The next morning Sheldon came in from the plantation to breakfast, to
find the mission ketch, _Apostle_, at anchor, her crew swimming two mares
and a filly ashore. Sheldon recognized the animals as belonging to the
Resident Commissioner, and he immediately wondered if Joan had bought
them. She was certainly living up to her threat of rattling the dry
bones of the Solomons, and he was prepared for anything.
"Miss Lackland sent them," said Welshmere, the missionary doctor,
stepping ashore and shaking hands with him. "There's also a box of
saddles on board. And this letter from her. And the skipper of the
_Flibberty-Gibbet_."
The next moment, and before he could greet him, Oleson stepped from the
boat and began.
"She's stolen the _Flibberty_, Mr. Sheldon. Run clean away with her.
She's a wild one. She gave me the fever. Brought it on by shock. And
got me drunk, as well--rotten drunk."
Dr. Welshmere laughed heartily.
"Nevertheless, she is not an unmitigated evil, your Miss Lackland. She's
sworn three men off their drink, or, to the same purpose, shut off their
whisky. You know them--Brahms, Curtis, and Fowler. She shipped them on
the _Flibberty-Gibbet_ along with her."
"She's the skipper of the _Flibberty_ now," Oleson broke in. "And she'll
wreck her as sure as God didn't make the Solomons."
Dr. Welshmere tried to look shocked, but laughed again.
"She has quite a way with her," he said. "I tried to back out of
bringing the horses over. Said I couldn't charge freight, that the
_Apostle_ was under a yacht license, that I was going around by Savo and
the upper end of Guadalcanal. But it was no use. 'Bother the charge,'
said she. 'You take the horses like a good man, and when I float the
_Martha_ I'll return the service some day.'"
"And 'bother your orders,' said she to me," Oleson cried. "'I'm your
boss now,' said she, 'and you take your orders from me.' 'Look at that
load of ivory nuts,' I said. 'Bother them,' said she; 'I'm playin' for
something bigger than ivory nuts. We'll dump them overside as soon as we
get under way.'"
Sheldon put his hands to his ears.
"I don't know what has happened, and you are trying to tell me the tale
backwards. Come up to the house and get in the shade and begin at the
beginning."
"What I want to know," Oleson began, when they were seated, "is _is_ she
your partner or ain't she? That's what I want to know."
"She is," Sheldon assured him.
"Well, who'd have believed it!" Oleson glanced appealingly at Dr.
Welshmere, and back again at Sheldon. "I've seen a few unlikely things
in these Solomons--rats two feet long, butterflies the Commissioner hunts
with a shot-gun, ear-ornaments that would shame the devil, and
head-hunting devils that make the devil look like an angel. I've seen
them and got used to them, but this young woman of yours--"
"Miss Lackland is my partner and part-owner of Berande," Sheldon
interrupted.
"So she said," the irate skipper dashed on. "But she had no papers to
show for it. How was I to know? And then there was that load of ivory
nuts-eight tons of them."
"For heaven's sake begin at the--" Sheldon tried to interrupt.
"And then she's hired them drunken loafers, three of the worst scoundrels
that ever disgraced the Solomons--fifteen quid a month each--what d'ye
think of that? And sailed away with them, too! Phew!--You might give me
a drink. The missionary won't mind. I've been on his teetotal hooker
four days now, and I'm perishing."
Dr. Welshmere nodded in reply to Sheldon's look of inquiry, and Viaburi
was dispatched for the whisky and siphons.
"It is evident, Captain Oleson," Sheldon remarked to that refreshed
mariner, "that Miss Lackland has run away with your boat. Now please
give a plain statement of what occurred."
"Right O; here goes. I'd just come in on the _Flibberty_. She was on
board before I dropped the hook--in that whale-boat of hers with her gang
of Tahiti heathens--that big Adamu Adam and the rest. 'Don't drop the
anchor, Captain Oleson,' she sang out. 'I want you to get under way for
Poonga-Poonga.' I looked to see if she'd been drinking. What was I to
think? I was rounding up at the time, alongside the shoal--a ticklish
place--head-sails running down and losing way, so I says, 'Excuse me,
Miss Lackland,' and yells for'ard, 'Let go!'
"'You might have listened to me and saved yourself trouble,' says she,
climbing over the rail and squinting along for'ard and seeing the first
shackle flip out and stop. 'There's fifteen fathom,' says she; 'you may
as well turn your men to and heave up.'
"And then we had it out. I didn't believe her. I didn't think you'd
take her on as a partner, and I told her as much and wanted proof. She
got high and mighty, and I told her I was old enough to be her
grandfather and that I wouldn't take gammon from a chit like her. And
then I ordered her off the _Flibberty_. 'Captain Oleson,' she says,
sweet as you please, 'I've a few minutes to spare on you, and I've got
some good whisky over on the _Emily_. Come on along. Besides, I want
your advice about this wrecking business. Everybody says you're a
crackerjack sailor-man'--that's what she said, 'crackerjack.' And I
went, in her whale-boat, Adamu Adam steering and looking as solemn as a
funeral.
