By the second day of the northwester, Sheldon was in collapse from his
fever. It had taken an unfair advantage of his weak state, and though it
was only ordinary malarial fever, in forty-eight hours it had run him as
low as ten days of fever would have done when he was in condition. But
the dysentery had been swept away from Berande. A score of convalescents
lingered in the hospital, but they were improving hourly. There had been
but one more death--that of the man whose brother had wailed over him
instead of brushing the flies away.
On the morning of the fourth day of his fever, Sheldon lay on the
veranda, gazing dimly out over the raging ocean. The wind was falling,
but a mighty sea was still thundering in on Berande beach, the flying
spray reaching in as far as the flagstaff mounds, the foaming wash
creaming against the gate-posts. He had taken thirty grains of quinine,
and the drug was buzzing in his ears like a nest of hornets, making his
hands and knees tremble, and causing a sickening palpitation of the
stomach. Once, opening his eyes, he saw what he took to be an
hallucination. Not far out, and coming in across the _Jessie's_
anchorage, he saw a whale-boat's nose thrust skyward on a smoky crest and
disappear naturally, as an actual whale-boat's nose should disappear, as
it slid down the back of the sea. He knew that no whale-boat should be
out there, and he was quite certain no men in the Solomons were mad
enough to be abroad in such a storm.
But the hallucination persisted. A minute later, chancing to open his
eyes, he saw the whale-boat, full length, and saw right into it as it
rose on the face of a wave. He saw six sweeps at work, and in the stern,
clearly outlined against the overhanging wall of white, a man who stood
erect, gigantic, swaying with his weight on the steering-sweep. This he
saw, and an eighth man who crouched in the bow and gazed shoreward. But
what startled Sheldon was the sight of a woman in the stern-sheets,
between the stroke-oar and the steersman. A woman she was, for a braid
of her hair was flying, and she was just in the act of recapturing it and
stowing it away beneath a hat that for all the world was like his own
"Baden-Powell."
The boat disappeared behind the wave, and rose into view on the face of
the following one. Again he looked into it. The men were dark-skinned,
and larger than Solomon Islanders, but the woman, he could plainly see,
was white. Who she was, and what she was doing there, were thoughts that
drifted vaguely through his consciousness. He was too sick to be vitally
interested, and, besides, he had a half feeling that it was all a dream;
but he noted that the men were resting on their sweeps, while the woman
and the steersman were intently watching the run of seas behind them.
"Good boatmen," was Sheldon's verdict, as he saw the boat leap forward on
the face of a huge breaker, the sweeps plying swiftly to keep her on that
front of the moving mountain of water that raced madly for the shore. It
was well done. Part full of water, the boat was flung upon the beach,
the men springing out and dragging its nose to the gate-posts. Sheldon
had called vainly to the house-boys, who, at the moment, were dosing the
remaining patients in the hospital. He knew he was unable to rise up and
go down the path to meet the newcomers, so he lay back in the steamer-
chair, and watched for ages while they cared for the boat. The woman
stood to one side, her hand resting on the gate. Occasionally surges of
sea water washed over her feet, which he could see were encased in rubber
sea-boots. She scrutinized the house sharply, and for some time she
gazed at him steadily. At last, speaking to two of the men, who turned
and followed her, she started up the path.
Sheldon attempted to rise, got half up out of his chair, and fell back
helplessly. He was surprised at the size of the men, who loomed like
giants behind her. Both were six-footers, and they were heavy in
proportion. He had never seen islanders like them. They were not black
like the Solomon Islanders, but light brown; and their features were
larger, more regular, and even handsome.
The woman--or girl, rather, he decided--walked along the veranda toward
him. The two men waited at the head of the steps, watching curiously.
The girl was angry; he could see that. Her gray eyes were flashing, and
her lips were quivering. That she had a temper, was his thought. But
the eyes were striking. He decided that they were not gray after all,
or, at least, not all gray. They were large and wide apart, and they
looked at him from under level brows. Her face was cameo-like, so clear
cut was it. There were other striking things about her--the cowboy
Stetson hat, the heavy braids of brown hair, and the long-barrelled 38
Colt's revolver that hung in its holster on her hip.
"Pretty hospitality, I must say," was her greeting, "letting strangers
sink or swim in your front yard."
"I--I beg your pardon," he stammered, by a supreme effort dragging
himself to his feet.
His legs wobbled under him, and with a suffocating sensation he began
sinking to the floor. He was aware of a feeble gratification as he saw
solicitude leap into her eyes; then blackness smote him, and at the
moment of smiting him his thought was that at last, and for the first
time in his life, he had fainted.
