Sheldon was back in the plantation superintending the building of a
bridge, when the schooner _Malakula_ ran in close and dropped anchor.
Joan watched the taking in of sail and the swinging out of the boat with
a sailor's interest, and herself met the two men who came ashore. While
one of the house-boys ran to fetch Sheldon, she had the visitors served
with whisky and soda, and sat and talked with them.
They seemed awkward and constrained in her presence, and she caught first
one and then the other looking at her with secret curiosity. She felt
that they were weighing her, appraising her, and for the first time the
anomalous position she occupied on Berande sank sharply home to her. On
the other hand, they puzzled her. They were neither traders nor sailors
of any type she had known. Nor did they talk like gentlemen, despite the
fact that there was nothing offensive in their bearing and that the
veneer of ordinary social nicety was theirs. Undoubtedly, they were men
of affairs--business men of a sort; but what affairs should they have in
the Solomons, and what business on Berande? The elder one, Morgan, was a
huge man, bronzed and moustached, with a deep bass voice and an almost
guttural speech, and the other, Raff, was slight and effeminate, with
nervous hands and watery, washed-out gray eyes, who spoke with a faint
indefinable accent that was hauntingly reminiscent of the Cockney, and
that was yet not Cockney of any brand she had ever encountered. Whatever
they were, they were self-made men, she concluded; and she felt the
impulse to shudder at thought of falling into their hands in a business
way. There, they would be merciless.
She watched Sheldon closely when he arrived, and divined that he was not
particularly delighted to see them. But see them he must, and so
pressing was the need that, after a little perfunctory general
conversation, he led the two men into the stuffy office. Later in the
afternoon, she asked Lalaperu where they had gone.
"My word," quoth Lalaperu; "plenty walk about, plenty look 'm. Look 'm
tree; look 'm ground belong tree; look 'm all fella bridge; look 'm copra-
house; look 'm grass-land; look 'm river; look 'm whale-boat--my word,
plenty big fella look 'm too much."
"What fella man them two fella?" she queried.
"Big fella marster along white man," was the extent of his description.
But Joan decided that they were men of importance in the Solomons, and
that their examination of the plantation and of its accounts was of
sinister significance.
At dinner no word was dropped that gave a hint of their errand. The
conversation was on general topics; but Joan could not help noticing the
troubled, absent expression that occasionally came into Sheldon's eyes.
After coffee, she left them; and at midnight, from across the compound,
she could hear the low murmur of their voices and see glowing the fiery
ends of their cigars. Up early herself, she found they had already
departed on another tramp over the plantation.
"What you think?" she asked Viaburi.
"Sheldon marster he go along finish short time little bit," was the
answer.
"What you think?" she asked Ornfiri.
"Sheldon marster big fella walk about along Sydney. Yes, me t'ink so. He
finish along Berande."
All day the examination of the plantation and the discussion went on; and
all day the skipper of the _Malakula_ sent urgent messages ashore for the
two men to hasten. It was not until sunset that they went down to the
boat, and even then a final talk of nearly an hour took place on the
beach. Sheldon was combating something--that she could plainly see; and
that his two visitors were not giving in she could also plainly see.
"What name?" she asked lightly, when Sheldon sat down to dinner.
He looked at her and smiled, but it was a very wan and wistful smile.
"My word," she went on. "One big fella talk. Sun he go down--talk-talk;
sun he come up--talk-talk; all the time talk-talk. What name that fella
talk-talk?
"Oh, nothing much." He shrugged his shoulders. "They were trying to buy
Berande, that was all."
She looked at him challengingly.
"It must have been more than that. It was you who wanted to sell."
"Indeed, no, Miss Lackland; I assure you that I am far from desiring to
sell."
"Don't let us fence about it," she urged. "Let it be straight talk
between us. You're in trouble. I'm not a fool. Tell me. Besides, I
may be able to help, to--to suggest something."
In the pause that followed, he seemed to debate, not so much whether he
would tell her, as how to begin to tell her.
"I'm American, you see," she persisted, "and our American heritage is a
large parcel of business sense. I don't like it myself, but I know I've
got it--at least more than you have. Let us talk it over and find a way
out. How much do you owe?"
"A thousand pounds, and a few trifles over--small bills, you know. Then,
too, thirty of the boys finish their time next week, and their balances
will average ten pounds each. But what is the need of bothering your
head with it? Really, you know--"
"What is Berande worth?--right now?"
"Whatever Morgan and Raff are willing to pay for it." A glance at her
hurt expression decided him. "Hughie and I have sunk eight thousand
pounds in it, and our time. It is a good property, and worth more than
that. But it has three years to run before its returns begin to come in.
That is why Hughie and I engaged in trading and recruiting. The _Jessie_
and our stations came very near to paying the running expenses of
Berande."