"On the way she told me about the _Martha_, and how she'd bought her, and
was going to float her. She said she'd chartered the _Emily_, and was
sailing as soon as I could get the _Flibberty_ underway. It struck me
that her gammon was reasonable enough, and I agreed to pull out for
Berande right O, and get your orders to go along to Poonga-Poonga. But
she said there wasn't a second to be lost by any such foolishness, and
that I was to sail direct for Poonga-Poonga, and that if I couldn't take
her word that she was your partner, she'd get along without me and the
_Flibberty_. And right there's where she fooled me.
"Down in the _Emily's_ cabin was them three soaks--you know them--Fowler
and Curtis and that Brahms chap. 'Have a drink,' says she. I thought
they looked surprised when she unlocked the whisky locker and sent a
nigger for the glasses and water-monkey. But she must have tipped them
off unbeknownst to me, and they knew just what to do. 'Excuse me,' she
says, 'I'm going on deck a minute.' Now that minute was half an hour. I
hadn't had a drink in ten days. I'm an old man and the fever has
weakened me. Then I took it on an empty stomach, too, and there was them
three soaks setting me an example, they arguing for me to take the
_Flibberty_ to Poonga-Poonga, an' me pointing out my duty to the
contrary. The trouble was, all the arguments were pointed with drinks,
and me not being a drinking man, so to say, and weak from fever . . .
"Well, anyway, at the end of the half-hour down she came again and took a
good squint at me. 'That'll do nicely,' I remember her saying; and with
that she took the whisky bottles and hove them overside through the
companionway. 'That's the last, she said to the three soaks, 'till the
_Martha_ floats and you're back in Guvutu. It'll be a long time between
drinks.' And then she laughed.
"She looked at me and said--not to me, mind you, but to the soaks: 'It's
time this worthy man went ashore'--me! worthy man! 'Fowler,' she
said--you know, just like a straight order, and she didn't _mister_
him--it was plain Fowler--'Fowler,' she said, 'just tell Adamu Adam to
man the whale-boat, and while he's taking Captain Oleson ashore have your
boat put me on the _Flibberty_. The three of you sail with me, so pack
your dunnage. And the one of you that shows up best will take the mate's
billet. Captain Oleson doesn't carry a mate, you know.'
"I don't remember much after that. All hands got me over the side, and
it seems to me I went to sleep, sitting in the stern-sheets and watching
that Adamu steer. Then I saw the _Flibberty's_ mainsail hoisting, and
heard the clank of her chain coming in, and I woke up. 'Here, put me on
the _Flibberty_,' I said to Adamu. 'I put you on the beach,' said he.
'Missie Lackalanna say beach plenty good for you.' Well, I let out a
yell and reached for the steering-sweep. I was doing my best by my
owners, you see. Only that Adamu gives me a shove down on the bottom-
boards, puts one foot on me to hold me down, and goes on steering. And
that's all. The shock of the whole thing brought on fever. And now I've
come to find out whether I'm skipper of the _Flibberty_, or that chit of
yours with her pirating, heathen boat's-crew."
"Never mind, skipper. You can take a vacation on pay." Sheldon spoke
with more assurance than he felt. "If Miss Lackland, who is my partner,
has seen fit to take charge of the _Flibberty-Gibbet_, why, it is all
right. As you will agree, there was no time to be lost if the _Martha_
was to be got off. It is a bad reef, and any considerable sea would
knock her bottom out. You settle down here, skipper, and rest up and get
the fever out of your bones. When the _Flibberty-Gibbet_ comes back,
you'll take charge again, of course."
After Dr. Welshmere and the _Apostle_ departed and Captain Oleson had
turned in for a sleep in a veranda hammock, Sheldon opened Joan's letter.
DEAR MR. SHELDON,--Please forgive me for stealing the
_Flibberty-Gibbet_. I simply had to. The _Martha_ means everything
to us. Think of it, only fifty-five pounds for her, two hundred and
seventy-five dollars. If I don't save her, I know I shall be able to
pay all expenses out of her gear, which the natives will not have
carried off. And if I do save her, it is the haul of a life-time. And
if I don't save her, I'll fill the _Emily_ and the _Flibberty-Gibbet_
with recruits. Recruits are needed right now on Berande more than
anything else.
And please, please don't be angry with me. You said I shouldn't go
recruiting on the _Flibberty_, and I won't. I'll go on the _Emily_.
I bought two cows this afternoon. That trader at Nogi died of fever,
and I bought them from his partner, Sam Willis his name is, who agrees
to deliver them--most likely by the _Minerva_ next time she is down
that way. Berande has been long enough on tinned milk.
