A HERO'S HOMECOMING
It was two o'clock when I began powdering and screening the yellow-hued
inner lining of my sea shells. Subconsciously, I must have set three in
my mind as the time my caller would come, for it was not until that hour
that I ceased my absorbingly interesting labours and looked at my watch.
So far as I can recall, I felt no concern one way or the other. I simply
noted that the hour had gone by without bringing my expected visitor,
and went back to my work.
As a matter of fact, having just made a most gratifying discovery, I was
rather glad that the interruption had not come. I had isolated a new and
wonderful colour--a dark coppery gold that I had yearned for every time
I saw sunlight filtering through brine onto the gently undulating leaves
of reef-rooted kelp. Now I had it; and it was not an accident--I could
do it again. By standing on edge a fragment of one of the big bivalves I
was experimenting with, I discovered that a sharp blow with the side of
my pestle caused the thinnest of chips to fly from its enamel-like
lining. These, glassily translucent as they fell, when reduced in the
mortar gave a warm, almost glowing powder of exactly the hue I sought.
Now if I could only devise a way of mixing it effectively....
So well were my innermost faculties set to respond to that expected
knock, that, when it came, not even the mazes of exultant speculation in
which my discovery had set my brain--my outward wits--to wandering,
prevented instant ganglionic reaction. I didn't have to think. That had
all been done an hour before, and the necessary orders given. At the
alarm, these had only to be carried out as prearranged. My legs and arms
simply obeyed the directions that had been registered for them in some
convenient little nerve-knots strung along my spinal column. That
carried me, stepping softly, out of the bathroom, through the bedroom,
and past the middle of the sitting-room, well beyond the direct line of
vision of anyone opening the door from the hall. It was a position from
which I must see anyone coming in before he was able to locate me. The
rest of the order--carried out simultaneously--had to do with laying the
pestle lightly on the bathroom table and thrusting the hand that had
been wielding it deep into the right-hand pocket of my old shooting
jacket.
In the second or two that it had taken me to reach the middle of the
sitting-room from the bathroom, my wits had relinquished their rainbow
dreams and were back on their workaday job. They it was which, now the
limit of ganglionic action had been reached, stepped in and took
command. It was not from nervousness that I swallowed once and flashed
my tongue across my lips before speaking. I only wanted to be sure my
voice was as firm as I knew the resolution directing it to be. Speaking
sharply, but in a tone not above the ordinary, I said: "Come in, Allen!"
Among the several little surprises in store for me in the course of the
next few minutes, not the least came when the man on the other side of
the door coughed and cleared his throat as his hand began to turn the
knob. I was just telling myself that such palpable symptoms of
nervousness were very unlike "Slant" Allen to display, when the door
swung inwards and "Slant" Allen stepped into the room. Allen, but not
the Allen I had known. Absolutely nerved to readiness as I was, the
contrast of this flushed, slightly embarrassed, almost diffident young
chap and the ruthless, cold-blooded badman I had made every
preparation--physical and mental--to meet came nigh to taking me aback.
It was like clambering up out of a companionway, all set for a hurricane
sweeping the deck--and finding it calm. For an instant my jaw must have
come near to sagging in the amazement that swept over me. I pulled
myself together quickly, though, and if Allen noticed my momentary
lapse, he gave no sign of it.
He was the first to speak. "So you were expecting me?" he said, but not
as though greatly surprised.
"Ra-_ther_," I replied with emphasis. "Look at this!" and I pulled out
the revolver from my right-hand pocket, released the hair-trigger
adjustment, slid the safety-catch, and laid it on the table by the
window. I would not have been guilty of such an obvious act of bravado
had not my preternaturally acute senses told me that, so far as Allen
was concerned at least, there was not going to be any occasion to use
the weapon. That feeling persisted even when, as Allen turned slightly
in the act of closing the door, I noticed a very perceptible bulge where
the flimsy corner of his pongee coat swept his lean right flank. The
instant he entered the room I knew that, whatever motives had brought
him there, the intention of trying to kill me was not among them.
Scarcely less strong were my doubts that I would be able to establish
any valid grounds for killing him. My old sneaking liking for certain
things about the debonair rascal was not dead.