The ringing of the big bell aroused him. He opened his eyes and found
that he was on the couch indoors. A glance at the clock told him that it
was six, and from the direction the sun's rays streamed into the room he
knew that it was morning. At first he puzzled over something untoward he
was sure had happened. Then on the wall he saw a Stetson hat hanging,
and beneath it a full cartridge-belt and a long-barrelled 38 Colt's
revolver. The slender girth of the belt told its feminine story, and he
remembered the whale-boat of the day before and the gray eyes that
flashed beneath the level brows. She it must have been who had just rung
the bell. The cares of the plantation rushed upon him, and he sat up in
bed, clutching at the wall for support as the mosquito screen lurched
dizzily around him. He was still sitting there, holding on, with eyes
closed, striving to master his giddiness, when he heard her voice.
"You'll lie right down again, sir," she said.
It was sharply imperative, a voice used to command. At the same time one
hand pressed him back toward the pillow while the other caught him from
behind and eased him down.
"You've been unconscious for twenty-four hours now," she went on, "and I
have taken charge. When I say the word you'll get up, and not until
then. Now, what medicine do you take?--quinine? Here are ten grains.
That's right. You'll make a good patient."
"My dear madame," he began.
"You musn't speak," she interrupted, "that is, in protest. Otherwise,
you can talk."
"But the plantation--"
"A dead man is of no use on a plantation. Don't you want to know about
_me_? My vanity is hurt. Here am I, just through my first shipwreck;
and here are you, not the least bit curious, talking about your miserable
plantation. Can't you see that I am just bursting to tell somebody,
anybody, about my shipwreck?"
He smiled; it was the first time in weeks. And he smiled, not so much at
what she said, as at the way she said it--the whimsical expression of her
face, the laughter in her eyes, and the several tiny lines of humour that
drew in at the corners. He was curiously wondering as to what her age
was, as he said aloud:
"Yes, tell me, please."
"That I will not--not now," she retorted, with a toss of the head. "I'll
find somebody to tell my story to who does not have to be asked. Also, I
want information. I managed to find out what time to ring the bell to
turn the hands to, and that is about all. I don't understand the
ridiculous speech of your people. What time do they knock off?"
"At eleven--go on again at one."
"That will do, thank you. And now, where do you keep the key to the
provisions? I want to feed my men."
"Your men!" he gasped. "On tinned goods! No, no. Let them go out and
eat with my boys."
Her eyes flashed as on the day before, and he saw again the imperative
expression on her face.
"That I won't; my men are _men_. I've been out to your miserable
barracks and watched them eat. Faugh! Potatoes! Nothing but potatoes!
No salt! Nothing! Only potatoes! I may have been mistaken, but I
thought I understood them to say that that was all they ever got to eat.
Two meals a day and every day in the week?"
He nodded.
"Well, my men wouldn't stand that for a single day, much less a whole
week. Where is the key?"
"Hanging on that clothes-hook under the clock."
He gave it easily enough, but as she was reaching down the key she heard
him say:
"Fancy niggers and tinned provisions."
This time she really was angry. The blood was in her cheeks as she
turned on him.
"My men are not niggers. The sooner you understand that the better for
our acquaintance. As for the tinned goods, I'll pay for all they eat.
Please don't worry about that. Worry is not good for you in your
condition. And I won't stay any longer than I have to--just long enough
to get you on your feet, and not go away with the feeling of having
deserted a white man."
"You're American, aren't you?" he asked quietly.
The question disconcerted her for the moment.
"Yes," she vouchsafed, with a defiant look. "Why?"
"Nothing. I merely thought so."
"Anything further?"
He shook his head.
"Why?" he asked.
"Oh, nothing. I thought you might have something pleasant to say."
"My name is Sheldon, David Sheldon," he said, with direct relevance,
holding out a thin hand.
Her hand started out impulsively, then checked. "My name is Lackland,
Joan Lackland." The hand went out. "And let us be friends."
"It could not be otherwise--" he began lamely.
"And I can feed my men all the tinned goods I want?" she rushed on.
"Till the cows come home," he answered, attempting her own lightness,
then adding, "that is, to Berande. You see we don't have any cows at
Berande."
She fixed him coldly with her eyes.
"Is that a joke?" she demanded.
"I really don't know--I--I thought it was, but then, you see, I'm sick."
"You're English, aren't you?" was her next query.
"Now that's too much, even for a sick man," he cried. "You know well
enough that I am."
"Oh," she said absently, "then you are?"
He frowned, tightened his lips, then burst into laughter, in which she
joined.
"It's my own fault," he confessed. "I shouldn't have baited you. I'll
be careful in the future."
"In the meantime go on laughing, and I'll see about breakfast. Is there
anything you would fancy?"
He shook his head.
"It will do you good to eat something. Your fever has burned out, and
you are merely weak. Wait a moment."
She hurried out of the room in the direction of the kitchen, tripped at
the door in a pair of sandals several sizes too large for her feet, and
disappeared in rosy confusion.
"By Jove, those are my sandals," he thought to himself. "The girl hasn't
a thing to wear except what she landed on the beach in, and she certainly
landed in sea-boots."