paullen, and was thrilled.
He did not know it himself, but his grey eyes were lighted with a
protective earnestness.

He then went away with Tono, who began to talk importantly in a rapid
mixture of pidgin-English, as if the horses were his own, the buildings
of his designing, and that but for him Seibert would not know how to
manage his affairs.

The two sisters, waiting for him to get out of hearing, watched Paullen
as he walked off down the winding drive; and they were for some moments
lost in reflective silence, each with her thoughts.

A slanting shaft of sunlight reached their feet. Somewhere at the other
end of the veranda the canaries awakened from their long midday rest
and began a throbbing trill. Lalua, the immobile, withdrew after she
had brought more cakes, and let the screened door slam by way of gently
conveying her dislike of Oreena. Away off a man shouted vaguely; he had
given orders from afar to some workmen. Tiny lizards, running between
doubtful pauses, flitted across the sunlight on the floor.

Nada started to speak, but at the first word, as if she had awaited a
signal, Oreena leaned across the table's corner, overturning a glass,
and caught hold of her sister's arm. There came a whispering rush of
words: "He's mine! He's _mine_! You must let me have him! I won't give
him up. You--you said you didn't love him, and--and I do!"

Nada was disconcerted, and secretly appalled. Her love of Oreena was
wound up in the intricacies of an affection that had never denied her
sister anything, however selfish the demand.

"But, Oreena, you haven't known him an hour!"

"I have waited all my life!"

"Oreena, you--you are married."

"I am not. I am a plant--a potted plant. And I won't bloom--not here. I
won't!"

"But, dear, what would you do? What can you do?"

"Make him love me. I can! He almost does now. He's sorry for me. Oh,
isn't he a darling! Such soft, bright eyes--and long lashes! I wish I
had those lashes. Nada, you will help me, won't you? You don't love
him--you said you didn't love him."

"No, of course--I--I like him."

"Oh, you couldn't help liking him. But he is mine! I will have him!
Didn't you see, he's sorry for me already."

"Oh, so that was what you---- Oreena! You wanted him to feel sorry for
you? 'Nada felt somehow cheated.

"What else could I do? And he ought to feel sorry for me. Everybody
ought to feel sorry for me. I'm here--just stuck here in this--this
flower-pot of a place, and can't move. And you have seen _him_. So big
and thick, with that awful red forehead that is bare as nakedness, like
something indecent. Always the smell of sweat. And so old. I can't be
expected to love him."

"But, Oreena, that isn't his fault--his appearance. And you set your
cap for him. You said so!"

"I believe _you_ love Mr. Paullen!" Oreena countered quickly.

"I most certainly do not."

"Then why do you talk this way? Why don't you help me? Why do you try
to make me feel I am doing wrong? I won't feel that wrong! I am not. I
am going to have that boy for my very own, and----"

"Shh-hh, Oreena!"

Oreena's little hands waved out in gestures of desperate indifference.

"I don't care who hears! I don't care! He would kill me; but he _is_
killing me. I won't endure it. And you, Nada, you _must_ help me!"

"But what can _I_ do?"

They fell into silence at the idea of what could be done, and sat
absent-mindedly gazing into each other's face. Oreena's small, bushy
head had thoughts scurrying about in it like a nest of spiders,
weaving futile little webs that were at once thrown away. This moment
of her life seemed of supreme importance, and she must do something at
once cautious and desperate--the usual dilemma of the woman who loves.

Nada afterwards told McGuire that her sole sensation at this time (she
would not admit love for Paullen) was dread. She saw, she said, those
big, muscular hands at the throat of her sister, and wanted to put her
face down on her arms and cry.

Presently Oreena said, "There is a back trail to the waterfall. You can
ride in that way without anyone seeing. I often go to the waterfall.
Some time soon, in a day or two, you must come that way, and let me be
with him alone. You will do that, Nada?"

"But, dear, it is dangerous!"

"But, darling," Oreena mimicked feverishly, "I do not care!"

"It mustn't be done that way. I am afraid. No, no, no, Oreena!"

Scornfully Oreena hissed, "_You_ won't be hurt. It is my throat he
would choke! And if you won't help me I'll get caught that much
quicker, and then----"

"Oreena, you have gone mad!"

"I have! I am going to have him. I am going to make him love me. I
would do anything in the world to get him and keep him."

"But where will it end? How can it end? John was nothing--not even the
ship, not even the sack of dollars, like that other man."

"He has two strong arms and the sweetest mouth in the world! I love
him!"

It was with the strange, eternally feminine disregard of man's volition
that they talked of John Paullen, as if their plans determined his
desires. It did not occur even to Nada, who resisted the idea with
her every thought and hope, that Paullen might not be fascinated as
Oreena wished; and this must have been tinged with some bitterness, as
with her he had not shown a sign of anything more than companionable
affection, an unfailing quiet courtesy.

Oreena, on the other hand, could make a rush at him; and in the
pretence that she was miserable, perhaps hoping for escape from
Seibert, whatever boldness she used would seem that much more of an
appeal for sympathy, and even protection.

Nada realised this, and thought it almost like cheating. She spoke of
it, however (to McGuire), as cheating Paullen. Seibert was an unlovely
man, thick-bodied, heavy-featured, with nothing apparent in him to
awaken tenderness; but he had never been abusive. He always kept
whatever promises he made. He even observed his contracts with the
blacks. And it was like cheating Paullen to give such a terribly wrong
picture of Seibert. It was worse than cheating; it was putting him in
danger.

Nada had no choice but to submit or to warn him.


5

Seibert had cut the back trail with the intention of laying a road
that passed the waterfall. From lack of labourers and press of work
elsewhere he had then drawn off his attack on that part of the jungle,
which, like the last foot-hold of a hill-dwelling tribe, was, after
all, hardly worth the fight to clear it out. Some day he meant to send
in his axemen and grubbers, dynamite and fire, powerful horses in
tandems of chain harness, and ant-like swarm of blacks, for his twenty
and more years of warfare was not to be made inglorious by anything so
like a survival of the enemy on the unfertile hills behind him.

Creepers had sneaked back to the trail, winding and binding themselves
into the torn soil; trees lowered branches from above those that had
been lopped; and the unresting jungle, in its sleepless, cautious way,
moving with the furtive slowness of savage things that venture again
where the white man has passed, was trying to take possession and
obliterate the trail.

The following day Nada rode over alone to see her sister and try to
dissuade her from her passionate folly; but Oreena would not listen,
and was ready to be angry, and threaten to do things even more
desperately foolish. She knew that Nada would give in. Nada had always
given in to her.

Oreena rode with her to the waterfall, and part way on the trail, which
Nada then followed alone until it came out of the bush on the road that
led to Pulotu.

Nada felt creepy about being alone in the jungle; and she remembered
that blacks often ran away from Seibert and stayed out in the bush
until they got tired or hungry, or were caught. If one of them should
have jumped out, the ground was so uneven and tangled that the horse
could not have run; and this thought made her uncomfortable.

Besides, she was troubled about Paullen. She thought, "I will not come
this way again. I will not bring him." But even while saying it she
knew that she would. She knew that Oreena would not stop at any sort of
madness if she felt that Nada was trying to circumvent her.

The next day she told Paullen that she knew of a pretty trail, and
asked if he would like to take it. He said that he would.

They had not ridden far, and were fighting to keep branches from their
faces, while the horses hesitated and stumbled, when he said, "This is
a beautiful trail! Why on earth did you come this way?"

She wanted to say, "Let us turn around and go back." But she said there
was a waterfall up along the trail and they must see that; so they went
on.

When they were not far from the waterfall he said, "Listen. I hear it.
Like the sound of wind coming through the tree-tops."

They stopped a moment and listened. Then Nada said, "Oreena often comes
to this waterfall when she feels unhappy. She says it is the best place
that she has found to cry in."

Nada's tone was vaguely sarcastic; but Paullen did not notice. He said,
"Oh?" He had not paid any attention to the way she had spoken; all he
heard was that Oreena must find a place far from her house in which to
ease her wretchedness.

Presently he asked, "Nada, repeatedly you have stood up for Seibert and
showed that you like him, yet you know that your sister is unhappy. You
told me that she was."

"I don't stand up for him. I only say that he isn't as bad as some
people think!"

"The thing I can least understand," Paullen continued, "is how a man
such as he ever coaxed her into being his wife. She is--is dainty
and--and _so_ innocent!"

Nada wanted to say, "She came over here and snared Mr. Seibert. And now
she is waiting for us just to show you her tears, so that you will be
sorry for her"; but she did not say anything.

Soon they came out of the trail's tangle into a small open space and
looked up at the fall. It was a thin stream of water, but it fell a
long way, and the spray hovered there, so that in the sunlight it was a
mist of colours, as if broken rainbows were hung all about.

Oreena was waiting for them. She wore a thin, gauze-like dress of light
blue silk, the last sort of garment which one would ordinarily wear
for a ride in the bush. Her hair was studded with camellias, of which
Seibert had great masses. She pretended surprise at seeing them, and
Paullen was not in the least suspicious.

When she kissed Nada she whispered: "You will leave us together, won't
you, right away?"

This pained Nada. It was not only that there wasn't a word of
appreciation, but Oreena appeared to be afraid that Nada would not feel
that she was in the way, and disappear.

Nada led her horse down to the stream to drink, then said: "Oh, I
see a flower there that I want," and she crossed over. She walked a
little distance until she was out of sight, then mounted again and rode
farther, stopping in a warm, grassy place, where she dismounted and let
the horse crop, while she sat and thought of Paullen and Oreena.

She said to herself, "Nada, if you were married to a man like Mr.
Seibert, and one like John Paullen came near, you would do everything
you could to get hold of him. You know that you would!"

Which was not true, for even while unmarried she was letting Paullen
slip from her without doing anything.

She recalled what Kate Collins used to say in San Francisco: "One man
is so much like another that it doesn't make much difference which
one you have as long as you keep him in love with you." Mrs. Collins,
in her brisk, amusing way, also maintained that a girl could be far
happier with a man that loved her than with one she loved.

That day Nada remained out of sight until she saw it was toward the end
of the afternoon, then she rode back; and as she drew near she sang to
herself as loud as she could so that they might hear her coming. But
the waterfall prevented her voice from reaching them. From where the
trail dipped down to the stream she looked across, and they were in
each other's arms. They did not see her until the horse had splashed
right into the water.

Paullen was surprised, and blushed, and tried to put his arms away,
but Oreena held to him, and she was crying. He looked so helpless and
confused that Nada felt almost sorry for him, and vaguely angry at her
sister; and she asked, a little stiffly, "What is the matter?"

Neither of them noticed her tone, or, if they did, must have put it
down to embarrassment. Oreena looked up with tears on her face and
laughed a little and said almost impudently: "I am happy! _That_ is the
matter!"

Paullen and Nada rode home together, but said hardly anything. Paullen
appeared a little ashamed without being sorry, but he was uncomfortable.

The following day Nada said, "I don't feel like riding."

"Nada," he said soberly, looking at her earnestly, "I don't want you to
think wrong of me. Your little sister is miserable and afraid of that
Seibert. She is the most beautiful woman in the world, and the moment I
saw her I knew that her life was a torment."

"But she is married, and it is dangerous for you both!"

"But why?--why did she marry him? You know that she did to keep Seibert
from crowding your father! She is a little martyr. I knew all the time
there must be some strange reason or she would not have married such a
man."

"Oh! Oh, I--I understand."

"Of course you understand. And you must go with me or I can't go. If
Mr. Seibert discovered me there without you, Oreena would be--well, he
is a big brute! I feel like I was hiding behind your dress, and I don't
like that, but it is really for her sake that you must go. Somebody,
some one of those servants, might see us, and tell him that I was over
there without you, and when she returned home he--he might do anything,
and I would not know of it until too late."

"I will go with you," said Nada, looking away.


6

For the next two or three weeks McGuire, who had a sort of genius for
being idle, loafed about and kept out of sight as much as he could.
Because of his close relations with Williams some one of the consuls at
Pulotu, if informed of his presence, might want to lay hands on him.
He did not feel any special danger. Formerly, when on the island, he
had loafed about the town itself; but he had been forced to dodge away
rather suddenly, because the German Consul had decided to seize him.
However, the German Consul was now absent from Pulotu. But at any rate
McGuire thought it best not to be seen or talked about.

Every day Nada and Paullen went riding; and McGuire said nothing, did
nothing. He at this time did not know what was really happening. He
had a very strong affection for Nada, and liked Paullen thoroughly.
Being uncomfortable on horseback himself, he preferred a chair to a
saddle; besides, there was no reason for accompanying them. They very
obviously wished to be alone on their rides. McGuire had from the first
decided that whatever Williams found in the way of a tangle on his
return he could straighten out to suit himself. So, believing that it
was perfectly apparent that Nada and Paullen were very much in love,
he grinned to himself, and was amused at their somewhat constrained
air toward each other about the house. This, he thought, showed how
silly young persons could be in hoping to hide the fact that they were
in love, though they rode off, to the Lord knows where, every day, and
were gone for hours.

Late one afternoon Nada rode into the grounds alone.

McGuire, loafing motionless against a pillar, idly watched the gentle
sway of her body as she went by. Then he became aware of expecting to
hear the throbbing hoof-beats of the other horse that should have been
racing to overtake her, and of not hearing anything.

"Where'd you lose him?" McGuire called.

Nada was riding at a walk and looking toward the ground. Now, when he
spoke, she dropped her head still more, and, turning away, gave the
horse a cut. He went in a jolting trot for the stable.

"They've quarrelled," said McGuire, grinning.

The afternoon was still and hot. He could hear the squeaking of the
saddle as she slid off before the stable door; where, careful to keep
from looking toward him, she lifted the bamboo bar and jerked on the
reins. The horse threw up his head and made as if to pull back; then
horse and girl disappeared into the building.

McGuire now listened attentively for Paullen's gallop. It did not come.

Then suddenly he recalled that for many days, during what little he had
seen of them together, they had been more quiet, on a strain, politely
subdued toward each other. The nervous flush of one who feels that he
has been missing something important touched him.

"Oh ho! They've been cooking up this quarrel for a week--right under my
nose!"

He kept his eyes toward the barn, waiting for her to come. With an
empty pipe in his mouth he whittled at a nubbin of tobacco, but watched
that she didn't slip out and get around to the other side of the house.
It would be dark in a few minutes, and if she didn't come soon he meant
to stroll over to the stable.

After a long time she reappeared, and began walking toward the house,
as if she had not seen him and did not intend to see him. She had
taken off her soft straw hat that fastened under her chin with broad
black ribbons.

"Nada, come here!"

She approached in unexpected submission, with head down and slow step.

"You've lost a perfectly good young man somewhere, or else thrown him
away. Which?"

She said nothing and did not look up.

"Crying!" said McGuire.

She stood on the ground below him. Her dark, bushy hair had been swept
securely in under the teeth of a broad comb, and earrings twinkled
through the misty wisps. Her riding skirt, divided in the Hawaiian
fashion, but much shorter, had a broad girdle that was edged with black
and gold braid.

He leaned on his elbows against the veranda rail and blew big puffs of
smoke into the still air. Already it was twilight.

"Crying!" McGuire repeated, with a sort of big brother's scorn.

Nada raised her head, making no movement but that. It was nearly like
the upturning of a suppliant face. She was not crying; she had not been
crying; but she suffered dumbly, without anger, reproach, and without
hope.

"In heaven's name, what's the matter with you?" he said, astonished,
speaking kindly, but still under the impression that she was making too
much of a lovers' quarrel.

Her eyes closed slowly, then her head fell, moving a little from side
to side, meaning that she would not tell.

The darkness of oncoming evening was just enough to have blurred a page
at half-arm's length. He sank a little lower against the rail, touching
it with his breast and peering down intently.

"What happened, Nada?"

The tightening of her small body gave the impression of a shudder.

"Where's Paullen?"

"I don't know," she said, without looking up, and there was a shade of
untruth in the low tone.

"What's the trouble? What did you quarrel about?"

"We did not quarrel."

"No?"

She shook her head without lifting her eyes.

Heavy shadows had slipped in through the grounds, darkening the gloom
that was always there. The silence was like stealth. It was the hush
of the great pause that Nature makes when she has finished with the
tropic day and has not yet quite slipped into the garments of night.
Gentle scratchings went on fitfully in the veranda thatch, where
night-sleepers were settling into bed; and insect sounds, as from
impatient musicians trying stops and strings, piped shrilly and died.
Far off the earliest of the fireflies passed among the trees like fairy
lightning. Twilight was gone.

"Where is Paullen?" he repeated.

"I don't know. I left him----"

She broke the sentence and did not go on.

"Where? Where did you leave him? Tell me."

"At my sister's."

"At your--Seibert's?"

Already they were talking through darkness. Her face was blotted out.
Only a form of indistinguishable outline was below him; and, though she
nodded her head, that was no answer, since he could not see.

"At Seibert's?"

"Yes."

"What the devil were you--you left him with Seibert?"

Disturbed thoughts suddenly jostled for McGuire's attention. Seibert
had heard something, and suspected the "trader" that had brought
Nada and left two sailors, one of them sick? Seibert was trying to
find out about that "trader" who didn't have time to go around to
Pulotu? The big, hearty German with his careless air of well-being
was shrewd. Perhaps word had been received in Pulotu regarding the
theft of Penwenn's _Flying Gull_? Paullen would be no babbler; but if
questioned, such a son of gentlemen would have no genius for lying.

McGuire's worst suspicion rose up, and convinced him then and there.
Seibert had discovered who McGuire was, and would want to take him in
hand, perhaps a present to the German Consul.

He was not disturbed. He did not like the physical exertion of having
to run away, and that was about all. Still, Williams was returning to
Pulotu; it would be ironical indeed if Seibert, having got wind of
this, should lie in wait and catch him, or cause him to be captured at
such a time. That would be Williams-luck!

Nada had come up on the veranda. He could hear her step and dimly see
the suggestion of her form.

"Well, so that blasted Dutchman's found out something, eh?"

"No! No!" she cried, so poignantly that he was startled.

"Nada, what _is_ the matter with you?"

She spoke through darkness, and with weary hopelessness, "But he will!
Oh, Dan, he will find out! I--I kept him to-day--kept him from it--but
he will find out, and oh, then----"

"But don't cry about it! Wait until he does find out. Then we'll both
cry."

"But she loves him!"

"Yes, I know how you feel. He is a big brute for a brother-in-law,
but----"

"No!" Nada's hands clutched McGuire. "No, not him! It is John
Paullen--she loves John Paullen. They are mad, those two. And he will
kill them! I know he will kill them. He would have found them together
to-day, but I--oh, I--I stopped him--ugh!"

She sank heavily against McGuire, and he could feel the shudders
trembling through her body.


7

They went inside the house.

Nada had said, "I will tell you from the beginning, but not in the
dark."

The wick gave a lifeless, smoky flame to McGuire's match. He lifted the
lamp and shook it, listening for the swish of oil, but it was empty. He
then felt his way to the tin box and got one of the candles kept there,
because the lamps were usually unfilled. When placed on the table, the
dim candleflame trembled, as if afraid of the shadows that crouched in
every corner.

". . . and so after that, every day I would ride on to the same grassy
spot and let the horse nibble while I read, or lay half asleep,
thinking and wishing that I had never left San Francisco--though it
would be awful to see Alan Penwenn again.

"To-day I felt terribly wretched. It was so hot, and I have grown tired
of going there day after day by myself and doing the same thing. I
said, 'I will never come again; it is not right that I should.' And I
meant it.

"I was lying down with a book open before me, and I must have been
asleep, for all at once I became aware that Mr. Seibert was on a big
grey horse, and looking down from almost on top of me and grinning.

"I was so startled that I was sure I _must_ be dreaming, and sat up,
rubbing at my eyes.

"He laughed and he said, 'Ho-ho! That is better than what I thought! I
thought first it was your horse that had knocked the little girl off.
You looked dead.'

"I wished that I had seen him in time to pretend that I had been hurt;
but there I was, looking silly and rubbing my eyes, with an open book
on the grass.

"'What are you here for?' he asked, looking at me as he does sometimes
when he seems to be talking from behind a mask.

"I was frightened half to death. I almost felt that he knew I came
there every day.

"I said, 'I was riding over to see Oreena, and stopped here. It looked
so soft and inviting. And I must have fallen asleep.'

"'And that nice boy Paullen, where is he? You like him, eh?'

"'No! No! Oh, I don't!' I cried. Then suddenly I was afraid that he
_knew_ and was playing with me. He grinned, and stared in that queer
way so you cannot tell what he means.

"'Oh, is that so, heh?' he said, as if he did not believe me. 'He is a
fine boy, that fellow. My wife, she likes him.'

"I came near fainting. I wanted to jump up and scream that it wasn't
so; but I looked down at my book and closed it. I took a long time to
close it, because my fingers felt as if they were frozen, and the book
dropped from them when I picked it up.

"'You come from that way?' and he pointed in the direction of the
waterfall. 'Over my trail?' Then he waved his arm, and the riding-whip
swung like a snake hanging down from his wrist.

"I said, 'Yes.'

"He put out his chest and struck it with a gloved fist, and said: 'Ha!
That trail is there so the jungle will know some day I will clean him
out--and put in nutmegs. _Ach!_ those nutmegs are the devil to make
grow on Pulotu. Good-bye.'

"He was as abrupt as that; and he started right off, and I saw that he
was going toward the waterfall.

"I shouted, 'Oh, Mr. Seibert.'

"He pulled up and looked at me in that strange, almost stupid way he
has, but you just know that it isn't stupid. It is only his way. 'Don't
go--please!' I said.

"Then I grew frightened that he might be suspicious, and then nothing
could have stopped him.

"'Please stay--and--and talk to me.'

"He rode back slowly until he was almost on top of me again. I don't
know why he came so close, but I didn't move. I couldn't!

"'What the matter is with you?' he asked in his queer, blank way.

"'Oh, I am _so_ lonely.' I _had_ to say something. I _had_ to stop him.
I had to _keep_ him. I had to make him turn back, and I was never so
afraid in my life.

"'You go over and see Or'na. She tells me all the time that she is
lonesome too.'

"'No, I don't want to see Oreena.'

"'You don't want to see Or'na? Then who is that you want to see? That
fine boy Paullen?'

"'No!'

"'Well, I got something else to do besides talk now,' and he pulled at
the reins and turned his horse.

"'Oh, please, _please_ stay and talk to me!'

"He looked at me in that empty-faced way a long time, as if he was
trying to understand something that was puzzling; then he said: 'All
right. You stay here, and I will talk to you when I come back.'

"'No, no,' I begged. 'Please don't leave me--_please_!'

"'You with me ride to the waterfall then. I show you somethings. _Ach_,
yes.'

"That would have been terrible, for I couldn't have made them hear us
coming because of the falls, and you can see way down at the bottom of
the falls before the trail drops. I thought that I was lost, that there
was nothing I could do to save them. He looked so big and strong and
brutal. His arms were terribly thick, and I--I cried:

"'Oh, please don't leave me this way. Look, don't you see I have
been here day after day? See where my horse has cropped. I have been
_waiting for you_!'

"I said that, and I could not look at him again. I was hot and cold and
sick, and I looked down at the ground, and almost died of fear that he
would laugh at me and ride on; and yet the thought of having him get
off his horse and sit down beside me frightened me so that my throat
was so dry I did not see how I could ever speak again.

"I knew that he was looking at me, and I would have given anything,
anything, at that moment to know just _how_ he was looking; but I was
afraid to turn around for fear it would be just the kind of expression
that I most dreaded. He is such a gross, beastly sort of man when you
are so close to him! I forgave Oreena everything in that one appalling
minute.

"'You have been waiting for me?'

"I could not tell anything from the way he asked that, but I thought it
sounded doubtful, as if he didn't understand how I came to be there,
and was a little suspicious, you know. I told him that Oreena had said
that he often came that way. It was true, but I had never realised how
terrible it would be to have him come. I had thought I would see him
first, for you can see quite far the way he had come.

"He said, 'But why do you wait for me, heh?'

"It was awful. He was making me tell him, right out, _everything_. I
said, 'Can't you see? Don't you understand?'

"'No, I don't understand that thing.'

"'Oh,' I cried, for I might as well have it over with, 'nobody loves
me--and I am _so_ lonely. And--and--you--oh, please come and sit by me.
Oh, why do you make me tell you? I want to be loved!'

"He made a noise that sounded queer; it wasn't a word, it was--really
it was almost like I don't know what. A grunt! I was terrified for fear
that he would laugh at me and go on. I simply had to make him get off
his horse. I said, 'Oh, please come here!'

"The horse moved closer. One step more and I know that horse would have
put a foot on me, but I could not move. I almost wished it would step
on me.

"'Get off, please get off,' I begged. 'I am so--_so_ lonely!'

"I would not look up, and he did not say anything. I put my head down
and trembled. I was so dizzy that it seemed that he made the ground
shake with his weight when he did get down.

"'What it is you want, now?' he asked.

"'Kiss me!' I almost screamed.

"Oh, I hated him. He was playing with me. He was pretending to be
stupid. I was afraid that he knew everything, and was making me go down
to the last humiliation that a girl can go to in begging that way, and
that then he would laugh. He sat down beside me. The air from his mouth
was hot. I felt it on my neck, and shivered.

"I had to keep him there, then I had to make him go away.

"I said, 'You do love me?'

"'Yes. Ho, yes, I love you. _Ach!_ such a pretty little girl!'

"He put one of his enormous gloved hands on me, and I was afraid he
would close his fingers and say: 'Ah ho! You try to fool me, do you?'
and then I would be crushed.

"I had to tell him that I was unhappy and lonely, and that I admired
him so much!

"He said, 'You come over and stay at our house and you will be loved
all you want. _Ach!_ yes, I love you!'

"His body is so coarse and his hands so heavy. I know just how Oreena
has felt all these months, and I am sorry that I ever blamed her.

"'You want that I should kiss you?' he asked.

"I said, 'Of course I do!'

"Then I shut my eyes and clenched my teeth. He was all hot with sweat,
and when that big mouth of his, like a horse's mouth--his breath was
heavy with stale tobacco--went to my throat I thought he was going to
bite me, and I wanted to faint, but I didn't dare--I did not dare!"

Nada had almost finished her story (there was yet to be told how she
had led Seibert into riding down through the groves, out to the road,
and nearly home with her) when Paullen galloped hurriedly into the
grounds, and shouted toward the candle-lit room: "Has Nada come?" His
voice was piercingly anxious.

Reassured, he then went to put up the horse. It was easier; even in the
dark to unsaddle and turn the horse out than to find the stable man.
The fellow owned a guitar and a soft tongue; he was much given to the
gentle art of love-making; and, like other moths, with darkness went
abroad. In the daylight he slept, choosing out-of-the-way places where
no search was likely to disturb him.

When she had heard Paullen's voice, Nada's story was broken. As if
awakening, she pressed her hands to her face.

"Oh, the terrible, terrible thing is that he said he would see me every
day! Dan, what shall I do? What shall I do?"

Then, for fear that Paullen might come in and find her, she hurried
from the room.


8

When Paullen came in he found McGuire sitting in an armless rocker with
his eyes broodingly on the candle, where the tiny moths that had crept
through the screens were beating themselves to death on the pointed
fire. An opened and partly-emptied gin bottle stood beside the candle.

"Look there," said McGuire, making a whorl of his hand on a loose
wrist, imitative of the flame. "That's love--put it out and the little
moths are safe enough, but the world's in darkness!"

"Of what are you talking?" asked Paullen, with a disturbed glance
toward the gin bottle.

"Ever think how much a corpse is like a snuffed candle, all stiff and
white and cold?" said McGuire, kicking a chair around so that Paullen
would sit before him.

He had never been quite sure how to feel toward McGuire. It was not
distrust of him so much as distrust of his own understanding of a man
who for unimaginable reasons seemed often trying to appear worse than
he was, but trying in a way that hardly disclosed his intention. His
silences were full of hazy amusement, his sentences often cryptic and
startling; he was lazy, and he did drink.

Paullen did not want to sit and talk; he wished to be alone; in his own
happiness there was much that disquieted him, and he was thoughtful.
Besides, he feared that McGuire was a little top-heavy from drinking.

However, there was no escape from McGuire's "Sit down, Paullen. Sit
down a minute and watch the fool moths. How'd you come to lose Nada
to-day?"

He did not sit down. He put a foot on a rung of the chair and leaned
across the back, facing McGuire, but ready to go at any minute. He had
the kind of body that never sags, is never listless; and his was a
young, well-favoured face that seemed incapable of giving a distrustful
sidelong glance. His grey eyes had a youthful, bird-like directness.

He answered McGuire's question in the careful tone of a man who is
watchful that the words will not carry more meaning than he wishes;
and he explained that Nada had gone off some little distance, out of
sight, while he and Mrs. Seibert rode together. When they went to look
for Nada she could not be found. He had then thought that perhaps she
missed them, and so returned home by herself.

"You and Oreena rode off somewhere this afternoon, did you?"

"We were riding, yes."

"Where?"

"You know the waterfall? We rode downstream quite a distance. It was
rough. We went slowly."

"Nobody could have seen you from the falls?"

"We went at least a mile, and--why, what is the matter?"

"Listen! Listen!" said McGuire, who had half started from his chair
and cocked his head attentively, an upraised, silencing hand toward
Paullen. "Listen! Hear that? Hear it? Don't you hear it? Listen!"

Paullen stiffened, listening attentively. Little static shivers were on
his back, frozen there. He could hear nothing but the sweeping rustle
of the night wind in the palms, their gentle scraping and clicking
against the house, the soft flutter of big moths on the screen. There
was nothing else to be heard.

The candle gave hardly any light, and that was troubled by the
death-plunges of the tiny moths, dipping themselves into fire, as
lovers do.

"What is it?" Paullen asked. His voice dropped to the whisper that
passes between men when they stand paused in half-alarm.

"Laughter. Don't you hear? Ha-ha-ha-ha! Like that. Can't you hear it?
Ha-ha-ha! Hear?"

Paullen started back, sending an anxious glance at the gin bottle.
This was as near to delirium as he had ever seen anybody; it seemed
appallingly near. He tried to say something coherently persuasive about
"coffee" and "sleep"--very strong coffee.

"Sit down, sit down!" McGuire cried in unangered mockery. "You'll hear
more than the Devil laughing before half this night is out!"

The tone was disturbingly sardonic, and Paullen was immensely relieved
by the feeling that McGuire was not entirely out of his head.

"Paullen, this is the first afternoon, isn't it, that you and Oreena
have taken a ride down the stream together--just you and Oreena?"

McGuire could see the boy's muscles become tense as he felt the shock
of disclosure.

"Nada has told you," he said, tensely quiet. The tone was without
criticism. He stood quite straight, erect, slender, boyish, too young
for all of his experience to know how tormentingly evil life can be--a
wolfish thing, life--too old to be forgiven bad judgment.

"Where's it to end, Paullen?" McGuire asked, suddenly companionable.

"That is about all I think of, and I do not know. We are both unhappy
now, so, can't you see, whatever does happen won't make it worse? That
really isn't my idea, or wasn't, until Oreena gave it to me. She said
that to-day. And it is true, in a way."

"To-day, eh? To-day? Well, you both might have been discovered.
Wouldn't that have been worse?"

"Yes."

"Wouldn't that be about the worst thing you could imagine?"

Paullen hesitated thoughtfully, and then, without excitement, admitted
that he supposed it would be about the worst.

"You haven't much imagination. I can see worse things--lots of them.
One of them would be if Seibert made you take her. Where would you take
her? What would you do with her then? Could you take her home with you?
She's half native, you know."

"I have no home." He said it quietly, as if that helped to solve the
difficulty; but his face continued thoughtful. Then: "I might set up as
a trader."

"What with? Just a wife? She's half white, you know. Been in a
seminary. More than a woman--she's a lady."

"She is a child, just a child!"

"So was Eve."

"McGuire, do you think that anything you can say will make a
difference? I don't believe you really do. I don't believe you are
thinking of anything but the danger in Seibert's learning that I love
her. But you don't want to say that because you think I would pretend
not to care about danger. A man must have pride enough not to seem to
care about dangers where a woman is involved. Isn't that it? So you
talk of things you really don't believe at all. Isn't that so? You see,
you should be frank with me."

The simple manliness of this reply made McGuire pause. It gave him a
sensation of depression, as when fatality is in the air; he would have
been more at ease if Paullen had shown a little embarrassment. At any
rate he might have been defensively romantic. But he was being candidly
unwise in his folly. It would be as hard to get at him with ridicule as
with honest warnings; nor can one warn a man who has asked in just that
way: "Do you think that anything you can say will make a difference?"

"Well, Paullen, you and Oreena may as well get ready to do whatever is
to be done."

From across the back of the chair Paullen watched doubtfully with
that direct, grey-eyed gaze of his, not knowing whether McGuire was
prophesying or pronouncing judgment.

"Why? What makes you say that?"

"Seibert came to the waterfall to-day."

"He did! You mean that he knows? He was looking for us?"

"And if he does know?"

Paullen pushed the chair aside and started a fierce gesture with his
fist, but the fist opened and the arm fell. He stood in meditative
doubt. A slightly questioning look toward McGuire; then: "I could bring
her here. This is her home. It is hard to know just what to do. Her
father would let her stay."

"And when Seibert and his overseers rode over?"

"Of course, Seibert doesn't know. You gave me a start, the way you
put it. He will find out though. So you are right; we may as well get
ready. It isn't the thing to joke about, McGuire."

"I wasn't joking, John Paullen. Do you know why Seibert didn't get to
the waterfall? No? Couldn't imagine, could you? Well, he met Nada."

"She kept him from coming! Oh, she's trump, that girl!"

"Paullen, you say it as though she could pull him off his horse and tie
him to a tree."

"She could talk to him."

"What about?"

"For one thing, fertiliser!"

"And you are just through telling me that we shouldn't joke. Are you
sure that you can't hear that laughter, Paullen? She stopped him, held
him, and turned him back, and on the one day when he wouldn't have
found you and his wife!"

"Couldn't she have made up something, anything, to talk about?"

"What? Just what?"

"I don't know, McGuire. But she must have. You say that she did keep
him. How?"

"There is only one way that a woman--almost any woman--can detain a
man--almost any man. And Nada thought that you and her sister would
surely lose your lives if Seibert----"

McGuire stopped; his hand fell; the gesture was not unlike the fall of
an axe.

Paullen gave him a long stare, dropped dejectedly into the chair, then
bent forward with elbows on his knees, looking at the floor.

McGuire poured himself a glass of gin; then his fingers tapped a
nervous tattoo as he held the glass half way to his lips and said,
"It's really like throwing her to the wolves to save Oreena."

"We can't do that, McGuire!" Paullen stiffened, looking up, determined.

"Who do? We? Don't bring me into this, John Paullen. Seibert could have
his wife--have ten wives--for all of me. But you"--McGuire paused to
gulp down the gin--"you're chivalrous. You rescue beauty in distress.
Nada's in a lot more distress than her sister. You have plenty to do,
John Paullen, plenty, unless you mean to let that big wolf have her."

"No, I will not do that. I won't!" His gaze was resolute and direct.

"You and Oreena can run off--hide--can't you?'

"How would that help? To run? I can't run away from him, McGuire. Why
should _I_ run? He abuses her. She is afraid of him. I won't run."

"If you stay in Seibert's way he'll--he will just step on you, and walk
on."

"What can I do, then?" he exclaimed impatiently, his eyes brightening.

"Go to Pulotu, get on a boat, and go home--to the States, I mean. If
you will get out of the way, I'll look after Nada."

Paullen shook his head. "I won't do that."

"All right, then. Stay and get stepped on."

"I could go to Seibert and just tell him----"

"What?"

Paullen looked distractedly at the floor, suddenly feeling miserably
helpless; then, reflectively: "It's wrong, McGuire. Everything is
wrong. And Seibert _is_ a beast! If he hadn't been, this afternoon he
wouldn't----"

McGuire slammed the gin bottle to the floor. The bottle was empty or he
would never have used it for emphasis. "Hold on there, Paullen. Hold
on! We've got to give even a Dutchman his due. Nada had to practically
put her arms to his neck and beg for a kiss before he woke up. He
didn't show a bit of eagerness to add a new woman to his belt. This
afternoon wouldn't be so bad if it ended there. He was so surprised
by her being in love with him that he was half way manageable. But it
won't end there. Seibert isn't used to being stopped. To-morrow, and
the day after, and the day after that, his big hands will be grabbing
at her. And she hates him, loathes him. He needed a shave and was
covered with sweat. His body is just one enormous lump. He walks and
climbs too much to be fat, but he's nothing but a monstrous lump. Old
and half bald and a damn fool, fighting the jungle that way!"

Paullen gazed with questioning surprise; then grudgingly said: "That's
the only thing about him. He _does_ fight the jungle."

"Bah!" said McGuire. "That shows what a fool he is. For what? Just so
he can make one kind of weed grow where Nature put another. And all
the while the jungle is deep down in the soil, like evilness in the
heart of man. You can plough and plant and sow and reap, but some day
the jungle will send in its weeds, then creepers will come sneaking
along, and little shrubs that grow into big shrubs, covered with
swarming vines; then up stalks a heavy battalion of trees in great
green shakos--and the jungle has won again. It always wins in the end.
Always wipes man out at last. The jungle can wait a thousand years, ten
thousand years, as the desert waited for Babylon!"

Paullen sat up, astonished, a little uneasy. "You are drunk," he said.

"Is that so? Well, you listen to a little piece of sober advice. First
thing to-morrow, Paullen, you go bouncing into Pulotu and tell Dr.
Lemaitre that Nada is sick. That'll be the easiest way of keeping her
out of Seibert's reach for a few days. And if we are lucky something
may happen. Don't ask me what. Use your own imagination. Anybody that
thinks he can steal a woman from a man like Seibert has plenty--a
devil's plenty!"


9

Dr. Lemaitre was an atheist; he enjoyed an evening of brisk argument
against religion, any religion, the whole idea of religion; but at
times, with shy pride beaming through the iron-rimmed spectacles,
his voice would drop apologetically as he said: "Every physician is
half-priest."

Old Combe came with the doctor up the stairs and into Nada's room, and
stood dispiritedly behind him, looking at her with sad, hazy eyes,
having nothing to say, just staring with dull helplessness.

Dr. Lemaitre soon saw that his powders were useless. She had that
obscure and almost petulant sadness which, often more damaging
than disease itself, leaves a physician helpless unless he is the
half-priest. He knew that there was something wrong from the way
she appeared to dread sun warmth and fresh air, for she had shaken
her hair-clouded head, throwing a bare arm across her face at the
suggestion of leaving her dark, hot room for the veranda.

Dr. Lemaitre pretended that his spectacles were blurred. He walked to
the window and wiped his lenses for a long time, repeatedly holding the
glass to the light. Then, with reassuring pats on the back, he sent her
father shuffling out of the room and pulled a chair to Nada's bedside.

He had helped her creep into the world. Many nights, from month to
month, he had guarded her cradle, watching out for the sly stabs that
fever makes at little ones. When she had begun to walk, often he
patched up her scratches, giving her cheek a kiss by way of receiving
his fee. Many times he had beguiled her into taking bitter stuff from a
big spoon, and laughed at the disgusted twist on her pretty face, but
praising her for being a brave little girl.

It was not difficult for him to find out what was the matter.

Nada wanted to stay hidden away. She had been almost happy when McGuire
explained to her that she was ill, very ill, and had better linger at
finger-tips with death as long as she could. And by staying in her room
she could evade Seibert and avoid Paullen.

"I hate him!" she had said of Paullen, but McGuire knew what she meant.

It had been quite by main force that he had kept Paullen from going to
the door of her room and expressing gratitude, at least through the
keyhole.

"But why shouldn't I?" asked Paullen, earnestly puzzled.

"How would you like to be thanked by somebody, even through a crack,
after you had tried to commit suicide? Well, that's how Nada feels. You
stay away. Understand?"

Paullen was sure that he ought to understand, but he didn't; though he
pretended to, and said vaguely: "That is right. I must wait until she
is better."

When Dr. Lemaitre had come McGuire disappeared, and remained on the
ground below the veranda and smoked moodily, the pipe upside down.
Presently, on the veranda above him, he heard short footsteps moving
about with an air of stealth. He gazed up doubtfully, then Lemaitre
looked over the railing.

"Ho, ho, ho! It is Monsieur McGuire. I can tell by the colour of the
hair."

McGuire grinned and remained quiet.

"You are--what you call him?--scamp. It is that you are. A scamper! So
you hide all this time from old Dr. Lemaitre!"

"Well," said McGuire, as he stretched himself lazily, "not from fear
of you, surely; but I didn't want to distress a conscientious man with
information he'd be in duty bound to take to his consul."

He was half joking; Dr. Lemaitre knew that he was half joking, but
vigorously resented the tiny gleam of truth. Besides, though in his
twenty years on Pulotu he had repeatedly served as acting consul, he
had an old resident's contempt for consuls.

"Conscience! I have no conscience! If I had a conscience I would give
every sick man I find to Death. But I am jealous of him. Monsieur
Death is the great physician. Only he can cure this fever we all have.
What do I care about consuls? Come up here. Little Nada has told me
something."

McGuire climbed to the veranda, and in lazy dejection perched himself
on the railing. Dr. Lemaitre patted McGuire's knees, saying with
confidential hopefulness, "I know everything--all!" He moved his short
arms in a quick, embracing gesture, repeating: "All--everything!"

"So she told you I was here?"

"Ah, an old friend like Dr. Lemaitre. What have you to fear from him?"

"She shouldn't have done it," said McGuire.

"Poor little Nada! You shall not blame her. We became friends the night
she was born. Such a night! Such a ride! And when she was born she
would not cry. I slapped her. She would _not_ cry. I slapped her hard.
I said, 'Little child, you must cry. This is the Vale of Tears you have
come into.' Another slap--then _wa-a-a-a_! And she began her life.
Such a little while ago, and now--tuh-tuh-tuh! If I had not slapped
her she would have stayed asleep for ever. It is not I who wish that.
No. Little Nada has just said, 'Oh, I wish I had never been born!'
She is better now. Such a pretty child! She laughed for me. We talked
of the big iron spoon I used to get her to try to swallow. Ah, me!
Tuh-tuh-tuh!"

Dr. Lemaitre sighed reflectively, and in that moment's relaxation his
cheerful face was shadowed with age, the light went out of his eyes,
and he appeared tired and heartsore. Then, with almost a start, he
pulled himself back into his usual cheerful briskness, and he said, "We
must be rid of that Paullen fellow. Nada will stay sick until he is
gone. As her physician I insist. But not in that room. No sun. No air.
She will not come down while that Paullen fellow--he looks a good boy,
too. Ah, such mistakes as we make. I had thought--but he must be sent
away. She hates him."

"No," said McGuire. "But it really amounts to the same thing. She
doesn't hate him. She loves him."

"Oh, oh, oh!" said Dr. Lemaitre. "It is worse than I thought! Much
worse." He looked quickly all about, then speaking rapidly, as if eager
to get something out before he changed his mind and remained silent,
said, "Oreena is all to blame. Any girl that would marry Herr Seibert
is not like our Nada. He is the best husband for her. We must not let
Oreena have her way. Always it has been her way, and Nada--nothing!
Monsieur Paullen is a fine boy. It shows on his face. But he has no
eyes! Nada--Frau Seibert! Tuh-tuh-tuh! He is blind!"




CHAPTER IV


1

Within a week Dr. Lemaitre had gone far down the coast to fight measles
that had broken out among the natives; and, as usual, he, the atheist,
would pretend to be fighting devils, and mix up his hygiene with a lot
of hocus-pocus so the natives would scrupulously do as told.

Old Combe, inexplicably silent and more pathetic than in his garrulity,
haunted the town, listening to the burst of chatter from any trader
that touched the beach, and taking half of an afternoon to sip his
glass of rum and water.

Paullen rode off each morning without saying where he was going, and no
one asked; yet Nada and McGuire knew.

Nothing had been heard from Seibert, but his lack of interest seemed
amply explained by the fact that he was having trouble with his blacks.

In the evening after Dr. Lemaitre's visit, Mr. Grinnell, smoking a
bedtime pipe and walking about to ease his loneliness, had almost
fallen over McGuire, who lay motionless in the dark in the hope of not
being noticed. He was not in a conversational mood.

"Seibert's blacks took to the bush yesterday. About twenty of the
beggars, I hear. Bad fellows, some of them. One in particular, I hear.
Some of them had been weeded out of Fiji before their indentures were
up, and they have to be jolly bad if a Fijian planter turns 'em loose.
Seibert's hunting 'em down. Catchin' 'em. Putting 'em back to work.
That man is the biggest planter in the South Seas to-day. Extr'ordinary
the way he handles blacks."

McGuire grunted unsociably; so Mr. Grinnell went off to his bed, where
there were sure to be a few mosquitoes ambushed under the netting.
Always they were there. It was his nightly work to come up out of
fretful sleep and hunt them. This was an inescapable part of the
tropics, like the sun that wilted, the cockroaches, ants, the itch, the
warm, tasteless food, the laziness of natives, and the activity of the
cocoanut beetles.


2

It was just about a week later, on an afternoon, when Nada and McGuire
had the house to themselves, and they sat on the same side of the
veranda. She was reading, and he, with eyes only half closed, appeared
to be almost asleep.

Rain had fallen during the night. In the afternoon steam boiled from
the ground. McGuire said the Devil was cooking dinner. Leaves were
motionless, and nothing stirred through the long, gloomy depths of the
grounds about the house.

Nada kept up a slight pretense of illness except near McGuire. With him
she tried to seem natural, almost gay; but he was not easily deceived,
and when she was not noticing he saw the unhappiness in her large, soft
dark eyes, and often her smile was cheerless, like the bravery of a
consumptive.

He said to himself that love was a bad thing, unless one had the kind
that is contagious.

"Nada--Frau Seibert!" Surely Paullen was blind.

For twenty odd years Dr. Lemaitre had called Seibert a "Herr"; why, no
one knew; but possibly as a slight and not impolite mark of dislike
for him, as was apparent when the little doctor referred to Oreena as
"Frau"!

McGuire, through his half-closed eyes, saw Nada stiffen bolt upright
and lift her hand in a startled gesture. The next instant she
whispered: "What is that?"

He then heard the crunch of hoofs on the pebbled drive. Nada flashed
past him and into the house. McGuire thought that Paullen was returning
earlier than usual, and settled himself more deeply in the chair.

