Several quiet weeks slipped by. Berande, after such an unusual run of
visiting vessels, drifted back into her old solitude. Sheldon went on
with the daily round, clearing bush, planting cocoanuts, smoking copra,
building bridges, and riding about his work on the horses Joan had
bought. News of her he had none. Recruiting vessels on Malaita left the
Poonga-Poonga coast severely alone; and the _Clansman_, a Samoan
recruiter, dropping anchor one sunset for billiards and gossip, reported
rumours amongst the Sio natives that there had been fighting at Poonga-
Poonga. As this news would have had to travel right across the big
island, little dependence was to be placed on it.
The steamer from Sydney, the _Kammambo_, broke the quietude of Berande
for an hour, while landing mail, supplies, and the trees and seeds Joan
had ordered. The _Minerva_, bound for Cape Marsh, brought the two cows
from Nogi. And the _Apostle_, hurrying back to Tulagi to connect with
the Sydney steamer, sent a boat ashore with the orange and lime trees
from Ulava. And these several weeks marked a period of perfect weather.
There were days on end when sleek calms ruled the breathless sea, and
days when vagrant wisps of air fanned for several hours from one
direction or another. The land-breezes at night alone proved regular,
and it was at night that the occasional cutters and ketches slipped by,
too eager to take advantage of the light winds to drop anchor for an
hour.
Then came the long-expected nor'wester. For eight days it raged, lulling
at times to short durations of calm, then shifting a point or two and
raging with renewed violence. Sheldon kept a precautionary eye on the
buildings, while the Balesuna, in flood, so savagely attacked the high
bank Joan had warned him about, that he told off all the gangs to battle
with the river.
It was in the good weather that followed, that he left the blacks at
work, one morning, and with a shot-gun across his pommel rode off after
pigeons. Two hours later, one of the house-boys, breathless and
scratched ran him down with the news that the _Martha_, the _Flibberty-
Gibbet_, and the _Emily_ were heading in for the anchorage.
Coming into the compound from the rear, Sheldon could see nothing until
he rode around the corner of the bungalow. Then he saw everything at
once--first, a glimpse at the sea, where the _Martha_ floated huge
alongside the cutter and the ketch which had rescued her; and, next, the
ground in front of the veranda steps, where a great crowd of fresh-caught
cannibals stood at attention. From the fact that each was attired in a
new, snow-white lava-lava, Sheldon knew that they were recruits. Part
way up the steps, one of them was just backing down into the crowd, while
another, called out by name, was coming up. It was Joan's voice that had
called him, and Sheldon reined in his horse and watched. She sat at the
head of the steps, behind a table, between Munster and his white mate,
the three of them checking long lists, Joan asking the questions and
writing the answers in the big, red-covered, Berande labour-journal.
"What name?" she demanded of the black man on the steps.
"Tagari," came the answer, accompanied by a grin and a rolling of curious
eyes; for it was the first white-man's house the black had ever seen.
"What place b'long you?"
"Bangoora."
No one had noticed Sheldon, and he continued to sit his horse and watch.
There was a discrepancy between the answer and the record in the
recruiting books, and a consequent discussion, until Munster solved the
difficulty.
"Bangoora?" he said. "That's the little beach at the head of the bay out
of Latta. He's down as a Latta-man--see, there it is, 'Tagari, Latta.'"
"What place you go you finish along white marster?" Joan asked.
"Bangoora," the man replied; and Joan wrote it down.
"Ogu!" Joan called.
The black stepped down, and another mounted to take his place. But
Tagari, just before he reached the bottom step, caught sight of Sheldon.
It was the first horse the fellow had ever seen, and he let out a
frightened screech and dashed madly up the steps. At the same moment the
great mass of blacks surged away panic-stricken from Sheldon's vicinity.
The grinning house-boys shouted encouragement and explanation, and the
stampede was checked, the new-caught head-hunters huddling closely
together and staring dubiously at the fearful monster.
"Hello!" Joan called out. "What do you mean by frightening all my boys?
Come on up."