"And Morgan and Raff offered you what?"
"A thousand pounds clear, after paying all bills."
"The thieves!" she cried.
"No, they're good business men, that is all. As they told me, a thing is
worth no more than one is willing to pay or to receive."
"And how much do you need to carry on Berande for three years?" Joan
hurried on.
"Two hundred boys at six pounds a year means thirty-six hundred
pounds--that's the main item."
"My, how cheap labour does mount up! Thirty-six hundred pounds, eighteen
thousand dollars, just for a lot of cannibals! Yet the place is good
security. You could go down to Sydney and raise the money."
He shook his head.
"You can't get them to look at plantations down there. They've been
taken in too often. But I do hate to give the place up--more for
Hughie's sake, I swear, than my own. He was bound up in it. You see, he
was a persistent chap, and hated to acknowledge defeat. It--it makes me
uncomfortable to think of it myself. We were running slowly behind, but
with the _Jessie_ we hoped to muddle through in some fashion."
"You were muddlers, the pair of you, without doubt. But you needn't sell
to Morgan and Raff. I shall go down to Sydney on the next steamer, and
I'll come back in a second-hand schooner. I should be able to buy one
for five or six thousand dollars--"
He held up his hand in protest, but she waved it aside.
"I may manage to freight a cargo back as well. At any rate, the schooner
will take over the _Jessie's_ business. You can make your arrangements
accordingly, and have plenty of work for her when I get back. I'm going
to become a partner in Berande to the extent of my bag of sovereigns--I've
got over fifteen hundred of them, you know. We'll draw up an agreement
right now--that is, with your permission, and I know you won't refuse
it."
He looked at her with good-natured amusement.
"You know I sailed here all the way from Tahiti in order to become a
planter," she insisted. "You know what my plans were. Now I've changed
them, that's all. I'd rather be a part owner of Berande and get my
returns in three years, than break ground on Pari-Sulay and wait seven
years."
"And this--er--this schooner. . . . " Sheldon changed his mind and
stopped.
"Yes, go on."
"You won't be angry?" he queried.
"No, no; this is business. Go on."
"You--er--you would run her yourself?--be the captain, in short?--and go
recruiting on Malaita?"
"Certainly. We would save the cost of a skipper. Under an agreement you
would be credited with a manager's salary, and I with a captain's. It's
quite simple. Besides, if you won't let me be your partner, I shall buy
Pari-Sulay, get a much smaller vessel, and run her myself. So what is
the difference?"
"The difference?--why, all the difference in the world. In the case of
Pari-Sulay you would be on an independent venture. You could turn
cannibal for all I could interfere in the matter. But on Berande, you
would be my partner, and then I would be responsible. And of course I
couldn't permit you, as my partner, to be skipper of a recruiter. I tell
you, the thing is what I would not permit any sister or wife of mine--"
"But I'm not going to be your wife, thank goodness--only your partner."
"Besides, it's all ridiculous," he held on steadily. "Think of the
situation. A man and a woman, both young, partners on an isolated
plantation. Why, the only practical way out would be that I'd have to
marry you--"
"Mine was a business proposition, not a marriage proposal," she
interrupted, coldly angry. "I wonder if somewhere in this world there is
one man who could accept me for a comrade."
"But you are a woman just the same," he began, "and there are certain
conventions, certain decencies--"
She sprang up and stamped her foot.
"Do you know what I'd like to say?" she demanded.
"Yes," he smiled, "you'd like to say, 'Damn petticoats!'"
She nodded her head ruefully.
"That's what I wanted to say, but it sounds different on your lips. It
sounds as though you meant it yourself, and that you meant it because of
me."
"Well, I am going to bed. But do, please, think over my proposition, and
let me know in the morning. There's no use in my discussing it now. You
make me so angry. You are cowardly, you know, and very egotistic. You
are afraid of what other fools will say. No matter how honest your
motives, if others criticized your actions your feelings would be hurt.
And you think more about your own wretched feelings than you do about
mine. And then, being a coward--all men are at heart cowards--you
disguise your cowardice by calling it chivalry. I thank heaven that I
was not born a man. Good-night. Do think it over. And don't be
foolish. What Berande needs is good American hustle. You don't know
what that is. You are a muddler. Besides, you are enervated. I'm fresh
to the climate. Let me be your partner, and you'll see me rattle the dry
bones of the Solomons. Confess, I've rattled yours already."
"I should say so," he answered. "Really, you know, you have. I never
received such a dressing-down in my life. If any one had ever told me
that I'd be a party even to the present situation. . . . Yes, I confess,
you have rattled my dry bones pretty considerably."
"But that is nothing to the rattling they are going to get," she assured
him, as he rose and took her hand. "Good-night. And do, do give me a
rational decision in the morning."