The horse stopped, then slowly came on. It left the drive. He could
hear the softer drop of the hoofs on the moist earth. McGuire started
to rise, go to the corner and look; but that would have required
effort. Besides, he did not feel like talking with anybody. The horse
moved slowly; and he, in a vague fashion, decided that it must be loose
and wandering about. He lay on his back in the long chair, with an arm
across his eyes; then, hearing the horse come round the corner, he
raised his arm and looked up into a big, red, round face.

"Ah-ha!" said a hearty voice. "You people over here do nothing but
snoozle."

A great hand swept aimlessly into the air; at the wrist a plaited whip
dangled, supple as a snake. The man pushed up his large panama hat, and
with a palm wiped his forehead of sweat, saying: "Great weather for to
make cane grow." Then: "I am Seibert--Adolph Seibert." He stared hard
after saying that.

McGuire had never before been close to Seibert, and his preconceived
picture of the man went to pieces. He was big-bodied, beefy, muscular,
with a preposterously round red moon of a face--the roundness being
increased by the hairless forehead and smooth-shaven features--that had
an oddly immature expression when he grinned.

McGuire arose with an appearance of composure that he did not feel, and
asked: "Want to see Tom Combe?"

Seibert laughed; his body shook with the laughter.

"It is in the club at Pulotu I would look for him--him and other
loafers."

McGuire sucked an empty pipe and regarded Seibert with a kind of
desperate grasping gaze, trying to see into, through, all about inside
of this man who puzzled and antagonised everybody, yet was good-natured.

"Mr. Grinnell then?"

Seibert grinned, waving a hand. No doubt he meant the gesture to
illustrate the idea of putting Mr. Grinnell completely aside, but the
hand waggled meaninglessly, like something set in motion and forgotten.

McGuire did not like his very apparent intention of being agreeable;
it left him without knowing just how to take Seibert; and he began to
understand right off why people got a kind of irritated dread from this
insistent good nature of his, this heartiness; and the odd, immature
grin on the round face was so at variance with a certain masterful
strength in the man.

"Well," said McGuire, thinking it best to settle the matter that must
have brought him, "Miss Combe isn't any better. Can't see anyone."

"_Ach!_ that is bad! Just what is that trouble?"

He asked it quickly, with no good nature. He was not suspicious.
McGuire's sense of wariness was increased by the fact that Seibert
seemed hardly interested, or at least preoccupied. McGuire wondered
what this fellow could be up to. Perhaps he knew there was nothing the
trouble, or at least no illness.

But McGuire peered into the pipe bowl, prodded the cold ashes with a
finger-tip, blew through the stem, then: "You know what her mother died
of, don't you?"

"I do--yes. _Gott!_ yes!"

He nodded, with prolonged swaying of heavy head, affirming a knowledge
beyond McGuire's; affirming, too, that her death was from something
different than people thought.

"Consumption," said McGuire challengingly.

Seibert grunted two or three times in good-natured scorn. "It was
heart-sickness, not"--he struck his own massive chest a powerful
blow--"lungs."

"What do you mean? Heart trouble?"

"That you can call it. Sure. You know how these natives die when they
want. Swine-dogs, they lie down and for spite try to die. I have a
cure for that!" His arm swept into the air, the quirt in hand, and
flourished meaningly. No vagueness in that gesture. The black stallion
thought the blow was for his hide, and leaped sidelong. He was caught
back and reined in without Seibert taking his eyes from McGuire.

"I don't understand."

"Combe, he didn't know his wife's heart it was under the big tombstone
with angels he got from Paris. The convict Waller, she loved him.
Lungs"--again the resounding blow on his chest--"that may be what
killed her. It is not why she died."

McGuire asked with an acid smoothness, "You say that of your wife's
mother?"

Seibert regarded him for a long time with nothing but a dull, heavy,
blank expression on his face, as if secretly behind his mask he was
slowly turning McGuire's meaning about in his head; and when he spoke
it was with a heavy, matter-of-fact voice. "You are a fool. That rascal
Waller was good to her like a father. And see here, you McGuire, don't
you go saying things like that about my wife!" At that he seemed ready
to be angry; but the look after a moment vanished.

McGuire sucked hard on his empty pipe to keep from grinning; but behind
the impulse to grin was the cool wonder if Seibert's head was really as
sluggish as appeared or if he chose to seem stupid.

"I come on business with you, McGuire. We will talk, you and me. Yes?"

McGuire glanced rapidly about. The thought of running, of dodging away,
came to him; but he discarded it.

Seibert slowly, but easily for a man of his great size, got off the
big black stallion, and, first testing the strength of a post that was
at hand, made a hackamore of the rope carried on the saddle and tied
Bismarck.

As he had dismounted McGuire noticed that he was wearing a big flap
holster. He came on the veranda, walking heavily, slowly, and his spurs
rattled. McGuire approached him, and with his best air of composure
said: "Well, what is it you want of me, Mr. Seibert?"

Seibert nodded; his face fairly beamed. A hand went off into the air.
He said: "It was you I come to find. I want that you should go home
with me, and stay."

"Me?"

"Sure." Seibert was grinning. "You come off the _Hans Haasbruck_?"

"Yes--yes, I think that was her name."

"Huh-ho, you think so, you do? Well, I know that _Hans Haasbruck_.
She is a Godeffroy boat, and if you were on her she was stole by that
Williams."

"Did Williams steal her? My, I'm sorry to hear that. Certainly is a
rascal, that Williams."

Seibert threw back his head and laughed loud, setting his big body
a-quiver. "Ha ha ha! It is you that should know, McGuire!"

"I see," said McGuire, pointing to the holster. "You have come to
capture me."

Seibert looked down at the holster as if to see what it was, then laid
a big hand on it, as if the thing was something unfamiliar.

"Ho, that? It is for another fellow. One of my blacks--that Gauro
says he is part Portuguese. I think he is mostly the devil. He got
a rifle--my own rifle, right out of my house. It is gone. If that
fellow got it, I wonder how? He shot at me yesterday from the bush.
_Whizz-iip!_" Seibert chuckled heavily, grinning, then, quickly
snatching off his hat, he thrust it toward McGuire. "See? See that
hole? Right there--_whizz-iip_--that's where the bullet went to!"

McGuire was incredulous. "You mean that fellow came near potting you?"

"Potting me? Huh--ho-ho! That is a good joke. You are right. That
fellow did come near putting me in a pot. He is a cannibal. You are a
fine joker, McGuire."

Seibert appeared really amused as he beamed in a stolid fashion
at McGuire, but in a way that no one could have told what--if
anything--was in his mind.

McGuire reached out and took hold of the hat, inspecting the crown,
looking at the hole. A hole was there, but he had doubts about it
having been made by a bullet. He felt that a man of Seibert's type
would have shown more anger over it, would have boasted more, talked
more. If what he had said was true, then Seibert was a vastly different
sort of man to what people thought.

"How," asked Seibert, almost paternally, with an air of suggesting
something for McGuire's pleasure, "how would you like to go to Pulotu
with me, and when a warship comes you explain to him why you come on
the _Hans Haasbruck_?"

"Supposing we try to think up a better idea than that," said McGuire,
as best he could without showing what he really felt.

"You will get hung--who-op!" said Seibert, cheerfully rolling his head,
perhaps meaning to illustrate a gibbet-broken neck.

"That idea's worse than the other."

"_Ach!_ then, down we will sit. To you I will make a business
proposition."

Seibert glanced toward his horse, then, testing the chair that Nada had
left, gently let himself down into it; and, having cautiously settled
back, he sighed, and, shaking out a large blue handkerchief, mopped his
clipped head.

The friendliness, almost companionable air about this nearly
disconcerted McGuire, who was difficult to disconcert. But there was no
menace about Seibert, no eager craftiness. He was glad to sit down, and
relaxed as if weary. It was as if he had come on a visit.

McGuire knocked out his pipe and whittled on a piece of tobacco; not
because he wanted to smoke, but so that he might be doing something,
and thus seem more at ease.

"When you will sit down too we will talk," said Seibert.

McGuire slipped into a chair and lay back, curving an arm above his
head, smoking with long, slow puffs, his eyes half concealed under the
drooping lids.

"You want to get hung or is it that you don't want to, which?"

McGuire, with his best effort, smiled, as words were not needed.

"Sure," Seibert agreed, while a thick arm went wandering off
gesturally. "That is it. This Williams, you will help me catch him. How
is that?"

"Fine," said McGuire. "Shall we put salt on his tail or use a butterfly
net?"

Seibert reached over and tapped McGuire's knee with a thick forefinger;
there was an absurd air of lumbering playfulness in his manner, though
the voice was serious. "No joking now. We will have our little jokes
some other time. You know where he is."

"Do I?"

"If we been friends, you must quit the joking. Jokes have their places
to be in. That is not in business jobs. This Williams, he is catching
oysters and----"

"And do you know why?" McGuire exclaimed, sitting up quickly, as if to
say something important.

"That has nothings to do with it. We will catch him."

McGuire laughed a little, eyeing Seibert from under the sleepy lids.
"That _would_ be a joke. You catch Williams while he is pearling now!"

"Sure," Seibert agreed.

"Do you know why he is pearling _now_?"

Seibert stared blankly, then, as if uninterested, as if he suspected
McGuire's motives in changing the subject, said, "No. Why should I know
that thing?"

"Well not long before he died, Brundage--you remember Brundage?"

Seibert made an odd noise as if he was about to choke, and his face
darkened; then abruptly he grinned. He said, "Sure, yes. I remember
that fellow all right."

"Well, Mr. Seibert, this is the truth, I'm telling. Not long before he
died, Brundage met the trader who owned the schooner that Waller sold
you. It was some time before he saw Williams, then he told Williams;
and the skipper intends to pay you, compound interest and all. He
promised. He never breaks a promise. That's why he is pearling."

Seibert leaned over and laid a heavy hand on McGuire's shoulder,
patting it with blows that jarred. "You are a fine joker, McGuire. Ho,
ho, ho! What a fine joke if you should talk me into believing that."
Then, with an air of seriousness: "But is that really so like you say?"

"Absolutely the truth, Mr. Seibert."

"Ho, that is fine. Then you won't mind at all taking me in a ship I
will get to where he is! Ho, ho! Now the joke it is on you, McGuire!"
He beamed, chuckling and chuckling.

"You're right," said McGuire, slumping back into the chair. Then,
wearily, he asked: "How did you find out all this? Tell me that much,
won't you, Mr. Seibert?"

"_Ach!_ I know lots of things. Little birds they tell me.
Cheep-cheep-cheep. Like that."

McGuire stared searchingly, trying to pierce that silly good nature and
to get some kind of understanding of what lay underneath. Seibert wiped
his face of sweat again, wiped the band inside his hat, looked at the
restive stallion, and then gazed blankly at McGuire.

A moment later, abruptly, he repeated: "Cheep-cheep-cheep!"

McGuire eyed him through a smoke haze. It was grotesque, this silly
cheerfulness in a man so heavy and big--a jungle-tamer, a fellow who
rode a man-killing stallion.

Then McGuire saw the vague, shadowy outline of an idea, too tenuous to
be trusted, but enough of a possibility to be suspected. He stretched
his arms lazily as he said to Seibert: "Nothing like having a wife that
tells you everything."

With slow heaviness Seibert turned slightly and stared at him. McGuire
had as much of an answer as he needed in the blank puzzlement of the
big, red face. Seibert was not startled, perhaps not much surprised;
but he did appear rather blankly puzzled by McGuire's suppleness in
squirming through to a fact that he did not see how anyone could have
discovered.

He demanded unsmilingly, without menace, but baffled: "How do you know
that thing?"

"Cheep-cheep-cheep!" said McGuire, and sank back sleepily, as if
indifferent.

Seibert looked toward him rather than at him, his round, full face
covered with a kind of expressionless stupidity, a sort of woodenness.
He said, "You are a clever young man, my friend"--a meaningless grin
broke out on the thick lips--"and I will just take you over to my
place, where I can keep an eye on you, eh?"

Seibert closed one eye in a long, awkward wink, as if illustrating how
the other would be given over exclusively to watching.

McGuire could get no comfort from the idea of being a prisoner on
Seibert's plantation. He did not like that prospect at all, and liked
even less the possibility of being forced to lead Seibert off on a wild
goose chase to some oysterless reef--all because the wilful, selfishly
subtle little Oreena wanted to get Seibert off the island. McGuire saw
that Oreena was much more clever than he had thought.

Then, with that deceptiveness of which he was capable, he began to
talk in a way that appeared to indicate a full readiness to join in
Seibert's plan--all of it--repeatedly insisting that Williams was
fishing shell to repay Seibert; for McGuire saw that his only chance of
escape seemed to lie in getting Seibert to trust him a little, or at
least in not being closely watchful.

A man in a dirty white canvas suit, wearing a pith helmet pulled down
low on the back of his head, galloped round the house from the same
direction that Seibert had come; and a big dog, with something of puppy
awkwardness still in its legs, ran at the side of the horse.

Seibert had not come to Combe's alone; and this man who had been
waiting some distance off knew where to look for him. He rode up,
shouting excitedly; but McGuire did not understand what it was all
about, for the fellow spoke in German--in loud, rapid German--and
flourished his arms.

He was, as it happened, telling Seibert that a messenger had just come,
bringing word that Gauro, the runaway black--who had a rifle--had been
caught. The messenger, a black boy on a rangy horse, edged rather
timidly into view, as if anxious to share in the importance of his news.

However, at that moment something more distracting than the capture of
Gauro was taking place. Bismarck had shied from the dog; the dog then
immediately began jumping and barking at the horse, and the wild horse
began jerking powerfully on the rope. Both men shouted, cursing and
calling at the dog, but it seemed crazed in the sport of frightening
the big stallion.

The rope was stronger than the post, which snapped like a carrot, and
as Bismarck broke loose, Seibert, who with slow, fumbling hand had
pulled out his revolver, took deliberate aim and shot. The dog plunged
about for a moment, then crawled in a half-circle, and straightened
out with quivering jerks. The stallion galloped through the grounds,
terrified at every jump by the piece of post at the rope's end, that
followed like a pursuer.

It looked as though Seibert would also shoot the man that had brought
the fool dog. He did hold the gun, not levelled at him so much as in
line with him; and whether this was intentional McGuire could not be
sure. But in any case the gun was pointed directly at the fellow,
while Seibert, to judge by tone and manner, appeared to be cursing
him. Evidently he ordered the fellow out of the saddle, for the man
crawled down, with eyes anxiously fastened on the gun, as intently as
if looking at the barrel's hole might let him know what was coming in
time to dodge.

McGuire could not see Seibert's face; afterwards he wished that he
had been able to see its expression at this time; but, without having
looked around, Seibert tramped heavily down the steps, went to the
horse, and, with astonishing ease and quickness for one of his size,
mounted; then, pointing toward the way the stallion had gone, said
something hoarsely fierce, and rode furiously off, followed by the
black boy on the rangy horse.

The poor fellow left on foot stared dully after him for a minute, and,
jerking his pith helmet down more tightly, started off with determined
trudge in the direction that Bismarck had taken, past Combe's stables
and down into a grove of cocoanut trees.

Nada looked out of the door. She seemed half dead from fright.

"That shot--I thought----" She could hardly speak. "I was listening. I
heard everything."

"You heard? Well, you know I wouldn't turn on Williams. I was trying to
appear friendly until----"

"Yes. Of course I know. You must escape."

"I have friends in the hills near here. Out-of-the-way place. I can
stay there months without anyone knowing. Could you tell, I had Seibert
really believing that I wanted to take him after Williams?"

She nodded. "I know--and I know you wouldn't do such a thing. When I
heard that shot, I nearly screamed!"

"Queer fellow, that Seibert. I wonder if he would have tried to see you
before he went away."

"He seems to have forgotten me, for which I can't be too thankful. But
why would Oreena have told him? I don't understand that, Dan. Are you
sure she did tell him?"

"She or Paullen. Take your choice."

"John Paullen wouldn't do a thing like that," she said quickly.

"No. You're right. So who else knew?"

"I can't believe it of Oreena. I am going right over there, and----"


3

She broke off as they heard the galloping of a horse entering the
grounds. McGuire, thinking that it was Seibert returning, gave Nada
a shove toward the door, then crouched at a corner of the house and
peered up along the drive toward the road.

In a moment horse and rider came to view. He saw instantly that it
was not Seibert, but at first did not recognise Combe, though he did
recognise that whoever it might be was riding desperately.

Combe, never a horseman, held to the saddle rather than rode, and was
badly jarred at every jump. He could not bring the horse to a stop, and
went past the veranda, sawing at the reins, shouting "Whoa!" tugging
with arms and legs flying, and himself bouncing almost from the saddle.

"What is it? What's up?" McGuire yelled at him as Combe went by.

Before the horse had fully stopped, Combe, partly by deliberately
letting himself fall, got to the ground, landing on hands and knees. He
got up stiffly, and for a moment appeared to be pausing to make sure
his bones were all right, then in a shuffling, awkward run came toward
McGuire, who had jumped the rail and was trotting to meet him.

The old fellow was agitated and out of breath, greatly worked up; he
could hardly talk. His effort to shout was a frantic gasping.

"Get away, Dan! They're after you--you an' Paullen an' Nada, curse 'em!"

"What on earth----" said McGuire, hardly alarmed, for he knew that
Combe appeared a little unbalanced at times.

"Get away, Dan! Take her an' get away!"

Combe pushed excitedly at him, as if trying to shove McGuire into
hiding.

"Surely, I go, Tom. But tell me, what's the matter? What will I be
hiding from?"

"They're comin'!" he cried. "They tried to stop me! Them fellers know
you come with Nada, an' that she's off Williams's ship. Get away, Dan!"

"Who's coming? Who are you talking about?"

"They come this mornin'--that tall, lean feller--Penwing!"

"Penwenn! Here? On Pulotu? Great glory and hallaluyer!"

"They're comin', I tell you. On the road now. They tried to stop me. I
just beat 'em. Get away, Dan. Take Nada, too. They're after her!"

"What is it, Dan?" Nada called from across the veranda railing. She had
seen her father's excitement, the flurry of his gestures, his pushing;
caught the shrillness of his tone.

McGuire turned and shouted, as if almost, but not quite, amused:
"Penwenn's here! It's to the bush for us--both of us! Paullen too."

"They're comin', Dan! They're comin'. Get away, boy. Go--go, I tell
you!"

This fussy urgency was as near to forcefulness as old Combe could get.
His thin, trembling hands fluttered about McGuire, and his voice was
pathetically cracked--now husky, now squeaking, as he tried to be
emphatic.

McGuire hurried toward Nada. Combe trotted along, shuffling, at his
heels, mouthing over and over his warnings.

"Nada, you don't want to meet Penwenn, do you?" McGuire asked.

"Not on this earth!" she cried.

"What do you know about that fellow coming here? Say! Listen, Nada;
he's after _you_. He doesn't expect to find Williams and his ship here,
but he knows you came home."

"Then Kate Collins told him."

"His sailors that we put off just inside the Golden Gate described
you, of course. He put two and two together, and perhaps he did get
something out of Mrs. Collins. In any case, he's here! Go get a bundle
of clothes, or whatever you want. Tom and I'll go catch some horse. We
must get word to Paullen."

"I'll be ready in two minutes," said Nada excitedly, almost happily,
though highly nervous and flushed.

"An' she's sick, too," said Combe sadly, watching the doorway through
which she had gone running.

"She's cured," said McGuire. "Let's get some horses."

"But they'll be here any minute, boy! You ought 'o strike right through
the bush. What's that Penwenn feller after Nada for? 'Cause she come on
his ship that Williams took?"

Old Combe, who was secretive as a mute for all of his garrulity, had
been told of the _Flying Gull_, and was proud of his daughter for
having warned Williams, but he had not fully realised how she came to
have Penwenn's confidence.

Said McGuire, "That's the man she came home to get away from. Now he's
full of soured love. He may kill her."

One of Combe's scrawny hands was at his chin whiskers when McGuire
spoke; the motionless hand stiffened grotesquely, as if he had pulled
his toothless old mouth open; his lustreless, vague eyes appeared more
than ever as if they had lost their sight, and were blank as a blind
man's. It was nearly like a return of consciousness from a blow when he
made a wordless sound, then slowly dropped his hand and blinked.

"Why," he asked, peering, incredulous, "would anybody do that to Nada?
They got me to--me to answer to--me----" He shook a tremulous fist, his
utter helplessness showing the more plainly in a gesture meant to be
defiant.

McGuire answered quickly, smoothly, "Nobody'll really hurt Nada. I used
the wrong word. Penwenn'll probably marry her--which will be worse. You
see, Tom, no matter what the truth is, it is also a fact that she did
help run off with Penwenn's schooner, and that's piracy, even if she is
a woman."


4

Old Combe was not listening. He had begun to stare; then pointed,
speechless.

McGuire looked, and saw men coming up through the grounds, leading
and driving Seibert's black stallion. Black boys were also carrying
someone. The stallion was frightened. He pulled, sidled, plunged
against the three men on the long strong rope, one of whom was the
young Mr. Grinnell, now bareheaded, scratched about the face, with
clothes torn from being dragged.

Old Combe mumbled, "Seibert's been throwed!" He said it dully, without
satisfaction, though wondering why Seibert should have been down in
that grove.

Black Bismarck did not want to be led, but the blacks on every side
watched and urged him on. All were afraid except Mr. Grinnell; he
talked soothingly to the stallion, but without effect; he cursed the
blacks when one of them waved something, as if about to throw, and it
did no good.

McGuire and Combe went toward them. Mr. Grinnell shouted that they were
to keep away. Ten devils were in this horse; he had just killed a man!

The stallion, when running away, had whipped the end of the post, on
the dragging rope, around a tree near where the blacks were working.
The fellow whom Seibert had sent to catch him then came up. He could
not speak English. It was evident that he was afraid of the horse;
yet he wanted to ride him home. Mr. Grinnell and two of his boys
approached, and held the end of the rope while the German got into the
saddle; then Bismarck became wild, rearing, plunging, fighting. The
German had been immediately thrown, and Bismarck trampled him. The boys
let go of the rope; Mr. Grinnell would not let go. Then the braver
blacks came to his help.

That was what had happened; and they now brought Bismarck to a tree
near the stables and tied him up short. He was shivering, as if with
ague; he jumped nervously, champed, pawed, kicked, plunged; his eyes
were red and bright. He was a powerful brute.

McGuire pushed between the black labourers and looked at the broken,
trampled body.

"He's dead," said McGuire to Combe, who stood behind him but would not
look.

"Tell 'em to take him up there into the house, Dan. A man can't lay out
in the open, like a dog. Tell 'em to take him into the house, an' you
get a sheet or somethin'. I--I always thought that horse would kill
him."

"This isn't Seibert."

"No--oh?" The old fellow gazed vaguely off through the gloomy aisle of
trees. His voice, always unsteady, now was low, sadly quavering. "Take
him into the house, anyway, Dan. Poor feller! It's like that time they
brought Waller. I'm terrible sorry. I--I----"

He could say nothing more.

McGuire pointed, speaking rapidly to the blacks in a Melanesian
dialect. These labour recruits, volunteers to the plantation work from
Santa Cruz, were small, compact fellows, with thick features that
appeared to be only half finished; and they grunted among themselves,
eyeing him; curiously because he spoke their tongue so well. With
uneven steps they walked on, but hesitated doubtfully at the foot of
the veranda steps.

"On, on up there." McGuire pointed.

Clustered round the body, they went cautiously, looking from side to
side, timid but curious as monkeys, and about to go into the strange,
forbidden place where white men lived their strange, aloof lives. They
placed their bare feet with tiptoeing stealth, instinctively furtive at
moving into the house where they had no right to be; and they turned
their heads with short jerks, staring at everything, at nothing;
uneasy, watchful, like animals.

The body was brought into the house, into the big room, bare except
for two or three old mats, a table, its top splattered with candle
drippings, and two or three chairs.

"Wait," said McGuire, and he left them.

When he came back they had not moved, except to shuffle their feet and
turn their heads.

A moment later Lu Lung entered with a heavy piece of folded white linen
on his arm. He came noiselessly; and he appeared not to notice anyone
but McGuire, and to await his gesture.

McGuire looked about over the floor, then pointed in the direction of a
corner. "Over there, I suppose."

Lu Lung moved with unseeing, preoccupied, soundless shuffling, and
rapidly shook open the tablecloth. He spread it on the floor, then
stepped away, folding his slim hands across his stomach, waiting.

The blacks edged doubtfully toward the cloth, looking from McGuire to
Lu Lung, half afraid of magic, suspecting mystery, sure that there was
some devil-devil ritual in this laying of the cloth. They placed the
body, almost letting it fall, for each was fearful of being the last to
have a hand on the dead man, as if the body might clutch up at him to
keep from being abandoned by those that were alive.

"You go now," said McGuire.

They pattered out swiftly, glad to get away, and throwing glances from
half-turned heads as they went.

Lu Lung stooped, with an air of sensitive respect for the dead, and
drew the cloth over the body; then, again folding his thin, delicate
hands before him, he went from the room with quick, short, noiseless
steps.

At once, as if the dead man would not have his presence concealed, a
spot appeared on the cloth above where the face lay.

"Another one that came to these damned islands to make his fortune!"
McGuire muttered, as he stood for a moment looking toward the white,
mound-like figure.

Then Nada spoke to him from the end of the room where she had stopped,
a little uncertain, looking at the strange object near the far corner.
She wore the panama tied under her chin, and a cloak to keep off the
dew; but her hands were empty. After making a bundle of the things she
simply could not do without she had found it too large to carry with
ease; then, wilfully hopeless, decided to take nothing.

"What is it, Dan? What has happened?"

"That black stallion killed a man."

"Who?"

"The fellow Seibert sent after him."

"How terrible! I saw that man the first day I went over to Seibert's.
On the road, with natives, hoeing weeds."


5

McGuire would have done well if he had taken alarm from old Combe's
excitability and hurried off as soon as he learned Penwenn was on
the island, for Penwenn, with some sailors off the _Molly McDonald_,
on which he had arrived about noon, were on their way to the Combe
plantation. Nada and McGuire had not said ten more words together
before they arrived.

McGuire heard a confused sound, the rush of feet and shouting, and
strange voices about the veranda. A moment later the plunging clatter
of horses came down the drive. He jumped for the door, peering out. Old
Combe and Grinnell were surrounded. The blacks had been scattered away,
and were running off, frightened, not pursued or threatened. .

The room in which he stood ran clear across the house; and from the
doorway on the other side a voice called on McGuire to surrender. He
looked around and faced a sailor, one that had been on the _Flying
Gull_; and the sailor had a rifle. Another sailor immediately appeared
by his side, and he was also armed.

The house was surrounded; and at once men who had been waiting out of
sight on horseback until they heard the shouts had ridden down into the
grounds. John Paullen was with them. They had come across Paullen on
the way to the Combe plantation, recognised him, and taken him prisoner.

The sailors were taking everybody--that is, every white man--for a
"pirate." In Pulotu they had learned that two men had put ashore off
the same ship that had brought Nada, and Penwenn was sure that they
had taken part in the theft of his vessels, and he wanted them. So, in
making sure that nobody escaped, Combe and Grinnell were also caught.

Combe accepted his capture with impassive dejection. He would not say
a word to the questioning or jeers, for Combe was a weakling, not a
coward. Cramming his toothless mouth with tobacco, he folded his hands
dispiritedly behind him, bent his rounded shoulders still lower, and
gazed hazily past whoever came near.

Mr. Grinnell was amazed and indignant. He expressed himself forcibly,
but looked rather disreputable, with his torn clothes and scratched
face.

Penwenn, wearing fresh, crisp, laundered whites, looked down from his
horse, and explained with a thin, wide smile that if Mr. Grinnell was
innocent he had nothing to fear.

"Fear! Fear!" shouted Mr. Grinnell. "You get down off that horse and
I'll jolly well show you who's got something to fear! I want to see my
consul. I'm an Englishman! This is an outrage!"

At that moment a fellow came running, pushing his way to Penwenn's
stirrup, and cried: "We got the redhead an' that girl. We got her!"

Old Combe shifted his head from side to side without looking at
anybody. Mr. Grinnell, with a man holding to each of his arms because,
for all the odds against him, he seemed eager to hurt somebody,
shouted, "Don't you dare mistreat her!" He said more--a phrase more--a
very profane and insulting phrase. A fellow struck him in the mouth,
and Penwenn gave a slanting downward glance and smiled coldly.

"Watch these two," he said, indicating Grinnell and Combe.

Penwenn rode up and dismounted at the veranda steps; then he gave a
long, slow stare at Paullen, who was still on horseback, with hands
free, but the reins were held by a horseman beside him.

"Bring that fellow," he told one of his sailors.

"Get down!" Paullen was ordered.

He swung himself off the horse and stood erect, motionless, head up.

"March!"

Penwenn's sailors--there were some seven or eight of them--were rather
pretentiously military; being proud of themselves, they could not help
a bit of swagger, and told one another gleefully that it was "great
luck."

It was almost sundown.


6

Penwenn came into the room with exaggerated slowness. Tall, cool,
neat in appearance, very much at ease, he showed a deliberate air of
unconcern, but a silent derisive curiosity, in the gloomy, shabby,
barren house. He looked all about the walls, at the meagre furniture,
along the floor, rested his gaze for a moment at the white heap in
the corner, and did not seem to see Nada; he let his eyes wander past
McGuire, and ignored Paullen.

Nada clutched her cape about her as if it somehow offered shelter. She
was intensely uneasy; and had all the sensations of fear without being
really afraid; and she held a direct unflinching stare toward him,
though her heart fluttered like a bird between cupped hands and made
her breathless.

McGuire grinned slightly; not because he was amused, but to irritate
Penwenn.

"Get over there out of the way," Penwenn ordered, his voice icily calm.

McGuire moved to Paullen's side; and as he moved an idea came into his
tricky head. Without looking at anyone, he said in Samoan, rapidly:
"Pretend to faint--pretend to faint." There was only one person in the
room who understood him.

The mistiness of dusk had begun to sift into the room. In a very little
while it would be dark.

Penwenn, after a long, doubtful glance at McGuire, then said, "Ah, Miss
Combe!" ironically seeming not to have been aware of her presence until
that moment. He took off his white pith helmet, bowing a little. She
said nothing.

"I was hoping that we might have the pleasure of meeting again, for
your departure was quite----"

Nada swayed slightly and fell. Penwenn must have thought that she was
trying to trick him, perhaps into a little sympathy. He made no move to
catch her until she was too far toward the floor for the quick reach he
offered to be of use.

After hesitating, he then knelt on one knee, looking with calm
suspicion at her. But she lay perfectly motionless, and when he
believed that she was unconscious he turned toward the man in the
nearest doorway and told him to bring water.

"Where'll I get it?" the man asked across the room of McGuire.

"Tell the Chinaman there in the kitchen," said McGuire.

"And have him bring a light. We'll need it soon," Penwenn ordered,
without looking around. He remained on his knee, coldly regarding the
pretty, expressionless face.

McGuire put a hand behind him and struck Paullen, making him alert for
what might follow. Less than ten feet away a man was beside the other
doorway with a rifle; he would have heard the lightest whisper McGuire
made, and the man was watchful. But, Nada being unconscious, no one had
much to say; and so McGuire had his chance to talk.

"That fellow," said McGuire, pointing toward the white object, and
speaking for whoever cared to listen, "was killed just a little while
ago. You saw the big stallion out there? The horse killed him. Powerful
horse. Nothing could stop him. Nothing!"

The man by the door was listening, interested. So were the other men in
the room and at the doorways. Even Penwenn turned slightly and gazed
toward the dead man, though he gave no other sign of attention to what
McGuire said.

McGuire again struck Paullen, and continued: "Fastened him up with a
rope out there. I said he'd break loose. Grinnell said nothing but a
knife could get that horse loose now."

Again the tap against Paullen, and a moment later he felt Paullen's
groping fingers close on the pocket-knife that he had offered.

McGuire said, "Seibert loves"--he jerked his head in an odd way, as
if indicating the girl on the floor, but added--"that horse. Would
stop at nothing to get what he loves. If he knew the whole truth about
how"--pause--"that horse had been abused, or anything else he cares
for, he would surely interfere. Lots worse people in the world than
that big Seibert. Somebody ought to tell him."

He struck a harder blow at Paullen, and felt an answering bump. The
fellow by the door was all ears. Penwenn looked impatiently in the
direction that the man had gone for the water.

McGuire continued, as if idly talking: "Paullen, remember how Nada
fussed until she got new mosquito netting on the doors and _windows_?
I told her we wouldn't be needing it long--that a big moth could go
through such flimsy netting. Here comes Lu Lung with water and a
lantern."

It was not quite dark.

Lu Lung came shuffling along soundlessly, a cooking-pan in one small
hand, a large lighted lantern in the other. He stopped beside Penwenn,
holding down the water. Lu Lung's expressionless eyes glanced from
Nada's face and fastened on Penwenn.

Penwenn, with slightly hesitant manner, dipped the tips of his long
fingers into the water and brushed them across Nada's forehead. He
really didn't know just what to do; besides, he half suspected that she
was deceiving him, and thought it must be that she was trying to touch
his sympathy.

At that moment Paullen stepped swiftly back and plunged like a diver
through the netting of an open window.

"Across there! Look! Look!" McGuire shouted frantically, pointing in
the opposite direction, and for a second or two causing a confused
turning of heads and uncertainty.

The man at the nearest doorway, who had seen Paullen go, stepped
forward toward the window, raising the rifle to his shoulder. McGuire
shoved him. The rifle exploded at the ceiling. The man flung himself on
McGuire, clinching him, holding fast.

There was calling and shouting and running about. No one seemed to know
just what had happened. It was beginning to be dark, and besides, those
fellows were in strange surroundings, unfamiliar with everything. This
added much to their uncertainty, so Paullen had a good start before
anyone saw that he was not running away, but was making for the black
stallion, tied some distance from the house. Two men let off their
rifles in his direction, and three or four gave chase.

Penwenn, swearing coolly, hurried out of the room, and, leaning across
the veranda railing, shouted for men to take to their horses, to stop
him when he tried to pass them and give chase.

"Stop him!" was a cry that was in the air. Combe and Grinnell were
forgotten by the two men who had been watching them, but they remained
motionless, absorbed in Paullen's escape.

Paullen frightened the stallion by approaching on the run. Bismarck
jumped and reared from side to side as much as he could while tied
up short, in a way that caused the attempt to get near him to be
increasingly dangerous.

But Paullen made a flying jump for the saddle, catching hold,
scrambling at mane and horn, pulling and kicking to get himself up,
and terrifying the stallion. By some luck, and the strength that helps
anyone that is desperate, he succeeded in setting his legs over the
saddle, and, lying along the horse's neck, Paullen groped for the
reins. When he had these he sawed at the noose where it crossed the top
of Bismarck's neck, so that the horse, in jerking, might pull free as
soon as the rope was partly cut.

This took time; Paullen's position was unsafe; over and over again he
was nearly shaken off; the knife's edge repeatedly slipped after it
had cut into the rope. Men came up, remaining just beyond reach of
Bismarck's heels, and were yelling for him to get down, and threatening
to shoot.

The horse's frantic tugging broke the rope before it was cut through.
He whirled powerfully, knocking over a man that was near, causing the
others to jump and stumble backwards, and one or two rifles went off;
then Bismarck plunged ahead as if he knew the road.

There was shouting and shooting through the dusk. From the veranda
Penwenn fired coolly with a revolver, and missed. Three men on horses
blocked the way. They knew little of horses, and nothing at all of
Bismarck. The stallion plunged among them with the force of a great
boulder rolling downhill, and went on, leaving one horse and rider on
the ground; the horse struggling, the rider unconscious. The other
horses were knocked or frightened into bounding aside, and the inexpert
men on them were helpless, and perhaps more frightened than their
horses.

Bismarck fled like a demon on hoofs. Paullen lay along his neck and
blessed him.


7

Penwenn had not greatly cared about having captured Paullen, for he was
merely a boy, and not at all the sort that a judge would have taken
any pleasure in sentencing; but his escape, because it was an escape,
angered him, so that when Penwenn returned into the room his thin face
was tensely set. He was not now ironic, but thoroughly irritated and
determined.

Nada sat in a low-backed chair, leaning her head against the wall. Near
her on the floor was the lighted lantern. Lu Lung had vanished.

Penwenn, with a long, deliberate stride, came close and stood over her.
Anger glistened in the chill blue of his narrow eyes.

"You might have known," he said bitterly, "when you betrayed my
confidence, stole my ship, and went off with that ruffian that I would
follow you to wherever you were! And now--now----"

He slightly raised a hand, and his fingers worked nervously, as though
fumbling for what to threaten.

"He's not a ruffian!" Nada snapped at him. "He's anything but a
ruffian! He brought me home. I wanted to come. I wanted to get away
from you--you, who tried in a low, sneaking, cowardly way to trick
Captain Williams and have him hanged, so people would say what a brave
bold man Alan Penwenn is!"

Penwenn was almost staggered. She had spoken rapidly, with flying lips;
her dark eyes flashed. He had expected to see her shrink, to hear her
plead; he had thought that she fainted to awaken his compassion; but
this was astonishing.

He forced a chill, short laugh, and said, "Talk as you please, Miss
Combe. It will be most entertaining to hear you defend your Captain
Williams in court."

She sprang up with startling quickness, threw open her cape, and
darted a hand at him. The movement was so surprising and direct that
he unconsciously flinched, taking a step backwards before seeing that
her hand was empty. His lean, angular face flushed as he heard bits of
repressed laughter at his having dodged, but he would not look around.

Already Nada was talking as rapidly as words could fly; her small hands
danced in gestures, and her dark, brilliant eyes glowed and snapped.
Her hair, disturbed by her animation, came loose, and settled in misty
wisps on her cheeks, and touched her face. She brushed at it with quick
fingers, and threw it back with flashing tosses of her head, and did
not pause.

"Captain Williams--tell the court? Do you know what I shall tell--tell
the court and everybody, of him? I'll tell you now! You listen!

"More than forty years ago a young man--a mere boy--was caught one
night in an English lord's park with a snared hare in his hand. It was
a cloudy night, but the moon blazed down for just a moment through a
rift, so that a keeper saw him. For taking that one little miserable
hare this boy--my father--was sentenced by a man in a big powdered wig
to be deported for six years to Australia!

"He was put on a convict ship, filled with prisoners--men of all the
terrible kind. Soldiers with bayonets on loaded guns stood watch over
them. One morning at sea the most desperate of these convicts, who had
plotted together, sprang at the sentries. They killed some and got
their muskets, and then, seizing whatever would serve for a club, they
tried to capture the ship. It was a terrible fight! But the soldiers
were courageous, and fought until the convicts saw that it was hopeless
to resist. Some of these men then leaped into the sea, drowning
themselves rather than face the long years of prison life that were
before them.

"Someone of the ship's officers saw my father bending over a sentry
that had been knocked down and who never became conscious again; and
this officer swore that he saw my father strike the sentry as he lay
on the deck. Oh, I'm sure that officer didn't realise how greatly he
was lying, for my father is the tenderest hearted man in the world,
and he had stooped, and only put his hand to the poor fellow because
he moaned. But on that officer's word this mere boy who had caught a
hare in a park was sentenced to prison for life! And for twenty years
he wore irons and lived in a cell, and was made to work like a slave on
wretched food, and right now his poor old back is scarred and cut by
the scores of beatings from prison whips.

"Then one dark, rainy evening some men were hanged, and my father was
one of three convicts detailed to bear the dead away. They found that
one body they were bearing was alive! They hid it in a lumber pile in
the dark, and took up a sack of something and buried that!

"The hanged man came to consciousness and later escaped. That hanged
man was Captain Williams--a woman who had killed her husband said that
Captain Williams did it, and he was hanged for that. And it was Captain
Williams who, with the greatest daring you ever heard of, afterwards
got those three men who had saved him out of prison, and he brought
them here to Pulotu.

"All these years he has been a friend to my father, and I have known of
and loved Captain Williams from the time I could walk! He is one of the
finest men in the world!

"And you--you big, rich, ugly coward--you pretended to be his friend,
and all the time you were planning to follow his unarmed ship a few
miles out of San Francisco, with cannons on your ship, so you could
have people say that you--_you_ were a brave man, and had caught
Hurricane Williams on the high seas!

"That's what I will tell in any court you take me to, and of how you
had been drinking at dinner at Kate Collins's house, and boasted to me
of what you were going to do, so that I had the chance to warn him and
come home with him because I wanted to get away from _you_!"


8

Penwenn remained motionless, hands to hips and feet apart, looking
steadily at Nada; his face was as white as a sleeve of his laundered
jacket.

Shadows were banked against the walls of the room. Motionless men stood
in the dimness where they had listened watchfully, tense from the
dramatic recital that she had made; they did not understand all about
it, but they did understand much, and now looked at her, fascinated.

"It is since I came home--only a few days ago--that my father told
me of his life," she said absently, with a far-away look, as if
remembering the hour and her father's pathetic manner of talking.

Penwenn had said at Pulotu before many people that he would bring Nada
back with him, and turn her over to the consul on a charge of piracy
with such men as he could find as had taken part in the stealing of
his ship. He now knew that he could do nothing of the kind. He had
expected to find a frightened girl who would cry and beg, and, being a
vain, proud man who never gave himself a cold, impartial scrutiny, he
had not realised just how unpleasant his crafty stage-plot sort of plan
for capturing Williams could be made to appear. In the planning he had
thought that, even if the truth should be known, everybody would take
it as a clever trick and joke on Williams himself. He now saw that this
wasn't at all the way the world would regard it; not if Nada got the
chance to tell her story.

Penwenn slipped a thumb into a side-pocket of his jacket, and, without
shifting his feet, slowly turned more than half around, glancing about
the room without a pause from man to man. He said coolly, "You men go
out and be ready to start back." An extended finger motioned slightly
at McGuire. "And don't let _him_ get away. Better tie him up." McGuire
appeared unconcerned, and was hazily smiling. Then, without addressing
anyone in particular, Penwenn said: "That Englishman and the old
man--they are to be released."

Nada sat down, and, pulling the cape about her, looked after McGuire as
the men went out and into the grounds, where they immediately built a
small fire on account of the darkness.

Penwenn's thumbs were hooked into the side-pockets of his jacket; the
fingers opened and closed with writhing vagueness--long, bony fingers,
usually with an odd air of daintiness in their movement. He appeared
now to have a little more of a stoop than usual; his long body bent in
a sort of angular rigidity, and his head was thrust forward. He looked
at her steadily for a long time before speaking. He had liked Nada; he
had been attentive to her; he had put her picture in the frame on his
desk, which was about as much of an honour as he ever gave any woman.

"Why, _why_," he demanded coldly, as if this, more than anything else
she had done, had injured him, "didn't you tell me in San Francisco?"

"It would have made no difference."

"If I had known he was your friend? Yes, it would have made a
difference. Of course it would. You know that----"

She shook her head quickly, saying, "You would have laughed--I know how
you would have laughed. Been amused. Everything amused you. You were
greatly amused by your plan to capture Captain Williams."

"And what could I think when I knew that you had gone off with this
outlaw sea captain, on my ship?" he said with just a suggestion of
softened reproach.

"Kate Collins told you, didn't she?" Nada answered rather sharply, not
liking the change that had come into his tone.

"Yes, she did tell me, finally, that Williams had been the friend of
your family."

"I don't see that it made the difference you just spoke of? You came
here to capture him, and me too. You have me, so take me to Pulotu.
Take me back to San Francisco. I want to go. I want to be put into that
court you have just threatened me with."

"I am not going to take you, Nada. You ought to know that. You ought
to know that I wouldn't do a thing like that to you. I felt that you
had treated me outrageously, and I was angry and hurt. That is why I
came. And I lost the finest schooner in Pacific waters. But if I had
had any idea of what Williams meant to you, I would have helped him get
his pearl shell and sell it. But you know his reputation. That is all I
knew of him. You have hurt me in a way that I can never quite forgive.
And to-night, before all those men. You might have waited until we were
alone. Considering our past friendship that would have been very little
for you to do. You might have known that then----"

"How you talk!" Nada flung at him. "You come riding in here to my
father's house with a lot of wild men, shooting and shouting. That is
all our 'past friendship' meant to you. It means nothing to me. I only
mention it because you did. And who suggested that I defend Captain
Williams, if I could?"

Penwenn eyed her severely, freshly angered; but there was nothing he
could think of to do, and her tongue was so sharp and rapid that he
hesitated to say anything more. Yet he was furious, and his cold proud
poise was strained to almost the breaking point. He took his hands from
his pockets and put them behind him, weaving the long fingers together.
Without straightening in the least, he turned and walked a few steps,
crossing between her and the lantern.

Outside where the men had made a small fire to scatter the darkness,
light played dartingly among the drooping palm leaves, and sometimes
reached to the room's windows in a soft vanishing flash like distant
lightning. From about the fire drifted the broken mumbling of voices;
now and then someone called to another not far off. Horses stamped, and
two or three times neighed piercingly.

Penwenn stopped beside her, and one of his long hands hovered for a
moment in air as if about to gesture decisively as he declared some
angry intention; but the hand drifted back to the side of his jacket,
where it hung lifelessly, a thumb hooked inside the pocket. He said
bitterly: "All right. Now I'll leave you to remember that I have done
the best I could toward you, though you have made me the laughing-stock
of San Francisco, and made me lose one of the finest boats I had.
Good-bye, Miss Combe!"

He turned abruptly and started from the room.

Instantly she jumped up, doubtful of his intentions, and demanded:
"Wait! What are you going to do?"

He turned. His face was feverish, but he said icily: "I shall return to
Pulotu, with McGuire, and turn him over to the American consul--as a
pirate."

"You mean to take Dan McGuire?"

He answered with sardonic slowness: "Most assuredly I do. Wherever
Williams is known, McGuire is known. Does it happen that he, too, has
rendered some indispensable service to your family?"

"If you take him, you take me!" she cried, all aflame.

His anger broke in an instant, and his poise was gone. He advanced
toward her, and a clenched hand swung up; he shouted: "Then I will take
you! Who are you, anyway? The daughter of an escaped convict! Your
Williams--hanged for murder! A fine lot! Tell your story wherever you
damn well please, in court and out of it! I have been a fool to treat
you with any respect. You are going with me, right now!"

Nada was astounded. She had been too sure of her triumph; but after the
first moment's bewildering shock, she accepted the turn of fortune with
a proud, silent, challenging air that was, however, largely forced,
for she was now really aghast at realising how thoughtlessly she had
revealed her father's secret. He had not told her that she must never
speak of it, but only because he had never imagined that his daughter
would.