And Dr. Welshmere has agreed to get me some orange and lime trees from
the mission station at Ulava. He will deliver them the next trip of
the _Apostle_. If the Sydney steamer arrives before I get back, plant
the sweet corn she will bring between the young trees on the high bank
of the Balesuna. The current is eating in against that bank, and you
should do something to save it.
I have ordered some fig-trees and loquats, too, from Sydney. Dr.
Welshmere will bring some mango-seeds. They are big trees and require
plenty of room.
The _Martha_ is registered 110 tons. She is the biggest schooner in
the Solomons, and the best. I saw a little of her lines and guess the
rest. She will sail like a witch. If she hasn't filled with water,
her engine will be all right. The reason she went ashore was because
it was not working. The engineer had disconnected the feed-pipes to
clean out the rust. Poor business, unless at anchor or with plenty of
sea room.
Plant all the trees in the compound, even if you have to clean out the
palms later on.
And don't plant the sweet corn all at once. Let a few days elapse
between plantings.
JOAN LACKLAND.
He fingered the letter, lingering over it and scrutinizing the writing in
a way that was not his wont. How characteristic, was his thought, as he
studied the boyish scrawl--clear to read, painfully, clear, but none the
less boyish. The clearness of it reminded him of her face, of her
cleanly stencilled brows, her straightly chiselled nose, the very
clearness of the gaze of her eyes, the firmly yet delicately moulded
lips, and the throat, neither fragile nor robust, but--but just right, he
concluded, an adequate and beautiful pillar for so shapely a burden.
He looked long at the name. Joan Lackland--just an assemblage of
letters, of commonplace letters, but an assemblage that generated a
subtle and heady magic. It crept into his brain and twined and twisted
his mental processes until all that constituted him at that moment went
out in love to that scrawled signature. A few commonplace letters--yet
they caused him to know in himself a lack that sweetly hurt and that
expressed itself in vague spiritual outpourings and delicious yearnings.
Joan Lackland! Each time he looked at it there arose visions of her in a
myriad moods and guises--coming in out of the flying smother of the gale
that had wrecked her schooner; launching a whale-boat to go a-fishing;
running dripping from the sea, with streaming hair and clinging garments,
to the fresh-water shower; frightening four-score cannibals with an empty
chlorodyne bottle; teaching Ornfiri how to make bread; hanging her
Stetson hat and revolver-belt on the hook in the living-room; talking
gravely about winning to hearth and saddle of her own, or juvenilely
rattling on about romance and adventure, bright-eyed, her face flushed
and eager with enthusiasm. Joan Lackland! He mused over the cryptic
wonder of it till the secrets of love were made clear and he felt a keen
sympathy for lovers who carved their names on trees or wrote them on the
beach-sands of the sea.
Then he came back to reality, and his face hardened. Even then she was
on the wild coast of Malaita, and at Poonga-Poonga, of all villainous and
dangerous portions the worst, peopled with a teeming population of head-
hunters, robbers, and murderers. For the instant he entertained the rash
thought of calling his boat's-crew and starting immediately in a whale-
boat for Poonga-Poonga. But the next instant the idea was dismissed.
What could he do if he did go? First, she would resent it. Next, she
would laugh at him and call him a silly; and after all he would count for
only one rifle more, and she had many rifles with her. Three things only
could he do if he went. He could command her to return; he could take
the _Flibberty-Gibbet_ away from her; he could dissolve their
partnership;--any and all of which he knew would be foolish and futile,
and he could hear her explain in terse set terms that she was legally of
age and that nobody could say come or go to her. No, his pride would
never permit him to start for Poonga-Poonga, though his heart whispered
that nothing could be more welcome than a message from her asking him to
come and lend a hand. Her very words--"lend a hand"; and in his fancy,
he could see and hear her saying them.
There was much in her wilful conduct that caused him to wince in the
heart of him. He was appalled by the thought of her shoulder to shoulder
with the drunken rabble of traders and beachcombers at Guvutu. It was
bad enough for a clean, fastidious man; but for a young woman, a girl at
that, it was awful. The theft of the _Flibberty-Gibbet_ was merely
amusing, though the means by which the theft had been effected gave him
hurt. Yet he found consolation in the fact that the task of making
Oleson drunk had been turned over to the three scoundrels. And next, and
swiftly, came the vision of her, alone with those same three scoundrels,
on the _Emily_, sailing out to sea from Guvutu in the twilight with
darkness coming on. Then came visions of Adamu Adam and Noa Noah and all
her brawny Tahitian following, and his anxiety faded away, being replaced
by irritation that she should have been capable of such wildness of
conduct.
And the irritation was still on him as he got up and went inside to stare
at the hook on the wall and to wish that her Stetson hat and revolver-
belt were hanging from it.