"What do you think of them?" she asked, when they had shaken hands. "And
what do you think of her?"--with a wave of the hand toward the _Martha_.
"I thought you'd deserted the plantation, and that I might as well go
ahead and get the men into barracks. Aren't they beauties? Do you see
that one with the split nose? He's the only man who doesn't hail from
the Poonga-Poonga coast; and they said the Poonga-Poonga natives wouldn't
recruit. Just look at them and congratulate me. There are no kiddies
and half-grown youths among them. They're men, every last one of them. I
have such a long story I don't know where to begin, and I won't begin
anyway till we're through with this and until you have told me that you
are not angry with me."
"Ogu--what place b'long you?" she went on with her catechism.
But Ogu was a bushman, lacking knowledge of the almost universal beche-de-
mer English, and half a dozen of his fellows wrangled to explain.
"There are only two or three more," Joan said to Sheldon, "and then we're
done. But you haven't told me that you are not angry."
Sheldon looked into her clear eyes as she favoured him with a direct,
untroubled gaze that threatened, he knew from experience, to turn
teasingly defiant on an instant's notice. And as he looked at her it
came to him that he had never half-anticipated the gladness her return
would bring to him.
"I was angry," he said deliberately. "I am still angry, very angry--" he
noted the glint of defiance in her eyes and thrilled--"but I forgave, and
I now forgive all over again. Though I still insist--"
"That I should have a guardian," she interrupted. "But that day will
never come. Thank goodness I'm of legal age and able to transact
business in my own right. And speaking of business, how do you like my
forceful American methods?"
"Mr. Raff, from what I hear, doesn't take kindly to them," he temporized,
"and you've certainly set the dry bones rattling for many a day. But
what I want to know is if other American women are as successful in
business ventures?"
"Luck, 'most all luck," she disclaimed modestly, though her eyes lighted
with sudden pleasure; and he knew her boy's vanity had been touched by
his trifle of tempered praise.
"Luck be blowed!" broke out the long mate, Sparrowhawk, his face shining
with admiration. "It was hard work, that's what it was. We earned our
pay. She worked us till we dropped. And we were down with fever half
the time. So was she, for that matter, only she wouldn't stay down, and
she wouldn't let us stay down. My word, she's a slave-driver--'Just one
more heave, Mr. Sparrowhawk, and then you can go to bed for a week',--she
to me, and me staggerin' 'round like a dead man, with bilious-green
lights flashing inside my head, an' my head just bustin'. I was all in,
but I gave that heave right O--and then it was, 'Another heave now, Mr.
Sparrowhawk, just another heave.' An' the Lord lumme, the way she made
love to old Kina-Kina!"
He shook his head reproachfully, while the laughter died down in his
throat to long-drawn chuckles.
"He was older than Telepasse and dirtier," she assured Sheldon, "and I am
sure much wickeder. But this isn't work. Let us get through with these
lists."
She turned to the waiting black on the steps,--
"Ogu, you finish along big marster belong white man, you go Not-Not.--Here
you, Tangari, you speak 'm along that fella Ogu. He finish he walk about
Not-Not. Have you got that, Mr. Munster?"
"But you've broken the recruiting laws," Sheldon said, when the new
recruits had marched away to the barracks. "The licenses for the
_Flibberty_ and the _Emily_ don't allow for one hundred and fifty. What
did Burnett say?"
"He passed them, all of them," she answered. "Captain Munster will tell
you what he said--something about being blowed, or words to that effect.
Now I must run and wash up. Did the Sydney orders arrive?"
"Yours are in your quarters," Sheldon said. "Hurry, for breakfast is
waiting. Let me have your hat and belt. Do, please, allow me. There's
only one hook for them, and I know where it is."
She gave him a quick scrutiny that was almost woman-like, then sighed
with relief as she unbuckled the heavy belt and passed it to him.
"I doubt if I ever want to see another revolver," she complained. "That
one has worn a hole in me, I'm sure. I never dreamed I could get so
weary of one."
Sheldon watched her to the foot of the steps, where she turned and called
back,--
"My! I can't tell you how good it is to be home again."