9

"You'll want to take something with you, clothes or something," said
Penwenn, coldly but in a way that indicated that he was rather making a
point of his courtesy at such a time.

Nada answered without interest: "There's a bundle on the floor in my
room--by the bed. You can call Lu Lung if you don't want to trust me to
go for it."

Penwenn went to the dark inner doorway and called sharply: "Lu Lung!"

Almost at once he heard nearly noiseless rapid little steps and Lu
Lung, with hands in sleeves, came through the door to the edge of the
lantern light, where he stood humbly, not unlike a small good-tempered
slave of the lamp. His black plaited queue lay coiled around his head
and glistened.

Penwenn told him what to do.

Lu Lung made two bobbing nods, accompanying them with the sound of
"Yessa-yessa," and backed soundlessly from the doorway, simply fading
backwards into the darkness.

He came again unexpectedly soon, as if with genie-like ease he had
passed through walls and air. He wore a hat, and by the way he held the
large bundle it was evident that he meant to come with them.

As they left the house Lu Lung carried the lantern ahead to light them
down the steps. It bobbed and swung in his hand, and when the light
struck across Penwenn's long face its angles were sharpened and shadows
deepened, and his deep-set eyes appeared hollow as in a death's head;
yet this same light, passing at the same time across Nada's face, made
no vanishing disfigurement, but gave to her erect bearing an aspect of
resolution and fearlessness.

Lu Lung held the bundle on a shoulder, and advanced with steps that
were like soft rapid stamps; he swung the lantern to and fro and its
glowing circle swept about with shadowy swiftness. The light spread
itself flat over the ground, but leaped suddenly up along every object
that it met, momentarily stripping the darkness from whatever object
that it reached. The men, appearing merely like blackened lumps at the
outer edge of their own fire, were touched into individuality for the
instant that the lantern's ray swept across them, and they vanished
when it had passed. The horses, with ears pricked uneasily at the
moving light, were brought into view where they stood hitched to wheel
spokes and seat springs of the small wagon in which some of the sailors
had ridden out.

There began at once a mildly confused bustling in the darkness, with
the lantern that had been taken from Lu Lung swinging about and being
called for here and there by some one or other who fumbled unfamiliarly
at the harness.

Penwenn unhurriedly moved from place to place, distinguishable in the
darkness by his laundered whites, like a lean ghost in vague shadows.
He saw to it that McGuire was well tied and had him placed in the
back seat of the spring wagon. Nada was helped into a front seat, by
the driver. Lu Lung, holding the bundle, perched himself in the rear,
sitting in the bed of the wagon, with his feet hanging over. The
lantern was made fast to the side of the wagon.

The guard left Mr. Grinnell and Combe and took a place in the wagon.

Then they began the return to Pulotu. Penwenn, on horseback, was just
ahead, and his form showed like an object that had been whitewashed.
The wagon creaked, the wheels raspingly cut into the pebbles. Men on
horseback rode behind, and hardly a word was spoken.

When they emerged from the gloomy grounds they could see that the stars
were out; but here trees overhung the road, and except where jagged
holes in the foliage let through an occasional glimpse of sky, their
way was densely black on all sides beyond the moving pool of lantern
light.


10

If they had been horsemen instead of sailors they would have sat up
alertly at the first slight lift of a horse's head. As it was, about
the first they knew of anyone's presence was a deep hearty voice out of
the darkness, saying: "Oh ho, my friends!" And McGuire knew, though he
could not see, that a big hand was gesturally waving somewhere above
Seibert's head.

The sailors were completely surprised. They now saw that the road
before them was crowded by vague forms, so indistinctly perceived that
the blackness on all sides took shape as riders that seemed to have
assembled noiselessly.

On his way to the Combe place with his four or five overseers, Seibert
had seen from afar the light crawling along the road, and waited.

Some of the sailors had even laid their rifles in the wagon bed. There
had not been a thought about meeting danger on the road, and they
felt more secure by having both hands free to help with their riding
than by going armed. They had no feeling of real danger now, a slight
uneasiness perhaps, but nothing alarming.

It did not at all occur to Penwenn that this might be a rescue. His
instant thought was that his party had chanced to meet some planter
that doubtfully regarded so numerous a company on the road. He then,
with the Penwenn air of slightly aloof easy assurance, told Seibert
who he was (this with carefully spaced accents) and what he had been
about. He really expected a little commendation.

Seibert had come closer, emerging from the darkness on a broad-chested
horse; horse and rider appearing larger because of their indistinct
outline under the open space in the foliage. He shouted, not so much
with anger, if angry at all, but as if his voice was a physical force:
"That is a lie! You are the man Nada ran to be away from in San
Francisco. My men they have shotguns--we waited here for you!"

It was as brutally simple as that. The surprise, the dread of shotguns
in the hands of dimly guessed at forms amid the darkness, the bulk of
Seibert and his horse, so huge and vague, stung the imagination of the
sailors and they remained quiet.

Penwenn had never been so addressed in his life; the "lie" hurt like
hot poison; the intimacy implied between this man and Nada and the
overbearing protectiveness in his tone caused Penwenn to be instantly
furious.

He demanded fiercely: "Who are you? And what do you mean by interfering
with me in the----"

"I--I am Seibert. Adolph Seibert!"

The sound of a mighty blow, as when fist strikes flesh, was heard
in the darkness. Seibert had smitten his big breast, and no doubt
grinned with unconvincing cheerfulness as he peered at Penwenn's thin
whitewashed form.

Another horse and rider appeared almost at Seibert's side; and somehow,
though hardly by anything he could see, Penwenn knew that this was
Paullen.

"You rascals will pay for this!"

"Sure," said Seibert, cheerfully. "To me you make your big bill out,
eh?"

That was how Penwenn, the lean unrelenting aristocrat of the
counting-house, met with Seibert, the stubborn baronial jungle-tamer;
and though they were face to face in the night-time, their instinctive
antagonism was at once like a life-long feud. The feud between them was
indeed older than their lives; it was a conflict of types, ordained
among the dark mysteries of Nature, and now, with Nature's usual
dramatic malevolence, embittered by the presence of a woman.

Paullen loosened the lantern, and from horseback held it high above the
wagon. Its glare whitened the features and blinded the eyes of those it
fell on. Nada lifted an arm against it, veiling her face under the cape.

Seibert then rode alongside, and reaching over, took her into his big
hands as easily as he might have lifted a sack of grain; and swinging
her up as if she were a child, one that he loved, placed her on the
horse's neck, and enfolded her against him.

The next moment he had jerked his horse around, and shouted: "So you
take a woman off her sick bed--so sick she cannot see people--to make
her go to jail! Why it is you didn't tie her up like that McGuire? Heh?"

Paullen swung round the lantern--McGuire's rope had been cut and he was
climbing down--holding its light for a moment on Penwenn, whose long
face was distorted by the shadows of its angular features that were
themselves now strained and distorted by a helpless rage.

McGuire went in among the Germans, who had shotguns in their hands, and
found the extra horse that had been brought. His way of getting on a
horse was about the same as his way of going up a rickety ladder; and
as he reached up, climbing for the saddle, he felt a lift on a dangling
foot. It was Lu Lung helping him.

Lu Lung handed up Nada's bundle, then scrambled up as McGuire helpfully
pulled. The Chinaman seated himself astride the horse's rump, and then
put both arms around McGuire's waist, holding on tightly.

Paullen turned in his saddle and held out the lantern toward the
driver, but the fellow would not reach for it; so Paullen tossed it at
the roadside. The lantern struck, turned over, flickered dimly and went
out.




CHAPTER V


1

The next morning McGuire slipped quietly out to Seibert's veranda,
edged about with clean blue paint, for a breath of the air that still
had a tang of dewy coolness, and a few puffs of his pipe.

McGuire was a little weary, still half amused, but weary because the
night had been sleepless for him; though Paullen shortly before sunrise
had fallen back across his fresh white pillow and gone to restless
dreams.

Almost at once a tall native woman in a long loose one-piece dress,
shuffled out with a slow, unhurried manner that was almost stately.
Her naked feet were in grass slippers; her black hair, caught by a
single ribband, hung down her back. While she spoke she stared at him.
There was something slumbrous in her long dark almost Oriental eyes;
slumbrous, but as if waiting half alertly to be called up by any man
that admired her.

She said that Mr. Seibert wanted McGuire and his friend to breakfast
with him. She spoke of Seibert as "Master," and her voice was oddly
soft and smooth.

McGuire replied in Samoan; and she told him that her name was Lalua,
and that Mr. Seibert was already at the table, from where he had seen
McGuire on the veranda. A strange, wide slow smile crossed her mouth
and hung there; and McGuire, after watching her for a moment with the
drowsy suspicion that she knew something or other that she should not
know, turned away and went to shake Paullen off his pillow.


2

From across a pile of smoking pancakes, flanked by brown sausages,
Seibert welcomed them jovially. He was replacing a tall glass syrup
jug on the table as they came in and waved it with a flourish as if it
had been a stein. His elbows were spread on the table; he spoke with
his mouth half full of cakes, cheerfully pointing to chairs.

McGuire, and especially Paullen, who had a guilty conscience, were
doubtful as to what this hospitality might mean. The night before, like
unimportant guests being hurried out of the way, they had been put into
a small clean room, Lalua's; and then with lowered voices they had
wasted the hours, talking, wondering at their position, at what Seibert
had done and would do. Now, most astonishingly, they were called to
breakfast like favoured persons.

Paullen now looked tired and sleepy, and was embarrassed by his
conscience, but he sat stiffly erect and sipped at a big cup of black
coffee.

"From my own beans," said Seibert, with a proud flourish at the coffee
urn.

He was particularly attentive to Paullen; and dropped his fist to the
table in a way that started the silverware, as he bragged to McGuire of
how this boy had ridden Bismarck home.

Paullen blushed uneasily and burned his mouth with scalding coffee.

"Second man that horse had killed. Nobody before ever rode him but
myself!"

It was as if he was proud of having himself equalled, as he was proud
of the black stallion's deadliness.

The fellow that had been killed over there (his hand, holding a knife
that dripped syrup, waved vaguely), was a numbskull, anyway; always in
trouble. Men with a cart were going over after his body this morning,
and would hurry back. There was to be something important take place
about noontime.

"_Ach_, yes! That Gauro, I will shoot him--_cluck, cluck_!"

He levelled a forefinger first at Paullen, then at McGuire, cheerfully
clucking to indicate the report of a gun. Paullen, sitting in that
stiffly straight way he had, gave a slight shivery start; and Seibert
laughed loud.

"This man _is_ a brute!" Paullen affirmed to himself.

Seibert was saying: "Every man will be there. It means I lose a half
day's work from them, but I teach a lesson. That Gauro, he has been a
rascal. While he was loose he topped thirty fine cocoanuts trees, the
scoundrel! Just to hurt me. Hurt my trees."

Not a word about Gauro having shot at him. McGuire really had doubts
about this; so he mentioned it. "And he tried to kill you, didn't he?"

"Yes, yes," said Seibert, a hand vaguely going toward the top of his
head; "but he missed me. He did not miss my trees. And he made other
men run away. He makes trouble no more, that fellow, you bet!" He then
drew a semicircle on the cloth with a knife-blade, which he now used as
a pointer: "All my blacks will be there; my overseers, there; Gauro,
here. I stand right here, and I have my Dr. Hausen, who understands
cannibal talk, to tell them all what Gauro has done and how he will not
work. Then--_cluck_! They will remember that lesson!"

"What about your consul?" McGuire asked. "And the missionaries? Won't
they dance a jig?"

"That for them!" Seibert shouted, driving his great fist into a broad
palm with startling crack. Blood rushed into his round, sunburned face;
his breast heaved with deep, audible breathing; the thick, powerful
arms struck out in unrelated gestures, as if groping for something
intangibly baffling to close on and crush; yet--McGuire was watching
closely--there was an unfocused expression on his face, as if a kind
of rigidly repressed bewilderment was peeping through. Seibert's blue
eyes seemed looking at nothing as with renewed smack of fist to palm he
damned consuls and missionaries.

They, he said, came out to the islands and meddled. They would stay
a year, two years, four or five at most, and do nothing! He--for a
quarter of a century he had been here, tearing out the jungle, working,
planting. All that meant nothing to those meddlers. They would, would
they, make a big to-do because for the good of his plantation he shot
a fellow that had tried to incite his blacks to burn his buildings,
destroy his trees, then raid the villages all about! Meddlers! That
Gauro was a bad one. He had been a bad one on other plantations. The
recruiter that had brought him said Gauro was bad. This recruiter
happened to be his friend, or (Seibert said) no recruiter would ever
say that of a black he was trying to sell.

Just let the consul-meddlers interfere and see how much he cared. Once
before, many years ago, some consuls had tried to meddle because he had
a woman whipped----

(At this Paullen shuddered, and gulped down more of the bitter coffee.)

Because it was the second time she had killed a baby of hers. But there
had been a German gunboat in the bay, and the German captain knew what
was what.

The German captain had stood up for Seibert, who was trying to make
a plantation on Pulotu that would equal in richness the great Dutch
estates of Sumatra. What did the Dutch Government do with meddlers?
Threw them out--_out_!

Then Seibert leaned forward, spreading his elbows, with a quietness as
sudden and seemingly as unnatural as his anger had been. He sank for a
moment into an attitude of vacant staring as he said:

"Almost I went to Sumatra instead of coming here. _Ach!_ everything
there grows. Here, nothings but those damn cocoanuts!"

McGuire settled forward, leaning on the table, and with cautious
gentleness, as if trying to draw out answers without disturbing him,
asked "Peppers?"

"Not much. No. But I'm trying again those things."

"Tobacco?"

"All bite and no flavour. I am getting some new seed, though."

"Cotton?"

"Bah! Little frizzled staple, like that! It grows, but where will it
sell? Nowhere. I burned my field for fertiliser."

"Coffee?"

"Some, but not much good." He indicated the coffee-urn. "Coffee trees
come fine up so high. Nursed each little tree like he was a pet, with
little tents of fern leaves for him to grow in and get strong. They
failed me, too, those coffee trees."

"Vanilla, then?"

"Thousands of those things I tried. They had sickly little blooms,
then--_pussh_! Orchid things won't do fine here. I tried to make them,
but they won't."

"Sugar cane?"

"My mill it makes a little money, but the nights are not hot enough,
like in Queenland and Sumatra. _Ach!_ that is the place, that Sumatra!"

Then Seibert straightened up quickly, and, throwing out his broad
chest, laughed loud, unconvincingly. His eyes for a moment had an
almost startled gleam in them, and his heartiness was almost alarming,
insistent, loud, like something desperate. He shouted, "But nowhere you
can find such a place like I have here! The jungle, I have beat him,
like a general runs off the mob. And the flowers--see?"

His extended arm settled vaguely in the direction of the window.
"Everything of flowers grows for me. Flowers, _ach!_ they are wonderful
things."

He sighed, inhaling deeply, swelling and swelling his lungs until the
huge chest had a comic inflation, as if he wanted to show how broad and
full he could appear; but this was accompanied by an intense stare,
dull, stupidly empty; his face was like a coarse red mask.

McGuire saw, however, that his eyes, for all their vacancy, were
looking directly through the window at a foaming billow of camellias,
where hundreds, swarming hundreds, were massed in a long bed trimmed
with a low-cut hedge.

Then Seibert again began to talk.

Lalua came in quietly, bearing on her upturned palms a broad, flat,
black pan containing at least a dozen eggs that were still steaming.
She was tall, and moved with an unbending air that somehow suggested a
kind of willowy ease; her dark eyes had a watchful steadiness; their
shape was oddly long and narrowed, but in their depths was the sombre
glow that Samoans have, and this did not conceal the faintly luring
half-challenge, half-appeal, that was also in her eyes. Excepting for
the obliqueness of her eyes, her features were those of the common
natives, a little thick and flat, with a wide mouth; but she had the
inescapable grace of her people, and something more in the way of
strange composure added to that. The long, one-piece dress of white
muslin, her dark hair, combed back across her shoulders and tightly
tied, the short sleeves and brown, slim arms, and that slow, nearly
stately air with which she shuffled on her grass slippers, made her
appear not unlike a proud captive reduced to servitude.

She held the pan before Seibert. Without pausing in his loud talk, he
took four of the eggs and began breaking them into his tumbler. She
moved to Paullen, and her eyes a little furtively lingered at their
corners, still on Seibert. He did not notice her at all while she was
in the room.

Seibert's talk had got to Penwenn, and was about the night before. He
was flushed with a feeling of good fortune, and boasting of what had
taken place on the road. His face beamed, and turned more and more red,
as if blushing under the praise of his own words. He poked McGuire with
a thick forefinger, and said that he should be grateful for having been
saved "a hanging."

"I am," said McGuire. "I would rather be your prisoner, and breakfast
off pancakes and eggs."

Seibert leaned over and smote McGuire's shoulder with approving,
jocular pats. He ate with gusto and talked in a hearty, rumbling, loud
voice, once or twice banging the table, and once smote his chest,
holding the knife in his fist.


3

The night before Seibert had evidently thought that Nada was
dangerously ill; in which case he had made enough stir and fuss to have
wrecked the nerves of any sick person; or else he had chosen to treat
her like an invalid, and turned the house upside down just to show how
attentive he could be.

He had ridden with Nada on his horse; and after they came into the
house he continued to hold her, carrying her about as easily as if
she had been a small child, but also much of the time as if he had
forgotten what he had in his arms. Amid hurrying and loud talk and
trampling, a bed was taken down and set up where he wanted a bed set up
on the veranda, with certain specified covering got from certain chests
and placed in a certain way, and a white linen spread with blue fringe
was laid over all.

Seibert (carrying Nada, who could hardly help laughing, though at
times she was uneasy, and begged half indignantly to be put down) had
followed first one and then another of the native girls, seeing what
she was about, hurrying her up, telling her this or that to do, pausing
to demand of another what she was doing. Oreena had cried at him to put
her down. Nada had asked to be put down with almost every tone that
a woman can use excepting one that was tearful. Seibert had appeared
simply not to hear, perhaps had not heard; that is, it had not reached
through his excitement of preparing the household for her comfort.

It was comic, but in a way that had made McGuire (who looked on from an
out-of-the-way corner) hesitate to laugh. Like almost everything else
that Seibert did, there was something like a hidden presence under his
manner, some sort of reason. If, in his awkward, hearty, mannerless
way, which had not the faintest trace of graceful courtesy at any time,
he had wanted to prove to Nada that she was welcome, loved, and would
be cared for, he might have gone about it in just the way he did; but
the sight of it made Paullen angry and McGuire doubtfully wonder just
what might happen to Nada before she could escape from the house.

The bed had been put out on the veranda; Seibert had placed her on it,
and called up all the screens in the house, then arranged these about
her bed. He saw to it that she was given a glass of wine. She had not
wanted wine. But (he told her) it was fine wine, from the last bottle
of a vintage he had always saved for officers of German gunboats when
they were his guests. It would be the thing for her--just what she
needed.

Seibert then detailed one of the native girls to sleep on a couch at
the foot of the bed in case Nada wanted something in the night; though
Nada declared repeatedly and rapidly, almost at the point of showing
temper and half laughing in spite of herself at the absurdity, that
she was not sick, that she was all right, and that she wouldn't want
anything in the night except to be left alone!

"_Ach!_ she is feverish!" said Seibert, as if he believed it. Perhaps
he did.

Even after Paullen and McGuire were in the bed that had been given them
they could hear him stamping about from room to room, calling on first
one and another servant, demanding if something or other had been done.
His voice had been brusque, but somehow as if he thought of one thing
and spoke of another.

Then the house had quieted down. Occasional voices spoke with a sound
of murmuring. Now and then there would be passing footsteps. Then
stillness. But the stillness was soon broken by Seibert's raucous boom
from afar to the girl that had been sent to sleep at Nada's feet:

"If she gets bad, remember, now, you call me. I'll get Dr. Hausen!"

Dr. Hausen was the bleary-eyed veterinary that looked after horses and
doped blacks.

Then Paullen had whispered to McGuire, "He's been showing off. He knows
she isn't that badly sick. Anybody could see that. But he wants her to
see and hear how attentive he can be--and he keeps Oreena afraid of her
life! He's a big brute!"

Said McGuire to Paullen in a waspish whisper, "What are you growling
about? If he wasn't a big brute would _she_ love _you_? Ungrateful
chap, you are."


4

Now, after their breakfast together, Seibert, stamping on one foot then
the other in a way that kept his spurs tinkling, took up his broad
hat, with the holes of which McGuire was dubious in the crown. The
riding-whip was coiled down inside the crown like a sleeping snake;
and, fitting this to his wrist, he said, addressing Paullen, "Bismarck
will be expecting us. Always I say good morning to him. Now you are
his rider, too. _Ach!_ you are a fine boy, my Paullen! My wife she
likes you, too."

He stared at the boy and grinned, slashed the whip across his leg,
and stood expansively, full of good warm food, with elbows out from
his body, feet wide apart, beaming; and to Paullen, who was suddenly
sickened by dread, his beaming appeared sardonically malevolent.

McGuire, too, was a little startled, though he had within the hour
begun to feel that he understood Seibert pretty well.

An instant later a vacant look drifted across Seibert's face,
momentarily leaving the grin stupidly fixed, as on something
lifeless--a mask or a huge dummy; and the eyes for a second or two were
dulled, as if his mind had lost connection with his features.

Then, as if arousing himself, he said, "_Ach!_ that damn Gauro!" and
with a great flourish of the whip snapped it against his boot, and
renewed his beaming at Paullen.

"Come, we go now to the stables."

Paullen cast a questioning, bewildered glance at McGuire.

McGuire held a long, black, excellent cigar to the tip of his lips,
and, with his odd, lazy air of being at home wherever he found a
place to lean, had a shoulder propped against one of the blue posts
of the veranda. He gave no sign and said nothing, being at the time
more or less preoccupied because, but a moment before, he had seen a
small, pretty, dark face peer round the edge of a window curtain, gaze
intently for an instant, and vanish timidly.

He, somehow, without being excluded, had not been included in the
invitation to go to the stables; perhaps because at the table he had
said that he knew as little of horses as of women, and was easily
frightened by either. Seibert had laughed boisterously at this, leaning
far back in his chair and striking the edge of the table with his palm.

Then they had got up from the table, and Seibert had brought from a
locked cupboard his glass jar of big cigars, passing them with an
awkward, free-handed insistence, urging Paullen, who did not smoke, to
try one, forcing McGuire to take two.

As he relocked the cupboard he had said, "These house girls steal them
for those stable boys. A native has no business with a good cigar. He
likes a bad one better."

Then he had laughed, shaking his great body. In a sort of clumsy
companionableness he had seemed at ease with them, glad to have them
about; but this heartiness had been, and still was, unconvincing to
Paullen, who dreaded what might be going on behind that mask-like
expression.

And now, at being urged to go to the stables, a perturbing thought
had come into Paullen's uneasy mind. Bismarck's deadliness was known.
Everybody on the plantation, excepting Seibert, was afraid of him.
He was saddled or unsaddled only when Seibert was standing by. And
what if, when they had gone into the stables, with nobody near but
themselves, Seibert should suddenly discard his mask-like expression
and fling him under the stallion's heels, to be kicked to death? He
needed only to say afterwards that Paullen had incautiously stepped too
near!

Indeed, Paullen's sense of guilt was beginning to unsettle his courage;
and he glanced with anxious scrutiny at the big, round face, now
again momentarily blank with vague detachment, as if whatever it was
that constantly clutched at his thoughts had again fastened on his
attention. But a minute later, when Seibert grinned at him and said,
"We will go now, heh?" Paullen squared his shoulders stiffly and walked
off with him, keeping step with his stride.


5

McGuire, about to throw away the excellent tobacco, regretfully eyed
its bare inch of ash and puffed deeply two or three times, taking the
last taste of enjoyment in gulps; then he dropped the cigar out of
sight behind a hydrangea bush and walked soft-footed to a screened
door, curtained its full length by blue cloth that hung in folds.

He opened the door slightly, peered within, then quietly stepped
through and let the door close softly on a hand held out behind him.

The room was coolly blue in colour, with a kind of rigid arrangement
in the furnishings, as if every object had been carefully placed, and
set at a certain and unalterable angle. A couch with rumpled bedding,
scattered and tossed about by a restless sleeper, was the only thing in
the least out of order.

There were many queer, ornamental objects about. A large shepherd boy,
with rosy and preposterously clean face, in a pale blue shirt and
deep blue trousers, with pink bows at the knees, stood at the centre
of the table that was in the middle of the room. He leaned dreamily
against his crook and faced the door. Anyone would have known that he
would not dare move an inch even if life should come to him. At each
side of the mirror was a plump German girl with plaited yellow hair,
red cheeks, and blue eyes; both statuettes wore tight blue bodices,
and stood in beribboned and ruffled skirts which swelled out stiffly,
and were shortened just in time to avoid concealing the tiny red
slippers--slippers that would have been small for a fairy's feet.

Near the feet of one of them lay a large, thick watch, obviously
Seibert's.

These little Gretchens were on a dark, heavy chest from which (carved
there) two gnome faces looked out of the wood and considerately
extended their tongues for use as drawer-knobs.

A cuckoo clock hung in a corner.

On one of the walls hung a coloured picture of German scenery; in the
midst of this scenery a man with a feather in his green cap, staff in
hand, gazed upward from the winding trail toward a great eagle that
hovered above the mountain-top. The picture was framed in black wood. A
German word in gilt letters appeared at the bottom of the frame.

Oreena stood by a window. Her dainty hands touched apart the curtains,
and she peeped between them at the two men who were disappearing round
a curve of the gravel path on their way to the stables. She wore a blue
kimono sort of gown, much too large for her small body, and it lay in
silken folds about her feet. The unbrushed, curly hair, dark and fine,
looked as if a wind had left it tousled.

She dropped her hands; the curtains closed with faint trembling, and
then were motionless. Oreena turned slightly, and, gathering the gown
out of the way of her bare feet, started to leave the room through an
inner door. McGuire quietly spoke.

She whirled swiftly and stood rigid, slightly drawn back. Her pretty
little face, for a moment alarmed, stared out from the tangled hair;
then a determined frown gathered on her forehead, and the dark eyes
became narrowed and severe.

McGuire crossed his hands behind him, and, sagging as if a shoulder was
broken, smiled mistily, then said with easy slowness, "I'm Dan McGuire."

"I know that."

She straightened a little and shook the kimono into loose folds,
effacing the outline of waist and thigh, and regarded him coldly. There
was nothing handsome or attractive in his appearance, and he had a bad
name. She stared with unapproachable aloofness, and a slight air of one
about to be indignantly amazed.

McGuire, with deliberate composure, returned a drowsy gaze, as if
sleepily amused. The smile on his wide, crooked mouth deepened, and
with listless steadiness he examined her face, exasperating her by
being at ease, amused, and even critical of that beauty in her which
she knew that he saw.

She spoke angrily. "What is it you want?"

"Well, for one thing, I wanted to ask how Nada is this morning?"

"Oh, she is all right; you know she is all right." Oreena spoke
quickly, as if there was nothing about Nada to warrant inquiry; then,
flashing her eyes and throwing the words stormily: "How dare you come
into my room this way! I shall tell Mr. Seibert. I surely shall. This
is--is----"

"Outrage," McGuire supplied.

"That you came into my bedroom when I----"

"Oh, is this your bedroom?" He looked about with mild interest.
"Perhaps I didn't know that. I am not very familiar yet with the
arrangement of your house. But you see, Mrs. Seibert, I had to come to
the first place where I could find you alone, because--well, I wanted
to tell you to make Paullen go away from here and stay away. Tell him
to go to Pulotu and get any boat he can catch, and go on it. And you
will please do it at once, or----"

McGuire broke off with a wide, crooked smile and shrug of his shoulder.

Oreena was now really astonished and highly angered. She felt McGuire's
intense dislike for her, something that she had never felt under any
man's eyes; and he had spoken with a kind of bantering mockery.

She began twice to reply. Being not only angered but frightened, she
checked herself; and as she paused her thoughts went spinning from
fear to fear, so that when she did speak it was with a humbleness that
McGuire knew was not in the least to be trusted. "Why, oh, why would
you tell Mr. Seibert _that_!"

"What?" he asked, with malicious dullness.

"That I--you know that--Nada has told you! I _do_ love John Paullen,
but"--she was pleading now--"but you surely wouldn't tell Mr. Seibert
_that_?"

"You are right. I surely wouldn't!" said McGuire hastily, with an
enigmatic twist to his crooked mouth.

"Oh, you--you wouldn't?"

"Hardly. I don't want my neck broke."

She frowned, puzzled, not quite understanding.

McGuire told her, "It isn't Mr. Seibert we're concerned with just yet.
It's John Paullen."

"Nada told you that! She loves him herself. I know it. I've known it
from the first. And you--you are doing it for her. Oh, I see through
you, both of you!"

"Shh-hh-h!" McGuire impertinently waggled a finger. "I didn't say
you were to hand him over to anybody. I said send him away--off the
island--over the rim of the earth--anywhere. I don't care where."

"Oh!" Oreena gasped. Her dark eyes gazed blankly for an instant, then
she shot a bare arm out through the big loose sleeve, as if aiming for
his head, and cried, "It's just to cheat me! I knew Nada loved him, and
you know it too. You are doing it for her!"

Her jealousy, like an impalpable creature with a thousand wavering
tentacles floating in air, seized on anything. She was alive with
doubts and fears, fretfully uncertain, filled with an unappeasable
selfishness; a fragile, artificial, pretty little thing, in a way as
breakable and blameless as the red-cheeked Gretchens beside her mirror;
but now intensely and jealously angered.

Her dark hair floated in a cloudy tangle; one hand clutched the gown
around her; the other aimed a finger, rigid as if she wished to use it
as a dagger, at McGuire; and she, so dark and hotly stirred, stood in
the midst of the cool blue silk.

"It is Nada, always Nada! It always has been Nada! You too! And even
John Paullen--it was for her that he broke away and rode that dreadful
horse last night. And Mr. Seibert, too, last night, for Nada! Even my
husband loves Nada!

"All my life it has been Nada that people loved--old Waller, and
Brundage, and Dr. Lemaitre! Even my father, all the time I was at home
alone, babbled about Nada. And why did I have to leave her in San
Francisco to have parties and lovers and be made over, while I came
back to this wretched island? I was tricked and cheated to be gotten
rid of! Kate Collins introduced me to a rich young planter who was
coming out to Samoa, and I took passage on the same ship because she
told me that he was mad over me. The first day out I discovered that he
was married. Kate Collins didn't want _me_ with her--I know it now. But
she kept Nada and gave her a wonderful time. Everywhere, always, it has
been Nada. Even that Hurricane Williams, the woman-hater--he brought
Nada home so she could be with John Paullen. He is mine, I tell you! He
does love me. I've taken him away from her, and I will keep him! She
is jealous, and hates me for it. She pretends to be sick to get his
sympathy. She has everybody else--you, too--even my husband is in love
with her! It is Nada, Nada, Nada! Oh, I--I--I could kill her!"

McGuire lazily scratched the tip of his long nose and asked
indifferently, "All done?"

She may not have finished with all she would have liked to say, but
she was left speechless, partly by being out of breath, and largely
because his impudence baffled her. At that moment, if he had been under
her small, soft feet she would gladly have trampled him to death, but
she had nothing to strike with, not even words. So she stood with her
eyes blazing and waited.

McGuire began carelessly, "I've never heard Nada say she cared
that"--he swept his hand with a discarding movement out to one side,
snapping finger and thumb--"for Paullen. But _I_, _I_ like the boy, and
if he stays around here he is sure to get hurt. You are the only one
that can make him go away; that is, unless he quits loving you, and so
hasn't any reason for staying around longer. I don't suppose you would
want that to happen, would you? To wherever he went--ends of the earth
or a little beyond--you'd like to have him still think well of you,
wouldn't you? In a way, that is? Surely. Of course.

"Now this boy Paullen may love you--you know more about that than I
do--but he's a gentleman, first, last, all the time. It's in his blood,
and he can't help it any more than there are some things that you can't
help--having dark eyes, for instance, and a darker temper!

"There are times when, as a matter of honour, a gentleman like Paullen
will instantly cease being the lover of any woman. And if he stopped
loving you, then--now that you mention it, and seeing that you and Nada
_do_ look alike--something alike--he might--well, you wouldn't want him
to do that, I know.

"Shh-sh-hh-h!" he uttered, carelessly wagging a hand back and forth as
she started to speak. "I waited until you had finished. It's my turn
now. And let's clear the deck--understand each other--for you and I,
Oreena--I may call you Oreena?--well, you and I, Oreena, are enemies.
Don't think because I am being pleasant that there can be peace between
us. There can't any more than there could ever be peace, or love,
between you and John Paullen if he knew why you told Seibert that I was
Dan McGuire, and that he could make me take him to where Williams had
gone pearling!"

Whatever she may have expected, it was not that. Her softly dark,
delicate hands, clutching the gown as if for something to grip and
hold to, shook, and she could not keep them still. Their motion set the
silk's sheen a-quiver with iridescence in the morning sunlight.

McGuire faced her inscrutably. He had expected surprise, anger,
indignation at Seibert, or hasty denials, and if not denials at least
a rushing justification, with perhaps a threat or two for himself; but
this scene between them was something he had determined on, for he felt
that otherwise the love between her and Paullen must bring tragedy upon
them; and he knew that he could influence her to send Paullen away.
It would have been risky to try to make him see her as deceitful and
unlovely, since Paullen was not the sort of boy to believe evil hearsay
from anybody of a woman he loved.

As McGuire began to speak again she turned away, and, dropping her
eyes, seemed relieved, perhaps helped to a feeling of concealment by
the way her tangle of silken hair floated beside her lowered face;
and she stood motionless, in spiral folds of the shimmering silk that
coiled fold on fold to her breast.

McGuire had settled lazily against the table in the middle of the room,
and, resting his leg across a corner, propped his forearm between
chin and knee. Now, pendulously swinging the loose foot, he set about
finishing the scene with her. His eyes, deceptively shadowed by the
drooping lids, looked drowsily in her direction, but not at her. He was
watching in the mirror, since her back was toward him.

He began, not wholly truthfully, with, "Besides, you see, Williams is
a great hero to Paullen. Great hero, in a way. And he's like a son to
Williams.

"You see, Oreena, they're something alike, those two. Have that sense
of honour you and I don't care much about. Rather silly thing at times,
honour. Doesn't let you do what you want to do, then drives you to do
strange, mad sort o' things nobody can understand.

"Imagine yourself doing that to you--or to me! I mean, to anybody. Like
you had an overseer inside of you--something like one of Seibert's
sunburned Germans! Honour!

"But it's a good thing to pretend to have sometimes. Impresses other
people--the ones that really do have it. Now, for instance, if you said
to Paullen that you have grown to feel that it is terribly wicked of
you to love him, and that, after all, your husband is your husband, and
that you would rather do what is really right than be happy--though,
of course (you must say), that you can't be happy when doing something
wrong--and that you love him--Paullen, that is--and always will love
him, still you can't endure any longer the terrible ache of feeling
wicked--why, Paullen will understand, being a gentleman. He has a lot
of honour. Right now he feels a good deal that way about himself.
And he would give in to you; that is, if you insisted. It would be a
fearfully sad parting, of course, but wherever he went, as long as he
lived, he would retain a wonderful respect for you, and probably keep
empty that place in his life which no other woman could seem worthy to
fill.

"It might be"--now McGuire was overlaying a false hope with high
colouring--"that Paullen would stay in the South Seas--at a distance,
you know--waiting, waiting, perhaps feeling that he was somewhere
within voice-call in case you ever need him. On some other island, of
course, but near enough to hear how things go with you.

"Seibert's past fifty--in the middle fifties, isn't he? You aren't
twenty. Paullen's almost as young. A few years--who knows?"

McGuire himself knew that a few years would be ruinous to Oreena.
Hers was purely a tropic bloom. There was no warmth of feeling, no
sweetness, aglow within her to soften the scratchings and pinchings of
the years which, with a kind of sentient, cruel eagerness, would be
after her prettiness.

"Yes, you are a young girl. Paullen's a mere boy. Seibert's an old
man; and in spite of all that great show of heartiness, if the jungle
doesn't kill him outright, the deceitfulness of coffee trees and cotton
fields will.

"But at any sort of parting I wouldn't mention that to Paullen. Hardly!
He isn't the sort of boy, with all that honour in him, you know, to get
pleasure from the idea of having somebody die so that he could----"

At that moment Oreena slightly lifted her head, as if she started from
a hot twinge. McGuire caught the reflection in the mirror. His dangling
foot became motionless, stiffly held out; his hand dropped from his
chin, and he straightened slightly, staring at her, seeing her face,
but himself unseen.

Then he stood up, fascinated, holding his breath through many
pulse-beats as an ugly idea rapidly took shape in his mind. An
incredible, frightened, guilty look had come into her dark eyes, that
were now furtive and full of suffering.

She must have sensed the intentness of his gaze as it glanced from the
mirror into her face, for her eyes moved directly into the reflected
stare, paused for a moment with uneasy intentness, then, with a panicky
flicker, fell. She knew now that he had guessed; and she snatched at
the gown, burying her face. One hand pulled at her hair, clawing it
down, bunching it, too, about her face, trying to hide herself.

"So that's it! You hoped Williams would kill him! It wasn't merely to
get Seibert off the island."

A pause, then McGuire laughed quietly. The laugh was not very pleasant,
but he was at least a little amused.

He moved a few steps nearer to Oreena, then stopped, and with hands
crossed behind him raised up a few times on his toes, looking down at
her. "Well, well, well!" He said it with exasperating composure, almost
gentleness. "What a blind little fool you are, Oreena." McGuire's smile
was wide and crooked. "Don't you know--you ought to; you have heard
about Williams all your life--that he has respect for people who are
openly and frankly his enemies?

"Besides, remember what I have just been saying about honour? He feels
that he did Seibert an injury years ago, he and Brundage. Why, you mad
little idiot, Seibert is one of the few men that Williams, under no
circumstances, would hurt!"

McGuire stopped and looked about. He hardly knew what more to say, but
it must be something definite, final, something that would end this
scene and leave her ready for the one with Paullen.

He was not shocked; a little surprised--much surprised--but at that
only surprised as one is by something preposterous. Yet a brain must
have a certain grotesque shape before it will even hold ideas of that
kind; and she, like a wicked little checker player, had looked two
jumps ahead, and saw how Seibert could be placed in a way to be struck
from the board. But the idea itself frightened her, because it was her
own, and she had tried to use it.

McGuire became aware that she was faintly crying; this brought him back
to the need of having the scene over with.

"Some time to-day you tell Paullen whatever you wish. Better keep those
tears; they'll help convince him. And if he's here to-morrow--well,
I'll talk to him. I'll tell him everything. Some things even you don't
know about--why Williams is pearling now, and Seibert, the kind of man
that Seibert really is!"

He walked quickly from the room, again letting the door close against
his palm behind him, while he looked watchfully about; for it had just
occurred to him that he had, after all, been in Oreena's bedroom.


6

After coming out on the veranda McGuire rumpled his red cow-lick
thoughtfully. He had it in mind to find a secluded spot and do
some tall thinking about what might happen if Oreena failed to be
convincing; but he was pretty sure that she would not fail. She would
not dare fail. There would, after all, be no real sense of finality in
sending him off, and she would have comfort in the splendid sadness of
parting with Paullen.

McGuire said to himself, "Poor little wretch, her poses have been
nothing but costumes in which she has dressed up. It's all she's
had--just poses. She _has_ been unlucky and can't help herself. She
wasn't born with a sweet, generous nature; and, damn it! when she was a
baby Nada waited on her, did for her, petted her into selfishness, and
all through childhood, too. She just grew and grew as she was trained.
Now, who's to blame for it? Nada or Oreena?"

But before he found the secluded spot and began his tall thinking--in
fact, just as he was placing a match to the second excellent cigar--he
saw the fleeting, shadow-like movement of something at a great distance
through the trees. This would have seemed a trick of fancy had not
the movement continued; and presently he made out that two or three
horsemen were coming along the drive toward the house. Soon, in great
surprise, he perceived that one of the men was Penwenn; with increasing
puzzlement he saw that another closely resembled Dr. Lemaitre, who
was supposed to be far down the coast among sick natives; the third
person was unmistakably an Englishman, and rode slightly ahead, as if
to be the spokesman. McGuire readily guessed that he was Mortimer, the
English consul, and at the time also acting as American consul.


7

There were usually three consuls at Pulotu, each of whom was expected
by his Government to do far more than routine consular work, as the
occasion seemed to require--but to make _no_ mistakes.

The German consul was now absent in Samoa. The French consul, an
elderly person, somewhat deaf, had never been considered important,
even when in the best of health. For days he had been in bed. Because
of his condition, growing worse, Dr. Lemaitre had been summoned from
down the coast.

Mortimer, the Englishman, was said to have been discarded at home by a
woman; as a result he appeared to have given way to lotus-fever; and
because of his heart Dr. Lemaitre had repeatedly told him he should
return to England, stop using strong coffee and stronger tobacco.

That was the consular situation that Penwenn had found the day before,
when he arrived. His name was known in the South Seas, as for three
generations it had been associated with Pacific trading and shipping.

He had made his complaint to Mortimer, who then explained that under
the circumstances Penwenn might call for volunteers among the residents
to accompany him; or, since he wished to do so, he might go with his
own sailors, identify and bring in such as had been implicated in the
theft of the _Flying Gull_.

A Yankee gunboat, recently at Apia, was known to be coming in a few
days to Pulotu; and Mortimer said that he then, as acting American
consul, would arrange with the naval captain for the disposal of the
prisoners and their custody while being returned to the United States.

Mortimer had a good deal of diplomatic shyness, as well as a
gentlemanly reluctance, about apprehending Nada Combe, who, so Penwenn
had at the time angrily insisted, was, under the law, as much a pirate
as anybody.

After Penwenn had returned from the Combe plantation there was much
excitement at the Pulotu Club. Men stood about drinking, listening, and
discussing.

The flesh of Penwenn's lean face had glowed as he talked, repeatedly
turning to the rather unexcitable Mortimer, who sat smoking
thoughtfully in a long cane chair and listening to demands that
something punitive be done.

The situation was a difficult one for Mortimer. He might be criticised
for whatever he did, or for doing nothing, by his own Government
(British prestige and interests were all he greatly cared about); and
he had increasing reluctance to exert himself, because he suspected
that something more than ship-stealing was involved in Penwenn's
attitude toward Nada.

No man could turn Mortimer aside from what he believed was his duty;
but he was not easily agitated, and he had been too long in the South
Seas to be exercised by the renewed talk about Combe being an escaped
convict, of which Penwenn tried to make quite a point.

On all sides, there in the club, Penwenn had found listeners and
sympathisers, who discussed the affair with brutal phrasing, as if the
more harsh expressions showed the greater zeal for justice rather than
an excessive taste for warm champagne laced with rum.

Seibert had never been popular at Pulotu. Many people all along had
thought him a blasted hypocrite, with that stiff grin and the hearty
cheerfulness that wasn't cheerful.

A certain Captain Rudsell--"Blackie" Rudsell, well known by evil
reputation--whose schooner had arrived just about sundown, talked
more loudly than anyone else. He had wedged himself to a place beside
Penwenn, as if symbolically, as well as in fact, putting himself
shoulder to shoulder with Penwenn.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen," Captain Blackie cried, holding high as a signal
for silence the rum bottle from which he had been pouring.

Whether he was first called "Blackie" because of his complexion, swart
as a Moor's, or because he dealt with pronounced vigour in the labour
trade, snaring and enticing blacks, or because of certain suspicions
about his character, would be difficult to say, as he had then for
some ten or fifteen years been known by that name. He had often been
searched for when complaints against him were fresh, but he seemed to
have an uncanny gift of sensing danger from afar.

"Gentlemen!"

Voices dropped to a buzz, then hushed.

Rudsell had short, thick black hair, a short, bristling black beard, a
short, flat, broken nose with noticeable nostrils, like a pig's snout.
His black eyes roved commandingly about the silenced room.

"Gentlemen"--the rum bottle was waving overhead at arm's length--"you
know, I know, we all know, about that blasted Dutchman, and how he has
pretended to hate that blankety-blank Williams. Why, that Dutchman
and old Tom Combe have made out that they were enemies just over that
blankety-blank Williams."

He paused and sucked noisily at his glass.

"It was a deep game they played us! That's the game they played us! An'
we might've known! We might've known when old Tom give that Dutchman
his daughter. But to-night, to-night our friend here"--his hand rested
on Penwenn's shoulder--"made that blasted Dutchman show his hand!"

The rum bottle, after an overhead wave in gestural emphasis of
Penwenn's accomplishment, had come down spirally and tipped its mouth
in Captain Blackie's glass.

Two or three wild heads were eager over Captain Blackie's suggestion
about everybody getting together and going out forcibly to bring the
"pirates, woman and all," and Seibert with them, into Pulotu to await
the coming of the Yankee _Panther_.

Mortimer looked around, with the end of his cigar scarcely beyond the
fringe of his moustache, and said quietly, "Yes, Rudsell. The _Panther_
will be pleased to take charge of _all_ trouble-makers." His serious
eyes had paused a moment on Captain Blackie's face, then turned away.
Somehow it seemed that he had made a threat.

Mortimer had a long, straight nose and deep-set, impassive eyes--very
serious eyes, with little bags under them; an untrimmed moustache
stuck out and drooped over his mouth, as if to conceal a hare-lip or
bad teeth. One could not imagine why he let the moustache fringe his
lip untidily when it was seen that he had no defect to be obscured,
and that the line of his mouth was shapely. He was middle-aged, rather
tired in appearance, even sickly; but he seemed unaware that he wasn't
in the best of health, though there were days when he hardly moved from
the long cane chair that he used at the club. It was generally thought
that he took his meagre duties too seriously, possibly because he never
took them lightly, though they were attended to with a half-bored,
weary air, but they were attended to thoroughly.

His manner, when he had spoken, after raising a hand for silence in the
midst of a wordy confusion, was that of final decision.

"Very grave situation, possibly. To-morrow morning, first thing, I
shall ride over and see Seibert. Have a talk with him. Mr. Penwenn
here will accompany me. We two shall take the matter up with him, and
then----"

He had gestured slightly, reluctantly, as if he knew perfectly well
what he would then do.

The hot-heads continued to mumble, growl, and mutter about what ought
to be done; but there was a Yankee gunboat in the background, and
Mortimer was not one who would hesitate to make trouble if they tried
impudent lawlessness.