He grinned appreciatively at the sight of the gun, and then, with a
perfunctory "You don't mind, do you?" stepped over and picked it up. I
watched him without misgivings, my mind still busy adjusting itself to
the new aspect.
"Was that the toy you used the day you put a bullet hole through the
crown of my new hundred-dollar Payta hat?" he asked, fingering the
exquisitely turned barrel admiringly. "My own fault, of course. I egged
you on by expressing some doubts of your ability to do it from your
jacket pocket. This looks like ..."
"Same gun--same jacket--new pocket," I cut in laconically; adding: "I
was prepared to repeat the operation just now--with about half a finger
less elevation on the muzzle."
It was the real old Allen grin that opened out as the significance of
those concluding words sunk home. Not the mocking smirk which had curled
his lips so much of the time, but a good, broad, healthy grin that
betokened genuine inward enjoyment. The fellow--I had remarked it
before--had a really keen and inclusive sense of humour--even inclusive
enough to permit his hearty participation in a laugh that was on
himself. But that irritating sneer (which had died on his lips as a full
realization of Bell's bigness in giving him his choice of going on the
_Cora_ or remaining at Kai came to him)--that sneer, with the amused
contempt for all the world it connoted, did not reappear. Indeed, I am
not sure that I ever saw it again. Had there been some inward change in
the man to dry up the fount of contempt from which that ironic smirk
rose to his lips? I wasn't clear on that point yet: but certainly he had
been profoundly shaken--deeply stirred.
Save for that expansive grin of real amusement, Allen made no comment on
my implication that I had been waiting to send a bullet--a few inches
below the crown of his hat. "Sweetest balanced little piece of light
artillery I ever trained," he remarked inconsequentially, holding the
revolver at arm's length and squinting along the sights to where his
reversed image menaced back from the depths of a full-length mirror. He
really admired the little gun--I could see that by the way his fist
closed on the checked vulcanite grip, by the caressing touch of his
forefinger on the locked trigger.
"Made to order by the S. and W. people for my father," I explained,
trying to fall in with his mood as far as I could. If he had come to
talk about revolvers--well, who in Australia knew more about them than I
did? I continued:
"There's two or three of the Governor's own little gadgets on it, and
one or two I had added myself. The one that I like best is that
safety-catch.... Stranger can't release it till he's been shown how. You
never can tell who may be picking up a gun that's left lying around, you
know. You'll have to admit it would be doubly painful for a man to be
plunked with his own revolver."
I couldn't for the life of me have refrained from that last little
sally, and Allen seemed to enjoy it as much as I did. His broadened grin
showed an extra tooth or two at each end as he relaxed his extended arm.
"I haven't the least intention of trying to impose that indignity on
you," he laughed. "Besides, you needn't fear that the significance of
that sag in your left-hand pocket has been lost on me. Had me covered
from there all the time, didn't you?"
"As a matter of fact, I had," I replied, beginning to grin myself; "but
this confounded sawed-off _Mauser_ automatic has an upkick that makes
anything like delicate work quite out of the question. I could wing you
with it from there, no doubt; but the job wouldn't be a pretty
one--nothing that I could take any pride in."
I laid the stubby automatic on the table where the other weapon had
been, saying that I always did hate the drag of a gun in my pocket.
Then, letting my glance wander to the bulge on Allen's right hip, I
added pointedly: "... especially when I can't see any immediate use
ahead for it."
Either missing the point of that gentle hint, or else ignoring it
completely, Allen went on playing with the little S. & W. Breaking it
gently with practised hand, he studied with bent head the smooth, easy
action of the automatic ejector. Just a bit more of a bend, and the six
cartridges slid noiselessly forth and fell into his hand. He commenced
shoving them back, one by one. It was the last, or the next to the last,
of the greasy cylinders that slipped from his fingers, struck the floor
and rolled under the table. I remarked with admiration the magnificent
swell of the flexed saddle muscles as the thin _pongee_ tightened over
the bent thighs; the narrow hips, the lean, powerful back, the--
"Good God!"