And as his gaze continued to follow her across the compound to the tiny
grass house, the realization came to him crushingly that Berande and that
little grass house was the only place in the world she could call "home."
* * * * *
"And Burnett said, 'Well, I'll be damned--I beg your pardon, Miss
Lackland, but you have wantonly broken the recruiting laws and you know
it,'" Captain Munster narrated, as they sat over their whisky, waiting
for Joan to come back. "And says she to him, 'Mr. Burnett, can you show
me any law against taking the passengers off a vessel that's on a reef?'
'That is not the point,' says he. 'It's the very, precise, particular
point,' says she and you bear it in mind and go ahead and pass my
recruits. You can report me to the Lord High Commissioner if you want,
but I have three vessels here waiting on your convenience, and if you
delay them much longer there'll be another report go in to the Lord High
Commissioner.'
"'I'll hold you responsible, Captain Munster,' says he to me, mad enough
to eat scrap-iron. 'No, you won't,' says she; 'I'm the charterer of the
_Emily_, and Captain Munster has acted under my orders.'
"What could Burnett do? He passed the whole hundred and fifty, though
the _Emily_ was only licensed for forty, and the _Flibberty-Gibbet_ for
thirty-five."
"But I don't understand," Sheldon said.
"This is the way she worked it. When the _Martha_ was floated, we had to
beach her right away at the head of the bay, and whilst repairs were
going on, a new rudder being made, sails bent, gear recovered from the
niggers, and so forth, Miss Lackland borrows Sparrowhawk to run the
_Flibberty_ along with Curtis, lends me Brahms to take Sparrowhawk's
place, and starts both craft off recruiting. My word, the niggers came
easy. It was virgin ground. Since the _Scottish Chiefs_, no recruiter
had ever even tried to work the coast; and we'd already put the fear of
God into the niggers' hearts till the whole coast was quiet as lambs.
When we filled up, we came back to see how the _Martha_ was progressing."
"And thinking we was going home with our recruits," Sparrowhawk slipped
in. "Lord lumme, that Miss Lackland ain't never satisfied. 'I'll take
'em on the _Martha_,' says she, 'and you can go back and fill up again.'"
"But I told her it couldn't be done," Munster went on. "I told her the
_Martha_ hadn't a license for recruiting. 'Oh,' she said, 'it can't be
done, eh?' and she stood and thought a few minutes."
"And I'd seen her think before," cried Sparrowhawk, "and I knew at wunst
that the thing was as good as done."
Munster lighted his cigarette and resumed.
"'You see that spit,' she says to me, 'with the little ripple breaking
around it? There's a current sets right across it and on it. And you
see them bafflin' little cat's-paws? It's good weather and a falling
tide. You just start to beat out, the two of you, and all you have to do
is miss stays in the same baffling puff and the current will set you
nicely aground.'"
"'That little wash of sea won't more than start a sheet or two of
copper,' says she, when Munster kicked," Sparrowhawk explained. "Oh,
she's no green un, that girl."
"'Then I'll rescue your recruits and sail away--simple, ain't it?' says
she," Munster continued. "'You hang up one tide,' says she; 'the next is
the big high water. Then you kedge off and go after more recruits.
There's no law against recruiting when you're empty.' 'But there is
against starving 'em,' I said; 'you know yourself there ain't any _kai-
kai_ to speak of aboard of us, and there ain't a crumb on the _Martha_.'"
"We'd all been pretty well on native _kai-kai_, as it was," said
Sparrowhawk.
"'Don't let the _kai-kai_ worry you, Captain Munster,' says she; 'if I
can find grub for eighty-four mouths on the _Martha_, the two of you can
do as much by your two vessels. Now go ahead and get aground before a
steady breeze comes up and spoils the manoeuvre. I'll send my boats the
moment you strike. And now, good-day, gentlemen.'"
"And we went and did it," Sparrowhawk said solemnly, and then emitted a
series of chuckling noises. "We laid over, starboard tack, and I pinched
the _Emily_ against the spit. 'Go about,' Captain Munster yells at me;
'go about, or you'll have me aground!' He yelled other things, much
worse. But I didn't mind. I missed stays, pretty as you please, and the
_Flibberty_ drifted down on him and fouled him, and we went ashore
together in as nice a mess as you ever want to see. Miss Lackland
transferred the recruits, and the trick was done."