During the night still another report about Seibert had drifted into
the talk on the beach, mingling with the gurgle of gin, and then had
got into the club, where warm champagne plopped and fizzed.

This was concerning a runaway black that he had caught, and was going
to burn at the stake, or something.


8

In the meantime Dr. Lemaitre had been urgently sent for by the French
consul.

He arrived about three on that morning in an outrigger canoe, driven by
a dozen rowers and a sail. They had been ten hours on the way.

The natives at once drew their canoe high on the beach and lay
beside it, sleeping as they fell. Their black forms, in the twisted
and awkward attitudes of tired men, on the white sand and under the
star-filled sky, were like the bodies of men who had fallen under a
fusillade.

Dr. Lemaitre was as wet with spray as if he had passed through a
squall; his clothing stuck to his flesh with clammy pressure, and the
chill that dampness has in the tropic night-time, very like the shivery
part of the fever it often presages, worked in toward his bones.

As he hurried on alone, walking heavily in the loose sand that gave off
the _scrunch_, and had the colour, of snow, making toward the tall,
shadowy fringe of palms, their fronded tops reaching out and swaying
like enormous spiders, he saw lights burning at the club.

"Card players," he thought, and tramped on.

He advanced through thick shadows from the broken gate to the door
of Consul Balte-Brun's house, opened the door without knocking, and,
removing his hat, entered an unlighted room. No one was about. He
pushed on to where a thread of light lay under the door, and entered.

A fat native woman was asleep in a chair. She sat upright, or nearly
so. Her long, straight hair fell about her head, so that except for the
position of her body it would have been difficult to say which way she
faced.

A large lamp burned dimly on the table by the bed; about the base of
the lamp were a few small bottles, a half-emptied phial of laudanum, a
spoon or two, a little round pill-box, some crumpled papers.

The shrivelled body of the old consul lay with one arm curved above
his head; the other loosely hung over the side of the bed. His thin
face, which pain had marked ascetically, wore a long greyed moustache
and goatee, and was now turned toward the wall. In life he had been
pathetic and doddering. Men joked about his militant imperial. Death,
with a kindly stroke, had given him the dignity of a sleeping marshal.

The native woman awakened, stood up with a start, and began to sob. Dr.
Lemaitre knew that much of the violence in her sobbing was due to a
belated fright at having been alone with a dead, instead of with merely
a sick, man. The body was rigid. He pulled a sheet over the form,
paused to wipe his spectacles, and stamped the sand from his feet.
Then, taking up the lamp, he went into the kitchen for a drop or two of
wine.

The woman threw back her hair and followed. She would not have remained
alone in the dark of that room for all the printed calico in the
shops of Pulotu; and her sobbing diminished into long sighs. She was
barefoot, and moved with heavy slowness, trying to tell this or that
the consul had said, what he had been given to eat, and when; all
the petty chatter of the dead, which in the last hours take on the
importance of finality.

Dr. Lemaitre knew that the old consul had found at last some relief;
relaxation showed on his chilled features.

Dr. Lemaitre was not interested in last words and last feedings. He
had left men and women crawling about like sick flies to come to one
man, because this man was of his race, of his blood; to feed medicine
to a poor old disappointed man who was miserable in life and unafraid
to die. If he had been called to help summon the deep sleep, ah, that
would have been understandable. But, no. He, the atheist, brooded for
a moment on mortal follies. He sipped at his wine thoughtfully; his
fancies were far away.

The woman, with a flat-footed heaviness and an inconsolable air of
suffering, moved about opening a can of salmon. She began to eat from
the can with her fingers. The lamp was between them, and both were
standing.

Suddenly, with an almost predatory gleam in her dark eyes, she stared
at him. It had just occurred to her that he couldn't possibly know of
the excitement that had been going on up and down the beach. So, over
a can of oily salmon that she ate to the last red crumb, she told him
of Seibert, and a score of things about the evening's incident that
weren't true.

Dr. Lemaitre, unmindful of his wet clothes, tramped straight over to
the club; and from the two or three men that were reasonably sober, or
at least still awake, he learned more facts.

Later in the morning, about the time that breakfast-fires were sending
out wisps of smoke that vanished among the foliage as if absorbed, Dr.
Lemaitre appeared on horseback before Mortimer's door.

"Come in, come in for a bit of toast and coffee," Mortimer invited from
the veranda, where he appeared in conventional whites, with blouse
unbuttoned, fingering an unlighted cigar.

"Ah, yes, certainly. Yes," Mortimer then replied, when Dr. Lemaitre
expressed his intention of riding over to Seibert's. "But it were best
that we go together. Seibert may be in an ugly mood. Queer fellow,
always wrong-headed. I can't imagine what he was up to. Wish his own
consul was here.

"But I was thinking of poor Balte-Brun when you rode up. Poor old man.
I've already done that." He pointed with the cigar between his fingers;
and Dr. Lemaitre's eyes, following the gesture, saw the French flag at
half-mast on the flag-staff at the edge of the sand.

"It seemed about all that could be done now. I went over this morning,
went into the house--not a soul about--and got out the flag. The lamp
was still burning. Not a person in the house, as if he had died of
leprosy instead of--ulcers, wasn't it? In the stomach. I trust the
_Panther_ is here in time to give him a salute. Poor old Balte-Brun,
he attached importance to that sort of thing.

"That's right. Come in. You look pretty fagged yourself. Many deaths
down the coast?"

After breakfast Penwenn came to Mortimer's house; and, when they were
introduced, Penwenn eyed Dr. Lemaitre questioningly and in return
received a hard, peering scrutiny through the iron-rimmed spectacles.

Hardly a word was spoken between the three of them during the hour's
ride; and, as they approached Seibert's house, Dr. Lemaitre, who had
for years--five or six, in any case--not been in the grounds, looked
about at the flowers and terraces, the spreading clumps of strange
trees, the winding paths and borders of trimmed hedge, as if sure that
he was being taken into the wrong place.


9

McGuire, with his best air of laziness, had seated himself on the rail;
his legs were extended, and he propped his back against a pillar of
the blue and white veranda, waiting with impertinent composure as they
approached.

At a distance Penwenn fixed his eyes angrily on him. Their cold blue
stare did not waver, even after his horse had stopped a few feet from
the veranda.

Evidently Penwenn had not changed his clothes during the night; the
starched clothes had a rumpled, soiled, slept-in appearance, though the
lean, bony face seemed badly bitten by sleeplessness. A black stubble,
that wanted a razor passed over it, showed on the Scotch jaw; the
stubble was perhaps the Spanish peeping through; and showing, too, how
intensely worked-up the coolly fastidious Penwenn must be so to neglect
his polish.

Mortimer stopped his horse, and, removing his cigar, half burned and
now unlighted, touched his protruding moustache, as if lightly wiping
his mouth first on one side then the other, eyed McGuire impassively
for a moment, and said, "You are McGuire."

McGuire smiled, and made a gesture faintly like a salute of
acknowledgment, as insolent as a quiet manner and good nature could
make it.

"Is Seibert about?"

"Yes. Yes. Oh, yes. He's here. Did you think he might have run off when
he heard your horses thundering down the highway?"

Mortimer regarded him soberly, though without a change of expression,
and said, "This is hardly a time for jesting, McGuire. I am here to
speak with Seibert."

McGuire looked away. Before he thought of an answer he saw Paullen
hurrying toward them; and it was soon apparent that he came with a
message. He stopped, and, after looking indecisively from one to
another, addressed Dr. Lemaitre, saying, "Mr. Seibert will be here at
once. One of the men saw you enter the grounds and told him. He asked
me to tell you he was coming."

Mortimer looked at Paullen for a time with penetrating steadiness.
Anyone competent to observe anything about character could see that
in the boy's straight carriage, his cleanly-formed features, in the
modest boldness of his grey eyes, there was the subtle presence of
unmistakable manliness.

McGuire, shrewdly watchful, detected Mortimer's curiosity. With
gestural flourish he cried, "Consul, behold! Another of the dangerous
pirates. This is John Paullen, official scuttler for Hurricane
Williams!"

Paullen flushed and moved uneasily. He caught McGuire's insistent
signal, and, moving in a wide circle round the horses, went to the
veranda.

Mortimer, with finger and thumb at the tip of his moustache, again
regarded McGuire with long, impassive staring; and he may have
perceived that there was something important going on when McGuire
spoke for a time in an earnest, low tone to Paullen, then seemed to
overcome the last of the boy's reluctance by a parting shove. Paullen
walked off with an air of nervous eagerness and disappeared round a
corner of the veranda.

Dr. Lemaitre rode a few steps nearer. He appeared uneasy, as if guilty
of something that was in danger of being found out.

"How--how is Nada?" he asked quickly.

"Cured!"

Then McGuire, in Samoan, rapidly and at length, told of what had
happened, praising Seibert, and in a way that made Dr. Lemaitre listen
doubtfully, incredulous.

Mortimer, completely lacking the physician's and beach-comber's fluency
in the native tongue (McGuire spoke many island dialects), looked from
one to another with a slightly baffled expression.

McGuire broke off with the English words, "There he comes now!"


10

Seibert approached in state, seated on the black stallion, that fretted
and stamped, frequently striking the deep gravel with hoof-blows that
made it splatter like water. Seibert had not intended to ride Bismarck
this day; but when he had heard who was coming into his grounds he had
called up the stable boys and had him saddled at once. No other of his
horses had the strength and fire of this one; no other appeared so
magnificent or was so dangerous.

Seibert sat upright, massive, filling the saddle as if he had been
moulded into it. But McGuire's heart gave an uncertain flutter as
he saw that Seibert was smiling--broadly, genially; he had expected
that Seibert would come with a scowl on his great round face, and,
glowering, run off the consul and Penwenn. Otherwise McGuire would have
been tempted to go into hiding at the first sight of them, for he knew
what they were after.

"Ha, gentlemen!" Seibert cried, and waved a gloved hand--flung up his
arm as if throwing the hand away. "I am glad to see you this day. It is
my pleasure. I am glad to see you."

He rode nearer, beaming. His great, full, sunburned face was broken
into knots and lumps of cheerfulness, and the wide straw hat, far back
on his head, disclosed the broad, red, smooth forehead, hairless as an
egg. His left hand--he wore gauntlet gloves--was poised rigidly in air
a few inches above the horn of the California saddle, holding the broad
reins. His other hand rested at the hip, and on the wrist of this the
whip, sinisterly slim, dangled.

"Ha, Mortimer! Glad to see you. Dr. Lemaitre, it is my wishes that have
brought you. We have a sickness here. Mr.--ah--Penwenn, heh? Is it? I
can't be sure. It was by lantern-light we met in the dark!"

This was not the reception they had expected, and they did not know
whether it was contemptuous or conciliatory. Almost everything about
Seibert had much the same ambiguity, the same doubtfulness as to what
could be his intention. He looked massive, formidable, and appeared
trying in his hearty, awkward way to be pleasant; though there was
something about this broadness of chest, the enormous weight of body,
and almost grotesque roundness of his grinning face, that suggested an
equally awkward and ponderous effort at irony.

Even the impassive Mortimer was just a little doubtful. Dr. Lemaitre
adjusted his spectacles two or three times. Penwenn had, at Seibert's
approach, transferred his eyes to him, maintaining the stare that was
as motionless as the glint of blue crockery.

"Seibert," Mortimer began, rather friendlily, but signifying that he
spoke as an official, "it appears that last night you may have been a
little high-handed with Mr. Penwenn here. Nada Combe is, of course, a
relative. That is understandable--understandable presuming, of course,
that you weren't familiar with all the facts. Understandable, but
hardly--hardly--I say, Seibert, it was a confoundedly high-handed piece
of work.

"And this McGuire--you know, of course, _who_ he is? Paullen, too;
though unfortunately he is merely a young boy. And are you aware,
Seibert, that you have given aid and protection to the right-hand man
of Hurricane Williams, for whom you have always professed enmity?"

Had Mortimer come alone, or unattended by Penwenn, Seibert might have
entered into more of an explanation. As it was, he laughed.

"I need," he said, "somebody to tell me who is mine enemies, eh? That
is fine."

"This is a serious matter, Seibert. Feeling is high against you at
Pulotu."

"Oh? That is so? Ah! Feeling it is high against me? _Ach!_ ho!"

His round face took on a ludicrous expression of surprise. His sandy
eyebrows lifted, and his mouth shaped itself around a hole about large
enough to admit his thumb.

"Yes," said Mortimer decisively.

"_Ach!_ That I had not thought of. No. Eh?"

Somewhat encouraged, Mortimer continued, "If those people are brought
into Pulotu the difficulty will be much simplified. I say, Seibert, it
will go much easier with--with you--with everybody."

"Is that so, heh?"

"Yes, Seibert."

"Nada, she is sick. I have been wishing for Dr. Lemaitre. My Hausen, he
does for blacks and horses. But there is that McGuire. If him you want,
take him. _Ach!_ yes. He is no good, that fellow. You just take him
right along with you, like I did. Ho, ho, ho!"

"And Paullen, too!" snapped Penwenn, in a high, rasping voice, jerking
himself as though he were jointed by wires, all of which were attached
to his vocal chords.

"Sure," said Seibert. "He is a fine boy, that Paullen. He rode this
horse like I do myself! But the feeling it is high at Pulotu, eh? Among
the loafers?"

Mortimer had cast a questioning, sidelong glance at Penwenn, as
much as if to inquire with polite firmness as to who was handling
this situation; then again looked toward Seibert; but Seibert was
beaming cheerfully, and seemed to have nothing more to say. Mortimer
then turned in his saddle and stared severely across his shoulder
at McGuire, who had not moved except to sit up and throw aside the
excellent cigar that had suddenly become tasteless.

Mortimer plucked doubtfully at the ends of his untidy moustache,
remarking, "You are going back with us."

McGuire nodded sleepily. He hardly knew how he was to get off, but he
did not intend to accompany them.

Seibert had ridden still closer; and then he shouted, "Listen. I tell
you gentlemen somethings. I said you take this McGuire just like I took
him! Understand that what I say?" He was vehement, but entirely good
natured. "I know my business. I keep my business to myself. And I keep
McGuire, unless you take him just like I did!"

His arm went up with a flourish; the dangling whip swung out; Bismarck
shied sidelong, then leaped forward under the sting of spurs, and was
held fast by the reins, drawn like steel ribbons against his mouth.
Vapour shot from the stallion's nostrils; the eyes rolled; he pawed,
trampling about, threatening to rear; his backing and sidling made
Penwenn pull away and Mortimer turn to one side. Seibert apparently
took no notice of the horse's restive struggles.

"Seibert, Seibert," Mortimer pronounced warningly, lifting his hand
with the half-burned cigar between his fingers, "you are being
wrong-headed in this. It may mean trouble--serious trouble. The U.
S. _Panther_ is coming. Due any time--to-day, to-morrow, any time.
Mr. Penwenn is an American. I have charge of the American affairs at
present. This is forced upon me. Williams, aided by the three persons
now under your--er--protection, stole Mr. Penwenn's ship. It is
serious."

Mortimer paused, but with his hand again lifting in a way that asked
for continued attention, and earnestly, though with no agitation, he
went on: "But there is another matter, Seibert, another matter of even
more gravity. I understand that you intend to execute a black here on
the plantation, and I warn you that it must not be done! It will be
regarded as murder--as cold-blooded murder. Twenty years ago that sort
of thing was done sometimes, but now it is barbarous to consider it! I
am amazed at you, Seibert. As a friend I advise, and as an official I
warn you. It may mean complications that will reach to Europe. And,
Seibert--I say this in all friendliness, but, Seibert, if you do it I
will do everything in my power to have you held for murder!"

Then instantly Seibert, as he gesticulated with a wandering arm,
answered loud: "That Gauro shot at me. He killed my cocoanut trees,
damn him! He stirred up my boys to run off. He tried to make an
uprising--wipe out everything! If I shoot him in the bush, all well and
good. You say, 'Fine, Seibert, fine. He was bad.' If I say to my men,
'Don't you hurt that fellow. You catch him alive, hear me?' And they
catch him so I can put him up where all my blacks can see, and I tell
everybody why, and right then I go--_bang-bang!_--that will do some
good. Make things safe. But you say, 'No!'"

"He should be brought to Pulotu and given a trial. He will be punished
if he is guilty."

"If he is guilty!" Seibert shouted. "Guilty of what? Look here!" He
pulled off his hat and excitedly swung it out toward Mortimer, while
the restive stallion sidled about, struggling helplessly between the
yank of bit and the sting of spurs. "A hole there is--you look at it.
Guilty! Guilty! Look here. No, he's not guilty! He missed my head--with
my own rifle, too--he missed one, two, three inches about. If he don't
miss my head, then he been guilty!

"You fellows would hang him off some place where my blacks don't see.
That do me no good. Those blacks don't know what hanging is--not even
if they do see. Hanging, that is to them like a rite like when they
kill somebody to put blood on a canoe. But _bang!_--right before their
eyes--they know what that is, and don't try no funny business for a
long time.

"For twenty years--more than twenty years--I plant, plant, plant here,
build and make a big place with fine stables, and a big house and these
grounds I've got. And this Gauro tried to make all my blacks jump up
and destroy everything! But to shoot him would be murder! Bah! to let
him live would be more murder! To-day I shoot him--_bang!_--right like
that. You stay and I'll show you--_bang!_"

Seibert had shouted, brandishing his arm from which the whip swung
about with unregarded flourishes; it was like a drunken arm trying to
make off in first one direction then another with Seibert's hat. The
terrified stallion had struggled to leap, to wheel, to back, to do
anything to get away from the supposed menace of those flourishes, but
Seibert's left arm hardly moved; the rigid grip of the one hand seemed
as unconscious as the agitation of the other.

His coarsely fibred face, usually appearing almost as immobile as
sun-baked clay except for the stiff grins, and these had a mask-like
rigidity that was unconvincing, now had worked expressively. His eyes
blazed; the thick lips rolled themselves flexuously around words. He
had seemed in a fury, or approaching one; then abruptly he stopped, and
was smiling. His face continued to glow with the warmth of blood that
had been stirred by excitement, but he appeared absolutely good natured.

"You are a madman, Seibert! A madman!" Mortimer exclaimed, reining back
and eyeing him sombrely.

Seibert clapped his hat on his head, pushed it up, and then opened his
mouth as if about to burst into roars of laughter; but he gave only one
or two forced "Ho-ho's."

"Seibert, delay this damnable thing until your own consul returns, then
be advised by him. I am trying to warn you. But I will not hesitate to
act, even if your consul----"

"Huh!" Seibert grunted. "That German consul, what does he know of my
business? Do you fellows tell the doctor here how to cure measles and
things? I got worse than measles. Does that fellow feed my labourers
or make them work? Does he help me haul fertiliser or worry his damn
head when things won't grow? Bah! He sits with you and other loafers at
Pulotu and drinks too much schnapps, then growls about the climate that
is here. Bah!" He swung his great right arm from far behind his back,
smiting his chest with a blow that would have killed a consul, thus
illustrating the enormous difference between himself and other men.
"I wish for more of that heat that you consul fellows growl about. It
kills off loafers and makes things grow!"

"Come," said Mortimer, with a brooding air of finality, to Penwenn,
"we can do nothing more." Then, over his shoulder: "Remember, Seibert,
it will be murder, and I will do everything in my power to have you
punished for it. Law must be upheld."

"Ba-a-a-a-ah!" said Seibert, insultingly and grinning, looking after
them until they were almost lost to sight, disappearing behind the
lattice-tangle of foliage.


11

Seibert dismounted slowly. He was ponderous, but his very awkwardness,
when motionless, when striding about, or gesturing with strange
detachment of meaning, was suggestive of immense bodily strength.
He walked with an unconscious sway, though sometimes, too, with a
conscious swaggering stride.

Now, without either roughness or a gentle word, and paying no attention
beyond a firm grip of the halter to the stallion's fretful tramping and
jerks, he tied the rope through an iron ring bolted into a tree-stump,
then he passed behind the stallion's heels, actually brushing aside the
sweep of the black tail, and remaining apparently unaware that he could
be killed instantly.

When he saw Seibert do that McGuire suddenly had less doubt about the
holes in his hat-crown; but the thing that had been the most surprising
was Seibert's self-control. It was almost as the Pulotu loafers had
declared--positively unnatural for a Dutchman (a South Sea Dutchman
being proverbially explosive) not to lose his temper. Under provocation
enough to have inflamed anyone he had faced Mortimer, whom he did not
like, and Penwenn, whom he disliked, with pleasantry and smiles--grins
rather, and forced; but nevertheless grins. He had been contemptuously
rude, but good natured. It was almost as if there was a connection
between the way he had reined in the stallion and kept himself, also,
manageable.

"Lord help us if he ever lets go!" said McGuire to himself; and the
flash of that thought lighted into remembrance the fact that Paullen
and Oreena were at a lovers' parting within the house.

At that moment Seibert was calling on him to accompany them to Nada's
bedside. "The doctor," said Seibert, grinning in a strange, preoccupied
way, and pausing for a moment as if to finish with some passing thought
that had intruded before completing the sentence, "the doctor he says
just now you have been Nada's nurse. Maybe you are not such a bad
fellow like I think." His great hand struck McGuire's shoulder with
friendly force.

Then McGuire, with an ear almost twisted out of shape by the strain of
listening hopefully for Paullen's returning step, said earnestly, "Mr.
Seibert, just plain _bang-banging_ isn't going to be half bad enough
for that Gauro. Dr. Lemaitre will tell you so, too."

Seibert's face assumed its baked-clay sort of blankness, but suspicion
settled in his eyes, and he placed his gloved hands on his hips, while
his body bent forward slightly with an air of resistance.

"Besides," McGuire went on, "the main thing's to scare your blacks.
I knew a man once that scared a whole tribe of cannibals into ways
of virtue by smearing the chief with phosphorus just at twilight.
Supposing you lay a curse on Gauro. That'll get around Mortimer,
and----"

Mortimer's was an unfortunate name for that moment.

"No," said Seibert, with powerful grunting. "No." His face was
massively set.

"But it would be better, it would be better," Dr. Lemaitre added,
adjusting his spectacles. The little doctor was not at ease. He did
not know what to make of Seibert. He did not like Seibert. He was now
impatient to get along to Nada.

Seibert turned doubtfully toward him and hung fire for a moment.
"Somebody can tell you what is better to give in medicine, eh?" He
stabbed Dr. Lemaitre with an index finger. "Bah!" Then chuckled
heavily. "Now let us go to Nada."

12

Seibert's house was originally in the plan of a square; but rooms had
been added, and to these rooms added again, with no strict geometrical
observance, so that the house had acquired the arrangement known as
rambling; but, whatever the additions, the encircling veranda was
continued.

Seibert could have taken them in either direction, toward the right or
toward the left, and arrived at the corner where Nada's bed had been
placed; but it was a little nearer to pass Oreena's room; and that way
he started.

McGuire supposed that the coming of their feet would be heard by
Paullen and Oreena, though he knew something of the stupefying
intentness that lovers have when breaking their hearts, and was
disquieted a little by the ease with which they could disconcertedly
blunder if frightened. Like all subtle intriguers, he had small
confidence in other people's ability to dance perfectly unless he
pulled the strings. Besides, he had no respect at all for Paullen's
adeptness in gallant escapes and no faith in Oreena's inexperience. If
they should have to do more than merely be furtively quiet they would
(he felt) surely be confused into doing something wrong, and the least
slip might mean tragedy.

McGuire would have gone along lazily enough, and have ventured nothing
more out of the way than perhaps a warning loudness of tone that would
make sure the guilty lovers had their chance to draw to one side, keep
quiet and concealed, while Seibert marched with tread of spurred boots
past the door; but Seibert now lifted his thick watch from a breast
pocket of the blouse and stopped abruptly.

His face was an odd blank. He shook the watch and placed it in the palm
of his hand, holding it against his ear; then with curious, almost
comic inflection, said: "I bust this damn thing again? _Ach!_ I have to
keep time on me. What is the hour now?"

Dr. Lemaitre carried no timepiece. Hours meant nothing to him. Dawn,
noon, and night divided the day sufficiently for one who was only
called for by the sick, and went when called, whatever the hour.

"Well," said Seibert, "I got another. I'll get him."

He dangled the useless watch in a way that showed he had it in mind to
get the other immediately.

McGuire's fancy leaped to the watch he had seen lying on the chest
top below Oreena's mirror, and with instant desperation he realised
that nothing of which he was capable could prevent Seibert's entering
that room, where most assuredly those mad children would be caught
like frightened rabbits under a wayside bush; or if they tried flight
they would make some betraying sound, significant as the voice of an
accuser; or if Paullen (who wasn't a fellow to run readily) did get
out, Oreena would be left in such agitation as to excite aggressive
questioning.

McGuire knew that whatever he could do must be done at once, and that
the folly of anything he might attempt would not be greater than that
of doing nothing.

When they had taken but few steps more he stopped suddenly, with hand
lifted, holding Seibert, and Dr. Lemaitre paused; then, "I thought I
heard----"

He broke the sentence with intentional vagueness, and darted off in
vanishing swiftness, turned the corner, and in two or three jumps was
before the door of Oreena's room, holding it half-opened.

She and Paullen peered in alarm toward him. They stood between the
table, with its negligent shepherd boy, and the rumpled couch against
which she had been crying when Paullen had come to the door. Now they
had been startled from an embrace that was still somewhat represented
in the attitude of their bodies, and certainly confessed by irresolute
stiffness of their arms, so suddenly withdrawn from around each other.

McGuire had counted desperately on the first few seconds of blank
puzzlement that would detain Seibert; and the glance over his shoulder
as he went on into the room showed that Seibert, far up the veranda was
coming.

The frightened lovers heard the jingling stamp of his boots, and
read their further warning in McGuire's face; but their instant's
helplessness was prolonged by over-strained nerves into an appreciable
length of time.

McGuire signalled fiercely at Paullen, but the instinct of flight was
not strong in him, and his face set rigidly. He said, "No, no. I'll
face him. He may do what he will to me!"

"Go, go, or he'll kill _her_!" McGuire whispered, pointing at the inner
door.

Paullen leaped on tiptoes and disappeared.

Oreena's foolish impulse was also to flee, in which case McGuire could
never have explained to Seibert satisfactorily why he had burst into
the room. She had gathered her gown away from her feet, and had started
to follow Paullen; but McGuire snatched at her arm, jerked her around,
tripped her, and, clapping a hand over her mouth, let her to the floor.
He was almost forcibly holding her down when he shouted over his
shoulder as Seibert reached the door, "She must have fainted. I thought
I heard a woman's cry!"

At that he felt Oreena's body relax, and he stood up, relieved. With
such a cue she could play out her part, and she lay as if dead.

The screened door to Oreena's room fastened with a catch lock; one
slight turn of a knob and it opened. Seibert's gloved hand struck at
the knob, and missed just the right releasing movement; but he did
not fumble or stop; he simply came through with sharp cracking of
wood as he broke the latch, tore the screen, and jerked down the blue
curtain. The floor trembled under his rushing tread. His face, coming
from sunlight into a shadowed place, appeared darkened, but not enough
to have accounted fully for the black, intense look; and for a moment
McGuire was afraid.

In the massive way that he had rushed in, Seibert's presence was
overwhelming; his expression was of dazed anger, doubtful as to what
to fasten on; he had been excited by McGuire's excitement, and was
surprisingly ready for any dangerous thing. He saw Oreena on the
floor and dully glowered about from corner to corner with a sort of
challenging expectancy, but in a few seconds realised that there was
nothing to rush upon; then, in a voice strangely lowered, he said, "My
_Gott!_ what is it has happened?"

"I thought I heard a cry. Maybe one of the blacks--like Gauro--was
sneaking about the house!"

Seibert growled hoarsely, and again peered about, looking for the
black. Then he dropped to a knee, bending over her, his gloved hands
hovering out, as if they feared to settle their rough weight on an
object so fragile and pathetically lovely.

"Or'na! Or'na!"

She lay as if dead, her face aside in the curve of a bare arm.

"Is she dead?" he asked, with amazing blankness, his big, round face
lifted toward McGuire with an emptiness as if a light had been blown
out.

"No, no; don't you see? She's breathing!"

McGuire could not see that she was breathing, but he knew that it was
so, though Oreena, with remarkable caution, had checked respiration as
much as she could.

Seibert leaned over watchfully, and all were motionless, and everything
was quiet but the marching seconds, as with measured _click-tick,
click-tick, click-tick_, they filed across the cuckoo clock on their
way into the past.

For one instant of wild fancy it was not unlike a tableau--the guardian
half-giant, huge and bulky, beside an injured maiden strange with
beauty; and, too, with tableau immobility the gnome faces looked out of
solid wood from behind their swollen tongues, while the vivid Gretchens
stood poised in artless unconcern, as if such scenes were too common
for notice in the enchanted Northern forests from which they had come.

Seibert fumbled a little hesitatingly as to how to take hold of the
slight child figure, limp as if lifeless, and partly revealed by bared
arm, the extended knee, the soft outline of flesh under silk; but
then, working his broad hands under her body, he raised her on his
palms, with arms extended, and placed her on the couch with the same
exaggerated, painful effort at carefulness.

He now at once became more like the Seibert everyone knew.

"Here, here, doctor, here!" he shouted at Dr. Lemaitre, as if the
doctor was at a great distance, though he had just come to within
a step of Seibert, and, black bag in one hand, finger and thumb of
the other touching his spectacles, lifting them slightly, the better
to adjust his serious gaze at Oreena. "She has been hurt, has she?"
Seibert demanded, as though a doctor should know about that at a
glance. Then he cried, "_Ach!_ Every damn dog I will kill this day--to
let another black get my house into without a bark!"

Seibert smote gloved fist into gloved palm. The contact was like a
shot. Oreena gave a start, but Seibert did not see.

The threat about shooting the dogs was literal, and his exasperation at
them great. Some days before (so it was believed by Seibert) Gauro had
actually entered the house undetected and made off with a rifle. The
dogs, trained to distinguish between house servants and field blacks,
were supposed to attack any of the latter that entered the grounds
unaccompanied by an overseer.

Seibert began trampling about, calling loudly for this servant and
that: "Malama! Lalua! Lalua! Tono! Sin Loo! Here, here!" He had gone to
the veranda door and shouted. His voice had a thundering reach.

McGuire could hear the stir of voices and movement through the house
agitated by Seibert's excitement and by the perturbing uncertainty
of what lay behind the great shout of: "Here! All of you, here!
Everybody!" There were distant flurries of native words as one servant
anxiously inquired of another what was the trouble; the sharp closing
of two or three doors; then a bustling rush, a moment of sound like a
wind blowing loose leaves over hard, dry ground as the grass-slippered
feet scurried along the veranda mats.

Dr. Lemaitre held Oreena's limp wrist against his sensitive thumb,
and he was bending until his face was almost against her hair, as if
whispering. Without looking up he said testily to McGuire: "Keep them
out! Keep them out--out!"

Seibert was at one door, demanding of those who came if they had seen
a strange black in the house, and if they hadn't, why? Where were their
eyes?

McGuire turned to the other door, and met Nada.

She stood as if hesitating to enter, and was prettily dressed, partly
in her sister's garments. Her dark, motionless eyes looked into
McGuire's face, and he knew that she understood what had been done, and
why.

Nada had determined that she would not play sick and that she would not
be timid; but that at the first opportunity she would go to Seibert and
thank him gratefully, as he deserved, for the way he had taken her from
the Penwenn wagon and attended to her comfort; then she would implore
him to forgive and forget her folly that day by the waterfall, when
she had begged for his love. She would say--and if truth wings words
these would surely reach the best that was in him--that she was unable
to retain the least respect for herself as long as she felt that he
remembered what she had done in that hour of wildest folly; that the
blame was all hers, and the shame of it gave her no rest. She hoped
thus to appeal to what was noblest in his pride without disturbing his
suspicions.

She had wanted, however, to talk it over with someone, and be not
advised so much as confirmed; but, warned by an intuitive reluctance
too impalpable to be completely followed, she had at first hesitated to
tell Oreena, but after an hour's walk among the flowers had returned to
the house to make a confidante of her sister.

She had been on her way to Oreena's room when she heard crying, and,
listening, not to spy, but simply held unconscious of what she was
doing by her own great interest, she overheard Oreena tell Paullen that
he must go from her, and why.

Then, with the abruptness of an assailant, McGuire had rushed into the
room, and Paullen came out so suddenly as almost to strike against her.
In a quick whisper she had showed him which door next to take so as
to be the least observed in leaving the house; then, feeling that she
must come on into the room since everyone was called, she now had just
stepped through the door.

A doubtful, diffused gleam passed across her eyes as she looked at
McGuire; but just as he had started to speak to her she passed him with
a rush and reached Oreena, who had just raised up, her face desperate,
her arms out imploringly, and cried, "Nada! Oh, Nada!"

Nada, springing on the couch, enfolded her sister.

Oreena was almost frantic. It had been just about all she could do
to lie so nearly motionless and death-like, breathing with strained
slowness, and trying to appear unconscious. Then Dr. Lemaitre, who for
all of his warmth of heart had the physician's quick temper at being
imposed on, had said, when she would not answer his gentle questioning:
"You are not hurt. There has been no _cannaque_ in this house. You did
not faint. You are hiding everything that is true. I have a mind to
tell Herr Seibert!"

Oreena had given a low cry of terror, then looking up, had seen and
cried to Nada, who now with a mothering defensiveness enclosed her.

Dr. Lemaitre, of course, had never an intention of telling Seibert;
there was too much of that suppositive priest for him to reveal even
unconfided secrets.

But when Seibert, hearing Oreena's cry of terror, turned from the door
where he had just scattered the servants, with orders to spread the
word that a black was in the grounds, and have a search made, he strode
heavily toward her and shouted, "What did he do here, that fellow?
Or'na, my _Gott_, why can't you talk a little!"

"No, no, no!" said Dr. Lemaitre, interposing his arm and speaking with
surprising firmness. "She must not be talked to so. She has had a
fright, and you make her worse!"

Dr. Lemaitre thought that the _cannaque_ had been Oreena's explanation
of what happened, not McGuire's suggestion.

Seibert had advanced toward the couch in burly excitement, with an air
of half-anger and loudness of voice that he used in almost everything
that had an element of hurry. Now he stopped abruptly, his face
suddenly blank as the palm of his hand, and stared at Dr. Lemaitre.

The doctor felt that Seibert, astounded at being so addressed, was
gathering rage; and his own small body seemed fairly to bristle, for
among the virtues that Dr. Lemaitre possessed was that of not being
afraid of anybody. Behind the iron-rimmed spectacles his eyes kindled.
Besides, the dislike of twenty years, with attending suspicions, had
not vanished simply because McGuire, from the veranda rail, a half-hour
before had said in native speech, "Seibert's more of a fool than Pulotu
thinks--and a much finer man!"

McGuire had discovered (or thought that he had) that Seibert's head was
nearly incapable of holding two thoughts at the same time; and that the
first was seldom displaced gradually, but was bumped out of the way,
so that there was a moment between loss of connection with the one and
complete possession of the other. This often gave him a stupid look
when the subject was changed.

Just now Seibert seemed increasingly puzzled by why Dr. Lemaitre should
be angry.

"What the matter with you is?" demanded Seibert harshly, still towering
and blankly moon-faced. The blank insolence of tone, the overshadowing
bulkiness of body, the sort of detached menace in attitude, set fire to
all that was French in Dr. Lemaitre, who was already bristling.

He did not like the aspect of affairs in this house. Nor was there
any allaying influence in McGuire's apparent ease of manner about the
place, but this rather increased the doctor's exasperation. After all,
at best McGuire was only a good-natured wastrel, one that at his worst
might be undependable or even very untrustworthy. There were also the
twenty odd years of dislike, suspicion, and evil report of Seibert. On
top of this was the confidence in which Nada, from her desire to tell
him everything, had told him that her sister was afraid of Seibert;
which had even a minor place in the recital of Nada's own fear and
dread of him at that time. And still overtopping even this was Dr.
Lemaitre's feeling that there had been no black, no _cannaque_, as the
French have it; so that he, putting two and two together and arriving
at a sad error of addition, believed that Oreena's shivering terror
was in some significant way connected with Seibert's brutality,
evidence of which seemed now quite apparent in his manner of approach
and speech to her. But at the very tiptop of everything, however, was
Dr. Lemaitre's suspicion of Seibert's motive in bringing Nada into his
house; and the doctor had seen the sad distraction in her eyes as she
came from the doorway, rushing to the couch.

"You--you----" said Dr. Lemaitre, shaking both fists vibrantly before
him. "I know the kind of man you've been on Pulotu for twenty years!"

Seibert grunted, still in preoccupied puzzlement.

Dr. Lemaitre was full of anger, and of a kind that grows by being
expressed. McGuire tried anxiously to stop him, to check him, or at
least to soften the vehemence, by cutting in with words, by interposing
his hand, and by taking hold of the doctor's arm; but the interruptive
words glanced as hail off a slate roof, and the pacifying gestures were
knocked aside.

Dr. Lemaitre was greatly worked up; but though he was small, with full,
plump cheeks in spite of the nights that might have been sleepless, and
though he was stout and spectacled, and did shake his fist under the
face of one who overshadowed him, still, not the most perverted sense
of comedy could have inspired amusement at him. He spoke with courage,
not merely from temper, and sincerity was in every fibre of him.

But out of the very nature of the situation Dr. Lemaitre could not deal
with plain words, which might easily increase the peril of Nada and
Oreena; for had not Nada implored Seibert to love her? And if Oreena
was in terror, was she not a faithless wife? Dr. Lemaitre knew those
things, but could not well disclose knowledge of either.

"Some people know more about you, Herr Seibert, and what goes on here
than you think! You are a brutal man, Herr Seibert; but don't you think
you can do what you like, Herr Seibert, with everybody! There are men
on Pulotu, and if the cries of women reach them it will be for you more
than whipping runaways or shooting a _cannaque_! Don't you forget
that, Herr Seibert! Don't you forget it! I--I--old Dr. Lemaitre will
make you remember it if you go hurting anybody just because you are
a big man and think you can laugh at people at Pulotu that you call
'loafers'! Don't you make any woman cry, Herr Seibert; and don't you
make threats; and don't you touch anybody in anger or if she turns from
you! You think people are afraid of you, but I--I, old Dr. Lemaitre,
am not afraid of you! I know how you treat people here. I have seen.
I have heard things, Herr Seibert. And you be warned by me, you be
warned! I tell you to be warned what you do, Herr Seibert! Don't you
dare mistreat ever a woman! Good-day to you, Herr Seibert!"

Dr. Lemaitre remained as he stood for a moment, then put an adjusting
thumb and finger to his spectacles, and glanced toward the couch where
Nada and Oreena, more frightened than ever before in their lives, were
huddled together in an embrace with their faces averted.

After that Dr. Lemaitre gave a last sharp look into Seibert's staring
eyes, picked his black bag and hat from the floor, and walked with
short, quick steps from the room.

Seibert, without any reply, turned slowly clear around in his tracks,
following him with perplexed frown and staring gaze; and when Dr.
Lemaitre was out of sight, Seibert, after a long pause, then took his
eyes off the empty doorway through which the doctor had passed and
turned blankly toward McGuire.

"Women? What is that doctor fellow talking about? Is he all gone crazy?
It must be his head is all turned around. Women? Never but one woman on
this place have I had whipped, and----"

Just then a softly guttural voice spoke, and another form filled the
doorway.

"Ah, Hausen, ho!" said Seibert, at once taking a long, heavy stride
toward the door, moving with an air of almost forceful unconcern, as
when one takes up a familiar sort of affair, however important, with
familiar people; and in that air was something of easy masterfulness.

13

Dr. Hausen held a battered pith helmet respectfully in one of his
hands, and with the other opened the broken screen door, but he had
an almost unctuously humble attitude of not wishing to enter, of
not intending to enter; and he smiled in a way that made his loose
lips under a skimpy, straw-like moustache appear as if they had been
greased. His clothes were of white cotton, the trousers being too long
and the square-cut blouse too large on his rather thin frame. These
were wrinkled and soiled in spots, that had a dull polish such as comes
only from long wear. His bleary, peering, red-rimmed eyes were vaguely
distorted behind thick lenses. When reading--and he did studiously read
far into the nights--the book was held within a few inches of his face;
but this short-sightedness did not seem greatly to affect his vision
in observing what went on at ordinary distances, and he was a close
observer. His age was somewhat above thirty.

He seemed to have been born with the greasy smile as he had indubitably
been born possessed of a bulging nose far too large for his face;
and if, as physiognomists say, this feature tends to indicate
self-assurance, it had served him well in spite of the unhealthy
subservience, the rather smooth eagerness to please, that he always
presented to Seibert.

A little more than three years before he had written to the German
consul that he wanted to come out to the island, and that he thought
his skill as a veterinary might be of value to one of the larger
planters. The consul had read this letter to Seibert. He, with a wide
sweep of an aimless hand and a moment's grin, had said, "My blacks get
sick, not my horses; they are not fools in what they eat. If he comes I
can find him work. _Ach Gott!_ yes, plenty of work!"

Some months later, when a thin, pale, short-sighted man, with heavy
glasses before his eyes, had been introduced by the consul, Seibert
gazed down upon him, and with bland heartiness exclaimed, "Ho! So you
are a horse-doctor? Well, cannibals are animals."

In three years, with scarcely a change in his condition that one could
isolate, and say, "Here was a promotion," Hausen had risen from the
nondescript situation of a horse-doctor who gave dope to blacks and had
become the nearest to a manager that Seibert, who by untiring tramping
and riding supervised all work, could have tolerated.

Dr. Hausen still occupied the small room where he had first been put,
with such stuff as comprised the meagre dispensary, in the overseer's
house. This stood a hundred yards beyond the stables, and on a slight
elevation overlooking the labourers' quarters a half-mile away. He
still had his meals with the overseers, and he continued to visit such
blacks as were too sick to file past his stool and portable table
under the cocoanut trees in front of his quarters; and he remained
always eagerly humble in Seibert's presence. He was so ready to carry
messages, and to relate in his smooth, softly guttural voice everything
he saw and much that he merely suspected, that in the course of time
Seibert, who discussed his affairs with no one, had gradually come to
trust Hausen's reports and occasionally to approve his suggestions. No
one else in Seibert's employ showed anything like a foresighted concern
in what went on.

In some ways Hausen was a studious, persistent fellow, and dreamed of a
time when he, too, would be a big planter. He really had the greatest
contempt imaginable for Seibert, who appeared as only a big, dull man,
blindly wasting money and blacks in uprooting more and more jungle
when he already had an enormous amount of unproductive acreage; and
besides, much of his cultivation was with experiments that would have
been less profitable than cocoanuts if successful, and a great deal was
thrown away on mere prettiness of grounds and a fanciful arrangement
of stables and outbuildings. And for everything that Hausen told to
Seibert about the plantation, he told two and three to the German
consul who looked after the Pulotu affairs of the great Godeffroy
Company.

The overseers--all Germans--did not like Hausen, and they talked of him
with vigorous coarseness among themselves. He was a fool; but they
were fearful of his humble intimacy with Seibert. They resented the
fact that Hausen by his smooth persistency and those bleary, peering
eyes, in addition to his close contact with the swarm of labourers as a
sort of medical director (if a phrase of dignity may be applied to so
pitiful a relationship), had got himself a place of influence.

Those rough, simple, bearded, and rather doggedly brutal fellows, the
overseers, said that Hausen was a fool and a swine. Blackbirders, in
furnishing labourers to the plantations from Australia northward,
recruited women as well as men. Hausen was a great fool. And these
strong-stomached countrymen of his made no pretence at delicacy of
feeling. On the other hand, though they were afraid of Seibert they
liked him.

Now, as Hausen stood at the door talking with Seibert, McGuire, who
knew no German, nevertheless attentively watched the fellow, and with
interest greatly increased by what Oreena had reported of him on the
occasion when, through lack of any other physician, he had been brought
into the house to do what he could for her supposed illness.

If this unattractive, slyly obsequious man had really ventured to put
his lips against her hand, especially under circumstances so perilous
to his bodily welfare, McGuire felt that he must have been either crazy
or else with incredible stupidity had believed himself encouraged.

No doubt Oreena, being very much aware that she wasn't in the least
ill, had smiled with a quick confidential nervousness, and the fellow
had then idiotically presumed that he was favoured.

McGuire knew that few men, and none with greasy lips and sly ease of
manner, are ever sufficiently repugnant to women not to have had some
success in gallantry, and that often the most graceless are impudently
confident, and the most ready to misread any attention as an invitation.

As little as McGuire liked her he realised that Oreena, however mad she
may have been for attention, would never have toyed for even the length
of an eyelid's flutter with such a person.

McGuire, now having gazed appraisingly at Hausen, and in that glance
going farther into the fellow's character than Seibert had gone in
three years, was about to turn away and drop soothing, reassuring words
into the ears of Nada and Oreena, who had begun an anxious whispering
between themselves; but just then, with the sensation of a pretty hard
shock, he saw Paullen standing near the foot of the veranda steps,
his hands crossed behind him and his attitude of aimless rigidity was
like that of one who has failed; but what gave the alert McGuire his
shock was not Paullen alone, but Paullen in connection with the bearded
overseer that stood just beyond, a heavy gun resting across his forearm.

McGuire, flushed with new alarm, stared at Hausen, who continued in
rapid, impenetrably guttural speech, very pleased with what he had
to tell. Seibert towered with hands on hips, listening with unusual
closeness, his features being set inscrutably.

McGuire glanced about as if at first minded to push by Seibert and
squeeze Hausen out of the door; then he went out of the other door
on his way through the house, so as to come out on the veranda and
discover by a word from Paullen if the situation was what it appeared.


14

A half minute later McGuire slipped with a long-reaching, noiseless
stride into the room where he had breakfasted with Seibert, and was
well into the centre of the room when he became aware of Lalua on the
far side of the breakfast-table.

She stood motionless, with only a faint glint of surprise in her long
Oriental eyes, as if she had been awaiting him. There was a suggestion
of mysterious immobility in her tall, slim body, overhung with loose
muslin; and though it was only a squat sugar-bowl being returned to
where ants could not find it that she held between her long hands,
yet she held it a little way in front of her, and with a delicacy of
encircling fingers, as if it were a votive jar filled with incense
sacred to the nose of a goddess.

McGuire distrusted her; the shadowed obliqueness of her eyes had from
the first hinted to him of unnatural depth to thoughts that touched
dangerous desires. Now she had seen him enter with an unmistakable air
of stealth.