The voice, hoarse with awe and surprise, was mine; but my own mother
would hardly have recognized it. For an instant my quaking knees almost
let me collapse to the floor; then my faltering inward control stiffened
and clapped the brakes on my skidding nerves. By the time Allen,
startled by my sudden exclamation, straightened up from his scramble
after the still unretrieved cartridge, I had myself fully in hand again.
I could not be sure whether his flush and quick breathing were from
surprise or the stooping posture in which he had been.
"Did you speak, Whitney?" he asked, after running his eyes over the room
and assuring himself that no one had entered. I held his eyes with my
own till I was sure my voice was steadied. When I spoke, it was
deliberately and evenly. "So Rona came back," I said.
The train of lightning mental processes by which I had arrived at that
astonishing conclusion had not much of an edge on Allen's quick
comprehension of what had started that train going. For only the
briefest instant his eyes were blank with surprise. Then, with a look of
complete understanding, he clapped a hand to the side of his neck and
began smoothing straight the limp collar of his soft silk shirt. The
ghost of what would have been a sheepish grin flickered up and died
away, and to his face came something of that half-embarrassed,
half-eager look that had sat upon it when he entered the room, as he
said: "Yes, Rona has come back. That was one of the things I came to see
you about. She--we--the both of us have a bit of a favour to ask of
you."
Quite the master of myself now (and of the situation, too, I thought), I
came back banteringly with: "If it's that red, white and blue neck of
yours you want tied up, I have one of B. and W.'s little First Aid
cases in my bag...."
It was the shockingly torn and bruised neck that had been revealed when
Allen's collar had slipped back as he stooped to recover the rolling
cartridge that set my swift train of thought going. This must have been
something of the order of it, but electrically rapid of action:
Lacerated neck--old Chinaman at Ponape whose neck was scratched when
Rona ran away from him--Rona a specialist in neck-scratching--probably
scratched Allen's neck (Question--Was it done in the course of one of
the attacks she was known to have made upon him on the _Cora_?)--Could
not have been done on the _Cora_, as they had left her over two weeks
ago and these half-healed scratches were not over five or six days
old.--Hence, Rona had scratched Allen's neck inside of the last week,
and, therefore, could not have drowned herself in Ross Creek a
fortnight ago. Conclusion--Rona has come back.
It had taken not over a second or two for my quickened mind to run that
devious course, and Allen's must have covered a good part of it in even
less time. The wits of the both of us were keenly on edge. There could
not but have been a fine display of sparks had he been in his wonted
aggressive mood. But he had not come for fighting, physical or mental,
it seemed. He had come to ask a favour--"for the both of us."
"_For the both of us!_" The significance lurking in those words had
eluded me for a moment in the sudden adjustment my mind was called upon
to make in coming to a realization of the fact that Rona--the lissome
lovely Rona--was not dead--that the bright flame of her was unquenched
after all. But: "_a favour for the both of us!_" A sudden chill checked
and throttled the thrill that had started to flood my being. "_A favour
for both of us!_" "So--Bell dead--'Slant' Allen takes the girl in the
end!" I said to myself. Then, the echo of Kai's estimate of Allen's
track strategy: "An easy starter but a hell of a finisher, 'Slant'.
Don't worry about what he's doing when the starting flag drops; watch
him head into the stretch." "... _head into the stretch_," I repeated to
myself. "Then what about the finish? Is he already under the wire?"
These thoughts, like the train preceding them, must have flashed through
my mind very quickly, for it was Allen's voice replying to my badinage
about First Aid for his lacerated neck that brought me out of them.
"The neck's doing very well, thank you," he was saying, "considering
that its windpipe was closed for all of sixty seconds, and that most of
the hide was clawed off from it all the way round."
That was really very interesting intelligence, but my mind, deep in
another channel, was quite incapable of compassing the significance of
it for the moment.
"So you've landed the girl after all," I said woodenly, cursing
myself inwardly for the gallery play that had left both guns beyond
my reach. For of course he had deliberately put Bell out of the
running--shouldered him in the stretch.... Reviving suspicions brought
also a realization of what it was up to me to do, now that there was no
longer doubt....
"That depends very largely upon you." Allen's quick reply cut short
further conjecture.