"But where was she during the nor'wester?" Sheldon asked.
"At Langa-Langa. Ran up there as it was coming on, and laid there the
whole week and traded for grub with the niggers. When we got to Tulagi,
there she was waiting for us and scrapping with Burnett. I tell you, Mr.
Sheldon, she's a wonder, that girl, a perfect wonder."
Munster refilled his glass, and while Sheldon glanced across at Joan's
house, anxious for her coming, Sparrowhawk took up the tale.
"Gritty! She's the grittiest thing, man or woman, that ever blew into
the Solomons. You should have seen Poonga-Poonga the morning we
arrived--Sniders popping on the beach and in the mangroves, war-drums
booming in the bush, and signal-smokes raising everywhere. 'It's all
up,' says Captain Munster."
"Yes, that's what I said," declared that mariner.
"Of course it was all up. You could see it with half an eye and hear it
with one ear."
"'Up your granny,' she says to him," Sparrowhawk went on. "'Why, we
haven't arrived yet, much less got started. Wait till the anchor's down
before you get afraid.'"
"That's what she said to me," Munster proclaimed. "And of course it made
me mad so that I didn't care what happened. We tried to send a boat
ashore for a pow-wow, but it was fired upon. And every once and a while
some nigger'd take a long shot at us out of the mangroves."
"They was only a quarter of a mile off," Sparrowhawk explained, "and it
was damned nasty. 'Don't shoot unless they try to board,' was Miss
Lackland's orders; but the dirty niggers wouldn't board. They just lay
off in the bush and plugged away. That night we held a council of war in
the _Flibberty's_ cabin. 'What we want,' says Miss Lackland, 'is a
hostage.'"
"'That's what they do in books,' I said, thinking to laugh her away from
her folly," Munster interrupted. "'True,' says she, 'and have you never
seen the books come true?' I shook my head. 'Then you're not too old to
learn,' says she. 'I'll tell you one thing right now,' says I, 'and that
is I'll be blowed if you catch me ashore in the night-time stealing
niggers in a place like this.'"
"You didn't say blowed," Sparrowhawk corrected. "You said you'd be
damned."
"That's what I did, and I meant it, too."
"'Nobody asked you to go ashore,' says she, quick as lightning,"
Sparrowhawk grinned. "And she said more. She said, 'And if I catch you
going ashore without orders there'll be trouble--understand, Captain
Munster?'"
"Who in hell's telling this, you or me?" the skipper demanded wrathfully.
"Well, she did, didn't she?" insisted the mate.
"Yes, she did, if you want to make so sure of it. And while you're about
it, you might as well repeat what she said to you when you said you
wouldn't recruit on the Poonga-Poonga coast for twice your screw."
Sparrowhawk's sun-reddened face flamed redder, though he tried to pass
the situation off by divers laughings and chucklings and face-twistings.
"Go on, go on," Sheldon urged; and Munster resumed the narrative.
"'What we need,' says she, 'is the strong hand. It's the only way to
handle them; and we've got to take hold firm right at the beginning. I'm
going ashore to-night to fetch Kina-Kina himself on board, and I'm not
asking who's game to go for I've got every man's work arranged with me
for him. I'm taking my sailors with me, and one white man.' 'Of course,
I'm that white man,' I said; for by that time I was mad enough to go to
hell and back again. 'Of course you're not,' says she. 'You'll have
charge of the covering boat. Curtis stands by the landing boat. Fowler
goes with me. Brahms takes charge of the _Flibberty_, and Sparrowhawk of
the _Emily_. And we start at one o'clock.'