"Lalua," he whispered in Samoan, "where are those good cigars?"

Slowly, without a smile: "It is not cigars you are seeking."

"No-o? Well, then, Sister to the Moon, what the devil am I after?"

She barely shook her head, without moving her eyes, then in an
expressionless tone, somehow more arresting than inflectional stress
would have been, and somehow, too, by the very emphasis of the rich
voice, by the fixity of the deep eyes, and a subtle, un-outlined
intensity of feeling that conveyed a repressed wonderment, she said:
"You, too, are her lover."

A hundred needle-footed chills went galloping up and down McGuire's
back. He sensed jealousy. It was unintelligible, incredible, without
beginning, end, or cause, but impalpably sinister.

He took a slow step backwards, laughing noiselessly. "I--a lover!"

McGuire opened his arms with a downward gesture, thus deprecatingly
calling amused attention to his utter unattractiveness.

Lalua answered, "I watched you when you went to her. I saw when you
came out."

"You heard, too?"

"I listened, but could not hear. The wall is thick."

She said it with unblushing casualness. Sensations of shame had no
place in this tall, deliberate, immobile girl who, like everyone
else about Seibert, and Seibert himself, seemed inwardly concerned
with impenetrable desires that wore odd masks; and she now exposed
her knowledge of dangerous secrets with a composure that increased
McGuire's uneasiness. It was such composure as if she knew other things
which left this one relatively unimportant.

"I wish you had found a knot-hole," he told her. "You would have heard
how little there was of what you think in what I said. 'Twas more like
hate!"

Her wide mouth parted slightly, with a faint intake of breath. In her
eyes, too, there was a slight change, barely perceptible, as if she had
pushed back one of the hundred curtains that hung there. The votive
bowl was held nearer to her breast. From outside the sound of Dr.
Hausen's voice came to him as a soft rumble of tone.

Lalua did not speak again until McGuire had asked, "And why do you hate
her?"

Then, with instant bitterness, but as if the voice she used was far
behind her lips, which strangely remained almost motionless: "_Taataa
a le ala!_"; literally, "Grass by the wayside"; and this, despite the
richness of the simile, is almost the worst thing, and quite bad enough
indeed, in that colourful native speech, that one woman can say of
another.

McGuire regarded her with new alertness. Jealousy, bitterness, anger,
and scorn--all these things she had disclosed toward Oreena. He knew
that many a loveless woman speaks reproach out of envy, and that
certainly Lalua's curtained eyes glinted with a watchful passion of
her own; also by every sign in her that he regarded as trustworthy he
knew that she was not to be trusted. Yet there was something more than
the jealous bitterness and angry scorn; there was resolution, and the
patience that is Oriental. Her immobile slimness, very like dignity,
presented the calm contempt of one who is consciously superior.

But in what could she feel herself superior to the flawless Oreena,
whom she, with wilful unreason, had termed a wayside woman? McGuire
began to imagine that he understood. There was indeed about her the
calm posture of one who demanded of him comparison and appraisal, as if
her emotions were those of a rival, and not merely censorious; and she
seemed to be wishing to say, "Look at me! My flesh is as warm as hers;
my pride is great; my eyes are soft. Why should one look twice at that
breast-less girl when I am near? My arms would be like the great vines
that bind the jungle trees, however large; and hers are wisps of grass
that touch and do not hold!"

"What is wrong?" McGuire said, coming nearer, using an attentive
eagerness not unlike sympathy. "Tell me. I do not like her. I need to
know."

Lalua was visibly tempted by a new thought. The bowl came against her
breast, enfolded tightly. It was nothing, that bowl; but the thought
she symbolically hugged to her muslin-covered breast was everything;
and that was the way her restrained emotion partly expressed itself.
Her eyes gleamed with the light of the thought, but she overcast its
cunning with a look almost deliberately alluring, as if somehow she had
learned that men--any of them--were at their weakest when looked at in
just that way. Her wide lips moved with the soft motion of whispered
words, and, bending tensely toward him in sensuous intimacy and urgency
that was like a false promise, she said, "You will make him know? You
will watch and take him to them that his own eyes may see? You will do
that?"

McGuire answered quickly, "That is the idea! Why haven't you done it
long ago? You have known they were meeting secretly."

A hesitant flutter showed in her eyes; then: "I never had a thought of
doing that till now. But you will, won't you? Then he will drive her
out!"

Triumph sang like a string at the snapping-point through this last
sentence. The intentness of her gaze gave her long, narrow eyes a
sudden obliqueness, increasing their Oriental cast. She bent so closely
that her warm breath was on his face.

"You will, won't you?"

"You--you, Lalua, have been afraid? Afraid to do it?"

A moment's hesitancy followed, in which she shifted the focus of her
close gaze from into one of his eyes to the other, then back again; and
she seemed to detect the reply that was required of her if it was to be
convincing; and she answered simply, "I have been afraid."

"You have loved him long?"

A startled shiver trembled from her eyes on down the long, slim body,
and her backward start set the muslin slip astir, as if it, too,
quivered from the chill surprise. The bowl had slipped from between her
hands, and, striking dully on the floor, broke open, laying the sugar
in a brown splatter at her feet. She did not notice. In the little
pause of silence she regarded him with calm doubtfulness, with a bare
trace of defiance in her manner, as if the defiance was only peeping
out and would not come clearly into view unless needed; then quietly:

"Yes. I have loved him long."

"Well," said McGuire, almost approvingly, at least in a way that
reassured, "that's all right."

He, of course, would have no idea of how far it may have been all
wrong, though he would not have doubted much of anything of her
that he might have heard, or have thought if the thoughts had come;
for he knew of a sinister gleam to her character, of inscrutable
passions underneath the slim-bodied poise, quite possibly an Oriental
malevolence, part fatalism and part cunning, mingling deadliness with
the eager, abasement that semi-savage women have when they love. Rather
high-flown words with which to appraise a low-caste native servant busy
with breakfast ware; but he knew how dramatic could be, and usually
were, the loves and hates of the girls that had their feet rooted in
the soil, particularly in the jungle earth. Besides, in a way she was
especially marked by the long, narrow eyes, very different from the
wide, soft, gentle eyes of Samoan women. But McGuire, thinking that
this love of hers, if not new, was as yet impassive, and that, now
knowing of it, he could be watchful and keep it harmless, repeated,
"That's all right. We'll talk this over the first chance. You won't do
anything until we've had a talk?"

Lalua moved her head with doubting slowness, though readily promising;
her gaze was curiously intent, but as if she was looking out from
between curtains that concealed what had already been done.

McGuire was in a hurry to be gone. He made a friendly gesture and left
the room.

15

Hausen had finished. Seibert had come out on the veranda.

"Ho," he said, his arm making an invitational circle at McGuire, "you
come with me. Soon we will go to shoot that Gauro!"

McGuire saw at once that Paullen was not a prisoner, and that he was
expected also to join the party.

It had happened that shortly after Paullen got out of the house there
began to be shouting and hurrying about all through the grounds. Dogs,
released from their kennels near the stables, had come yelping eagerly,
running about with muzzles lowered or bounding along, frantic for any
movement or glimpse that would start the chase. At first he had thought
the hue and cry was for him; then, when he saw that it was not, he knew
that it would be inviting suspicion and pursuit to do anything except
to keep in plain sight.

Hausen and another German with a gun had come up from the stables at
a trot; and Hausen hailed him in the most broken sort of English and
asked him what was the trouble, and where was Seibert. Paullen tried
to tell him where Seibert was, and, finding that his directions were
unintelligible, had thought he might as well attach himself to Hausen
as to go wandering about, so he led the way.

Paullen hardly cared, or at least thought that he hardly cared, what
happened to him. It appeared that anything else that might come would
have to seem less evil than what had already happened. However, as yet
he was not content to disappear from the plantation, since the parting
was interrupted at a time when Oreena's tears had convinced him only of
her suffering, not of his necessity. She had not finished her pleading
when McGuire broke in upon them.

There was now no chance for McGuire to talk with him. Seibert had his
eye on the boy, and kept him close by, though talking with Hausen as
they walked along.

They did not go directly to the hillside where all the labourers were
to be gathered and Gauro shot. All was not in readiness there; and
Hausen, after some lengthy remarks to which Seibert returned grunts
and little else as they walked (much of his attention, in a quiet but
direct way, seemed on Paullen), left them at a sloppy trot suggestive
of anxiety to hasten the master's work.

The armed overseer had disappeared. His voice, among others, could be
heard hoarsely calling to the dogs, urging them here and there. Other
voices mingled with the excited yelps, at times almost mistaken for
barking. The search for the fictitious black persisted, though Seibert
now showed no excitement, not even interest.

Something appeared to be in his thoughts, and he walked about with
an odd air of reflection, pausing frequently with a stolid, heavy
expression turned on Paullen, after which he would look away and walk
on, now and then cutting at a shrub's tip with his riding-whip. McGuire
and Paullen kept at his heels, and there was no escape for them.

Every little while, with a sudden propulsive sentence or two of
boasting, he would point out something for them to admire; but while he
looked at them the animation would leave his face, and he would walk on
as before.

Once, when Paullen purposefully stood out of sight behind a mound
of rocks, moss-covered and plumed with ferns, Seibert asked for him
peremptorily, without anger and without suspicion, but demanding him.
When Paullen then appeared, Seibert, with a flash of cheerfulness,
said, "You get yourself lost, heh? Look out or a dog will eat you up
and nobody can ever find where you are."

He had a real liking for Paullen; and Seibert's existence had been
singularly empty of companionship, largely because he had contempt for
all the men that he knew--"loafers with their schnapps"; excepting, of
course, officers off his country's warships, and these rarely came,
remained never more than a few days, and were seldom heard of again.

The armed overseer and another man, the latter holding a big dog on a
leash, came to Seibert, and spoke quickly with gestures of failure,
then went away.

Seibert walked on, nearly aimlessly, much of the time blankly
preoccupied, stopping now and then and facing McGuire, with longer
looks at Paullen. Here and there he paused to snap off a leaf that was
curled, and, inspecting the underside with a quick, intelligent glance,
would mutter with a sound like that of a grumbled anathema, which,
however, was hardly arsenic enough to poison the pests. Occasionally he
spoke of this shrub or that tree as they passed; and once they stopped
before an orange on which he had successfully grafted three kinds of
fruit and was trying a fourth. He seemed actually to pat the tree as he
touched it.

Then, presently, Seibert pointed to a rocky terrace, describing how it
had been made, and how it was to be extended. He paced out the supposed
extension and drove his heel into the ground, as if fastening there a
surveyor's stake; then, as if having finished with one thing he was
ready to take up another, he said abruptly to Paullen:

"You are a fine boy. My wife, she likes you too." Paullen glanced
imploringly at McGuire. "You stay with me and I teach you the
plantation work, and give you some ground for yourself. I need a fine
fellow to help watch all the lazy loafers I have got. Many men have
come to me and said, 'Seibert, let's be partners. Here is some money
that I got.' I will not have them. Yet I want somebody that is like you
to grow up in my work and learn right. It is settled, eh?"

He clapped a big gloved hand on Paullen's shoulder, jarring his body
clear to the hinges of his knees.

"But--but, Mr. Seibert, you know nothing of me!"

It was a weak answer, a stumbling protest; but Paullen was nearly
dumbfounded. Had Seibert tried to kill him he would have been less
surprised.

"What is it you think of that idea? A fine one, eh?" Seibert demanded
of McGuire.

"He's a pirate," said McGuire.

"Pussh! You pirate fellows aren't so bad as you try to be. I know all
about him. My wife she has told me. So!"

At the explosive "So!" Paullen started, as if a blow would follow; but
Seibert was beaming heartily.

"I can't. I really can't, Mr. Seibert. On my word, I can't. I am not
fit--fit or anything. I can't!"

"Who knows more about a fellow that is good for plantation work than
I?" Seibert's fist came against his own breast with three or four hard
taps. "You will make your fortune, I will help you and you help me. It
is settled!"

He looked at his watch. He had forgotten to exchange it. Then he
glanced upward at the sun and down at his own shadow.

"It is time to be there. I will introduce you to my men right now as
Mr. Paullen, my new--new--_ach! by Gott!_ as my new nephew!"

He caught hold of Paullen's arm up under the shoulder and in jovial
triumph hustled him along.




CHAPTER VI


1

A hillside lay between the group of outbuildings, which included the
overseers' house, and the quarters given to the labourers, among whom,
even at the close of the hardest working day, arose chants that drifted
through the night air with notes unlike any sound in nature, or known
to the instrument of man, or to the voice of men once they have put
cloth upon their backs and shoes upon their feet. These chants were
nearly wordless, or, if not, were burdened with meaningless repetition
of empty words. The sound floated off with hollow wail, as the cry of
man might have done before he knew language when he had a great story
of woe for the ears of the unseen shapes of good and evil that lurked
in the jungle shadows all about him.

No jungle shadows overcast these quarters, which must have added much
to the homesick loneliness of those that dwelt there. The jungle was
far back, lurking in the distance like something beaten and baffled.
Round about these huts, which were placed in orderly rows and made of
shapes unfamiliar to those that used them, were a few towering trees,
that had been left for shade, with all their lower branches cut away.

The hillside between these quarters and the buildings above was barren.
Not a tree, not a shrub, was left. Anyone who sat at the front of the
overseers' house could look straight down to the hive-like huts, where
cooking-fires burned of an evening and unresting forms passed to and
fro; and the smoke of these fires was like the sacrificial smoke of
many altars, about which families gathered in prayer to be delivered
out of bondage.

Seibert had no walls, no barricades, no wires, nothing but the barren
hillside to mark the bounds of the labourers. These labourers had
been recruited from a dozen islands, some as far off as Bouka, and
fifty villages, and each island, and almost each village, was hostile
to every other; yet they did not war among themselves in this common
bondage.

It was very like bondage, though Seibert gave them dry quarters that
had to be kept clean, had fresh fish brought from the coast three
times a week, supplied taro, rice, and biscuits, with much salted and
some tinned meats, sold them tobacco, pipes, cloth, and gewgaws at
prices not higher than those in the Pulotu stores; and when their three
years' indenture was up gave them a bonus to take on again; but few
would remain a day longer than they could help, for if they were cared
for like desirable farm animals they were worked like animals, with a
steady driving that tormented and embittered. Had they been allowed
more laziness, more chattering and loafing, and been tempted to spurts
of effort by prizes and praise and a little wine, they might not have
got through with so much work, but they would less often have run away
into the bush. They did this, perhaps, with less hope of escape than
for the sensation of for a time getting nearer home.

Now all the blacks had been gathered on the hillside. They had moved
out sluggishly under the direction of their foremen--men selected from
among them because of caste, or size, or a willingness to work, and
sometimes because of an evil reputation in the villages from which
they had come; and the foremen had taken their places in the front row
of the semicircle of squatting shapes, for the most part more than
half naked, with rags for such clothing as they did have. They were
furry-headed, gleaming white-eyed; very like animals. They hardly
stirred their broad, flat, prehensile sort of feet, but movement
continually rippled through the crowd from swaying and turning of
heads; and a low, broken, expressionless murmur, oddly like a low wind
in the jungle, rose from among them.

Here and there a savage face was given a diabolically tortured
expression by a nose-stick long as the wide, thick mouth, which, when
the nostrils were thus closed, hung perpetually half open. Something
dangled from almost every ear, for the pierced and stretched
Melanesian ear is the nearest thing to a pocket that the savage has.
It might be a pipe thrust through the loop, a little bag that was tied
there, or, by way of ornament, the tops cut from tin cans. Some pipes
were stuck through grass bands on the arms. Rows of beads, strand on
strand, circled the necks of the younger men; and the elders had skimpy
whiskers drooping from the sides of the chin, like fibre of sennit
stuck there by paste; and these elders, too, had the sad, wrinkled,
puzzled brows that come with unhappy old age, whatever the race. Some
wore plaited eyeshades; some puffed at pipes; some thrust long, slender
sticks far into their mouths, turning the betel-nut and lime back under
their jaws.

A few, by a certain mildness of gaze and falling breasts, were
recognisable as women. Some of these wore slings across their
shoulders, and in the slings, peering sleepily or squalling, were
babies, with small legs vainly straddling across their mothers'
backs. The women wore these burdens to their work in the groves; and
it was somehow expressive of the tragedy of sex when a woman leaned
against her hoe, shifted the live burden under her arm, and pressed
its flaccid, fumbling little mouth against the drooping, pouch-like
dug, while she gazed down with a dull maternal glow. Perhaps even more
expressive of that tragedy was the fact that many of these mild-eyed
women, unless watched and threatened, killed their young.

This crowd waited impassively and with sombre interest, knowing what to
expect, half pleased at the idleness, a little uneasy at being gathered
on the open hillside under the eyes of three or four burly bearded men
in white suits who sat on camp-stools with guns between their knees.
For days these blacks had been in an ugly mood but they were afraid of
Seibert.


2

McGuire, Paullen, and Seibert, with Seibert pointing and talking
loudly, came down past the stables and along the low buildings from
which pens extended, wherein fat pigs raised up and grunted lazy
interrogations at their approach, as if each pig was asking another if
it was worth while to struggle up and go to the fence on the chance of
getting something to eat; and as the popular expression seemed to be
against this exertion, they settled down in their muddy pool. There
were other pens in which cows of a velvet reddish-brown chewed dreamily
in the shade; and still another where nervously nimble goats regarded
the passers-by with alert suspicion. Chickens strolled all about with
an air of indifferent proprietorship, or lay sidewise in dusty places
like little boats stranded by an ebb. Here and there a chained dog
strained hopefully toward Seibert.

Then they came round the overseers' house, and Paullen stopped with a
barely noticeable start at seeing all those squatting, naked blacks
spread out in a wide semicircle, sinisterly motionless as if they
might rise and rush, enclose the whites, pass over the buildings, on
through the grounds, and disappear into the jungle that lay around the
plantation like a horizon.

Seibert stopped, too, with an abruptness that was almost violent, and
stood arrested for a doubtful moment, but not by the symbolism of the
savage semicircle. He drove his spurred heels heavily into the ground,
one after the other, as if bracing himself, then slightly squared back
his body in a way that seemed to be gathering impetus for the stride
forward, which immediately followed.

Dr. Hausen, with his helmet pushed far back, sat on a camp-stool
before Gauro, who had an armed man standing some few feet behind him;
and Hausen held a bottle of whisky on his knee, one hand around the
bottle's neck, and the other hand held up to Gauro a tumbler of the
dark, amber liquor that shimmered with a jewel-like radiance in the
strong sunlight.

Seibert swore gutturally, and before Hausen could arise, or move, he
had with an upward sweep of gloved fist knocked the glass flying. The
liquor, swirling from the glass in air, fell splatteringly on the guard
behind Gauro; but the fellow grinned, pleased at Hausen's discomfort.

Hausen had almost fallen over backwards. His hat came off, and,
landing on the edge of the rim, rolled with wobbly haste for three or
four turns, as if trying to make off. He then raised his forearm and
whisky bottle before his face to ward off a blow that did not come.

Seibert's big face was flushed. His eyes expanded, and the thick mouth
worked rapidly as he demanded of Hausen the meaning of this foolishness.

In humble shrinking, Hausen explained, using many gestures and grinning
nervously. The quick, smooth grins rippled across his face, and in
the barely perceptible instant between the vanishing of one and the
appearance of another his look was painfully anxious.

The facts, which Hausen not wholly unintelligently had reflected upon,
were these: since it appeared that another black had got out of bounds,
and presumably into Seibert's house, Hausen felt that there was renewed
importance in discovering how Gauro himself had, apparently, done the
same thing. The rifle he had used in the bush was Seibert's own, and
had been stolen from the house. It had occurred to the subtle Hausen
that if Gauro was given a little inspiriting liquor he might be induced
to talk, and so expose this trick of getting past the dogs and into the
house. After giving him two glasses he was offering a third, and trying
with bare intelligibility to persuade Gauro in his own dialect to tell
him how it had been done.

Gauro was a Santa Cruzian from Vanikoro Island, a small, squat, and
rather elderly savage with some grey in his wool. In his own village
he had been a professional murderer. For some reason he claimed that
his father was a Portuguese; perhaps because he had learned that
half-breeds, though they might be held in contempt, were nevertheless
given favours and responsibility among the traders and planters. He
was a crafty, hideous little fellow, with a forehead no higher than
the breadth of his two fingers. His eyes were as small and deep-set
as a pig's. His bare chest was knotted and thick. He could talk
pidgin-English of the usual beach quality, but no German. Hausen, who,
ever since his arrival at Pulotu, had shown a studious, foresighted
interest, and something of a knack at picking up native dialects, had
laboured rather painfully to talk with him.

Hausen now explained all this, and Seibert listened without a sign
on his heavy face to show which way his thoughts inclined; but he
listened, heard Hausen out, and did not interrupt.

Then Seibert said that it was a dunder-headed idea, and stupid to give
a man who was about to be shot liquor, right out where everybody could
see. All the blacks would think that being shot wasn't so bad if it was
to be done on a full stomach of whisky.

Then Seibert ordered: "Stand Gauro out, and you tell them the same like
this will be done to loafers and runaways. Remember now, Hausen, it's
not just because he put a hole in my hat. You tell them that so they
know what you mean. It's because he is a damn loafer and trouble-maker
and hurt my trees." Then, to one of the overseers, "Bring me your
revolver."

The man arose from the camp-stool, and, fumbling with back-handed
awkwardness at the holster flap, drew out the revolver, and with
unfamiliar handling got hold of the muzzle and presented it to Seibert.

"Is--is," Paullen whispered to McGuire, "is he really going to shoot
that little beast right down in _cold_ blood?"

"Listen," said McGuire, in a way that was at once confidential and
enigmatic. "Listen, and I'll tell you something. A secret. He doesn't
do anything in _hot_ blood, that fellow."

"Whom do you mean?"

"Seibert."

"But I don't know now what you mean," said Paullen, with brow wrinkled.

"You are blind."

Hausen, after a further exchange of remarks with Seibert, of which
McGuire understood no word, turned and began to shout in a loud voice
toward the labourers; and of this McGuire understood as much as the
savages.

It was a hot morning, approaching noon, and the breath of the sun
was like a motionless force on the landscape, where every frond and
bough was still in the midst of heat; and in the distance the leafage
clustered together in masses with billowy curves, like low, greenish
clouds.

Gauro, with monkey-like grinning, watched Hausen's lips.

Paullen was drenched with running sweat, and his face had visibly
thinned in the last quarter of an hour or so. Paullen suffered keenly
from Seibert's generous offer. In the midst of his distraction he was
not incapable of realising what a fine chance it would be for a young
fellow like himself to be taken under the wing of the biggest planter
on Pulotu and helped along to fortune. It hurt him to see how he had
wronged Seibert; and in the past few minutes Paullen had become deeply
sensible of what now appeared the good fortune in Oreena's change
of attitude, for now he could go away at once, and she would never
think ill of him, and Seibert would never know ill of him. His own
self-respect might be in rags and tatters as he crept off, but at least
the nakedness of shame would be concealed.

Paullen breathed, sighing heavily, with a touch of relief. Sweat was on
his face, as if water had been thrown there.

Seibert carelessly tossed the revolver an inch or two up and down
on the flat of his gloved palm, watching as if playing a game with
himself, waiting for Hausen to finish.

The Germans in getting work done used a sort of bastard lingo, which,
with the help of gestures and the square toes of their boots, did very
well as a common language between themselves and the labourers; but
something more than this was needed now. Hausen, in his first days on
the plantation, had seen the importance that must come to anyone about
Seibert who could really understand the blacks and be interpreter. He
had gradually, and not without much studious work and patience, eased
himself into this dignity which increased his position.

Now his speech was pompous, as one to blacks might well be, and full
of rhetorical figures, very impressive to cannibal imagination. He
repeated himself in three or four dialects.

Then, when he had about finished speaking to the crowd, which listened
impassively with staring eyes and motionless heads, he turned to Gauro.

McGuire, in utter and almost confounding amazement, heard him say,
"Gauro, now you tell all quick, and your life will be spared. You will
then go back to work. Mr. Seibert says so, if you talk quick!"

"What a fool I have been!" McGuire murmured, looking at Seibert, who
still toyed indifferently with the large revolver.

Paullen overheard the murmur, and glanced with sharp question from
McGuire to Seibert, but he said nothing, for McGuire was strained with
listening.

The liquor in Gauro had been at work. He was already half drunk; in a
few minutes he would be, if not dead, at least dead drunk. With death
almost on top of him, life, now with his belly warm and glowing, seemed
desirable; besides, he was silly and reckless.

With much interruptive clucking, he said, "I watch in the bush and see
many things. _Techk!_ The woman from the house and him there"--his
grubby little monkey paw pointed at Paullen--"I see together--mouths
together. _Techk!_"

Hausen cast a flushed, meaning, eager look at Paullen, and turned back
hungrily to Gauro. Hausen did not dream that anyone other than himself
understood a word of what was being said, but McGuire had lived months
on Vanikoro and Ndeni, just above it.

"Go!" he said in a low voice, giving Paullen a hard push, the very
tenseness of his own muscles communicating warning and excitement.
"Run. The game's up for you and Oreena! Gauro has seen you together,
and is telling all. Seibert has promised him a pardon, but will shoot
him, of course. You two are in for it now. Go! For God's sake, go! Slip
around the corner there and _run!_"

Paullen, reading even more than the words told him in McGuire's usually
unexcitable features, edged to the corner of the house and disappeared
unobserved.

Seibert, growing impatient, had interrupted Hausen, and Hausen replied
with evident triumph and satisfaction; then turned to Gauro, who was
rapidly showing further effects of two tumblers of whiskey poured down
as no native ever pours down water.

"_Techk!_ Like two monkeys in a tree-top, they were lovers. One day,
two day, three day--so many I see them. By the waterfall. _Techk!_ By
and by I see another woman watch 'em. I jump at her, for I am hungry
and _techk!_ She talk like my people! She say that is the master's
wife, and the fellow there----" Gauro waved the monkey paw toward where
Paullen had been standing, but this time Hausen did not look around. He
was too intent on hearing more, and urged Gauro on.

"That fellow her lover. _Techk!_ This woman say the other woman ought
to be killed for a bad wife. 'You do it,' she say to me. 'You bring me
a gun,' I say to her. 'You do it?' Then I say I do it. The next day she
bring a gun, but I see master first and shoot at him. _Techk! Techk!
Techk!_"

He reeled as he stood, foolishly grinning and clucking.

Hausen could not listen longer. He turned in almost fluttering haste,
with knees partly bent and head thrust forward as he rushed across to
Seibert and began talking in eager humbleness. Delight showed through
the greasy sheen on his face, though he tried to appear as troubled
of countenance as a friend should when he blackens a wife's name with
shameful reports.

Seibert stopped toying with the gun, and regarded him for some moments
with utter puzzlement; then his broad face seemed to swell with
blackness. He glanced about with a sort of dazed uncertainty, evidently
looking for Paullen, though he seemed hardly conscious of doing so.

Hausen was standing quite on his tiptoes and bending toward Seibert,
into whose ears the words with guttural smoothness flowed on and on
with an effect poisonous as the juice of cursed hebenon.

"Where's Paullen?" Seibert shouted, his arm sweeping out with a kind of
aimless groping, as if unconsciously, and with an odd air of striking
at a shrilly persistent insect, he was trying to push Hausen, and all
that Hausen had said, away from him.

"Paullen?" McGuire asked, and answered instantly, pointing toward
the overseers' house by which they stood. "He said he didn't feel
well--heat and all made him queasy. Was going in the house to lie down."

If half-minutes would be of any help to Paullen, McGuire meant to give
him all that he could.

Seibert's gesture and tone indicated that he was telling two of his men
to go into the house and find Paullen.

Hausen, right at Seibert's side, went on talking, making the pretence
of keeping close so as not to be overheard, though the excited
eagerness of his buzzing gave it a tone that carried far.

Seibert strode to Gauro, who had turned and was making grimaces and
gestures toward the crowd of blacks; and some grinned back at him
understandingly. Seibert, towering over the little old monkey-like
creature, jerked him around by hand to shoulder, then with blundering
groping in the bastard lingo of fields and groves (a mixture of bad
English mostly) demanded to know if what he had said was true. Gauro
would have as readily denied as confirmed; but whisky had perhaps
blurred his animal shrewdness, so that he did not detect which answer
it was that Seibert wanted.

Gauro grinned, nodded, and _techked_.

Then Seibert raised the gun, holding it less than a hand's breadth from
the black breast; but Gauro, who had been promised his life, grinned
drunkenly at the joke.

Seibert hesitated, his face black but otherwise rigid, almost without
expression; then he turned with quick heaviness and walked with long,
heel-driven strides for at least twenty paces, with Hausen trotting
nimbly right behind and talking. When he had gone so many paces,
Seibert turned and instantly shot, twice.

It was as though he felt that what would have been murder at point
blank became an execution at twenty paces. The revolver's report seemed
curiously thin and empty in the open space and great stillness of
noontime heat.

Gauro from drunkenness was ready to drop; he was lifeless before he
fell, and sprawled on the black earth as if only drunken.

A movement like that of a light wind's breath touching a clump of
grass and passing went through the black semicircle; but there was no
sound, and the savages waited on, staring white-eyed and sullen. Many
were smoking. Even the sickly little child that had been squalling
was silenced, as if its little animal nerves sensed the hush, more
oppressive than a mother's slap and warning.

Seibert tossed the revolver to a camp-stool and turned away with face
downcast, drawing his whip between his hands, jerking it as if to test
a cord that he was about to break. A glance toward the overseers' house
told for what he was waiting.

Hausen remained by him and talked, talked, talked, smoothly, with
smiles working up into his face. Seibert turned round, trampling from
side to side without taking a step, as if unconsciously trying to get
away from that voice. It was evident that he was not listening, that
Hausen's voice reached him as sound and not as words.

Suddenly a suspicion groped its way into McGuire's head. Already he
was angry to the point of recklessness. He came close to Seibert, and
demanded abruptly, "What's that dog telling you?"

Seibert came out of his preoccupied staring with a start, and gazed at
McGuire for an instant as if he had never seen him before. He thought
the opprobrious "dog" referred to Gauro, and answered with heavy
directness: "My wife gave him that rifle--for to shoot me! Oreena, my
wife!"

"Hausen told you that? He's a liar! The Santa Cruz islands used to be
Williams' hiding-place. I've lived there months, and know the language
better than Hausen ever will. Hausen made Gauro talk by promising that
you wouldn't shoot him. You tell him to promise that? I know now you
didn't. Gauro was full of whisky and Hausen full of lies! The blacks
out there all think you've broken your word. Gauro signalled and told
them he wasn't to be shot. Tell that dog Hausen what I have said, and
you judge between us!"

Seibert turned explosively on Hausen, who staggered in alarm back from
under the shock of words; and his eyes glanced with malignant fear
toward McGuire; then, a moment later, with very rapid speech he was
replying, and by his gestures toward McGuire quite plainly saying what
he could to make Seibert permanently distrust him.

But Hausen far under-estimated McGuire's resourcefulness and audacity;
and now, with a boldness not usually disclosed by him, McGuire forcibly
put himself between Seibert and Hausen and addressed the latter
fluently, first in the disputed dialect, to prove his knowledge of it,
then in the more expressive Samoan tongue, better understood by Hausen,
too.

"Let's understand each other, Hausen. You are lying to Seibert, and I'm
going to lie to him to protect her. She didn't give Gauro the rifle,
and you know it, but you whittled on the facts to fit them to your
revenge. And you did tell Gauro that he wouldn't be shot. And if you
don't admit that you have lied, I'll see to it that you get your neck
snapped.

"Most of your hate for Oreena is because she slapped your face, which
gives you delight to accuse her. But will he believe you or will he
believe _her_ when I tell him that you--you who accuse her of having a
lover--you yourself tried to make love to her that night when you were
brought into the house because she seemed sick? She will tell him that
it is true! Then what about that scrawny neck of yours? You are in a
bad fix, Hausen, with your damn meddling. And the only thing you can do
is to admit to Seibert, just as fast as your tongue can travel--and you
have a rapid tongue, Hausen--that you have lied. Now talk!"

Hausen did talk, but not rapidly. His manner was deprecatingly humble,
and his hands played in nervous gestures. His whole body seemed
shrinking down toward the ground, and his knees were bending. He
saw, as people who are cunning always see readily when circumstances
are against them, that his whole story would be demolished if Oreena
accused him. And she would, of course. She would have to. Hausen was
cunning and oily, nothing of a fighter; and, being trapped, he whined.

Seibert glared down upon him, and the whip between his big gloved
hands was jerked harder, as if he was about to snap it in two.

"What is he saying?" McGuire asked, a little uneasy at Hausen's
prolonged speech.

"He says that you know Gauro's tongue better than he--that he may have
been mistaken, but he thought he was telling the truth. He says for you
to explain it, then, about Paullen and my wife and the rifle. That I am
to ask Paullen, too. _Gott!_ Why was that Tower of Babel ever built!"

"He's a liar," McGuire shouted uncompromisingly. "Ask him if he thought
he was telling the truth when he told Gauro you had promised not to
shoot. Every black boy out there knows that!"

Seibert's not being the sort of brain that could keep two things
in mind, he had not until then realized the enormity of this false
promise, and he could not quite believe it true that Hausen would
do a thing of the kind; but the idea that Hausen had meddled with
his authority, and compromised his word among the work-people, made
Seibert's anger rise. He turned on Hausen and roared at him, demanding
to know if it was so.

Hausen shrank back, really shivering under the menace of Seibert's
widened eyes; but such is the majesty of truth that it will come up,
willy-nilly, as the only thing in a terror-stricken body that dares to
meet the accuser, though a lie may struggle ever so hard to get out;
and now, against his will, the shrinking Hausen nodded.

Instantly Seibert's whip rose and fell, again and again and again. It
came down on Hausen's head, on his shoulders, on his back as he sank,
groping at Seibert's legs, huddling against them, begging for mercy.
When the wretched fellow lay on the ground, writhing and clasping
his hand to his hurts, Seibert raised the lash for a final blow, but
checked his arm, so that, with no force, it fell to his side and the
whip dangled listlessly.

"From my place you go _now!_ You hear me, swine-dog! And never you come
near again," Seibert said to the prostrate body, and turned from it.

Presently Hausen slunk off, disappearing into the privacy of his
dispensary. Dark, moist spots showed through on the shoulder of his
blouse, begrimed and covered with the dirt he had been in.

The men had come out of the house, and were standing by to say that
they could not find Paullen; and when, accompanying his words with a
look of strong inquiry, this was translated to McGuire, he answered at
once, "Oh, of course, he must have meant the house up there. The idea
of somebody being shot upset him. Miserably hot morning. Upset anybody."

Seibert had ceased to listen before McGuire had finished, and when the
sound of his voice stopped, an abstract sort of grunt was the nearest
thing to a reply forthcoming.

Seibert stood for a time pondering, and in an attitude as if all alone
he looked across the heads of the crowd of blacks and far into the
distance, where the shaggy heads of the cocoanuts rushed together like
a tightly-woven mesh of fronds; and far back, back beyond all this, lay
the jungle, untamed and untamable. He who knew so much of the bursting
and boundless energy that lies behind vegetation, forcing it out and
on and up, must at times have realized that the jungle would close in
again, some time, on all that he had cleared.

One of the Germans thrust a short-stemmed pipe into his beard and
lighted the pipe, leaning the muzzle of the gun against his stomach as
he did so. Seibert noticed this and swore at him, telling him to put
the gun down or against a tree--anywhere but against his stomach.

Then Seibert's thoughts were brought back to the more immediate needs
of the plantation work, for weeds grow and seedlings wilt, bugs breed
and ditches clog with silt, and fruits as they ripen must be picked and
cocoanuts split, though friends be disloyal and wives faithless. He now
gave orders about what was to be done in the afternoon.

One of the bushy-faced men--he was unarmed--who was far too short for
his trousers, which bagged and bulged over the tops of his boots,
stepped toward the crowd of blacks, and by a few shouts and scattering
gestures, flourishing his arms as if broadcasting grain from both
hands at once, gave them dismissal.

There was a babel of jabbering; they turned and trooped off, some
running down the hillside, scampering; some hurrying with dignified
tread; but all moved with an eagerness to be gone.

"Now," said Seibert to McGuire, "we will go to the house, you with me.
And as we go you tell me just what that Gauro did say."

"A drunken cannibal!"

"But he said somethings!"

"But, Mr. Seibert, I've lived among them. There's no trusting anything
that a Santa Cruzian says. And he was drunk, and he did muddle his
words."

"You mean maybe Hausen didn't understand him straight?"

"Look here, I'm not going to vouch for what Hausen did or
didn't understand. The fellow's a deliberate liar. There was no
misunderstanding about his promising Gauro that you wouldn't hurt him,
so why have faith in anything he did say?"

"Yes, yes. That is so, maybe. But why did Paullen go off like that?"

"For one thing, he's not used to heat, like you and I who have been
fried and stewed in the sun and steam of these lands. And I guess it
did make his stomach a little queasy to see a man shot."

"I like that boy fine," said Seibert aloud, but to himself.

They were walking together on the broad path that led along past the
buildings. A green cloud of bougainvilla lay over the pigs' shed;
great clumps of hibiscus bloomed beside the pens where the cows lay;
plumed grasses were clustered in designs that showed planning; and
between these outbuildings and the stables rows of acacias which, when
blooming, sifted dust of gold over their silvered, fern-like leaves. It
was amazingly incongruous, the beauty that this coarse man had forced
in among this most utilitarian part of his grounds.

In the few minutes' silence as they now walked together, McGuire
found his thoughts quarrelling with his impulses. His impulses were
intensely sympathetic toward Seibert, and it did but little good to
remind himself that Seibert was not a friend, but really an enemy. He
felt almost shame to be forcing deception upon Seibert to protect the
guiltiness of Paullen, for whom McGuire had a deep affection, and for
Oreena, who was unworthy of any sort of protection, yet exacted it by
her dainty fragility and the danger that lay about her.

Yet McGuire reflected that it would be doing everybody a favour,
Seibert not least, if the truth could be concealed. Gauro was dead.
Hausen was dismissed. Paullen would depart. Oreena, wiser and sadder,
would feel it a happiness to be relieved from her fears. Lalua would
not dare try to disclose anything. All that remained was to smother
Seibert's suspicions, and this would not be difficult, largely because
he really did not want to believe any evil thing of Paullen; and, like
most dominant persons, he could hardly comprehend how those on whom he
had bestowed kindnesses could be so dissatisfied, so insensible of the
honour, as to do underhandedly anything to his injury.

"But," said Seibert, after a long silence in which he had obviously
been turning ideas over and over in his head, "if that Hausen wanted to
lie, why didn't he just lie without promising Gauro anything? Something
like that I do not understand."

McGuire snapped a thumb and forefinger, illustrating the ease with
which this could be explained away, and said, "Why did he give Gauro
whisky? Simple enough. He hoped that he might really learn something;
and, don't you see, if Hausen _had_ got what he wanted out of
Gauro--why, don't you see, Hausen should have done his best to keep you
from shooting the fellow. Not because of the promise; but Gauro was his
only witness. He would have wanted Gauro kept alive, don't you think,
until by other interpreters you were entirely convinced? As a matter of
fact, Hausen wanted him shot so that Gauro couldn't contradict the lies
he had made up. That's the truth. I'm sure of it."

Seibert's stride slowed down thoughtfully, then he stopped, and,
fixing his eyes on McGuire's face, asked, "But that rifle? How did he
get that?"

"Well, how did that other black get into the house this morning?"

"That is so."

"And," McGuire went on, "you know that your wife couldn't have talked
with Gauro any more than she could have talked with a monkey. They
wouldn't have had an intelligible word between them. Not one. Oh,
Hausen was a great liar!"

"That _is_ so! _Ach!_ that is _so_. Ah-ho, I am glad to think of that."
He breathed heavily, seemingly relieved; yet a moment later he added,
"I believe nothing, but I know something has been wrong. I do not
believe it. No. But, _mein Gott!_ if there was truth in it!"

McGuire laughed, quietly, as if at a great absurdity.

"But Paullen, he is your friend, McGuire. And you, why should I trust
you?"

A pertinent question that; but McGuire answered with ready frankness,
"No reason why you should, except this: I told you Hausen lied, and
Hausen admitted it. So far as it goes you have found me trustworthy.
Wait till you find me a liar, Mr. Seibert. And surely Paullen is my
friend; but I never offered him a part of my plantation, or liked him
well enough to call him 'nephew.'"

"_Ach!_ that is so."

They walked on again.

McGuire, the shrewd and far-sighted, the cunning weaver of plans,
reasoned thus: "Paullen has undoubtedly left the plantation by this
time. Perhaps not; but the chances are that he has; and his going away
will be awkward to explain; but I can get a word to Nada or Oreena,
make one of them appear desperately ill, and have her say that Paullen
has been sent in haste after Dr. Lemaitre. Thereupon I'll get hold
of somebody, or even go myself, and carry a message that will bring
Paullen back for a day or two until Seibert's suspicions are gone.
He will probably watch them pretty closely for a few days; anybody
would. But a word in the ears of each of them will make it come out all
right."

McGuire now felt a glow of satisfaction warming up his breast, and
pulled at his long nose to conceal a smile.


3

Seibert's stables were low buildings, heavily thatched, with
overhanging eaves. A great deal of labour and much planning had been
used in their construction. They were not merely places where horses
were kept, and sheds where grain and hay were stored, with the usual
rickety fences setting bounds for spiritless horses.

He was proud of his stables. When he approached them of a morning,
coming down the broad, gravelled drive that wound among the shrubbery
like a boulevard through a park, he often stopped some distance away
and stood for a time examining the buildings and their arrangement
with critical pride. The driveway, without narrowing an inch, led into
the broad doorway of the central building. On one side of the interior
were light wagons, all fresh with paint, with shafts, or tongues, held
up by plaited loops suspended from the heavy bamboo rafters; on the
other side were a dozen wide stalls, each with a capacious manger. The
partitions between the stalls were of bamboo, laid horizontally to a
height of about five feet.

The driveway passed through this building and led into the great
circular yard, where the work wagons were placed in a circle under an
open shed; and the tongue of each wagon was lifted off the ground by
the use of the yoke as a prop.

On each side of the main building were smaller buildings, or wings, and
in some of these were stalls, with chain harness on pegs; in others
were stored various implements--ploughs, cultivators, extra wagon
parts, harness that was oiled and covered with oiled canvas. At the end
of one wing was the blacksmith's shop, with large bellows forge and a
pair of anvils, with tools like instruments of torture hanging about.

Behind the stables, but a part of the stable group, were great sheds
for storing copra, grain, and seeds; all of which were built with a
spaciousness showing that the ultimate productiveness of the plantation
had been considered in their construction.

Out behind the stables were corrals, each with a broad shed to protect
the horses from the sun and rain. The fences, standing on foundations
of coral rocks, were of split bamboo running horizontally.

Seibert had twice as many horses as he needed, and room for twice as
many as he had. He liked the spaciousness of his stables. It gave him
satisfaction to see the buildings, the wagons, though many of these
were seldom used; he liked the orderly arrangement and well-kept
appearance; also it afforded him pleasure when he looked on at the
hustle and bustle when teams were going afield, and tramped with chain
harness clinking, or pulled at wagons that rolled with a soft crunching
over the roadway leading out from the wagon yard in the opposite
direction from the house.

He had erected and planned everything with an eye to the future, and
built with a care for permanency that was exceedingly unusual in
tropic planters. He had immense satisfaction in seeing so much already
accomplished for taking care of even a larger and more productive
plantation; and where other planters made use of sheet-iron and
whitewash, he had used bamboo and coral rock and thatch, which, by
those who knew, or thought they did, was said to be unwise, being
expensive in labour and no protection against fire.


4

Now, as McGuire and Seibert approached the stables, coming around one
of the copra sheds, and for the time walking in silence, the one with
a long, slow, thoughtful stride, with gloved hands locked behind his
back, and the other watchfully examining the big, solid, expressionless
face, they both stopped as by one impulse. Something was happening in
one of the far corrals. The sounds were unmistakably those of horses
fighting.

"What fool's been up to something now!" Seibert cried, and the next
moment, with a lunging rush, he had gone through the doorway of the
nearest shed and disappeared on his way through the labyrinth of sheds
and yards to the corral whence came the thuds and shrill squeals.

At almost the same moment McGuire, feeling that if ever luck was with
him it had come this instant, started forward on the run for the house.
He was sure that if he could have sixty seconds or less before Seibert
came that he could prepare the women for their parts, and Paullen,
too; or if Paullen had already concluded a last parting with Oreena,
his disappearance could be covered with at least a temporary excuse
which would give opportunity for arranging a permanent explanation.
Seibert seemed peculiarly susceptible to any explanation that involved
sickness. Dr. Lemaitre's anger in departing but a few hours previously
would sufficiently account for his not returning, though seemingly
sent for. Seibert might be greatly troubled in mind by the coincidence
of Paullen's disappearance--or, rather, second disappearance, as he
left the hillside at a most significant time--but upon Paullen's
reappearance most of the props would be automatically knocked from
under the suspicions.

McGuire ran in the heavy, flat-footed way that seamen have of running,
especially those who dislike running as much as he disliked it; and the
fall of his feet on the slippery gravel sounded to him very loud in the
hot noonday stillness.

Then, as he passed before the great wide portal through which the
driveway entered the central barn, his attention was attracted by a
sound within, and, without intending to pause, he swung his head to one
side.

In a glance at the shadowed space within he saw the silhouette of a
slim, restive horse shying from a small man who stood on a box and
struggled under a saddle.

McGuire stopped abruptly, then turned and dashed into the building with
a muffled shout that was very like an oath.

"What are you up to?" he demanded angrily of the little Tono, who had
slipped his bandage high on his forehead that he might have the use of
both his small, sly eyes. McGuire knew what Tono was doing, and swore
at him.

Tono had looked around, startled.

The horse shied off, jerking at the halter, which had been tied to one
of the posts, and so Tono was left apart on the box that he had used
to increase his height so that he might swing the saddle with greater
ease. It was a woman's saddle. Oreena would use no other.

"Get that saddle out of sight and the horse back in the corral!"

Tono answered excitedly in protest.

"Do as I tell you!" McGuire shouted menacingly, swinging up over his
shoulder.

Tono, clinging to the saddle and still on his box, protested
frantically. McGuire had spoken to him in English, and he replied:

"Misi fafine say bring horse queek! Misi fafine and Misi Paullum go
queek or old Seibel catch 'um! _Bang-bang_, like that they hear him.
Damn horse no good stand still. Pilisi help--old Seibel catch 'um!"