"Depends upon me?" I interrupted incredulously. "What do you mean by
that? Oh, I see. Now that you've put Bell out of the way, perhaps you
think that I, as his closest friend, ought to--to distribute his estate,
so to speak. If that is the way you figure it, let me tell you that all
the distributing you can count on me for will take the form of spraying
lead over your worthless hide. You won't mind handing me one of those
guns, will you? I don't mind which."
It would have been sheer madness--straight suicide,--that outburst,
had Allen been moved by the least desire to get me out of his way. I
have never been quite able to make up my mind as to whether it was
my instinctive feeling that he had no such desire that prompted me
to take more leeway than prudence--nay, the commonest motive of
self-preservation--would have dictated; or whether I simply lost my
head--let my feelings get away with me. It may well have been the
latter, for shocks had been crowding pretty thick, and it was hardly to
be expected that the gears of my self-control wouldn't slip a cog now
and then under the strain.
Allen's brows drew together in a black scowl for a brief space, and his
eyes contracted and grew hard as steel. Then, slowly, the scowl smoothed
out, leaving only a deep flush behind it. It was not replaced by his
former look of anxious embarrassment, however. Rather his expression was
one of a serious, controlled determination.
"That matter of my putting Captain Bell out of the way, as you choose to
phrase it," he said sharply, "is one of the things I called to talk with
you about. Since you've stated so plainly what you intend to do about
it--assuming it's a fact,--perhaps it would be in order to take it up
before--before the other matter. As for these pistols.... Since they're
yours, help yourself to both of them." Stepping back from the table,
well out of reach of the guns, he added: "But I'd rather appreciate it
if you could see your way to refraining from using them until I'm
through with what I've got to say; after that ..." (he gave his
shoulders an indifferent shrug) "it's up to you. Do what you think best
with them. I don't want them--neither one of them."
"Of course not," I sneered. "Quite naturally, you'd prefer to use your
own. Quite right, too. Get it out of your hip-pocket while you've got a
chance. That's a new chum's way of carrying a gun, anyhow. I'm just a
bit surprised to see a practised killer like Mister 'Slant' Allen
resorting to it. No chance in the world to make an even break of it with
a man with a gun in his side-pocket. Tail of your coat's always getting
mixed up with your fingers just when you want to use them."
Allen had braced himself after my first taunt came so near to getting
him going, and this second one--galling as it must have been--hardly
moved him. Only the faintest flutter of a corrugation between the brows
told that another scowl had been repressed. The half-surprised tap he
gave to the bulge on his hip--a gesture that would most certainly have
drawn a shot from me had I had a gun in hand--suggested that he really
had forgotten that there was anything there. I am positive that I could
have grabbed a revolver from the table and beaten him to it on the draw.
A move so naïve on the part of an old gunman convinced me, even before
he had spoken a word, that I had let my feelings send me off at
half-cock.
"I haven't a pistol in my hip-pocket," he said evenly. "Never did carry
one there, and wouldn't be likely to begin it if I was going gunning for
a specialist like you. You'll have to take my word for that. Yes, and
since I'm going to ask you to take my word--my unsupported word--for a
number of other things, it may be in order to try to make you believe
that my word, when I give it to you straight, isn't quite--that it isn't
on just the same plane with the rest of my doings."
I was just a bit surprised that he didn't take out whatever it was that
created that bulge in his hip-pocket, but hardly reckoned it worth while
mentioning. I was fully assured that, far from seeking trouble, it was
the one thing he had steadfastly resolved to avoid. That was enough for
the moment. He was also about to speak of the one thing I was interested
in above all others--the doping of Bell. There was every reason why I
should encourage him to speak of that. The matter of Rona would come up
in due course. He evidently had something to say about her also.
"Sit down," I said, and extended my cigarette case.
He declined my fat gold-tipped Egyptians, heavily salted with _kief_
(another accursed habit I had picked up in Paris), and lighted a slender
Sumatra cheroot from his own case. It was not as a move of precaution (I
was through with all pretence of that now) that I set the big lounging
chair I shoved up for him so that he would sit facing the light. I
merely wanted to watch his face. Yet even that was not necessary to
satisfy me of his sincerity, at least for the moment. His every tone and
gesture was sufficient proof of that.