"My word, it was a tough job lying there in the covering boat. I never
thought doing nothing could be such hard work. We stopped about fifty
fathoms off, and watched the other boat go in. It was so dark under the
mangroves we couldn't see a thing of it. D'ye know that little, monkey-
looking nigger, Sheldon, on the _Flibberty_--the cook, I mean? Well, he
was cabin-boy twenty years ago on the _Scottish Chiefs_, and after she
was cut off he was a slave there at Poonga-Poonga. And Miss Lackland had
discovered the fact. So he was the guide. She gave him half a case of
tobacco for that night's work--"
"And scared him fit to die before she could get him to come along,"
Sparrowhawk observed.
"Well, I never saw anything so black as the mangroves. I stared at them
till my eyes were ready to burst. And then I'd look at the stars, and
listen to the surf sighing along the reef. And there was a dog that
barked. Remember that dog, Sparrowhawk? The brute nearly gave me heart-
failure when he first began. After a while he stopped--wasn't barking at
the landing party at all; and then the silence was harder than ever, and
the mangroves grew blacker, and it was all I could do to keep from
calling out to Curtis in there in the landing boat, just to make sure
that I wasn't the only white man left alive.
"Of course there was a row. It had to come, and I knew it; but it
startled me just the same. I never heard such screeching and yelling in
my life. The niggers must have just dived for the bush without looking
to see what was up, while her Tahitians let loose, shooting in the air
and yelling to hurry 'em on. And then, just as sudden, came the silence
again--all except for some small kiddie that had got dropped in the
stampede and that kept crying in the bush for its mother.
"And then I heard them coming through the mangroves, and an oar strike on
a gunwale, and Miss Lackland laugh, and I knew everything was all right.
We pulled on board without a shot being fired. And, by God! she had made
the books come true, for there was old Kina-Kina himself being hoisted
over the rail, shivering and chattering like an ape. The rest was easy.
Kina-Kina's word was law, and he was scared to death. And we kept him on
board issuing proclamations all the time we were in Poonga-Poonga.
"It was a good move, too, in other ways. She made Kina-Kina order his
people to return all the gear they'd stripped from the _Martha_. And
back it came, day after day, steering compasses, blocks and tackles,
sails, coils of rope, medicine chests, ensigns, signal flags--everything,
in fact, except the trade goods and supplies which had already been _kai-
kai'd_. Of course, she gave them a few sticks of tobacco to keep them in
good humour."
"Sure she did," Sparrowhawk broke forth. "She gave the beggars five
fathoms of calico for the big mainsail, two sticks of tobacco for the
chronometer, and a sheath-knife worth elevenpence ha'penny for a hundred
fathoms of brand new five-inch manila. She got old Kina-Kina with that
strong hand on the go off, and she kept him going all the time. She--here
she comes now."
It was with a shock of surprise that Sheldon greeted her appearance. All
the time, while the tale of happening at Poonga-Poonga had been going on,
he had pictured her as the woman he had always known, clad roughly, skirt
made out of window-curtain stuff, an undersized man's shirt for a blouse,
straw sandals for foot covering, with the Stetson hat and the eternal
revolver completing her costume. The ready-made clothes from Sydney had
transformed her. A simple skirt and shirt-waist of some sort of wash-
goods set off her trim figure with a hint of elegant womanhood that was
new to him. Brown slippers peeped out as she crossed the compound, and
he once caught a glimpse to the ankle of brown open-work stockings.
Somehow, she had been made many times the woman by these mere extraneous
trappings; and in his mind these wild Arabian Nights adventures of hers
seemed thrice as wonderful.
As they went in to breakfast he became aware that Munster and Sparrowhawk
had received a similar shock. All their air of _camaraderie_ was
dissipated, and they had become abruptly and immensely respectful.
"I've opened up a new field," she said, as she began pouring the coffee.
"Old Kina-Kina will never forget me, I'm sure, and I can recruit there
whenever I want. I saw Morgan at Guvutu. He's willing to contract for a
thousand boys at forty shillings per head. Did I tell you that I'd taken
out a recruiting license for the _Martha_? I did, and the _Martha_ can
sign eighty boys every trip."
Sheldon smiled a trifle bitterly to himself. The wonderful woman who had
tripped across the compound in her Sydney clothes was gone, and he was
listening to the boy come back again.