"Idiots!" said McGuire, seeing how their flight would disarrange his
schemes; and with that he jerked on the saddle, to which Tono held
desperately. Tono was worthless, and stupid, and insolent, but he had
loyalty to Oreena; which was queer, considering that she always treated
him better than he deserved.

McGuire kicked the box from under him and jerked the saddle away as
Tono was falling; then, with a hasty glance all about for the place
where it would most likely remain out of sight, he threw it into one of
the deep mangers.

"What corral's this horse out of?" McGuire demanded, already untying
the halter.

Oreena was supposed to be ill; at least to be suffering from a terrible
shock; and if Seibert caught sight of either her horse or saddle he
might do more than merely wonder, in that stupid, blank-faced way of
his, as when a thing seemed pretty much of a puzzle. He might ask
questions in his direct, towering, harsh way, and be difficult to
satisfy.

"What corral, pig-born?"

Tono pointed vaguely. His voice was almost a sob as he said, even more
vaguely than he pointed, "Out there."

"Here, then, take him back. Quick! Hear me, you lizard egg! Why,
you--what's the matter with you?"

Tono had edged off warily as the halter end was held out to him, then,
getting between McGuire and the doorway, he turned and ran as if for
his life.

McGuire stood for a moment in wondering anger looking at the small form
dashing down the drive; then he turned to the horse, still nervous from
the unwonted excitement that Tono had shown, and now also sensitively
shy of having a stranger hold the halter.

McGuire's first impulse had been simply to stop Oreena from the
madness of a galloping flight, which would have been an irremediable
confession; but then he had realised that Seibert was almost certain
to come out through this building. The whole arrangement of buildings
and corrals had been made with this one for the central entrance and
egress, and also it would be directly on his way to the house.

Seibert would be persistently inquisitive and difficult to put off
about a horse--any horse, particularly Oreena's--being where it did not
belong. The best that McGuire could think of was to lead the horse into
the first corral and turn it loose. It would then be far enough from
the stable that, whatever else might be thought, Seibert could not very
well imagine that anybody had been about to go for a ride.

The sensitive animal did not like being led by a stranger, whom even a
dull and stupid horse could have told instantly was no horseman; and it
held back stubbornly, pulling against McGuire's arms, just as if aware
of its mistress's needs and wanting to serve her faithfully.

The day was hot, with no wind to make a draught through the air that
had been baked under the thatch; this, and McGuire's nervousness,
brought out the sweat, and it trickled down the sides of his face. The
heat distilled the pungent stable odours, so that they seemed simmering
together, the warm animal smells mingling with those of leather and
wood and hay; and through it all--subtle, distinct, even heavy, and
ofttimes sickening, as if slightly poisonous, as it was also nearly
irresistibly alluring--jungle smell. It was there, in the stable,
though Seibert might point to the far fringe of bush as the nearest
approach that the jungle had to his grounds.

The horse, with slow, hesitant step and neck out-thrust reluctantly
against the halter's pull, then followed him, but moved with timidity,
as if being taken through this building for the first time.

McGuire took a deeper breath as he and the horse left the stable and
entered the wagon yard. Off to the right he saw a bamboo gate, locked
by a cross bar, and pulling the horse along between two wagons he came
to the gate and peered through. The pen was small and empty. It would
do.

He opened the gate and led the horse in, then unsnapped the rope from
the halter ring while the horse held its head high, as if afraid of his
hands; but when the rope was off the animal turned quietly away, as if
with disdain.

McGuire hurried out and slammed the gate shut, throwing the bar into
place. He bolted between the wagons and turned toward the stable.

"Ho-ho! McGuire!"

Seibert called to him through a gate that he had just begun to open at
a far side of the wagon yard. His voice was angry.

McGuire had the sensation of having been detected in something
shameful, and the thought came to him to keep on running; but that
would have been stupid; so he stopped and faced about.

Seibert came through the gate and strode up rapidly, swaying the whip
with the mere motion of his arms as they swung in the energy of his
stride. His face was flushed, and the look in his eyes was severe, yet
somehow abstract.

"A fool dog left a gate open and a stallion got in among work horses!
Or'na mare that I had there is gone. If my hand is not on these dogs'
necks they do everything wrong."

The whip whistled significantly as it swung up and was brought down,
sharply striking the leather of his boots. He grunted heavily, then:

"If it had been Bismarck I would have had two dead horses maybe. That
damn Tono, I bet. If he took Or'na mare to ride I'll make him tie more
rags on himself, where my boot hits!"

He kicked illustratively, with a swinging blow that would have
dislodged Tono's soul from his small body.

"Oh-ho! There she is!"

His eyes, sharp as a ferret's at anything connected with the stables
and work, had detected the mare through the interstices of the bamboo
fence back of the wagons.

McGuire, looking in the same direction, could hardly see the horse,
and he wondered if Seibert, after all, had not seen him put her there;
or if Seibert really could, with so meagre a glimpse, distinguish the
animal's identity. But McGuire was no horseman. As a sailor, however,
he could have made out the rig of a vessel so far distant that Seibert
would have seen but a dot of shimmering white.

Seibert went to the gate and opened it. He called almost
good-naturedly, "Ho, Magga! What you do in here, you bad girl?"

The horse came up to him, putting forward her slender ears, and with
neck outstretched the moist nostrils quivered inquisitively at the
extended gloved hand.

At that instant McGuire thought that he heard the far-off pounding of
hoofs; and he listened; but then he could hear nothing. He glanced
toward Seibert, but he had heard nothing, and, stroking Magga's velvet
nose, looked her over, first on one side and then the other. Seeing
that she was all right, he gave her cheek a parting slap, turned, and
left the corral. Magga followed him to the gate and nuzzled peeringly
through.

"Funny something I don't understand," he said, more to himself than to
McGuire. "Magga can't jump in there." He shook his head in puzzlement.

Then to McGuire: "You got lost, heh? Try to find me over there? I like
so many gates and pens. Some day they will be all full. Yes."

An arm went out, circling vaguely, wheeling round and round after what
he had said seemed to have left his mind. Then they resumed their walk
toward the house.


5

Not an insect peeped or bird moved. Their feet crunched on the gravel;
and there was no other sound but this, and the faint gurgle of running
water in the tiny rivulet that Seibert had brought down from the
springs on the side of the hill back of his house, and wound around and
down through the grounds over mossy boulders and through fern beds; and
even this was like the wordless babble of an idiot child.

As they came round the foliage and in sight of the house McGuire felt
that something--and he could not instantly think what--was missing. He
took several steps behind Seibert's suddenly lengthened and hurried
strides before he realised what had now and silently agitated him.
Bismarck was gone!

On the veranda Lalua awaited their coming.

McGuire hastily rehearsed the parts he had intended should be played.
After all, what more natural than that Paullen, when the physician
was needed at once, should have taken the first horse at hand? Much
depended, of course, on the severity of the illness. He would see to it
that one of those girls was near to death.

He noticed--and was touched by a little apprehension--that Seibert,
who usually gave aloud some statement or fragment of his thought at
anything out of the ordinary, was now wordless, with an air of almost
dogged silence. With remarkable ease for one of his size and weight,
he walked rapidly, driving his heels into the ground so that there was
hardly a tinkling scrape of the spurs on the gravel.

They cut across the smooth lawn, straight for the veranda steps; and
as they approached Lalua raised a long, slim, bare arm and pointed,
her eyes following her hand, along the driveway that led out to the
road. Her arm remained extended, then her eyes fell on Seibert's face,
and she did not speak as she had intended, but remained silent and
motionless. Her hair was loose on her shoulders. Like an impassive dark
oracle maiden, gowned in white muslin, she stood amid the blue pillars,
pointing a message that she did not dare put into words.

McGuire, anxiously beginning his rle, shouted at her, "Who is sick?"

Lalua slowly dropped her arm, and, moving her steady eyes toward him,
answered quietly, "Many are near death!"

Then he, rapidly in Samoan, told her to say that it was Oreena, and
that Paullen had been sent for the doctor.

She replied calmly, "Too late. Too late."

Again lifting her arm, she pointed with tragic immobility along the
drive that led to the road that went to Pulotu; and when she had said
two or three words more, McGuire knew that it was so, and that he had
come too late for any of his petty, artful scheming. The tragedy had
been lifted, as if by a destiny impatient at his interference with
stop-gap artifices and twistings and concealment, and placed beyond the
reach of meddling fingers and tongue. In the midst of the heat and his
sweating, McGuire turned cold.

Seibert, striding on in dogged preoccupation, had not been touched into
attentiveness by Lalua's pose or words or tone. The psychic whisperings
that tragedy ofttimes gives at the threshold of its scene may have
reached him, so that he had not time to pause for what a servant might
say; besides, Bismarck was gone.

His spurs were clanking down the veranda before McGuire reached it.
Lalua put out a hand to McGuire to have him pause, but he pushed her
hand aside and followed Seibert.

Seibert went around the house and entered through the screen door he
had broken that morning. He stepped from the hot sunlight into the
shaded room, and was for a moment unable to see anything distinctly.

"Or'na! Or'na, where are you? Or'na, here, I want you!"

Something very like a woman's sob came from within the still house.
There was a hesitant stirring of the curtains of the inner doorway,
then Nada came in.

McGuire, peering through the screen with both hands cupped at the side
of his face to shut out the light behind him, could see that her dark
eyes were anxiously observant of Seibert, regarding him doubtfully and
steadily; and her features were drawn and tense and tired, like the
countenance of one who is greatly troubled by a fear that she must not
show.

Seibert stood in the middle of the room. He demanded, "Where is Or'na?"

"Oh! Then Lalua did not tell you! I--I asked her to."

"Where is Or'na?"

Nada spoke with feverish haste. "Oh, don't follow them! Let them go!
You said--you said that you would love me! You said that you did love
me! Let them go! I am here. I will remain! They are gone--and you--you
do love me, don't you?"

"Oreena gone?"

He stood with his face turned toward the inner doorway, as if believing
that she must come. The tone of his voice, the expectant manner of his
standing, his whole aspect, had such an air of hopefulness, and was so
entirely devoid of rage, that Nada slowly drew away from him with hands
uplifted to her cheeks, her eyes growing wider and wider. She cried,
half breathless: "Why, why, you--you love her!" Then Nada seemed to
answer herself with a long-drawn "Oh-o!"

"Yes. Yes!" Seibert shouted, misunderstanding the pain in her cry. He
spoke with gusty roughness, while he waved his hands. "You--I was sorry
for you. You told me you were all lonesome and felt like dying. Should
I say, 'No, you--I hate you!' No. But I love my wife, my little wife.
Of course I love my wife. She is my wife. What kind of man you think I
am not to love my wife? I was sorry. For you I was sorry. It was just
that. All this"--a gloved hand swept in a circle--"I get for Or'na. You
think I get all this if I don't love her?" From the couch he lifted
the discarded blue gown. "This--ah! never this will be worn again!"

He crumpled it between his hands and jerked them apart. It snapped in
two like tissue paper. He tossed the pieces to the couch indifferently.

Then he gave a start, pricked by a new hope. "It is not so! Or'na has
not gone. Or'na! Or'na! She is hiding here. She is afraid. Or'na!
Little Or'na, do not be afraid. Oreena, come!"

"No," said Nada, greatly pitying. "No, Mr. Seibert. She has gone."

"But her horse Magga is at the stable! How can she be gone?"

"On Bismarck!"

"_Gott!_ She on---- That brute he will kill her! Quick, I must have a
horse and----"

"No, no, no!" Nada screamed desperately, fearing his pursuit. "Not
alone. They went on him together. Paullen, too!"

Seibert paused with an air of stupid helplessness, his thick face
remaining almost expressionless while the incredible fact seeped into
the tissues of his brain.

Then, excitably, he shouted, "They will be killed! That brute, his
mouth is iron! Bismarck, he is a devil! They ride him that way--he will
know what they are doing and kill them! Ah, my Oreena to do that thing!
My little Oreena!"

"No, Mr. Seibert. She thought that you loved me!" said Nada, pleading
desperately for her sister.

"That is a lie!" he shouted, turning on her as if with menace. "She
knew it was not so. I told her how I took you in my arms like a little
child that is lonesome. I told her you should have a fine boy like that
John Paullen to love you, and I would keep him here for you. Oh, it is
hard to think now!"

"You told her--_that!_" Nada cried, beginning to feel the harrowing
effects of disillusionment in a sister that she had sacrificed for and
loved too well. She now saw how unspeakably treacherous Oreena had
been, not only to Seibert, but to Nada herself; and to Paullen, in
creating the false fear of her husband. To Nada the world now seemed
turning with sickening wobble, and, putting one hand to her eyes, she
groped dizzily with the other for something to support her. Coming
against the wall, she leaned there as if stricken with blindness; but
in a last weak, protesting defence of her sister, Nada cried:

"But she did not know you loved her. She did not understand
your--your--love."

"Ah, so she did not know I love," he repeated heavily, his feet wide
apart, his big arms folded across his breast. "Why would I marry her?
She brought me no money, no land, nothing but one horse. It made her
father gabble-gabble about me every place. He said I stole her from
him. Why would I steal her when she had nothing, if I don't love her,
heh? She is no fool. She knows that. Why I have all these things from
my Germany to make her happy? You tell me that. I buy everything that
she can want. I think her more beautiful than a little flower. I never
hurt her. I would not hurt her now. But that John Paullen----"

Without the least motion of temper or haste in the movement, Seibert
reached over, and, deliberately picking up the statuette of the dreamy
shepherd boy, snapped off the head and tossed it carelessly to the
floor. Then he broke the torso in two and dropped the pieces.

He seemed hardly aware of what he was doing, as if his hands moved
through the pantomime of tragedy while his thought was elsewhere; but,
now that the powerful hands had felt the joy of breaking one fragile
object, they were like hungry things, and groped destructively.

He walked to the mirror, picked up one of the colourful little
Gretchens, snapped her head and feet, and dropped the fragments as
one drops the peel of an orange. He did the same with the other. His
wandering glance fell downward to the gnome faces. He raised a spurred
heel and kicked off the bulbous tongues, one after the other; and the
rowel made deep scratches on the polished wood.

There was no blind anger about it, no ferment of temper, no appearance
of temper at all, but a methodical impassivity. Not as if he was
relieving his feelings or expressing passion, but it was as if he was
deliberately destroying what was no longer of value, and which, if it
remained as it was, would be in the way.

With the same air of calm destructiveness he drew back a gloved fist
and smote the mirror. Many cracks instantly converged on the silver
surface, as if a small bomb had burst before the glass and the image of
the explosion remained.

"Oh, no, don't! You mustn't!" Nada protested, seeing what he meant to
do.

"Why should I not throw away things that are no more wanted?"

"Oh, don't! She may come back to you!"

"To me? No, never. When it is done here, the flowers, the shrubs, the
very trees that were hers will I chop down!"

As he spoke he reached for the cuckoo clock, and, putting a finger
through the small door of the little bird-house, drew out the bird,
tore it loose, and cast it indifferently to the floor; then he crushed
the clock between his hands and threw the wreckage aside.

"When I am done nothing will be left in this room," he said, his voice
oddly quiet; and he put out his hands to the window curtains.


6

The afternoon was almost gone, but the heat remained, and with a
myriad little mouths seemed sucking at everything. The begonia vines
had closed their flowers, folding the edges tightly inward like the
tight crumpling of a baby's fist; the banana palms drooped, as if with
sadness; unwatered patches of lawn were baked into a lifeless brown.

Now shadows had begun to cast themselves far east-ward across the
ground, and a faintly purplish transparency hung about the hills. In
another hour it would be night.

Nada and McGuire for a long time had been standing in the gloomy, hot
shade of a banyan. They were not hiding, yet with some suggestion of
furtiveness they were obscured among the sunless, distorted branches,
though here, too, the sun's heat had been wilting.

Nada now reached out, nervously touching McGuire's arm, reassuring
herself of his companionship, as she had done unconsciously before
while they watched, peering from amid the twisted, misshapen trunks,
like many crutches and props upholding the sprawling growth of the
great tree.

"I am so sorry for him," she said. "Oreena really did not know there
was love like his here for her!"

"I doubt if he knew it himself."

"But why, oh, why is he doing that! I understand perfectly why he
destroyed all those little personal things of hers; but here--how he
must suffer in doing all this now. He loves all this so!"

"He has to do the thing that hurts him most. Pain stops in one place if
you make a bigger pain somewhere else."

"But he is so calm about it!" she said.

"Men that are knocked half dead are always calm."

"But how can he do it, Dan? How can he?"

"He's trying to cure one ache with another, I told you. Besides, it's
the pride that's gone out of him. The woman preferred another man.
Seibert was full of pride. No man is proud after his wife runs away."

"Did you have any idea he really loved Oreena so?"

McGuire nodded.

"How could you know?"

"I saw him when he lifted her off the floor this morning--like a casket
that held all his treasures."

"Don't be ironical, please. Not at a time like this. Oh-o-o!"

As she looked a party of naked blacks, glistening with sweat and oil,
some ten or twelve of them, with big long cane knives in their hands,
went with a rush at a clump of banana-palms. They struck rapidly, like
eunuchs massacring a faithless harem, then passed on, trampling over
the prostrate foliage. Seibert marched behind, directing them.

The grounds looked as though wind, locusts, and lightning had passed.
Seibert, as dispassionately as if clearing off herbage that was in
the way of his plans, was chopping, uprooting, trampling, destroying
everything that had any particular association in his mind with the
woman that had gone away. She had stood by him when the banana suckers
were planted, so down came the clump; he had seen her reaching up to
pluck the grape-like purple clusters of wistaria, so the vine was
felled; a favourite idling-place of Oreena's had been under the lacy
foliage of a great iron-wood beside the little rivulet, so this tree
of valued beauty had been cut down. It fell with a wide-branched crash
across shrubs and palms and ferns. Whole beds of flowers were uprooted,
and thrown, wilting, in piles, to be carried off and mixed with compost
heaps, as fertiliser.

Nada read the signs of the waning day, and felt that she should have
gone long before. "Dan, I _must_ go home. Will you ask for a horse, or
shall I?'

"I'll ask. He'll give you Magga--if he doesn't shoot her."

"Don't say that. He wouldn't do that."

"Are you sure that you want to go home? Penwenn's still on earth. The
world's been turning so fast you forget you are only twenty hours from
last night's wild scene."

"Would you have me stay here?" she asked, knowing very well that he
wouldn't.

"There's no telling what Oreena's been saying. You had better hurry
along and contradict her. Whatever she has told, you may know it isn't
true."

"I can't believe that she has meant to do wrong. I really can't."

"You know that you can and do believe it."

"Really, I try not to. That would make her awfully wicked; and she
isn't awfully wicked."

"You'll never again find anybody that's half the trouble-maker she is."

"Life, just being alive, begins to seem a terrible thing, Dan. Look how
many people are unhappy right here among our lives on the island--and
no one is happy, not a person we know of. It isn't fair. When anyone
cries, someone near by should be laughing!"

They had waited until no one was in sight, and they were now walking
toward the house. By their path were pulled plants and fallen shrubs,
that lay wilted like things that had died in agony; as perhaps they
had. One orange tree, the finest of the two or three that it stood
with, was down and dead; its leaves already crisp, as the penalty of
having furnished blossoms for Oreena's hair on her wedding-night. It
was the tree that Seibert had pointed out to McGuire and Paullen as a
special pride.

"How cruel! Oh, how cruel!"

"Yes; but it's all self-torture," said McGuire.

They had not gone far when they saw Seibert coming toward them, alone.
They could not turn aside, retreat, or go on, without being seen; and
though there was no reason for not being seen, yet they did not want it
to appear that they had been watching. They stood still, expecting that
he would avoid them.

He walked slowly, with his hands behind him and his head up; but he
looked down from side to side at the wreckage he had made. A little
while before he had dismissed the blacks, sending them to their final
and routine chores about the stables and pens. When he saw Nada and
McGuire he quickened his step and came directly to them.

"Ah, my friends"--an arm wandered about in crippled gesticulation--"the
way to forget is to begin all over with it. I would not be a man"--the
fist of his wandering arm came against his chest--"if I could not tear
her out as I tear all this out." A hand roamed vaguely in the direction
of uprooted bulb flowers. "I put those there for her. I throw 'em
away--huoof!" He tossed his hands.

There was no heartiness in the words or gesture. He was boasting,
making the best of what was not only a loss, but a disgrace; yet his
face wore an air of heaviness, the countenance was inflexible and
mask-like, but in this case transparent as glass.

He was trying to be the same Seibert, to show himself unbeaten and
unbeatable; the whole passion and pride of his life was in that, and
his affected heartiness, cheerfulness, his intrusive air of success
and insistent boastings, were not so much to deceive others as to
keep himself in the rle. There must be no weakening, no letting down
for a minute though coffee trees refused to bear, though tobacco was
too bitter, though rain spoiled the cane and mildew the grain, though
the blacks took to the bush, and Oreena ran away with a boy he had
befriended.

"No matter what happens"--as his old and often mocked boast went--"no
matter what happens, nothing can happen enough to beat me!"

Seibert showed that he wanted their company, though perhaps it was not
their own so much as company; and he continued talking with a kind
of false energy, pointing here and there, saying what he would do
with this terrace, and why this rock wall was to be brought farther
along. He appeared the same, yet seemed changed. There were all the
Seibert mannerisms, smoothed a little by what might have been mistaken
for physical weariness; and this was about all that externally could
be detected. A more sensitive perception would have realised that
something important was wrong.

He had suddenly lost his point of contact with the only intimate
relationship in his life, and he felt bare and solitary. He was lonely;
the very way he talked showed that he was trying to engage their
attention, to hold their presence; he did not want them to go. When
McGuire spoke of a horse for Nada, he said, "Of course. Ah, surely. She
must go home."

But both Nada and McGuire disliked to go and leave him alone. He had
not uttered a word of self-pity nor a word of blame for anybody;
and the nearest he had come to a threat was when, at the mention of
Paullen's name, he had broken the shepherd boy. McGuire knew that
when they were gone Seibert would have no one to talk with--scarcely
even a servant. McGuire had seen the two Chinamen shuffling down the
road, casting wary glances across their shoulders, and with bundles
on their backs, like refugees making off. Nada had overheard the
house-girls saying that they would go just as soon as they could get
away unperceived.

With Seibert walking slightly ahead, with that unconscious air of
weariness talking and pointing, they returned to the house together. No
one was in sight. Seibert did not know that the house had been deserted
by those who fly from the shadow of disaster; for heathens and such
believe that it bodes ill to remain near an unlucky man.

Seibert the unlucky tramped heavily on the veranda, and dropped
heavily, too, on a porch couch, put aside his hat, puffed, and with
cheerless cheerfulness said, "Such a day! Such a day it has been! It
began last night with that Penwenn fellow. But when everything gets so
bad it can't be worse, then things begin over again, getting better.
You knew Paullen. You both knew that Paullen. What you think made him
do a thing like that?"

He looked from Nada to McGuire, his gaze intently questioning. He had
asked as he might have asked if Paullen had stolen a horse, a sum of
money, something that of itself had been incapable of encouraging him
in the theft.

Nada gave a sharp, sidelong glance at McGuire, then looked down and
turned her head aside. McGuire, after a hesitant second or two, really
deciding whether or not to do it, then said, "Probably because she
encouraged him!"

Instantly Seibert was on his feet, shouting, "That is a lie! You know
that is a lie!" For a moment it looked as though he might seize McGuire
and crush him, break him, as he had broken the statuette. "I will not
have it that you talk of my wife so!" He glowered steadily.

McGuire was unafraid; not so much from courage as because he knew
that Seibert held in his temper with the same mastery that he handled
horses. There was no danger.

And the outburst ended weakly with Seibert saying in a sudden drop of
tone, "She is my wife."

"But you said you wouldn't have her back," McGuire remarked quietly.

"I won't, sure I won't. But I won't have her talked about like that.
No!"

He drove his fist to palm and stared aggressively at McGuire, then sat
down again, and for a time was motionless.

Presently he looked up, vaguely attentive, listening; then McGuire,
too, became aware of a sound that he had been hearing for some time
without noticing. The canaries with long, sharp, insistent cries were
complaining. They now hopped from pole to pole across their cage, at
every jump calling out in querulous protest.

"_Ach!_ they are in troubles, too."

He got up slowly and walked to them; then, pulling the cage down on its
spring so that the floor of it was on a line with his eyes, looked in.
They had been given no water, seed, or greens this day.

He went to the door and called, then stood expectantly waiting for an
answer. Always, promptly, his voice had been answered in his own house.
Now no one answered. He called again and was not answered. The canaries
continued their plaint.

Shadows still lurked stealthily out in the grounds, like great
crouching bats waiting to take flight in the darkness; but shadows and
gloom had filled the house. Night was at hand.

Seibert returned to the cage, lowered it from the spring and hook, and
was again going to the door when Nada darted forward and pulled it from
his hands.

"I'll attend to them," she said, and disappeared with the cage. From
within the darkness of the room, as she passed through, there came back
the thin, shrill, long-drawn, half-frightened and half-indignant cry of
the birds, still hopping restlessly from pole to pole.

Seibert came back to where McGuire sat on the rail and stopped. His
hat was off, showing the bald forehead and closely-cropped head,
increasing the roundness of his face. But in the dusk his features
took on a bronze-like appearance; he stood in the faint obscurity of
twilight, massive and unshakable, like something moulded. Opening a
broad blue handkerchief, he wiped away the sweat, then, as he wadded
the handkerchief into his hand, he demanded abruptly, "You tell me the
truth now. She did give Gauro that rifle. I see now how it was. Look
here"--he reached the hat from the couch and thrust it almost into
McGuire's face--"how close it did come. One inch and I would not be
here. But Paullen he would be here! Hausen, he told me the truth, but I
am glad I whipped him hard just the same."

"Hausen lied from first to last."

"But them together, Gauro saw that. That was the truth. Hausen, he told
me that."

"Do you think Gauro would know your wife by sight from Nada? Not a bit
of it! He didn't know who Paullen was with. Hausen guessed, and, as it
happened, he guessed right."

"But that rifle----"

"Gauro said a servant, from your own house, brought it to him. It was
not Oreena. He did not say it was Oreena. He said it was not Oreena.
Hausen is a liar."

"Who?" Seibert stood in an attitude of dazed staring. "Who would do
that?"

"He did not say. You shot him before he said. Hausen wanted him shot so
there would be no chance of having his own lies contradicted."

"One of my servants want me killed?" he said vaguely. He appeared
deeply hurt, though his face remained almost expressionless.

Before either could say anything more a white presence emerged with
shadow-like gliding through the gloom.

Lalua said, "You called, master?"

Her unexpected appearance, the barefoot quietness with which she
approached, the strange feeling in her simple words, together with the
darkness from which she emerged and the misty gloom in which she stood,
a tall, slender figure in flowing white, caused Seibert to gaze at her
blankly; and also he was wondering which of the household girls could
have wished for his death.

"The canaries, they had nothing to eat this day," he said.

"Malama, whose care they were, is gone."

"Gone? Why's Malama gone? She got no money. I owe her money. She has
run away. Ah-ho! Malama she hated me? Is that it? It was Malama!"

"All have gone but I."

"All gone--where?" he asked dully, unable to comprehend.

"Away from here, master."

"Tulla?"

"Gone, sir."

"Sin Loo?"

"Yes, sir."

"Lu Lung, too?"

"Yes, master."

"That damn Tono?"

"He, too, is gone."

"Then why have you stayed? What are you doing here if everybody must
run off?"

"To cook your supper this night. Your breakfast and dinner and supper
to-morrow. And the day that follows. And all the days that follow."

"You stay here to cook?" He was deeply puzzled.

"I was in the kitchen when you called. The kitchen is far away."

Seibert regarded her uncomprehendingly. He did not at all recognise,
and would not have understood had he recognised, the truly Oriental
self-abasement in her devotional passion. All that he knew was that
for some obscure reason all the servants had made off, but for some
more obscure reason this one had remained--to cook. In the dusk she
looked more like a priestess than ever. Seibert stared at her for a few
moments, then looked away, but with her image still in his thoughts.

Lalua retreated two or three steps, then turned and departed as
noiselessly as she had come.

"_Ach!_ at least she did not do it," he said hoarsely.

McGuire watched her go. The form lost outline almost at once, then
the white of her dress merged into the darkness with a kind of slow,
ghostly vanishment.

Earlier in the afternoon he had learned from Lalua that she had been
the child-wife of a Santa Cruz trader, and that her mother's father had
been a Chinaman.

"Then it was not my Or'na?" he asked hopefully, making assurance doubly
sure.

"It was not. Gauro was drunk and muddled. Much he said was not clear,
but that much was."

"I will believe that," Seibert pronounced heavily. He then sat down,
placing his elbows on his knees, and gazed wearily into the darkness.


7

Seibert was struck with amazement when he went into the dining-room.
The room was ablaze with light. There were two lamps on the table. One
of brass swung from the ceiling, and this had been polished until it
glittered like the noon sun's ray on still water. Two or three other
lamps had been placed about the room. Fresh, crisp linen, fragrant with
the odour of sandalwood, had been spread on the table. Sparkling silver
from the chest, that was seldom opened except when naval officers were
guests, glittered in the lamplight, and the glass ware shone. The room
was filled with flowers.

"Why, like a celebration it looks!" Seibert exclaimed blankly.

McGuire smiled cryptically, and looked away to avoid the steady gaze of
Lalua, who stood quietly by the wall, waiting.

"You do all this yourself? Why, Lalua?"

She answered slowly, looking directly into his face, "With the wish to
please you, my master."

Seibert made a heavy, inarticulate sound, very like a grunt, and looked
about a little uncertainly. He did not know what she meant.

He sat in his big arm-chair at the head of the table, dropping himself
into it with an air of collapse, and leaned forward across an elbow,
looking from one thing to another. When she had gone he addressed
McGuire, and vaguely explained, "She did it all herself. She thought
I wouldn't feel so bad with all these lights and this----" He waggled
a hand over the silver. "She is a good girl, Lalua is. But she can't
know this all is worse than just steel knives and bare board. _Ach!_
those pretty lily flowers! I pulled up the whole bed. Or'na liked them
for her hair. Poor Or'na. It is like she was dead." Suddenly, with a
groping gesture about the room: "And all this is like somebody was glad
she was dead."

He ate everything that was put before him, eating with a steady,
untasting, preoccupied movement of the jaws, casting his eyes about
from one object to another like a stranger in an odd place. There had
been no dinner; he was now not particularly aware of hunger, but the
emptiness of his big body allowed him to eat on and on; and anything
that dissolved with chewing was about the same as any other.

Nada had gone into the kitchen and stayed there, helping. She felt that
Lalua, being merely an ordinary low-caste native, hadn't realised how
as if for a feast she had adorned the room; but it had been fine of her
to make the effort to relieve Seibert's gloomy evening.

In the house the air heated during the day had not been stirred at all
by the evening breeze which crossed the island shortly after sunset
like the breath of life, issuing forth to vitalise a stricken world.
More than that, there were five lamps in the room, throwing out warmth
enough to have taken the edge off a frosty morning. The flowers drooped
even before the dinner they were there to enhance was finished; it was
as if they were dispirited by being so inappropriately festive, and
bent their blooms in shame.

Seibert perspired, but did not notice the heat. There was something
prodigious about him, something of the grossness and size and capacity
legend attributes to the old Teutons, massive in build, inordinate in
thirst, boastful in peace, masterful in war. He ate with his elbows
spread out on the table and made masticatory sounds. He never drank
a single glass of water, but always two or three, and these often,
pouring them down absent-mindedly.

He was coarse-grained, but he was sentimental, at times preposterously
so, almost grotesque; but, in spite of it all, he did have an air of
dignity, often disconcerting in its unexpected forcefulness.

Once that he had begun to talk he continued without effort, and
apparently with no desire to say anything in particular. It often
happens that under a shock memory opens; and people who have been
touched by tragedy, like those who have reached old age, look backwards.

Seibert and McGuire were alone. Out of a long silence Seibert said,
"Once, when I was a little boy, I was walking on the road to market.
I saw a woman under the willow trees by a little stream, and she was
crying. Because I was such a little boy she seemed an old woman. I
asked her what was the matter. She said her husband had gone with a
woman and now she had nothing to eat. I had some pennies, and I put
them in her hand. She threw all my pennies away in the grass. She said,
'Go away and leave me! I want to starve. I want to die wretched. Then
maybe he will be sorry.'

"When I went home I told the old gardener, my master, and he said,
'That is love, Adolph. It is a very bad thing, that love. Having it is
almost as bad as not having it, which is the worst thing in the world.'"

Seibert spoke of his childhood, and of how he had been pulled off a
straw bed every morning at four o'clock and put to work. Once he fell
asleep in the greenhouse, and lay right across a box of fine begonias
he was in the act of transplanting. He crushed and broke all of the
brittle plants. He was slapped and kicked into wakefulness before he
had any kind of a nap. He was fined, too, for destructiveness.

Seibert laughed a little in relating this, and said that he had been
treated right. Hadn't hurt him, had it? No. Helped to make him a man.
Then in the old, familiar way he straightened his shoulders, putting
forward his chest.

"Hard work it is hard to do, but what good is a loafer to himself? Weak
plants in the seed-box, we don't nurse them. That's not what a nursery
is for. We throw 'em out, like weeds. It's the fellows that stand the
heat and the drought and grow that we save and give fertiliser to.
Those other things----"

He made a gesture above the table, as if throwing away great handfuls
of weeds and weaklings.

The lamplight beat on his big, red, round face, giving it the sheen of
copper. A thick elbow and arm lay on the snow-white cloth. His voice
rumbled on and on. This was perhaps the first time in his life that he
had revisited scenes of childhood and called up incidents in detail.
For him there had been no father and no mother that he remembered. He
did not appear to feel that this had been a loss. Quite unconsciously
he had the attitude that everything that had been hard had been good
for him--the harder the better. When very young he decided that he
would be a big planter in the tropics, and for years he had worked in
botanical gardens, studying tropical agriculture; and studying English,
because he had heard that English was the traders' tongue of the South
Seas. He had come, and he had done everything as he had planned. Work
was what counted. To give in, to quit, to be beaten--that was the
crime. But patience must be had, and the long look ahead.

McGuire sat back drowsily, watching rather than listening.

Presently he became aware of a sound coming along the veranda; it
seemed a cautious shuffle, not quite furtive, a little doubtful, but
drawing nearer and nearer with two scraping steps and a pause, two
steps and a pause.

Seibert was engrossed in talking, and he heard nothing until the uneven
footsteps were right at his door; he then stopped in the middle of a
sentence and gazed at the doorway.

It was dark outside, very bright within, and the screen of the door
kept the light from casting itself through. They knew that someone was
standing close by, but could make out only the merest shadow of a form.

"What is it you want?" Seibert demanded gruffly, with a strong
suggestion of menace.

_Scrape-scrape_, and old Tom Combe appeared against the screen,
pressing his face almost against it. He seemed more like an apparition
than a person, both because of the glow filtering through the screen
and because of his dull eyes and saddened face, the droop and sag of
shoulders and body.

Seibert gave a vague exclamation, something between a cough and a "Ho!"
and said, "Come in, Combe."

Combe cleared his throat a time or two, pulled the screen door open for
an inch--scarcely more--as if making sure that it really would open;
then he came in. He scraped his feet, and one lean, thin hand nervously
twitched at his beard. His blue eyes were dull as a corpse's and as
steady, which was unusual, for his gaze generally shifted and wandered
about when he talked with anyone. He wore a long black, rusty coat,
with uneven perforations on the breast where the moths had eaten. The
sleeves were too long. He seldom wore a coat of any kind; and this gave
him an odd appearance, as if he had tried to dress up. Something was
wrong. Everyone knew that Combe's head was not just right, and that at
times it appeared to be growing more and more unsettled.

"What it is you want?" Seibert asked harshly, as he might have asked of
a stranger.

Combe worked his jaw and lips with a sort of masticating movement, as
if loosening up the muscles of his mouth before trying to speak; then:
"I come to see you about what you've done to my girls!"

The voice was high, thin, angry.

"What's wrong, Tom?" McGuire shouted; but his voice seemed to have no
access to Combe's consciousness. He stared at Seibert, as if he was
afraid that if his eyes wandered or dropped they would not again be
able to find him. There was a queer desperation about his helplessness,
and his addled head was filled with what Oreena had told him.


8

Bismarck had not killed the runaway lovers. He had carried them at a
gallop up the long grades and down hill, across the ravine, and on the
level he pounded the gravel from the road as water flies at the splash
of falling rocks; but when they reached Combe's house, and Paullen had
tried to pull him up, the tireless brute began to circle about, to back
and to rear.

Oreena became frightened, and tried to throw herself off. Paullen,
thinking that she was falling, tried to hold her, and was himself
dragged off. Bismarck sprang aside, and galloped away with flying
stirrups pounding on his ribs.

Both Mr. Grinnell and Combe happened to be within voice-call, and
Paullen was picked up unconscious and carried into the house. He
appeared dead.

Oreena was unhurt except for scratches about her face. Her little
fingers anxiously felt along her cheek, trying to discover how badly it
was marred, while her father, beside himself with excitement, held to
her and would not take his hands away.

"What's happened? What's happened? Or'na, what's happened?" he cried
shrilly, his old, broken voice squeaking and cracking.

Paullen had been placed on a couch in the room, and he did not move.
His face was pale and lifeless, but Mr. Grinnell said the boy was only
unconscious, he thought, then had hurried off to send a messenger to
Pulotu for Dr. Lemaitre.

"Let me go, father! Let me go! I must see a mirror! Oh, it has been
terrible. I'll tell you then. Let me go. You know what an awful man
Seibert is. He tried to kill me!"

"He tried to kill ye!" shrieked old Combe. "Why? Why, Or'na, why? Was
it over him--him there?"

Combe waved a trembling arm toward Paullen, who had not stirred.

Oreena cast a hasty glance toward the motionless form.

"Father, no!" she cried. "Not what you think. I am innocent
of that! But--but, oh, father, that Dan McGuire told him that
I--I--was"--another furtively cautious glance toward the couch--"that I
was meeting John Paullen alone. And it wasn't so! Father, it wasn't so!
I _never_ met him alone!"

Combe gasped two or three times as if choking, then: "But Where's Nada?
What's Nada doin' there?"

"Nada? _She_ loves Seibert! She has tried to--father, she actually
tried to get him away from me! Oh, Seibert loves her, too! Let me go,
please! I must go, father!"

Combe held her more tightly. His trembling arms shook until it seemed
that he was shaking her, and his wrinkled old face was distorted in the
effort of trying to speak rapidly. He could hardly speak at all.

"Nada? What d'ye mean? Nada? Tell me! Tell me! What's he done to Nada?"

Oreena, with another reassuring side-glance toward Paullen, said,
"Oh, I hate to tell you, but Nada was jealous of me, the fine house
and everything! And Seibert--father, he boasted to me that Nada loved
_him_. She and that old McGuire, they worked together to----"

"Dan? What's Dan done? Tell me, Or'na! Dan's our friend. Him an'
Williams----"

She laughed with shrill bitterness. "Williams! McGuire has promised to
take Seibert where he can find Williams and catch him! Oh, father, it
has been terrible for me!"

"Or'na! It ain't so! I--I----"

"It is so!" she cried fiercely. "It is! They are all against me! And
you, you always liked her best, too!"

She dropped her head, struggling to get away from him, and cried. He
clutched her, shook her, shouted shrilly at her:

"Or'na! Or'na, you talk to me. I got to know. Or'na!"

"Please let me go. I'm hurt. Oh, I'm hurt!"

"No, you ain't hurt. I got to know. I got to know. I'm your father.
I'll go--go to Seibert myself!"

"No, no, don't! He's a terrible man! He'll kill you."

"But Nada--what's he done to Nada?"

"You always loved her best! Now all you think about is
Nada--Nada--Nada! Let me go! Let me go! You don't believe me! Oh, you
don't believe me!"

Old Combe was ready enough to believe any evil thing of Seibert, but
not of Nada--not of either of his daughters. They could do no wrong.
Now he moaned pathetically:

"Or'na, Or'na, why did you ever marry that Seibert feller? Why'd you
ever leave your poor old daddy an' marry that feller?"

Oreena was frantic, distracted, scarcely knowing what she said, wildly
defending herself with the first words that suggested themselves, not
because her father would have been a harsh judge, or in the least
unforgiving; but she wanted to appear blameless; more than that, she
wanted to make out that others had abused her, and that she was greatly
wronged.

"At first he was good to me, father. I thought I loved him. And he
said he wouldn't trouble _you_, or try to hurt you. I have tried to be
a good wife. Nobody knows how hard I have tried! I have never done a
_thing_ that he could blame me for, and----"

A low, quiet moan, as from one waking out of a bad dream, came from the
couch; but Paullen did not open his eyes or move. The sound startled
Oreena. She jumped back from her father with such suddenness and force
as to break loose, then ran to the couch, looking down anxiously.

"John! John!" she whispered. "Speak to me! John! Do you hear me?"

There was no responsive movement and no sound. Her hand fluttered out
cautiously and touched him; then she ran from the room, up the stairs,
and to her mirror.

Old Combe, shambling and mumbling to himself, went from the room;
and at once Paullen sat up, his face strained and pained with
disillusionment.

He had been unconscious but for a few minutes; and as he lay on
the couch, with his senses coming back to him, he had heard Oreena
talking. The savagery in her voice, the unfairness of emphasis, the
untruthfulness of statement, the attitude and spirit that she showed,
her cowardliness in denying her guilty love--all this together was so
revealing that Paullen, fallen from the idealisation she had evoked in
him but a few hours before at their supposedly final parting, continued
to lie motionless, with every word that she said striking like a blow,
beating to death his love of her.

For though love, with its queer and insidious windings, had brought
crooked impulses into his heart, Paullen was honest, and every fibre in
him was straight and generous. He could not forget that Seibert had
shown a generous liking for him, and he had now seen that Oreena was
miserably deceitful and unlovely. He was one of those unfortunates of
the earth who earnestly and actively want to do what is right, and who
suffer from the sense of having done something contemptible as from a
sharp and perpetual pain.

He presently disappeared, going off by himself where he could not be
questioned or urged into talking, and at last settled down gloomily in
Mr. Grinnell's little bungalow, which was at quite a distance from the
house.

Combe moved about putteringly until late in the afternoon. The
indecision that he showed about everything was not due to fear, only to
a lack of forcefulness in his character. Life had broken him, so that
he was helpless, without motive power; but now he was touched at every
point of his being by love of his daughters. As his addled old head
saw it, both of them had been injured by the same man, and this man
was a grievous, treacherous enemy. Just before nightfall he got out an
ancient, heavy pistol, greased and loaded it, and then put on an old,
long, black coat that would conceal the pistol. He went to the stable
alone and put a horse in a light two-wheeled cart; and then, without
having said a word to anybody, drove to Seibert's.


9

And now, as old Combe declared his wrongs, his voice rose to a thin
scream, cracked, broke, recovered. It was useless for him to try to
arrange his sentences, to make a carefully-planned statement. Seibert
had demanded what he wanted, and Combe, after saying that he had come
about his daughters, half gasped, half stuttered, groping for words,
then with rising frenzy cried, "You try to kill--to kill my Or'na
because you want Nada now for a wife!"

Then there was a silence, as during the first few moments that follow
an explosion. Seibert glowered, staring blankly. He seemed visibly
swelling with anger, but his face had an unfocused expression, like
that of one whose thoughts are tumbling end over end.

An idea lodged in the uppermost part of his mind, and he stood up
suddenly. He simply arose from his chair, but in doing so he pushed the
heavy teak table from him. This unconsidered movement set the dishes
rattling as if they had been stirred by an earthquake, and the forcible
shifting of the table almost overturned McGuire, chair and all, at the
other side.

Seibert flourished his fist, but shouted, "Where is my hat? You wait
till I get my hat! I show you then what she has done!"

But when he had said that he seemed left without an idea, and he did
not look for his hat, but looked at Combe, and Combe looked at him.
There was silence between them for several moments, and the moments
seemed of great length.

Then Combe spoke again, with a sort of toothless snarl:

"Where is my Nada?"

McGuire had got up. Combe had always shown an intimate liking for him;
and now McGuire put a reassuring hand on the old fellow's shoulder, and
said, "Listen, Tom. Nada is all right. She is here, and----"

Combe impatiently pulled away, with a shambling, sidewise step, at the
same time flapping his hand, as if beating McGuire off; and, making an
inarticulate noise of disgust as he screwed his old bearded face into
unspeakable detestation, said, "You--you----" his voice broke, but
went on squeakily: "You are worse 'an him!" It seemed as if he could
get no farther; it was as if the words would choke him. His anger, his
forceless agitation, the almost strangulating aversion he showed for
McGuire, almost made him speechless.

At last, with stuttering and squeaking, it came out: McGuire had made a
compact to lead Seibert to where Williams could be found. McGuire had
gone over to the enemy. Why, he had even tried to persuade Dr. Lemaitre
(who had come to Combe's that day) that Seibert was a fine man! But
that agreement to catch Williams!

His trembling arm went around the room, pointing.

"An' ye fellers celebrate together o'er it!"

"Nonsense," said McGuire, who knew the old fellow's head was not just
right. "Oreena's told you a mess of lies. It isn't true."

Seibert's fist smote the table. The dishes jumped, as if startled. "It
is true!" he cried. "Or'na did not lie. It is true! You just dare say
again, you McGuire, that Or'na lies like that!"

McGuire was nearly bowled over. He had forgotten that it was apparently
true. Seibert stood towering and massive; he glared challengingly at
McGuire, who was lanky and loosely hung.

The three of them were standing, and made no sound. Combe was
dumbfounded.

One of the lamps had begun to smoke. The black threads streamed
upwards, wavering slightly before the heat of the flame. Specks of soot
drifted through the still air and settled with exquisite lightness on
the white linen.

The first sound that came out was that of laughter---not pleasant, but
amused, impudently ironical; and as he laughed McGuire looked from
Combe, who blinked and twitched his jaw while his hands fumbled behind
him, to Seibert, glowering, puzzled, and who demanded: "It is something
funny you laugh at maybe?"

"It is," said McGuire, and he stopped laughing. "You already know,
Seibert. And if it isn't a joke there never was one in the world.
Williams is after pearls to pay you, Seibert--a debt that is owed by
you, Combe, since you fell heir to Waller's debts as well as to his
other things! Williams would surely make you pay, Tom, if you had
anything to pay with--but you haven't the money."

"Ye're lyin', Dan McGuire!"

"That I don't believe a word of," said Seibert.

"It ain't so! I know it ain't so!"

"What would he be doing something like that for when nobody makes him?"

"Ye're lyin', McGuire. By your face I c'n tell it. Ye're smilin' at us
that way!"

"You think we are fools?" demanded Seibert.

"Don't b'lieve him!" Combe cried. "It ain't so!"

"Crazy foolishness!"

McGuire leaned easily against the table, and began with detail to tell
how Brundage had found the trader Waller had helped, and how the trader
laughed and confirmed the story; and of how Williams, hoping to get his
shell into a good market, had gone to Penwenn; but, finding Penwenn
treacherous, had brought Nada home, and gone on to the pearling to do
the best he could.

But before his story was finished McGuire stopped, for outside of the
house it was growing light, as if from a premature and lurid dawn, or
the sudden bursting into flame of a volcano.

"Ho, now what is the trouble!" Seibert shouted, facing about with a
flat-footed heaviness, and standing solidly, as if to meet a physical
pressure; then, having waited that extra second or two that marks the
slow perception from the rapid, he tramped from the room with long,
hurried steps. Combe followed with a sort of bustling, shambling
patter; and McGuire, who went behind, paused with the screen door open
to look back as Lalua and Nada came running into the room; and they
followed him.


10

Fire that reached from the earth to the heavens filled the night. The
flames swayed in the breeze, and bits of burning wood streamed aloft
and fell like sparks. Familiar objects near at hand leaped into view,
half shimmering light and half dense shadow; and underneath the foliage
of the grounds shadows darted about, running forward and springing
back, restless, frantic, like strange nocturnal shapes surprised by
light and unable to find their hiding-places.

The interwoven boughs and leaves and clusters of fronds, with detail of
twig and swaying curve, and all the interstices marked by light, stood
against the sky like traceries of ink on iridescent vellum.

In the open places about the grounds it was lighter than day. The
veranda was lighted by a glare that fell from the high flames; and
their roaring, which was like a great soft mouth puffing and sucking
as it ground small, brittle bones, filled the night, repressing,
diminishing, at times almost obliterating the shouts and cries that
floated up from a distance, where the blacks had fired their quarters.

There could have been nothing but intention and concerted application
of brands in such complete engulfing suddenness of flame. Dogs barked
and howled. Then from time to time, nearer at hand, came the piercing,
thrilling, screaming neigh of frightened horses.

The faces of the persons on the veranda shone in the light, and for
a few moments they were unmoving as statues, and looked out with
something of that breathless awe that mankind has perhaps retained from
prehistoric nights for uncontrollable fire.

Then Seibert, realising that the native quarters had been fired
deliberately, smote fist in palm. It was not the loss that struck
him first. It was, How dare those dogs do such a thing! The fabric
and structure of his authority was injured. This was more than money
loss. It was rebellion. It was incredible, too, and almost as if the
very horses, cows, pigs, chickens, goats, had conspired together
and destroyed their pens and sheds. Those blacks were afraid of his
anger, yet they dared do this! It was unintelligible, baffling,
incomprehensible, as if some one of nature's laws had gone askew. This,
too, right on the very day when Gauro had been shot before their eyes
for a lesser crime.

The flying embers, tossed up by the rushing heat, swayed aloft,
shifting and whirling in the wind and dropping afar off. The thatched
buildings burned like dry leaves sprinkled with gunpowder. The flames
could not last much longer than a bonfire of paper.

A moment's slight change of wind and the ash and embers began to sift
down into the grounds; and then a new rim of flame suddenly appeared.
The stables were on fire. Whether these had been deliberately lighted,
or had caught from the falling sparks, could not be known; but here,
too, the fire leaped in many places simultaneously, but perhaps from a
shower of coals.

With a great shout of, "The horses--the horses, they will burn!"
Seibert jumped the veranda and went tearing through the flowers and
vines planted beyond. Horses had been brought up and stabled for early
work on the morrow.

McGuire, without thinking of what he did, perhaps more from the
instinct that makes one run to a fire than for any other reason,
followed.

Everything was burning. The stables, the grain rooms, the copra sheds,
the hay-stacks, all were on fire. Even the fences of the corrals had
caught fire in places. Nothing but a cloudburst could have checked the
flames, and the night was bright with stars, like little sky-flowers
strewn in the pathway of the moon that was soon to rise.

Horses, with a peculiarly human scream, gave sound to their terror.

Between himself and the fire McGuire saw excited, shirtless, bearded
men without hats, and some with guns; and he heard their loud babble,
of which he understood nothing, though the fire roared amid its
snapping and crackling. He could see Seibert pointing, and hear his
deep-chested shouts, and saw also that the overseers edged backwards,
refusing to do what they were told. It was a drama of silhouettes
against a background of fire. They were armed men, but he saw Seibert
advance on them with fist upraised, and all excepting one fellow drew
back, but this one presented his gun, muzzle on, and Seibert struck him
down, as if only by the weight of his falling fist.

Seibert then turned and disappeared on the run through the wide
entrance of the burning stables. One moment his big body had been
lighted with the beating glare of fire, and a giant shadow sprawled
behind him on the ground; and the next moment he had vanished into
blackness, all the more deep and impenetrable for the crest of flame
that streamed along the thatched roofs.

Amid the sounds of thumping and bumping, frantic horses, one at a time,
began to dash out, mad from fright. They rushed off wildly down through
the grounds, tearing across the shrubbery with a sound like that of
windstorm. Soon no more horses came out, but Seibert did not return.

The stables, burning from the thatch down, did not go up with quite the
powdery rush of the other buildings; but these, too, were soon nothing
but flames.

McGuire retreated as the heat and glare increased; but he waited. The
overseers had withdrawn, grumbling hoarsely and evidently cursing, too.
McGuire was alone, and he waited, fascinated by the havoc and obsessed
by the wonder if Seibert would come back. It was not easy to believe
that anybody could return from the far side of those flames.

When the flames began to die down they died rapidly as if all that was
combustible had been suddenly exhausted; but there remained the glow
and white film of ash on the red and black ruins, over which played
innumerable small serpent tongues of flame, flickering and vanishing.
Here and there a strong post stayed upright, with creeping threads
of fire weaving up and down its surface, like little sparkling worms
writhing about. The wooden bodies of the wagons retained their shapes,
charred and smouldering, but not consumed. Everything else was utterly
ruined; more than ruined--destroyed, obliterated.

Seibert's form, visible a long way off as something in motion rather
than an object with outline, came along the path that circled the
stables. A solitary figure against a background of ruins that glowed in
spots and flickered, he came on with slow, heavy strides, head up, and
looking at the ruins. What was left was hardly so much as ruins. There
was nothing but ash.

The moon had begun to rise. Strange, thin calls and wailing chants
drifted up from below the hillside.

McGuire stepped into view.

"Ho, McGuire, it is you?"

"Yes."

"McGuire, you tell me. Why would this thing happen to me?" A big
arm swung out. "That you tell me. I don't know for myself." The arm
continued to waver about.

McGuire replied quietly, with a tone of condolence, "Bad luck. No man
can beat it."

"Bad luck is for loafers an excuse! Not for me. Always before, when
something goes wrong I could take a look behind me and see what the
matter was. But my wife leaves me. My young friend that I like steals
her. Now all my stables and my sheds burn up. I lose the copra that
would bring money I must have. But now there is nothing worse that can
happen, so that is something. All over I will begin to-morrow."

He lapsed into an absent-minded sort of silence, and in the moonlight
looked about without seeming to notice anything in particular, as when
one's thoughts are so completely inward that the world is lost to view.

Then, with no noticeable change of expression, with merely a kind of
puzzled blankness, though he looked directly at McGuire: "Who was that
fellow in the Bible that had such a time like this? _Ach!_ Job--that
was his name. I am no Bible fellow. I just work hard, and pay what I
owe and do what I promise, and try to make things grow. Why should this
happen, then? That is something that I do not understand."


11

When they returned to the house, Combe and Nada had gone, and Lalua was
nowhere to be seen.

The dining-room was still ablaze with light, and the smoking lamp
burned more smokily. Reddish darts of flame mingled with the
upstreaming smoke. The ceiling was spotted with a ring of soot, and
particles floated about the room, and covered the wilted flowers, the
dishes and white cloth. McGuire turned down the lamp and blew it out.

Outside of the house black ash was sifting down like mist, covering
everything--trees, flowers, all the veranda furnishings, the very
ground, with a filmy network of ashes. The moonlight was grey as dawn,
and floating through this light appeared swarm on swarm of the falling
ash, like a horde of small locusts, and it settled like a blight, like
a plague of aphis, pervading everything, overspreading everything.

Seibert tramped up and down the veranda, walking with heavy steps
and long, slow stride. In his walk he passed before a window of the
dining-room, his big form almost blotting it out as he stepped from
shadow into light, passing at once into shadow again. He would tramp
up and down for a time, then address a question to McGuire; and these
questions were like little arrows on a chart that mark the flow and
windings of a current.

"What did he mean, that old Tom, that I tried to hurt Or'na?"

"Nothing. His brain rattles about like a dried nut in its shell."

"Yes, he is crazy. He is crazy," Seibert repeated, as if satisfied, and
strode away.

Then: "McGuire, what did you mean that way you said Or'na lied? She did
not lie. You have promised to take me to where that Williams is."

"She made it appear that I _wanted_ to take you, was glad to do it. At
least, Combe got that impression."

He gave a meditative grunt, stood for a moment evidently pondering that
distinction, then walked off.

There was nothing of a crushed, broken attitude about him; he accepted
his misfortune as he accepted the rain and wind and drought. He walked
back and forth, back and forth, tramping heavily, as if marching;
occasionally he muttered a word or two; now and then he stopped and
said something more to McGuire, but it was rather because McGuire was a
self-effacing object with ears, propped attentively in the shadow of a
pillar, rather than because of companionship between them.

Presently McGuire saw, coming at a distance among the mooncast shadows
of the trees, what he would have believed was a ghost if he had
believed in ghosts; but after a moment's alert peering he recognised
by the gliding, stately walk and the flowing white dress that it was
Lalua. As she came closer he saw that she was walking rapidly, and
that she was barefooted; also that her white muslin gown was smeared
and streaked with the marks of brushing against leaves and sprays on
which the floating ash had settled. She came gliding rapidly along the
veranda and placed herself before Seibert; then quickly, with a strong
quality of excitement, she said:

"I have been among the blacks. They were told to burn their houses by
that man Hausen!"

Seibert stared at her with dull intensity. It was some moments before
the statement could firmly take hold on him. His brain was not
flexible, and this was an astounding thing.

"Hausen!" he pronounced, with his deep voice on a rising inflection
that seemed to contain the promise of lifting the very scalp from
Hausen's head.

"He ran away," she said, all in a breath. "He has gone to Pulotu. He
was afraid."

"Hausen!" he repeated. Then, "Ah!" as if something had suddenly been
made clear, adding: "He could do that thing. Yes, he can talk like they
jabber. Ah!"

Seibert turned from her and stared vaguely out into the moonlight,
preoccupied, perhaps troubled, but soberly expressionless, as if his
thoughts had no connection with the play of facial muscles.

McGuire, unnoticed by her, continued to lean in the shadow of the
pillar, and he looked at Lalua with feelings of increased respect,
though he had no liking at all for her; but there could not help be
some respect for a woman who had gone at night, alone, down among as
wild a lot of brutes as an inhuman recruiter ever herded together,
and had questioned some of them. McGuire knew that she was full of
incalculable impulses, some audacious, some sinister, some inexplicably
generous; and she was the only person in the world that had the least
affection for Seibert, and she was merely a low-caste half-breed. And
though Lalua was capable of sinister and deadly things that the little
Oreena, in her wildest passions, had never dreamed of, she was also
capable of a sacrificing and humble love, equally remote from the
dreams of Oreena.

Now Lalua stood quietly waiting. She had the strange air of impassive,
imperturbable assurance, as if waiting for something that must
eventually come.

Then Seibert, staring at her as if she was someone he had never before
seen, asked why she had gone among those blacks. Didn't she know it had
been dangerous? What could have taken her down there at such a time?

She answered, in a voice warmly submissive and eager: "That you, my
master, might know who put evilness into their hearts!"

"But no man would have done that thing! It was foolishness for----"

Her cry was almost exultant. "I am a woman, and, my master, I love you!"

Then, as if ashamed by her boldness, she dropped her head forward,
submissively awaiting his pleasure--anger or forgiveness, or whatever
he might accord. Her flowing dark hair fell on each side of her face
like soft, fibrous curtains, hiding cheeks that, though certainly not
blushing, may have been hot with daring. She had at last achieved, and
with dignity, her confession.

But Seibert regarded her only with dull astonishment. He had heard
what she said, but what she really meant--all the passion, the blind
devotion, her intensive humbleness to his will--were facts about her
that could never get into the recesses of his brain and be understood.
He did not understand at all. It seemed unreasonable, preposterous. He
took a step or two back, not so much as if withdrawing from her as if
merely withdrawing from something strange and uncertain that it were
best not to be too near.

"That is foolishness," he said brusquely, waving an arm, though what
the gesture had to do with the statement was not clear; perhaps it was
driving the idea away.

But Lalua seemed to feel that he meant to drive her away. Without a
word, and not lifting her head, she turned and quietly glided off.
Seibert stared after her until she was out of sight, then at first
slowly, but gradually with increased stride, began to walk up and down.

Soon he sat down, dropping heavily into a chair, and leaned his head
against his hands; then he rubbed his head as if it was filled with
aches, and, after shifting his position two or three times, groaned
slightly and got up. The shock was wearing off and he had begun to feel
the pain.


12

He was still walking up and down when a half-dozen horsemen trotted up
the driveway through the moonlight; and as they approached the house
some rode over the lawn and came up to the veranda rail, remaining in
their saddles. Two or three dismounted; and of these McGuire, who had
seated himself in the swinging couch, recognised Mortimer as their
leader.

Seibert came to the rail, placed his hands on it, looked down, and said
nothing.

"It has been a beastly day for you, Seibert," Mortimer began, not
unkindly, and jerking his hand toward the stables. "Lost about
everything, haven't you?"

"What is it you want?" Seibert demanded roughly, as if resenting the
sympathy in Mortimer's voice, as perhaps he did.

"Seibert, you know us, all of us here. You know who we are." Mortimer
indicated the men with him, traders and planters, men of the first
importance in Pulotu, Seibert's peers; but he had received them with a
hostile lack of greeting.

"And, Seibert," Mortimer went on, his tone hardening, "we feel that it
is necessary to take you into custody. This is for your own good as
much as because we cannot, and will not, tolerate on this island such
high-handed barbarities as you have perpetrated!"

There was a sudden crack of wood breaking. Seibert, in the start of
surprise and anger, had seized and jerked on the veranda rail, pulling
it loose.

"Go 'way! All you, go away!" he shouted. "Go 'way off my place!"

Mortimer pulled at one end then the other of his moustache, and,
tossing aside a burned-out cigar, said firmly, "Seibert, we are out
here this time of night because there is talk on the beach of coming
here and treating you roughly. Some drunken ruffians are stirring
up feeling. They don't care anything about Gauro or"--he was about
to mention the supposed abuse of Oreena, but thought better of
it--"anything else you have done; they are simply trouble-makers. I
would have preferred to wait for the return of your consul. But you did
shoot that man, and I warned you! I warned you what I would do!"

"You warned me, heh? All my buildings and grain and stores, they are
burned up. My copra, too. What will you consul fellows do about that?
Nothing. You come to arrest me because I protect my property."

"You killed a man, Seibert."

"Bah! You ask Dr. Lemaitre. He will tell you the missionaries kill
hundreds of men. The measles--missionaries did it with their trousers
and things. Why you do nothing with them?"

"I am not here to argue, Seibert. If a missionary murdered a man I
would take him in charge; and that is why I am here now. I here and
now, in the Queen's name, place you under arrest!"

"You arrest me!" cried Seibert, a fist beating a tattoo on his breast.
"Me!" A hand flourished wildly. "This is no Britisher island. You
arrest me!"

"I know. I know all that," said Mortimer a little wearily. "But
I'm the only Government official of any kind on Pulotu at present.
Besides, Seibert, you forget that I am doing this largely for your own
protection."

"Bah!" said Seibert. "When I want protection I give it to myself."
Then, looking toward one of the men on horseback on the lawn, "You,
Jorgensen, you come to help arrest me too, eh? The last time you come
it was to borrow some horses, and the time before that it was to have
some of my grain seed.

"And you, Wilmot, you say every time I come to buy stores in your
place, you say, 'Seibert, I tell you honest, there is not a man on the
island so much deserves success as you!'

"There I see Fernald and Schwartz, too. Both you fellows been good
friends when something I had you wanted. Now you come----"

A heavy voice spoke up. "We are still your friends. This is for your
own good, Seibert. Black Rudsell is getting all the ruffians on the
beach----"

Another voice threw in, "It's over your rescuing those Williams
pirates!"

Then another, more shrill, more insistent, as if giving a truth that
the others ignored: "It's the way you treated your wife!"

For many moments no one moved or spoke. The tinkling of the bridles as
the horses bent their heads to crop or pull at shrub leaves, the faint
creaking of saddles, the far-away shouts of blacks holding their revel,
were the only sounds until Seibert, who had looked from face to face,
asked dully, "The way--I treat--my wife?"

He had no more comprehension of what was meant than if he had been
accused of some unknown and unimaginable depravity; but his dullness of
tone, the blankness of his puzzled countenance, the awkward immobility
with which he stared about him, were considered by all as signs of
apprehension that his mistreatment was known.

"We will see to it," said Mortimer, "that someone is placed in charge
here during your absence, so that the plantation will be looked after.
But you must go with us now."

Seibert turned toward McGuire and asked, rather dazed: "Where is my
hat? I must go with these fellows."

"And you, too, McGuire," said Mortimer, faintly ironical. "We must have
your company."

Mortimer drew a fresh cigar and lighted it; and the sparkle of the
sulphur match lighted up his long, lined, almost tragical face. No
expression of triumph showed, but rather the weariness of one who has
had to do a difficult and unpleasant thing.

Seibert walked off the veranda, coming heavily down the steps, his
full weight on each step, then he stopped, and, turning slowly in
all directions, stared about him, as if trying to recall something.
Without looking toward anyone he then spoke loudly, though somewhat as
if to himself, as if summing up his thoughts:

"Friends--_ach!_ they are fine things to have when you don't need
them."




CHAPTER VII


1

The nearest thing to a jail in Pulotu was a vermin-ridden, thatched
shack with a few filthy mats strewn about in the corners and a doorway
that had no door. Occasionally a drunken beachcomber was dragged there
and dropped in a corner. Any prisoner that could walk was considered
fit to be discharged from such custody as the jail afforded; and it was
most frequently inhabited by some two or three shivering wastrels, too
low for even native hospitality, who, having no other place to go for
anything so nearly like shelter on wet nights, would huddle together,
and perhaps quarrel over the bottle of gin that had been begged or
stolen.

Pulotu was far from being such a paradisaical sort of place that
offenders needed no worse than an unbarred jail; but the police system
was as empty of authority as it would have to be on an island where
the natives were nominally independent, and where three European
Governments jealously observed the efforts of each other to get control
of native affairs.

Though there were many trouble-makers and noisy drinking men that
came off ships in Pulotu Bay, they usually returned to the ships by
themselves or were dragged on board by a mate and part of the crew
that had come after them. But in spite of the rewards that captains
offered for deserters and the readiness with which native police turned
them up, loafers and idlers and beachcombers had accumulated about bar
shanties as flies do around spilled rum; but as these miserable rascals
kept pretty well off to themselves at one end of the beach, begging
and drinking and fighting to their hearts' content, they were more or
less tolerated. Occasionally, however, through a concerted effort on
the part of the consuls and the respectable citizens, exceptionally
disagreeable characters were made to take passage to another port.

Such were the imprisoning and punitive conditions in Pulotu when
Mortimer came down from the uplands with Seibert and McGuire. They
had to be taken care of until the _Panther_ arrived and disposed of
McGuire, and the German consul came and considered Seibert's case.
Mortimer was on very friendly terms with the German consul. But in the
meantime lodging had to be found for the prisoners.

Houses were scarce in Pulotu. There were, of course, sheds and
sheet-iron warehouses, any one of which might have been used as a
jail. Any sort of hut would have done for McGuire, but Seibert was no
ordinary malefactor. Mortimer did not want to humiliate him, partly,
perhaps, for fear of offending the Germans on the island, who might
change their friendly attitude toward the British consul if they saw
even so unpopular a countryman, whatever the charge against him, being
shabbily treated.

That day the French consul had been buried. Such matters are attended
to with almost alacrity in the tropics. As he had left no family, the
house was unused. Dr. Lemaitre took charge of Balte-Brun's effects;
and, though he would have liked to see Seibert put into the darkest,
hottest corner of a warehouse, he accepted Mortimer's way of looking at
the circumstances.


2

All the night following his arrest Seibert sat in a chair with his
legs extended, his head dropping forward, his hat on his lap, and an
elbow on the table where an oil lamp was burning faintly with a strong
smell of an untrimmed wick. Bottles and little boxes of medicine that
Balte-Brun had used remained scattered about the base of the lamp.

Seibert was slow to realise that he was a prisoner, subject to other
men's beck and call; that he could not go and come; that he must have
a stranger's permission to put even his head out of a door. The world
had closed in from the jungle-horizon he had made for himself in the
hills, and was now four narrow, rickety walls. A man under arms moved
about watchfully on the far side of one door, and another man similarly
armed guarded the other door. Both of these men were out of sight, but
their feet scraped and jarred from time to time. They were strangers,
mere sailors off an English boat that was being repaired, and they had
the right to shoot him if he tried to go out.

The benumbing part of this experience was that Seibert did not feel
that he had done anything to justify such treatment; and he was shaken
by his misfortunes, for he had always felt a deep faith in the rewards
of work--honest, hard work--and had taken to his work something of that
confidence that many people take to their religion.

With the coming of dawn Seibert had hardly changed his position.
McGuire, dozing in a cane chair, had left the bed to Seibert if he
should want it; and, having awakened many times, would stare for a
while at the heavy, motionless figure lost in the depth of brooding,
then return to his uneasy dozing.

At daybreak voices were heard in the rooms on each side of the one in
which they were confined. The sailors were changing guard.

McGuire arose, blinked, stretched himself, and with an affectation of
good cheer grinned at Seibert, who was staring at him.

"You've been there all night, wide awake as an owl," said McGuire.

"If I could get home, everything would be better. I should not have
come with Mortimer. It was a trick. There is work to do. The horses,
they are loose. All the blacks are loose and won't work. I should not
have come."

"We couldn't very well help ourselves."

"Now I wonder who they will have there to look after things? No man
will be much good. Jorgensen may be. No man can look out for you like
yourself."

"Right now I'd like the chance, too, of looking out for myself. I hope
Penwenn gets a fishbone crosswise in his throat, and that Dr. Lemaitre
chokes him trying to get it out. I suppose you have feelings of the
same kind for Hausen."

Seibert gave a start, and looked at McGuire as if looking through him;
then, slowly closing his enormous hands as he held them before him, he
stared fixedly, and said, "Ah, that Hausen! _Ach!_ yes! I could choke
him!"

McGuire regarded him with a sensation of uneasiness. Seibert was huge
and powerful, and he glared at the empty air with an expression of
vacant intensity as his hands closed and shook, as if shaking the life
out of the detestable Hausen.

An hour or so later the heavily-jawed young fellow on watch at the door
between their room and the kitchen let a cook that had been sent to
prepare their breakfast come into the kitchen. This cook was a native,
dirty and lazy, who floated eggs in grease when he fried them, and
boiled coffee as if it were the grounds that people drank, in which
case, of course, these needed to be well cooked.

After a long time, during which he puttered about in the kitchen,
nosing into everything, more out of curiosity than otherwise, he
brought to them a platter of eggs and a pot of coffee. Looking about
for a place to put these things, and seeing nothing at hand, he set the
coffee-pot on the floor and the platter on the bed, then with insolent
unconcern started out. McGuire laughed vaguely, amused; but Seibert,
suddenly aware of the fellow's impudence, shouted at him. His voice
brought both the sentries to their feet and into the doorways, from
where they saw a badly frightened native cringing respectfully under
Seibert's angered eyes.

It was strange that he should care at such a time about such a thing;
but he did, and the lamp and all the little boxes and bottles from
which old Balte-Brun had tried to get relief for his irremediable
pains were removed from the table, and a cloth spread. The cook moved
quickly, with anxiety to please, and he kept his eyes aslant at
Seibert, who had forgotten him at once. All that Seibert had cared
about was that a servant should be a servant in his presence; he simply
would not have any "foolishness."

The breakfast was placed on the table, spread with a clean cloth,
with plates and cups and shining cutlery. The eggs froze rigidly in
the grease; the ham, partly burned and half raw, too, lay like chips
of charred red wood, and the poisonous coffee grew cold, and remained
untasted. Seibert forgot the breakfast, and McGuire was in no mood to
eat.

Shortly before noon Mortimer came in. He had been freshly shaved, his
whites were spotless, but he looked tired, and the little pouches
under his eyes appeared almost purplish. In one hand he held a large,
unlighted cigar, and the fingers of the other beat a nervous tattoo
against it. He entered in a quiet, weary way that nevertheless did not
seem affected; and he stood for a moment pulling at the ragged fringe
of his moustache, as if waiting for Seibert to speak first.

Seibert had been pacing slowly to and fro across the room. The floor
shook under his heavy steps. He now stopped short, and with his hands
crossed behind him waited, looking directly at Mortimer, simply staring
at him as if from behind a mask.

"Comfortable here, I hope," said Mortimer, off-hand, not very
solicitous, but at least not sarcastic, as he gazed quickly about. He
did not appear to expect an answer, and none was made.

He then thrust the end of the cigar into his mouth, bit off the end,
and spat out the detached part without removing the cigar.

"Seibert, I am doing all I can to make your position easy. It must
be understood that there is nothing personal in my holding you
under arrest. I simply had to take the steps that I did. As the
representative of a civilised Government I could do nothing else.
And it was to avoid more trouble on the island that I took you in
custody, instead of waiting for the return of your consul, who will
most assuredly approve. There is still some talk down among the bar
shanties about mobbing you, for those rascals are beginning to think
the _Panther_ may not come soon. But they have been given to understand
that if they try anything of the kind we will meet them with shotguns,
so there is no danger--none whatever.

"And by having your man come to see you this morning before he went out
to the plantation to take charge, I have shown you, Seibert--haven't
I?--that I am trying to be fair, to treat you justly."

Seibert asked in sullen doubt, "What man you mean went to take charge
of my place? No man has been to see me here."

"Why, your man Hausen. I had a talk with him, and he said that he knew
more about your plantation and your affairs than----"

Seibert rose on his toes and leaned forward with hands half out, as
if to fall on Mortimer, who retreated a step or two. But Seibert held
his anger in, lowered his hands, settled back on his heels, slowly,
reluctantly. "So that is it! You and that Hausen are in cahoots! You
are a fine fellow, to talk about what I have done, when you go in with
that Hausen, who burned last night my stables and pens and all my
stores. I won't have him on my place! You let me go! I will go and do
my own work. You are a scoundrel, you consul-loafer!"

Seibert strode forward. He was hardly looking at Mortimer, who stood
in his way; but he strode as if beginning a long march that must be
made rapidly. His mind was on his plantation; his eyes, with unfocused
staring, were on the door. There was no menace about him except as
there would be menace for anyone who was in the road of a big piece of
machinery that had been set in motion. Seibert was as impersonal as
that. He undoubtedly would have walked right over Mortimer, or struck
him casually aside without noticing what he did.

But Mortimer stepped hastily out of the way, and shouted quickly:
"Hatborn! Hatborn, don't let this man pass!"

The sailor on watch appeared in the doorway with his gun in readiness.
He would not have hesitated. In fact, the prompt Hatborn had the alert
firmness of a man who is almost eager to make his duty dramatic, though
tragical.

The staring muzzle brought Seibert up short. He looked at it without
fear and without resentment, as a person might look at something that
had awakened him. He turned toward Mortimer and said, "Get out, you.
Go 'way from me. My day is coming. The Godeffroys will hear about all
this. They are a big company. You won't be such a proud fellow when
they make a report to your Government that will tell how you do things
that hurt people they like. Go get away from me, you consul fellow."

Mortimer was much affected, but he replied with a strained quietness,
though his hands trembled and his face had changed colour:

"Seibert, Hausen told me that he would come and talk with you before
going out. Get your advice. I gave him a pass to see you. I thought
that he would be the best man. I'll send out and tell him that you
don't want him. I am trying to do what is right by you!"

Seibert growled contemptuously and turned away.

Mortimer hesitated uncomfortably. He removed his cigar and stared at
it, replaced the cigar and glanced sharply at McGuire, then looked
severely toward Seibert, whose back was turned.

Mortimer was irritated. He knew that Seibert had done a monstrous thing
in murdering that black, and that he had done right in arresting him;
but somehow he felt no satisfaction. Something was missing. The very
essence of crime was lacking. He did not understand it.

With a long parting glance at Seibert's big back, Mortimer went out.


3

Later in the day Mortimer got Jorgensen and Wilmot to ride over to the
plantation to see how matters were going and have Hausen return to
Pulotu. Mortimer meant to investigate that charge that Hausen had fired
the buildings.

They came back without Hausen, but they brought with them the woman
Lalua.

Word flies about in a South Seas town as if spread by the buzzing of
insects; and, almost before Lalua was brought to the consul's house,
people, as if caught in a current, began to move up the street. Men who
had been dozing in club chairs came out. Natives hurried along eagerly.
A few of the shopkeepers closed their doors. Penwenn and the man with
whom he had been drinking Scotch joined the crowd that had collected
under the palms and on the grass, from where people stared at Lalua,
who sat on a straight-backed chair on the veranda in an attitude of
imperturbable patience.

Mortimer had been taking a noonday nap, or trying to, and now, while he
dressed, Jorgensen came into the room and told of how he and Wilmot had
gone to Seibert's house and had been met on the steps by this woman,
who stood there as if she had been waiting for them.

They had asked for Dr. Hausen. First at Jorgensen, then at Wilmot, she
gave a long, slow look from those opaque, dark, slanting eyes, and
said, "Yes, he is here. I will show you. Come."

She led the way down the veranda and pointed to a door.

"He is there," she said.

It was the door to a small room that Seibert used as an office, where
he kept his accounts, money that he had about the house, and business
papers.

Jorgensen had been in the room frequently. He now opened the door
and stepped in ahead of Wilmot. Coming out of the dazzling sunlight,
they were at first unable to see anything, but as he opened the door
Jorgensen had said, "Well, Hausen, how goes everything?"

There was no answer; and this was so queer that both of them instantly
felt that something was wrong. Then they saw that Hausen lay on the
floor, and just beyond his outspread hands papers were scattered, as
they had fallen when his groping fingers opened. He lay face down
on his chin; the thick glasses were still on his eyes, so that his
appearance was grotesquely as if he peered near-sightedly at something
on the floor.

Mortimer, after hearing this, came out on his veranda, and, holding
a freshly-lighted cigar, sat down behind the table in a mat-covered
recess, where he usually sat for anything like official business. He
pulled at his moustache and looked with judicial severity at Lalua,
who, guided by Jorgensen, had been brought to the table.

She remained standing, like a person being sentenced; but she was
merely being asked to tell what she had done, and why. This she told
in a quiet, level voice, which did not once use so much as a stressed
inflection. Her dark, slightly oblique eyes gazed at Mortimer without
wavering, and her hands, crossed in front of her, were not moved until
she had finished; then they dropped suddenly, like things stricken dead
and hung motionless at her side.

"That man Hausen came this morning, and I said to him, 'Begone. The
master is away.'

"He laughed foolish, as if something tickled his feet, and he said to
me, 'I am master here now.'

"'You lie,' I told him. 'You will never be master here while I remain.'

"'Then you get out,' he said, and lifted his hand as if he would strike
me; but I did not move, and he put his hand down.

"I told him, 'You had the blacks put fire to their dwellings and our
stables.'

"'Don't you think I wish now that I hadn't?' he said to me in a loud
voice. 'It is my loss now. I am master here.'

"I said to him, 'If you go into my master's house while he is away I
will kill you, because I know that you mean to do evil.'

"He said, 'Bah! You are no longer wanted here. Go!'

"Then he went by me and straight into Mr. Seibert's little room. I went
to the drawer where I knew Mr. Seibert kept his gun in a leather sack
wrapped with oiled cloth. I took it up and looked to see if it had
shells. I saw that there were shells. I went to the room where that man
Hausen was already among the master's papers.

"I said to him, 'You will not rob and harm my master again.'

"Then I held the gun before me in my two hands and pulled with a finger.

"After that I went away. When these men came and asked for him I took
them to where he was, that they might see.

"There is nothing more, and all that I have said is true."

Mortimer blew a cloud of smoke off to one side and looked at no one.
It was quiet on the veranda, and not a person made a sound, even among
those who were far back in the crowd.

Hausen, eager and voluble, had come to Mortimer with his mouthful of
reasons as to why he should go out and take charge. He had gone, and
this woman had killed him. It was like madness, or something terribly
inhuman, this serenity of hers. It was as though she did not realise
what she had done. She seemed so simple, yet inscrutable. Mystery was
there somewhere. Mortimer had a feeling of relief that this, plainly
enough, was another case for the German consul to worry his own
closely-cropped head about.

Hausen was German; weregild was still respected at the world's
outposts. As the white man interpreted it on his own behalf throughout
the islands, the law of an eye for an eye was mercilessly like an eye
for an eyelash, a tooth for a bruised lip.

She stood before Mortimer now, as if awaiting dismissal--tall, slender,
composed, almost as if with pride, her hands at her side and her dark
hair falling widely spread across her shoulders. She was not pretty,
and the faintly slanting eyes, their gaze level as an arrow, suggested
shadowy depth. Mystery of some sort was in her.

She seemed to expect that what she had done would be approved. She had
shown no hesitation and no doubt in telling of it, and had not defended
her act, as if it was not in need of defence.

A frown gathered on Mortimer's forehead as he wondered in exasperation
what could be the matter with people on Seibert's plantation that they
should take the killing of other people as a thing of no consequence.

He asked her if Seibert was such an excellent man and master that she
would so readily commit murder on his behalf.

Lalua answered, "Hausen was an evil man, who meant to do more wrong.
Mr. Seibert is an honest man, and kind to all who know him."

Mortimer leaned forward on his elbows, and, making quite a point of his
reply, said, "His wife doesn't agree with that. She tells a different
sort of story about him."

Lalua answered at once, imperturbably, "His wife's fears are the fears
of a wife that has a lover."

She had spoken with an inflexible composure, so like dignity that it
gave a subtle convincing quality to what she said.

Everyone wanted to hear more. There was a slight pressing forward,
an intent listening. But Mortimer had the kind of gentlemanly
sensitiveness that shrank from questioning servants about a household's
scandal, that had no bearing on the case, even though that household
might be one upon which disaster had fallen.

He asked no further questions. Outside of detaining the woman, the case
was not one that concerned him officially. There would have to be, of
course, a report to his chief. On everything there must be a report.

When he had made arrangements for the temporary custody of Lalua he
retired to an obscure spot within the house, and with pad on his knee,
and a fresh cigar in his mouth, he wrote out the notes of Lalua's
story. As he reflected from sentence to sentence he became aware of
a slight and indefinable sympathy for the woman; this was probably
because he personally had always detested Hausen, and because, too,
he knew as well as one can possibly know the outcome of a sequence of
events, such as an island trial, that the demand for her punishment
could not be appeased with anything short of her life. This inevitably
would be the reward for her futile devotion.


4

During the remainder of the day Mortimer heard many things that
irritated, even disturbed him. The blacks on Seibert's plantation were
running loose. The white men--the overseers--had refused to remain.
Perhaps they were afraid; but they said all through the town that
they could not remain without shooting some of the blacks, and since
the British consul would charge them with murder if they did, the only
thing for them was to leave the plantation. So they came into Pulotu
and talked. They said that if Seibert had been on the place everything
would have been all right. He could handle the blacks. Now everything
was ruined. The blacks were destroying crops and trees, and nobody
dared shoot at them.

Mortimer knew that at least some of this talk was malicious; but
Jorgensen had reported, after a second visit, that the damage was
really severe. He gave it as his opinion that it had been a mistake to
take Seibert away.

"He could've kept them from doing damage. Never a man like him," said
Jorgensen, "for making blacks dance to his whistling."

"We did it to protect him," said Mortimer defensively.

"Yes, partly, partly," Jorgensen admitted. "But you talked a lot about
'barbarity,' and that us white men couldn't afford to let a crime like
that pass unnoticed. That's why you got us to go out with you."

"All that _is_ true, Jorgensen. But I wouldn't have undertaken to
arrest him--it is his own consul who should have done that--if it had
not been for the talk against him. Rudsell was trying to get up a mob."

"Then why the devil didn't you arrest Black Rudsell? An' no need of
protecting"--he stressed the word ironically--"Seibert _now_."

The danger was over, if it had ever really existed. Blackie Rudsell,
getting as near sober as he ever did when on shore, had suddenly gone
on board his ship about noon and raised anchor without a good-bye to
anyone.

"You mean, Jorgensen, that Seibert should be released?"

"Why not? He don't need _protecting_ any more. An' he'll not run off
the island. He'll be here when the German consul comes back. 'Sides,
his plantation is being all shot to hell. I don't know how he's ever
goin' to pull out. The blacks went right through his cocoanuts, cutting
out the crowns."

"He killed Gauro in cold blood, Jorgensen."

"Well, a lot o' Germans hereabouts are beginning to feel pretty huffy
over your arresting him. That was for the German consul to do, they
say. Supposing you let him go."

"Never!" said Mortimer, his teeth meeting through his cigar.

However, he regretted having arrested Seibert. Though considerable
indignation had helped Mortimer to want to make the arrest, he had
really urged it at the time he did to forestall some kind of outrage
which the troublesome Rudsell might have taken pleasure in committing.
But now that he had arrested Seibert he could not let him go. He might
possibly have offered some kind of parole if the Germans had not begun
to mutter and mumble; but to let him go now, on any pretence, would
appear to be knuckling under; and that, of course, would be to humble
the whole British Empire and lose influence in Pulotu affairs. Such are
the agonies of diplomacy.


5

Late in the afternoon a gunboat came into the bay. Mortimer's heart
jumped at the sight of the British ensign. He was alongside and on
board as quickly as he could get there.

The ship was the _Bellarius_, one of a few Australian gunboats
outfitted to supervise the labour trade and to overhaul lawless
blackbirders. She cruised all through the islands, particularly those
farther south, and heard all the gossip of all the beaches and ports.

The captain was a profane, energetic young man by the name of John
David. The first question that he threw at Mortimer was, "Have you seen
Black Rudsell?"

When Mortimer had answered the young captain swore for five minutes
with only such slight pauses as were needful for breath; and perhaps
his curses had the blasting, obliterating effect of anathema, for Black
Rudsell was never seen or heard from again.

That evening Mortimer invited Captain David on shore to dinner; and
from behind large, heavy cigars and over coneshaped glasses, warmly
glowing with port, they sat and talked. Mortimer, from across the
dimly-lighted table, regarded the vigorous young captain with an
acidless envy. He was healthy; no need to go slow, as yet, in his
smoking, coffee, or other sort of drinking; he was hardly more than a
boy, and eager about the world and all that was in it; and buoyantly
forceful in his opinions.

"You served that Dutchman blastedly well right!" cried Captain David.
"This thing of mistreating natives on plantations has to be stopped.
Of course, we really can't say 'Boo!' to the Germans on islands like
Pulotu, but we can let them know how we feel about it; and, the other
consul chap being away, you had the chance. Good for you!"

"The worst of it," said Mortimer, "is that this native was a poor old
half-breed--half-breed Portuguese from Santa Cruz----"

"Gauro, by God!" cried Captain David, almost bounding from his chair
and slapping the palm of one hand on the table. "Why, Mortimer, you
can't do anything to anybody for killing that damned murderous,
sulphur-skinned ape of a cannibal. He was on the Wateson plantation in
Fiji--this fellow's name was Gauro?"

"Gauro? Yes, Gauro," said Mortimer rather reluctantly.

"There's the Governor of Fiji himself who'll be delighted when I get
to Levuka with the news! Crafty old beggar, that Gauro. He was wanted
for murdering a white on the Wateson plantation. Murder and--and the
other thing, you know. Cooked his victim. Ah, being Gauro makes it a
different story. You ought to pin a couple of medals on your Dutchman."

"But, captain, are you sure?"

"Sure? We've all been on the look-out for Gauro. He got away somehow,
and didn't want to go back to his native village, where he'd surely
have been snapped up quick. He knew that. Crafty old devil. Good for
your Dutchman, I say!"

"But the principle of the thing?" asked Mortimer a little feebly.

"Principle be damned!" said the vigorous Captain David. "Every
blackbirder and recruiter in the South Seas has heard of Gauro. Been on
the look-out for him. The Governor put a reward out for him. Why, I'd
have shot the blighter myself."

"But Seibert didn't shoot him because he was Gauro!"

"Didn't, eh? You just bet he did! Your Dutchman may not have known of
the Fijian mess. Evidently didn't, or he would have turned him over to
somebody long ago. But he got rid of Gauro because he _was_ Gauro, a
villainous, knock-kneed, turtle-headed old reprobate who'd have thrown
his own mother into a stew-pot. He was no more Portuguese than you are.
He was cannibal, all of him. Why, if anybody undertook to try your
Dutchman for killing that miserable old devil, at least two British
magistrates and Mr. Wateson himself, and even the Governor, would
appear as witnesses for the defence."

"Then I fear that I have blundered," said Mortimer wearily, looking
into a cloud of smoke that drifted hazily in the still air.

"Didn't you say something about the Dutchman trying to kill his wife?
You could still hold him for that."

"No, no," Mortimer replied slowly. "That would be--er--you know, wrong.
If the murder--it was murder--of Gauro is--well, is commendable--then
I have made a very humiliating mistake. I am not yet convinced that it
was--commendable, I mean. In that case I most certainly would release
Seibert; and--er--I don't know how he could take an apology."

"Oh, he'd be so jolly well glad to be free of the thing he wouldn't
need an apology. Just a word of explanation. Show him that a Britisher
is as quick to let him go as to haul him in. Fairy lapy, you know.
That's all that counts. You think him guilty--jerk him in. Something
comes up that shows he's not guilty--turn him out. Perfectly
straight-forward and simple," said the young captain cheerfully.

He then poured another glass of port for himself, and wondered at
Mortimer's long silence over a matter so transparent as this.

But Mortimer was moodily reflecting on the damage done to Seibert's
plantation during his imprisonment; and all the Germans would say it
was their pressure that caused him to give Seibert release. Enormous
injury would be done to British prestige. The German consul might then
resent his interference in German affairs (he saw this clearly now),
and the Godeffroys, to whom Seibert was heavily in debt, would of
course complain to their Foreign Office, and their Foreign Office would
complain to the British Colonial Secretary. There would be no end of
complications, and all to the disadvantage of British influence. That
is, if he did release Seibert.

But the _Bellarius_ was going away to-morrow. If he stuck to his guns,
insisted that the killing of that old native was murder, and showed
the German consul a firm attitude, the consul (Mortimer knew him well)
would be impressed, and inclined to take on the colour of Mortimer's
indignation. The whole matter might be carried to a conclusion, or at
least carried along far enough for Mortimer to emerge from it without
loss of prestige, without the question of Gauro's character in far-off
Fiji coming up. Seibert hadn't known anything definitely about Gauro in
Fiji; so, as far as actual guilt was concerned, it _was_ murder. But
the honest and honourable thing? Mortimer was to have no sleep that
night.

Captain David had also brought a bit of news about the _Panther_,
explaining her delay in reaching Pulotu.

"You may not see the _Panther_ for some time. We over-hauled the _Cleo_
about ten days ago--blackbirder, she is, and a rascal. But her papers
and everything were all right this time, and she was loaded to the
scuppers with the finest shell you ever saw.

"'Where'd you steal this?' I said to the _Cleo_ captain.

"Then he told me a rare good joke. Hurricane Williams--queer, isn't it,
when you've got his McGuire under lock and key? Well, sir, Williams was
fishing shell over in the Tuillias, and had tons on tons of it cleaned
and piled on the beach ready to get on board. Then the _Panther_
nosed into the bay looking for fresh water. Williams went out to sea
like a bat out of hell; and about an hour later, after the _Panther_
sailors had got ashore and learned from the natives who it was that
went through their fingers, out goes the _Panther_ after him. If she
caught him, she's headed for San Francisco. If she didn't, she's still
looking for him. And you can count on it that Williams won't be back
up this way for a long time! Well, then _Cleo_ happened along a day or
two after that, looking for recruits, and took the shell. What are you
going to do with McGuire? Give him to me. I'll run him down to Sydney
and introduce him to a magistrate."

Mortimer smiled faintly, and shook his head. "No, though I would like
to. But Penwenn has first claim on him. However, I won't turn him over
to a private citizen who has a grudge. I'll wait for the _Panther_, but
I doubt if Penwenn will. He is growing quite impatient."


6

A servant-boy with slippered stealth came into the room. He was a
girlish-looking sort of boy, and wore a white jacket with brass buttons
that shone dimly, like lumps of gold. Having come to within a few
feet of the table, he stood still until Mortimer, looking across his
shoulder, asked in a slow, tired voice what was wanted.

"Man come to see you, sir."

"Who is he? What does he want this time of night?"

Mortimer lifted by its chain a heavy watch from his breast pocket. The
hour was almost ten.

"He won't say his name. Say he tell you his name, sir."

The boy spoke rapidly, without gestures, but in earnest, thin tones, as
if anxious to impress the consul with his zeal. Mortimer knew him for
an incorrigible petty thief and harmless liar, but for all of that saw
no reason for displacing him with a successor, who would probably have
a different set of worse tricks that one would not get on to in weeks.

"Go ask him what he wants, Tasese."

The boy left, gliding smoothly over the mats as if it would be
necessary to slip upon the fellow in order to put the consul's question.

Mortimer explained to his guest, "Usually at this time of night my
caller is some beachcomber in a state of drunken homesickness--must
tell the consul his troubles--have a letter written home to his people.
The poor beggars that go on the beaches out here! The unfortunate part
of God's world is that most of them have mothers, or somebody, back
home. Roving men should be born out of eggs, like turtles. I hear
strange wild tales from----"

Mortimer stopped with a sudden look of pain in his eyes, and
unobtrusively placed a hand against his left side. After holding his
breath for a moment he began to breathe cautiously, then with evident
relief took a full breath, that was released like a sigh. He put
his half-smoked cigar down and pushed the tray aside with the quiet
movement of one reluctantly putting by a pleasure he had been warned
against.

Mortimer made no comment, and Captain David pretended not to have
noticed. The consul was apparently one of those men who regarded any
little physical weakness in themselves with a feeling of shame.

They then heard the native boy's voice, shrill with agitated protest,
and for an instant saw his form, back toward them in the doorway; then
he was pushed aside, and a young man, very erect, with a kind of rigid
bearing, came directly into the room.

Captain David half rose from his chair to interpose himself, but,
seeing that the young fellow did not intend violence, sat back with a
questioning glance at the servant, who had been thoroughly trained into
being silent in the consul's presence unless addressed.

Mortimer leaned forward on the table and looked closely, hardly
recognising Paullen, whom he had seen before only for a minute, and
whose face now appeared strained and pale even in the soft, dimmed glow
of the shaded lamps.

"Well, sir?" said Mortimer gravely, with a strong hint of displeasure.

"Mr. Mortimer, I am sorry to come in on you like this, but that boy of
yours said you wouldn't see me to-night, and I felt that you had to see
me to-night. I want to be--be arrested and put with McGuire and Mr.
Sei-Seibert!"

Mortimer sat back, a hand absently reaching far off and with sentient
precision closing on the half-smoked and now fireless cigar; but at the
boy he looked steadily, as if his thoughts had scattered themselves in
all directions to search out the reason for this strange request.

"I fail to perceive why you would wish that, Paullen."

"I do wish it, sir."

"You want to give yourself up, is that it?"

"I am willing to do that, even that, sir!"

"Um!" said Mortimer slowly. Only that morning Penwenn had practically
admitted that he now did not care whether or not Paullen was taken; and
he had said in so many words that he would not now swear to a complaint
against Nada Combe. A duller perception than Mortimer's would have seen
that Penwenn was pretty well sickened of his pirate catching. Besides,
Mr. Grinnell had told Mortimer (he and Mr. Grinnell were rather close
friends) that Paullen had not known the _Flying Gull_ was being stolen
until after she was out to sea.

"Um-m! You have perhaps an important communication to make to my
prisoners, and think that I am not foresighted enough to detect the
ruse?"

"No, sir! That is not so, Mr. Mortimer. But I--I feel that it ought to
be done!"

And Mortimer, though he could not begin to imagine what was involved,
knew that Paullen did feel it. His strained face had a clear, earnest,
intense expression, more suggestive of high, quiet courage than of
duplicity; but still the whisperings and gossip that had passed to
and fro like the rustling stir of dried leaves in a wind, coming up
in flurries, dying down from a lack of breath, had used the name of
Paullen as the lover of Seibert's wife.

"Even if I were to place you in custody, Paullen, I still see no reason
why you should be put with Seibert and McGuire. In fact, Paullen, I
could better understand why you might ask _not_ to be placed near
Seibert."

Paullen's pale face flushed, but he remained upright, even squaring
his shoulders a little. This, and a certain tightening of the mouth,
gave Mortimer the impression that Paullen felt as if he was facing a
firing-squad and would not flinch.

Then, abruptly, Mortimer said, "Tasese, bring me ink and paper."

The servant, who had been standing in the doorway, made a faint flash
of white as he turned quickly, and then reappeared with a broad leather
pad on which were paper, an inkstand, and pens.

Mortimer pushed away his glass, and Tasese placed the pad on the table.
For a moment the pen scratched in rapid jerks. Mortimer then read what
he had written, folded the note, and, handing it to Tasese, gestured
that it was to be given to Paullen.

"That, Paullen, is for the man on guard."

"I thank you, sir."

"That is all," said Mortimer.

Paullen hesitated, as if about to say something more, something
impulsive; but he remained silent, cast a look from Mortimer to Captain
David and back to Mortimer, then with a movement of his arm, as if
about to salute before remembering that a salute was out of place, he
turned and walked from the room with the air of an orderly bearing a
dispatch.

"There," said Mortimer, relighting his stale cigar and puffing deeply
to get it going, "there goes a young fellow that I like, though there
must be something of the rascal in him, but I don't believe it! I
haven't the faintest idea why he wants to be put with McGuire and
Seibert, but if I were in his place--that is, in the place reports say
he has in Oreena Seibert's affection--I would go anywhere, take all
sorts of risks of the kind a fugitive has to take, rather than go into
the same room with that big German!"


7

In the house of Balte-Brun, McGuire, the lazy and listless, who had
always been able to doze almost anywhere at almost any time, had turned
sleepless. Even Seibert at last had fallen into a heavy sleep, somewhat
repaying for the previous night of wide-eyed brooding, and a day of
trampling about, much of the time in gloomy silence.

Earlier in the evening McGuire had got the sailor on watch in the
kitchen to give him a bottle of wine. Now, with the last of the bottle
in a small glass before him, he leaned forward and eyed the dark liquor
as if it was a necromancer's crystal. The shaded lamp cast down a
bright circle of light, and moths that had crept in out of the darkness
fluttered frantically up under the blue glass shade. He had not found
any warmth in the wine.

A sound like a quick, inarticulate protest came from Seibert. McGuire
raised up and looked toward the bed, where his huge body lay in
ungainly posture crosswise on the bed.

All day Seibert had walked about. Once he had stopped, and abruptly
asked, "McGuire, my friend, do you think it could be that Or'na would
wish she had not gone away?"

"Mr. Seibert, there're lots of things I don't approve of about the way
the Lord runs this earth; but he always does see to it that the people
who make perfect fools of themselves live to regret it."

Then that day, shortly after noon, the guards had been changed. Both
the relieving sentries were late, because they had been among those who
went to the consul's house and heard Lalua's story.

These sailors were hard-handed forecastle men, with no idea of military
precision; and since neither McGuire nor Seibert were accused of
offences repugnant to a rough, robust manhood, they did not regard them
with unfriendliness. And when they came on watch this time, one stood
in the doorway that led to the kitchen, the other stood in the doorway
across the room, and together, often both speaking at once, or with one
correcting the other, they told what had happened, talking eagerly,
with the excited importance of men who are the first to bring news to
the person it most concerns.

Seibert became for a time agitated, and gesticulated in a kind of
awkward distress. He shouted at McGuire. "It was craziness! A fellow
like Hausen is not worth shooting. He makes more troubles dead than
if he stayed alive. It is nothing to kill somebody. Anybody can kill
somebody. She makes herself get arrested, and will never again be let
go!"

"What are you going to do about it?"

"Do?" Seibert shouted. "What is there to do? That's what the matter is!
What can I do? You, McGuire, tell me that."

"Have a little gratitude, anyway!"

"Gratitude? Gratitude? Why should I have gratitude when she does
something that makes herself all those troubles! What good will that
thing gratitude do her!"

"She did it for you."

"You do something for me that I don't want done, then I must have
gratitude when it makes you troubles? It was craziness, I tell you. It
was mad craziness!"

"Aren't you even satisfied with what happened to Hausen? Served him
right!"

"No!" Then again, "No!" A thoughtful pause, broken by an even heavier
and louder, "No! Would you be that satisfied if some woman kills a man
you don't like? No. No, I tell you!"

Then he had walked away.

"So," McGuire now said to himself as he sat sleepless, a little
restless, and reflectively peered at the last glass of dark wine. "So
ends the love of Lalua for Seibert the bull-headed."

He reached out, and, raising the glass a few inches from the table,
said half aloud, as if addressing someone across from him:

"Well, Lalua, here's to you. The last of a bottle of sour wine, an' I
drink you luck! Here's to you, you with the look and poise of an evil
priestess. I don't like you. I wouldn't be surprised to know that you
shot Hausen without a sound to warn him. But you're happy. You think
you have jarred Seibert into an amazed realisation of what a woman's
love can be, and he calls it 'crazy foolishness.' So it is. And so is
his love of Oreena, which, like a hydra, grows two heads to eat on
his heart for every one that he lops off. You don't know what a hydra
is, of course. You are an ignorant mixture of savage and more savage
Chinese. But I pledge you in my last glass of wine--sour wine! But
it's the most you'll ever get for your love."

He raised the glass and swallowed the wine at a gulp, then dashed the
glass to the floor. It broke with a small crash, and as he looked down
at the fragments he laughed a little, bitterly.


8

McGuire sat up stiffly, listening to the sound of voices in the next
room; then the door opened. Paullen came in with rapid, resolute steps.
His eyes glanced unseeingly from McGuire, and darted all about the room
until they found Seibert.

"What are you doing here?" McGuire cried in a low voice.

"He come by himself with a letter from the consul," said the rugged
boatswain, Ben Holt, who was on guard.

McGuire put a hand on Paullen, pressing him toward the door. "Get out.
He may wake up. He'll go crazy when he sees you."

Paullen stepped sideways, putting off McGuire's hand.

"Bo'sun, take him out of here!" said McGuire.

"He come with a letter, McGuire; an' the letter says----"

"Let me be, both you!" said John Paullen, with rigid fierceness, taking
another step to one side, then standing with a determined air, as if he
would fight if touched.

Holt, looking down at his letter, doubtfully backed through the doorway
and closed it.

"Why are you here?" McGuire demanded.

"I had to come," Paullen replied, his eyes on Seibert's great sprawling
body.

"He'll kill you!"

"I can't help it."

"You are giving yourself up? You are a lunatic. What's the matter,
Paullen?"

"I had to come. I _had_ to."

"Why?"

"I have done him a terrible injury. I have been everything that is low
and contemptible, McGuire."

"And"--McGuire half sneered--"you want to apologise."

"What good would any words I could say be to him?"

"What _are_ you going to do, then?" McGuire cried, exasperated.

"Nothing!"

"Nothing?"

"Nothing, McGuire."

"You _have_ lost your head! What's the matter with you? Why are you
here? He'll kill you, sure!"

"I--I had to come to--to give----"

"Give what? Go on. Tell me."

"McGuire, he loves her. He has loved her all the time. She made me
believe she was afraid of him, and she wasn't at all. She just wanted
to--to--make a fool of me!"

"How do you know that?"

"She told me!"

"Oh," said McGuire unsympathetically, "you have quarrelled."

"Yes."

"And you believe what an angry woman tells you--in a love quarrel!"

"No. That's why we quarrelled, as you call it. I saw she was deceitful,
and--and----"

"And what?"

"I told her so!"

"Good Lord. You told her _that_! Then what did she tell you?"

"She cried first. Then she became angry. Then she told me everything."

"How much was that?"

"Why, you know--_everything_! That she was sorry she ever saw me; that
as a man I wasn't worth Seibert's little finger!"

"That opened your eyes and broke your heart. I see. What else?"

"It wasn't that I didn't care what she said that way. It was other
things that she told me--and she laughed, too."

"Of course. The laughing is what hurt."

"No, I didn't care about that. She said--I'm telling only what she
said--she said that she saw Nada liked me, and she just wanted to see
if she couldn't take me away from Nada. She said Nada had always taken
lovers away from her. She said that she had been tired of me--that's
why she had tried to make me go away by pretending that she felt wicked
to love me. She said that she had been terribly frightened when she
found that Gauro had seen us, and that when we got to her father's
house she had said as mean things as she could about Seibert because
she had always made people understand that she was afraid of him,
because he was such a big rough man. And she said that of course she
was not going to take the blame of being a faithless wife who was in
love with me when she had only been playing with me to amuse herself!"

"And you believe all that, Paullen?"

"No, McGuire. But I don't know what to believe. Then we heard from Nada
how he had destroyed everything that belonged to his wife; and Nada
said it was because he was so deeply hurt. But before that, McGuire,
long before, I had discovered that Oreena was a deceitful, unworthy
woman, and I told her so. That was how she answered me, making out
that I had been merely a plaything for her. And I was. That much I do
believe."

Both then looked at Seibert, who had shifted with a movement of
writhing and muttered heavily. For a moment he seemed about to awaken,
perhaps disturbed by the sound of talking; but he threw an arm at full
length along the bed, turned his head to one side, and continued asleep.

"But why are you _here_?" McGuire asked, in an insistent undertone.

"I had to come. Can't you see? Don't you understand? He liked me, and I
wronged him in the way that any miserable dog of a man might have done.
And I know it. I feel it, McGuire. I don't know what he will do to me,
but whatever it is I'll--I'll--don't you see I couldn't go sneaking
off and always be ashamed of myself for a coward? As well as--as--what
I was, a cur that stole a man's wife when the man had tried to be his
friend. Don't you see the only way I could get back any little bit of
self-respect was to come right to him, and say, 'Mr. Seibert, here I
am. Do whatever you think right!'"

"No," said McGuire, glancing hastily from the slight boyish form to the
great, powerful body on the bed. "No, I don't see. I don't see why you
should feel that you owe anything like that to Seibert."

"I don't owe it to Seibert," Paullen said earnestly. "I owe it to
myself. It's the only thing I can do and have any respect for myself
left. I have got to have something that I am not ashamed to remember.
Don't you understand, McGuire?"

"No. No, I don't."

"Nada understood. She tried to keep me from coming. But she understood."

"You told her?"

"Yes."

"Ah," said McGuire.

"Why do you say, 'Ah'?"

"Well, Paullen, you have come. You have shown yourself no coward.
You have done all that. Now go; the old boatswain will let you out.
Don't be a fool. If the fates chose to have him asleep when you came,
consider it as a sign from the gods that you don't need to have your
neck broken--and _go_!"

"No. I shall wait," said Paullen, perceptibly stiffening.

He stood at one side of the room, near the wall, but he did not lean
against it. He folded his arms and looked away from McGuire.

McGuire eyed him with long, thoughtful scrutiny, not quite sure whether
he admired Paullen for a strange sort of courage or pitied him for a
stranger sort of folly.

The lamp cast a brilliant ring of light around itself on the table;
elsewhere the room was dim, but objects anywhere in it were visible if
the eyes gazed for a moment or two at them.

Seibert's deep stertorous breathing held their attention when they had
ceased talking. He slept unrestfully; in every few breaths there would
be one that was long-drawn, like a ponderous sigh, and frequently his
voice spoke brokenly, without words, as if his troubled breath of
itself swept the vocal chords into inarticulate sound.

Suddenly Seibert seemed growling; it was an animal sort of sound,
intermittent, and growing deeper. His body strained as if bound by
chains; sweat appeared on the high red forehead; his arms twitched, and
the fingers of both hands set rigidly. The markings of agony appeared
on his coarse, thick features. The sight of his straining and the
sounds he made were at once pathetic and alarming, and he struggled
like a man in a strait-jacket and under the knees of warders.

"Get out! For God's sake, go!" McGuire shouted at Paullen, who stood
with a kind of bewildered dread, his eyes fixed on Seibert.

At the sound of McGuire's voice Seibert abruptly relaxed, sighed
heavily, and sat up with a start; then, after a second's daze, he began
wiping the sweat from his face with the palm of his hand.

"Whew! I had such a dream! It was that I had hold of----"

He stopped. An expression like perplexed idiocy appeared on his face;
and, still sitting, he drew himself up, staring fixedly, stupidly
amazed, incredulous. Coming up out of a dream, not yet fully awake, or
at least not quite sure that he was awake, he had no rational reason
for believing his eyes, for believing that the impalpable body he had
struggled to close on and crush in the darkness of a dream had been
projected into reality, and stood there in the half-shadows of the
room, between himself and the wall. His breath came slowly, cautiously,
with the restraint of one intent on not disturbing something that might
disappear like wind-blown vapour. He stood up, crouching a little,
hunching himself over; he was hardly yet out of his nightmare, and
all his senses were still confused by the frustrated violence he had
strained to use in the dream.

"There he is now!" Seibert said hoarsely, reassuring himself; and, thus
assured of the permanency of Paullen's presence, his breath came fast
and heavily, and the dazed expression of his face changed to a glower.

He seized Paullen, grasping him at neck and waist, jerking the boy to
him, for a moment holding him as if not yet quite sure that it was
not a dream. Seibert's face appeared swollen, and the dark red of his
sunburned countenance was stained to a more vivid colour by the rush of
hot blood.

McGuire cried at him, "Don't! Seibert! No!" But his voice had no
influence; and McGuire caught a glimpse of Paullen's face, white as
paper, in the air.

Seibert, breathing hoarsely, in a kind of powerful frenzy, had lifted
him from the floor, raised him overhead, held him up at arm's length
to dash him down; then Seibert's great body appeared suddenly turned
to stone, while the living burden was in his upraised hands. With
Paullen over his head Seibert fought within himself; and the long years
of harsh self-mastery, of uncompromising self-control, now gave him
strength over his rage.

He lowered Paullen, set him on his feet, and gave him a push that sent
the boy staggering.

Sweat dripped from all over Seibert's face, and his breathing was
like that of a man who has done some terrible labour in the sun. His
thick arm shook as he extended it, pointing at Paullen, and shouted,
"Why dare you come near me? Go off! I don't want that I should see
you--I--I----Go! Go!"

Ben Holt, attracted by the shouting, threw open the door and stood
aside as Paullen unsteadily passed out, head down, bending slightly
forward, as if his straight body had been broken.


9

The remainder of the night Seibert walked about in a preoccupied mood,
almost a daze, sometimes trampling and stamping the broken glass
from which McGuire, with ironical soliloquy, had drunk his toast to
Lalua. The crunching and brittle rasp of the glass seemed to have
something in it unconsciously pleasing to him, or perhaps there was
a dim gratification in grinding it underfoot, in feeling it break
and shatter. At times he sat down, only to rise immediately; and
occasionally he made queer, throaty sounds, and clenched his hands.
McGuire remained quiet and eyed him warily.

It was near dawn before Seibert, who followed an idea with the
persistence of a traveller on a road that has no by-paths, stopped
before McGuire and demanded, "Why did they put that fellow here in with
me, like that? With me?"

"He came of himself, Seibert. He felt guilty, and wanted to take his
punishment."

Seibert glared, uncomprehending.

"It's all over between them," said McGuire. "She told him that she was
sorry she ever saw him. She said--Oreena said that he wasn't worth one
of your little fingers as a man. She told him so. And more. She is----"

Seibert stepped closer, and commanded quickly, "Again, McGuire! Say
that again!"

Then McGuire offered the spurious truth by repeating the bitter things
that Oreena, in defensive anger, had said to Paullen when she was
desperately trying to save her own appearance of self-respect. McGuire
felt that Seibert, amid the ruins of everything that he valued, was
entitled to that much satisfaction.

"It is true, McGuire? It is true like you say?"

Seibert towered, awkwardly eager.

"Paullen told it to me."

"Ah!" Seibert was doubtful.

"Their folly soured on them quicker than I thought it would."

Seibert looked down steadily for a moment. "She said that, McGuire? You
think Or'na now feels that way?"

"Paullen may do other things, but he doesn't lie."

"Poor little Or'na. Sometimes she is just like a child, McGuire."

"Is she?" he asked, with an air of innocence.

"_Ach!_ yes! Just a child. Yes. A little child. McGuire?"

"Yes?"

"You tell me honest. My head is full of tangles, like a jungle. You
tell me all that you think about it. Is it right that I should ask her
to come back to my house?"

McGuire, on the impulse, nearly cried, "Lord, no!" but he paused a
moment thoughtfully.

McGuire had no moral eagerness to see people suffer because they may
have happened to deserve suffering. Oreena soon would likely be glad to
return to the comforts she had abandoned; these, compared to what she
would have in her father's house, would be luxurious, and her pretty
little body needed ease and softness as a bird needs a warm nest. It
would at least greatly please her vanity to be forgiven, and she would
never again be so ready for folly. And Seibert loved her. He wanted
her. His unhappiness would be perpetual without her. Just as soon as
Oreena fully realised that Paullen was utterly lost to her she would,
even though a little reluctantly, be willing to return to Seibert.
And Seibert was the sort of man who could forgive; which is something
requiring greater strength and self-mastery than not forgiving.

"Tell me, McGuire?" Seibert repeated.

"You know best what you want. I would do that--whatever it is," said
the subtle McGuire.

Seibert turned away with an ambiguous, "Ah--uh" to ponder that answer.
He walked to the bed and sat down on it, leaning forward with his
elbows on his knees and staring at the floor.

Boatswain Ben Holt came again on watch at noon. He opened the door and
looked in. Seibert sat in the cane chair with his back to the door,
and, having glanced at Holt, turned his head away and went on with his
own thoughts.

Holt and his mates had been engaged by the consul as the most available
men in port to stand watches and keep Seibert and McGuire from leaving
the house; and though some of the men, particularly one Hatborn, were
inclined to be regular watchdogs, Holt's ideas of wardenship did not
extend much beyond the literal observance of instructions.


10

Presently Mortimer entered. He appeared very tired. The dark puffs were
more prominent under his eyes, and the eyes were weary. He held a
freshly-lighted cigar, and a cloud of dark smoke was soon drifting over
his head. After a glance at McGuire he looked at Seibert, who continued
sitting with feet wide apart, and with a sullen stare looked across his
shoulder at the consul.

Mortimer said wearily, slowly, and with effort:

"Seibert, you may go to your plantation, or wherever you like. I am
not yet sure that you ought to be released. I am still doubtful,
but you can have the benefit of the doubt. Captain David of the
_Bellarius_--you know of her--came yesterday and sailed this morning.
He knew of Gauro, the man you killed. It appears that the native's life
was forfeit in Fiji for a crime on a plantation there--the Wateson. I
did not know that when I accused you of murder. Captain David said that
you should not be held accountable. I have discussed the matter this
morning with many people, and they are all of the opinion, Seibert,
that you should benefit by--er--by the fact that Gauro deserved what
you did. And as for your interference with Penwenn--well, Penwenn has
changed his mind about wanting Nada Combe and young Paullen. Besides,
Seibert, there is a great deal of sympathy toward you on Pulotu since
your fire, and--er--the blacks have been loose. You may go. When the
German consul returns he may--perhaps he may--no, nobody will trouble
you more over that, Seibert. And I, Seibert, I am damned sorry!"

Seibert got up slowly. His eyes were glowing; his face grew darker and
darker. "You do this thing," he shouted wrathfully, "for something that
fellow Gauro did on a plantation in Fiji! When you see my place all
burned, you come and you say, 'Seibert, I'm sorry. Everybody thinks you
did right to kill a fellow that was bad in Fiji!'

"I did not shoot him for what he done in Fiji! I shoot him for what he
did on Pulotu. You just remember that, Mr. Consul Mortimer! My blacks
ruin everything they can while I am here, and you try to get out of the
blame for what you have done to me by talking about Fiji! Don't tell
lies to me!"

Mortimer's face flushed as he pulled with nervous jerks at his
moustache; but after a moment's painful effort he said, though
appearing about to choke, "You are wrong, Seibert. You know that you
are wrong!"

Then he turned and walked rapidly out of the room, slamming the door
behind him.

Seibert continued for a time to glare at the door, his body remaining
rigid and threatening; and when he had looked away, changed his
position, and put down his temper, he even appeared to forget that he
was no longer in custody.

McGuire, approaching him, said, "Well, Seibert, I wish that I were
going out with you."

He stared at McGuire, for an instant not remembering that he was at
liberty; then, bitterly: "For something that fellow did in Fiji! _Ach
Gott!_ McGuire, and I now go out to my place that is all burned. Ho,
well, McGuire, twenty years ago it was worse than that; and I"--his
hand swung up to his chest, patting it--"I will make it all right over
again."

Then his face became blank; his thoughts were far off, perhaps puzzling
among the heavy expenses, the need of money, the baffling lack of
labour, the eternal and unresting encroachments of the beaten jungle,
and the stubbornness of the soil.

He came to himself with a heavy start, looked about, then walked
slowly across to his hat. He put it on and stood still, gazing about
as if trying to recall something. Then: "I think maybe you are a good
fellow, McGuire. But I am no more going to like anybody. That Hausen, I
liked him. That Paullen--I thought there was a fine fellow. My little
Oreena----"

He did not try to say more. After a moment or two he vacantly
flourished a hand at McGuire with much the same sort of gesture that
would have been used to someone a quarter of a mile off, and started
out; but at the door he stopped and turned. "Good-bye, you, McGuire. At
my house you will always have a place to come and stay, for you are a
good fellow, I think. It is hard to tell about you fellows. It is hard
to tell about everybody. Sometimes I don't know even about myself."

He gave another sweep of the big arm, then with his great, round,
coarse face gravely set, went out, tramping heavily.


11

At this time on Pulotu the weather was hot and sticky; the un-iced food
was particularly tasteless and unsatisfying, while insects night and
day swarmed about with the persistence of an Egyptian plague.

Penwenn was ready to return to San Francisco. He could not afford to
idle about indefinitely for the profitless satisfaction of seeing a
vessel bear McGuire off, when the vessel would as readily take charge
of him though Penwenn was not present. He wanted to get away. He
realised fully that he had made a mistake in following Nada; sympathy
everywhere was with her, even among his own sailors.

Mortimer had said, "You must understand, Mr. Penwenn, that as the
British consul I might involve myself in difficulties if I turned
McGuire over to you, a private citizen. But an American naval vessel
carries a kind of unquestionable authority for me since I am acting
American consul. No one could ever wonder why or complain if the
_Panther_ took McGuire, though there are some British claims against
him, and Williams----"

No one chose to stir much in the heat, so Penwenn came on shore in the
evening, having previously sent word that he would call for a final
visit with the consul.

He was received by Mortimer on the coolest part of the veranda, where,
after rising to greet Penwenn, he reclined again in the long chair and
told Tasese to bring brandy and soda.

Mortimer appeared more weary than usual; the puffs under his eyes
were darker, as if they had been newly stained, and his breathing was
shallow. Both men seemed tired, dispirited, and the very weariness of
manner between them was like a sort of friendliness.

"I have to be returning to San Francisco."

Mortimer nodded sympathetically.

The boy came with the brandy and soda, and a box of long black, thick
cigars. He placed the tray on a stand between the two men.

"Barometer's falling," Penwenn remarked, pouring freely of the brandy.
"Storm to-night. If it's clear to-morrow, I'll leave."

"We need it. Clear out this blasted sultriness," Mortimer returned,
studying the symmetrical row of cigars as if for subtle markings that
distinguished some as better than others.

"Miserable climate," said Penwenn.

"Beastly."

"How do you men stand it?"

"We don't--we don't," Mortimer replied quickly. "This time of the year.
The only two men this climate never appears to affect are old Tom Combe
and Seibert."

"Ah, Seibert," Penwenn said sullenly. "You have let him loose?"

Mortimer lighted a cigar. His hand was unsteady. The climate, this time
of year, always unnerved him; at least, he said it was the climate.

"You know why, too," he replied, with a long glance.

Penwenn nodded, as if satisfied, sipped at his glass, sucked at his
cigar.

"He's ruined himself, I fear. Completely ruined himself," said Mortimer
reflectively.

"Among the residents, you mean? Ah!" Penwenn showed a slight
hopefulness.

"Financially. Heavily involved with the Godeffroys. They loaned
heavily. Foolishly. They have always admired him. They _could_ pull him
out, but they won't. Queer fellow, Penwenn, that Seibert. You saw the
parked grounds. He has thrown away thousands, just wasted it in that
fashion. Some say he did it for his wife--wanted to make her happy.
But, of course, he was doing it before he married. No business head
at all, and will be advised by no one. He could have made a fortune,
but coffee trees--flowers--cotton--horses--equipment--labourers--and
stubbornness!"

A blast of wind came out of the stillness, rushing overhead, rattling
the palms, setting the house a-tremble, stirring the air until the
lamp's flame quivered; then passed, and all was quiet again.

Mortimer got up slowly, and, taking one of the lamps, said:

"Let's see what the barometer is doing now."

Penwenn arose, tapped the ash of his cigar into the tray, and followed.

"Still falling," said Mortimer, in a tired, uninterested voice.

Another blast of wind passed over the tree-tops. The air cooled
suddenly. From a great distance the rolling of thunder reached them.

"I had better be returning on board. I'll be caught in the rain," said
Penwenn.

"Yes, it will rain. Rain hard."

"I am going out in the morning, if the sun is shining. Storm will be
over, don't you think, by morning?'

"Yes, oh, yes. By morning. Most likely."

"Good-bye, consul. Any time, anything Penwenn-Penwenn & Company can
do, let me know. Consider it a favour, I shall. You'll send that rogue
McGuire along to San Francisco?"

"Yes, yes, certainly. When the _Panther_ comes. I appreciate what you
say. I trust you understand my position."

"Assuredly. Good-bye, consul."

"Good-bye, Mr. Penwenn."

Mortimer returned to his chair. He felt chilled. The tropics had
debilitated his body, which was not strong, until a slight fall in the
temperature made him cold. He let his cigar go out.

After a long time he wondered what the barometer was doing, and, taking
his lamp again, went to see.

As he looked at the barometer he shuddered; and then thunder broke
overhead. Rain began to fall with the sound of hail striking, the first
gust of the rain was that heavy. The dazzling shimmer of lightning
played through the house for a moment, and wind went by, galloping
like cavalry. The mats fastened up to screen the veranda quivered and
flapped.

Then Mortimer raised the lamp high above his head, so that its glow
would be cast farther, and he said quickly: "Ho, there! Who are you?"

"It's me, sir," answered a hoarse, excited voice, and Ben Holt stamped
from out the shadows. "McGuire's gone!"

"What's this, Holt? What are you saying?"

"McGuire's gone, sir. I come to go on watch an' found Nat Hatborn dead
drunk in the kitchen! I've shook an' shook 'im, but he wouldn't speak.
I kicked him, an' he only cussed. McGuire's gone, an' a night like this
the devil his-self couldn't find nobody."

"Gone!"

Mortimer was angered. He knew how people would laugh at him.

"Yes'r, he's sure gone."

"But how, Holt? How did he get Hatborn intoxicated?"

"Well, sir, I dunno. There's only one bottle on the floor, an' Hatborn
could've drunk six without wobblin' much."

Mortimer walked a few feet away from the barometer and placed the lamp
on a table. He tore a strip of paper from a magazine, twisted it into a
quill, then held it over the lamp, and when it caught fire he relighted
his cigar; but at once the cigar fell from his mouth. An expression of
intense, pained surprise came over his face, and he put both hands to
his breast, as if to snatch and pull away something that was hurting
him. With two or three unsteady, backward steps he moved toward a
chair, but before he got to the chair, or before the bewildered Holt
could reach him, he toppled over.

Holt shouted, as if arousing the watch below, "He's dead! The consul's
dead!"

The dapper Tasese came running lightly. His soft, womanish face glowed
with fright, and he began howling.

Mortimer swore weakly and raised himself on an elbow. He took a
cautious breath, and sank back again, as if he had been stabbed.

"Get me into bed," he said, with strange composure. Then testily to the
bellowing boy: "Stop that blasted racket, can't you?"

Mortimer felt that he was done for; in any case, he could not remain
longer in the tropics. Dr. Lemaitre had warned him repeatedly against
coffee, particularly against strong tobacco.

Holt's clothes were soggy from the rain he had come through, and
the water dripped from him as he raised Mortimer, who tried to help
himself, moving cautiously, warily, expecting another stab, and feeling
a growing numbness all through his body.

Tasese and Holt got him to his bed, laid him on it. He began to shiver.
They pulled the covering about him. He lay exhausted, with eyes partly
glazed and both hands on his left breast, as if feebly shielding his
heart.

"This, this," he said quietly, "means that McGuire gets away. I can do
nothing now. Other people on Pulotu will be glad of it. And he knows
the island like a native--like a native."


12

McGuire's escape had been easily made. Among the boxes of medicine and
little phials left in the room of Balte-Brun was one that McGuire, by
inquisitively sniffing, had recognised as laudanum before he made out
Dr. Lemaitre's scrawl.

McGuire knew the sort of disagreeable fellow that Hatborn was, and,
having watched and talked with him on guard, knew just about what to
expect.

McGuire had got one of the men to give him a bottle of wine, and,
drinking about half of it, poured the laudanum into what was left;
then, that evening, waiting his chance, he pretended to be trying to
get a drink from the bottle without letting Hatborn see, and of course
Hatborn did see.

"Here! Here!" he called. "Give me that bottle."

"Go to hell," said McGuire. "You'll not drink this!"

"Give that up! Hear me?" Hatborn demanded severely.

McGuire appeared cowed, and reluctantly surrendered his bottle.

"I won't, eh?" Hatborn sneered, and, tipping the bottle, drank it in
rapid gulps, in the manner of one accustomed to hard liquors. He was
used to queer flavours in what he found to drink at bar shanties and on
water-fronts. He swallowed it down before McGuire's face, just to show
who was the guard and who was the prisoner.

Hatborn had then returned to the kitchen and closed the door, which
McGuire gently opened and peered through. He saw a silly, mystified
expression come over Hatborn's face. The fellow rubbed his eyes,
grimaced in a vague effort to keep off sleepiness, then, sitting down,
fell heavily across his arms on the table.

McGuire was almost to Combe's plantation before the storm broke. He
wanted to pass that way and leave word of his whereabouts before he
took to the hills and went in hiding with a native family that he knew.

When it began to rain he was within a mile or less of the house, and
pushed on rapidly. As he entered the grounds he saw several lights in
the distance. At first he did not realise that these were lanterns,
jerking and flickering, and that their light was crossed and recrossed
by the dark forms of persons moving about in the storm.

He knew that something alarming must have stirred the household; so he
hurried forward on the run, and came to the house just as he saw a form
with a lantern pass along the veranda and enter a lighted room. It was
Mr. Grinnell.

A moment later McGuire was at the door, and paused as he opened
it, then entered slowly, listening. Three or four persons--all his
friends--were in the room, but at first they hardly noticed him.
Paullen and Nada were standing together, and she smiled, but did not
seem to wonder how he came to be there.

Paullen was sopping wet, and Nada wore a rubber coat that was too
large, from which water dripped. She had removed her soaked straw hat,
but held the shapeless thing in a hand that hung wearily at her side.

Combe sat with legs extended and head forward, his vague eyes fastened
on the floor. He twisted and untwisted his fingers together. He had
been out in the storm without a hat, and his thin grey hair appeared to
be splattered over his head, and the wet had caused his beard to cling
together and become sharply peaked, so that, except for the writhing
of his fingers, he would have been like a drowned man loosely propped
in the chair.

Mr. Grinnell, in wet black rubbers, that glistened and shimmered,
placed his lantern on the floor, and said with an air of dejection:

"We have looked everywhere, Combe--everywhere."

"But you ain't found her? You ain't found her?"

"I've turned out every man, black and white, Combe. They are still
wandering about, looking."

"You don't think Seibert's done something?" Combe asked, looking up.

At the mention of Seibert's name Paullen walked to a far side of the
room and stood looking out of a window, through which he could see
nothing except when the lightning flashed.

No one answered Combe, though his faded eyes turned hopefully from face
to face, as if wanting to hear evil words of Seibert. Then he dropped
his eyes again, and went on twisting his fingers like one in pain.

Mr. Grinnell absently moved a little closer to Nada, and said, "That
fellow I sent to Seibert's should be back--bad roads or not." Dropping
his voice so Combe would not overhear: "You still think she may have
gone to him?"

Nada glanced a little uneasily at her father, and nodded quickly.

"When did she disappear?" asked McGuire.

Mr. Grinnell then noticed him for the first time. McGuire, too, was
covered with mud, and soaked through. "How did you get here?" asked Mr.
Grinnell, with brightening interest.

"A fellow went to sleep and I walked out. I can't stay long, but what
of Oreena? She is gone?"

Nada again glanced cautiously at her father; then she took McGuire's
arm and led him aside.

"To-night Oreena would not eat supper, and told me that she was going
to bed. She has been terribly unhappy. After a time I went up to her
room to see if she was asleep, and she was not there. I looked all
through the house. I went to Mr. Grinnell's house--John Paullen is
stopping there, and I thought she might have gone there. I could not
find her, and I told father. Everybody has been searching everywhere.
We can't find even a sign of where she has been."

"You think she may have gone----" McGuire gestured.

"We heard to-day that he had been released. Oreena said that she wished
that she dared to go back to him. She was terribly affected by the way
Mr. Seibert destroyed everything that had belonged to her. One minute
she said that it meant he loved her, and the next that she knew it
showed that he was glad she was gone."

"And he?" McGuire nodded toward Paullen.

"She never loved him," said Nada quickly.

"Or Seibert either."

"No, perhaps not, Dan. But she wanted love. That is all she did want
from almost anybody. She knows now that Mr. Seibert really loved her.
And suffering makes so much difference in what you think of things. She
was really awfully sorry for Mr. Seibert after his fire, and the way
the consul treated him. Dan, she said one terrible thing to-day. She
said that she wished that _she_ had killed that Dr. Hausen. Then, she
said, Mr. Seibert would have forgiven her everything."

Oreena had said another thing that day which had deeply touched Nada,
though she did not then speak of it: "Oh, it was wicked of me to try to
steal John Paullen from you! But the first time you mentioned his name
I knew that you loved him. And I had never taken a lover from anybody;
and I so wanted to! I wanted the thrill of it, and I tried to steal
him. Oh, I was so miserable and I am so wicked. Please don't forgive
me! Nobody should ever forgive me!"

A broad sheet of lightning passed through the grounds, and Paullen
turned from the window as if a little dazed, saying:

"Seibert has come. I saw him on horseback there."

"Who? Seibert?" said Mr. Grinnell. Then he picked up his lantern and
went out.

Paullen started to leave the room in the opposite direction, but
McGuire caught at his shoulder.

"Don't, McGuire! He is coming in. I can't stay. You know I can't."

"Yes, I know. But don't go far. I am making for the hills as soon as
we find out about Oreena. You are going with me, and stay with me.
Understand? You will do it?"

"I want to. That's what I want to do. I'll wait somewhere outside."

Then he left the room rapidly.

As McGuire faced about, Nada was looking steadily at him. She had
overheard; and she then was aware that McGuire, too, conspired against
her love of Paullen, and was taking him away; but since it was a love
that she could not declare, and would not admit, she must stand mute,
without protest, and without complaint, and watch him go from her in a
way that meant he was never to return.

"Ah, Dan," she said a little reproachfully, and was silent.


13

Then Seibert came in with Mr. Grinnell, carrying the lantern behind
him. Seibert was covered in a rubber coat that fell loosely about him.
He wore his leather boots, and the big spurs struck with a scraping
rasp as he walked. The large rubber hat was like a black helmet. He did
not have gloves, but the supple whip swung at his wrist.

This was the first time that he had entered Combe's house in many
years, but he was thinking of one thing only, and showed no sign of
remembering now the enmity that he had always ignored. He did not make
a gesture of any kind, except to push up his hat. His large face was
not in the least flexible, and looked now dull and troubled, as if by
a secret pain that he did not understand. His long coat of shining wet
rubber rustled and swished at every movement, and seemed to cloak much
of his awkwardness. He walked directly to Combe and said, "I come here
to take my wife home when we find her. Why is she gone?"

Combe sat perfectly motionless. His fingers had ceased their writhing,
and a queer glint appeared in the washed-out eyes. There was something
about him that was strange, and though he sat dripping wet and loosely,
as if the water had softened his bones, he suddenly cried in a shrill
voice, "She won't go home with ye! I won't let 'er! She's my daughter,
an'--an' you've been mean to her!"

Everyone glanced anxiously at Seibert, but he, merely staring as if
dully perplexed, looked down at Combe and said nothing.

"An' you're ruined!" Combe squawked, a flash of grotesque glee
appearing on his wrinkled face. "You're ruined--like Waller said you'd
be! You're ruined! Hee-hee-hee-hee!"

Combe laughed, toothless and mirthless:

"Hee-hee-hee!"

Seibert stiffened; his great body seemed to grow larger and larger.

"I? Ruined?" he asked, in slow dazed depth of voice, then struck his
breast powerfully. "Never! No matter what happens, nothing can happen
enough to ruin me!"

Far off heavy thunder rolled on and on, as if all the battlements of
heaven were being toppled down.

"Hee-hee-hee!"

"Father!" Nada cried, suddenly realising what had happened, and,
running to him, pressed her hands against him.

"Ruined! Hee-hee!" old Combe muttered happily, sinking back, relaxed,
smiling foolishly, his twisted brain now flickering with madness.
"She's hid from him. He can't get Or'na. Hee-hee! An' he's ruined!"


14

It was Lily's white husband, a tall, lazy beachcomber type of man, a
sort of foreman over the blacks, who came running out of the rain to
say that Oreena had been found.

"Tono found her--found her hat up there first. He knew she used to go
up there an' just sit and sit, lonesome-like. Then he came back and got
me an' some boys to go look there at the bottom o' the cliff. They're
bringin' her now. I came on ahead to tell you, an'----"

Seibert's face remained dully blank, stolid, mask-like; it was as
coarsely featured as if cast of rough, dark-red metal, and his eyes,
which seemed peering through the mask, had an unseeing, glazed
expression. He was like a man encased in armour, who could show
nothing of what he felt. With quick, heavy steps he walked toward the
door.

The foreman, at first thinking that Seibert meant to speak with him,
was directly in the way, and barely shifted aside, brushed by the
rubber coat.

Mr. Grinnell followed with his lantern; then McGuire and the foreman.
"What's the matter with that fellow?" the foreman asked in a puzzled
grumble.

Rain fell as it falls only in the tropics, with hours of torrential
downpouring. It streamed from the palms, ran in sheets from the veranda
thatch, falling to the ground with continuous muffled splashing, like
the sobbing of many voices.

Lightning from a harmless distance repeatedly dipped its broad flame
into the darkness, and the dull jars of thunder trembled across the
heavens like the rolling of mighty wheels on a bridge that spanned the
sky.

Far off down the grove faint lights seemed struggling among the
tree-trunks, gleaming and vanishing; and the foreman pointed, saying,
"There, they're coming."

Seibert, with Mr. Grinnell hurrying in silence at his side and keeping
the lantern before them, strode on with hard, heavy steps. Occasionally
the spurs clicked; and there was a perpetual _swish-swish_ of rubber
coats that glistened and shimmered darkly under the rain in the light.

As they drew near they heard the sound of one voice wailing, with
shrill rise and whimpering fall of tone.

"That's Tono," said the foreman. "She was good to him."

Oreena was borne on the bare shoulder of a black. Many black, squatty,
naked shapes pressed closely about the lanterns, with which they had
searched at the foot of the cliff where Oreena, desperately unloved,
had thrown herself.

Seibert pushed among them, his hands out, as if pushing aside tall
grass. He lifted her from the black's shoulder, and, bending forward,
held her small, bedraggled, broken body under the lantern which Mr.
Grinnell raised.

The white glare of the lantern fell on, and rain streaked through the
light and beat on the cold little face, as if cruelly to wash away the
last trace and suggestion of its beauty. She lay on his arms as if
drowned. Her tangle of soft, bushy hair hung and clung about her like
tarred strings. Her dark eyes were half opened, with a listless stare,
as if vaguely watching.

Seibert opened his rubber coat and drew it, black as a pall, over her
body, sheltering her, holding her tightly.


15

Seibert carried her into the house, up the stairs, and placed her weary
and broken little body on a big bed in the room where she had lived
before she came to him; in the same bed where, in gloomy loneliness,
she had once lain awake in the night-time, scheming how to get into his
affection. The fever of loneliness and lovelessness was now gone from
her for ever, as if at last put away by the gentleness with which she
was borne.

The little gilded lamp burned with a small flame on the table before
the mirror where she had so often watched herself, playing with smiles
and tossing her head in the make-believe of triumph over imaginary
lovers; and the mirror now darkly took up the scene within the room, as
if to show, in the same depths where her vanity had preened itself, how
futile had been her youth and beauty. She had been only a foolish girl,
with no one to show her that selfishness was unlovely, that her proud
little artificial airs made herself unhappy, that the schemings of her
inexperienced child's head were at best but a flimsy net.

Nada threw herself half on the bed, enfolding the cold, wet little
body as if to warm it back into life; her tears ran from her cheek to
Oreena's, and her low crying was the only sound within the room.

Mr. Grinnell, with his head uncovered, stood in the pool of his
lantern's light. Beside him, old Combe, now blessed with a harmless
madness, smiled secretively as he held up a heavy glass lamp that
burned a dirty, smoking wick; and with an idiot air of furtiveness he
peered at Seibert.

Seibert groped vaguely toward his hat, but when his hand touched the
stiff rubber brim he unconsciously pulled it tighter on his head. He
stood a long time without moving, a great figure shrouded in wet,
glistening black. Even now he showed none of the flexibility of grief.
His face expressed nothing but a dull heaviness, though the rain that
was still on his cheeks gave a strange impression, as if a mask could
weep.

"Ah, she was just a little child," he said with low hoarseness, and for
a moment seemed trying to say something more, but said nothing.

Then he turned, at first a little dazed, as if hardly aware of what he
was doing, and in leaving the room he walked toward a doorless wall.

McGuire picked up the lantern and swung it toward the door; then
Seibert, after an instant's pause, went toward the lantern, which
McGuire now carried on ahead to light him down through the dark
barracks of a house. His spurs scraped and clicked. At times the floor
shook under his great weight and heavy steps.

They came out on the veranda, and while walking along it toward the
steps, lightning winked rapidly, then flashed steadily for a second or
two, making the night brighter than any day. This disclosed Paullen,
solitary as a lost soul in the midst of its punishment, and his pale,
staring face appeared as much in pain as if he were.

Seibert stopped, his breathing instantly hoarse and quick. The
lightning vanished; a deeper darkness closed over the veranda, and
nothing beyond the circular glow of the lantern could be seen. No one
spoke; McGuire hurried on; and Seibert, after a doubtful moment as to
whether he had seen a ghost or a man, followed. His first step made a
sound of stumbling, then his stride became firm and heavy, his spurs
clicked, his coat rasped and rustled from the swing of his arms.

He tramped down the steps and to the dripping palm-shelter where his
horse was tied. McGuire held up the lantern to the rope's knot, and
Seibert drew it loose, then faced about slowly. The light was between
them, on both their faces.

"Ah, McGuire, what a fool that I--I, Adolph Seibert--should try to
graft a little flower bud to a big old man like me."

With a quick, powerful swing of fist he smote his chest and the blow
was like a blow of punishment.

He swung himself into the saddle, reined the horse back, turning
northward; then rode at a gallop into the darkness.


_The End_






[End of Seibert of the Island, by Gordon Young]