"In the matter of the value of my word...." Allen was losing no time in
getting to the point. "In the time you have spent mooching about the
Islands, Whitney, you have doubtless heard me referred to by a good many
hard names, such as pirate, murderer, thief, blackguard, jail-bird,
crook, and so on without end. You've heard all of these, haven't you?"
"All, and many others," I assented readily. His frankness rather
appealed to me just then.
"Quite right. Yet I dare say you didn't happen to hear the name of liar
included among the number. If you did, it was used by some cove who had
a grudge against me, and didn't care whether he stuck to facts or not. I
don't mean that I haven't put over a lot of crooked deals in my time,
nor that I haven't come out with a gratuitous falsehood now and then
when it suited my purpose. I don't claim to be a George Washington. But
I do mean just this: that when I have deliberately assured a man that a
thing was, or was not so, I was giving him the dead straight of it to
the best of my knowledge. And that's the way I'm speaking when I tell
you that I haven't a revolver on me, and that that dope I slipped into
Bell's whisky at Kai had nothing to do with his playing out on the
voyage. As for the reason of that ..."
Allen frowned slightly and ceased speaking for a few seconds. When he
resumed it was not to take up the thread where he had dropped it.
"I don't know whether you'll have difficulty in believing it or not,
Whitney," he went on after a half-dozen puffs at his slow-burning
cheroot; "but this is the first time since I was packed out of Australia
five years ago that I've tried to explain to anyone anything I've said
or done--tried to make out a case for myself. That was simply because I
didn't give a damn whether anyone approved of it or not. The reason I am
doing it now--well, there are two reasons."
He puffed quietly for a few moments again, as though gathering his
thoughts. Then he continued: "The first reason is that I owe it to you
for the consideration you showed in the matter of not telling them at
Kai what an ass I'd made of myself. That was dead white, Whitney. I've
got to give it you for that. No one but a thoroughbred could have held
his tongue for five minutes about a thing like that, especially seeing
you were under no obligations of any kind whatever to me. And, for all I
can learn, you've held your tongue for a month. How do I know? Well, I
know about Kai (the only ones I care much about anyway) through a letter
Jackson got off to me from Samarai--after he'd delivered you over to old
'Choppy' Tancred to bring south. Got it the night before I left
Townsville. It wasn't much of a literary effort, but he managed to say a
few things that--things that I knew he wouldn't have said if you had
given them the facts--all the facts about my departure in the _Cora_. As
for Australia.... If you had been dishing up any inside dope in this
nest of old women and busybodies, no fear that it wouldn't have come to
me before this. I know them. Their tongues will waft gossip from
Melbourne to Port Darwin quicker'n the telegraph. My word, don't I know
them!"
Quickened puffs registered the bitterness of unpleasant memories as
Allen fell silent for a brief interval. "I'm not fool enough to believe
that you kept quiet here out of any regard for me," he went on
presently. "That wouldn't be it, for you haven't any. I don't blame you.
As a matter of fact, I don't seriously care what Australia thinks
anyway. I'm through with them here for good and all. But the Islands are
different. The rest of my life, such as it is, is going to be lived
there, and the only men I have ever had any great respect for are living
there now. So, whatever reason there was behind it, Whitney, I'm deeply
grateful to you for not showing me up in Kai. It was dead white of
you.--I say it again. I've thought of it a good many times since I got
Jack's scrawl, and it was the first thing I intended to speak to you
about today. Only, my slate got a bit upset. That little gun of yours
deflected my thoughts, and then--but you saw how I got forced off on
another tack.
"The other reason" (Allen hurried on as though anxious to avoid hearing
any observations I might feel impelled to make on what he had just said)
"why I am going to the trouble of trying to clear up your suspicions in
the matter of Bell's death is because, if I don't, there will be no hope
of your granting the request I have come to make of you--and I can't run
any chances of failure with that.
"I didn't want to kill Bell, but--well, it seems that I was equal to
playing a damn dirty trick to get him out of the way. I won't need to
tell you why. I hate to drag the girl into it, but it can't be helped.
She must have bewitched me, I'm afraid. Not intentionally. Quite to the
contrary, she never gave me a look. I admired Bell--in spite of his
rather standoffish way with me--as much as any man I ever met. That was
the only reason I held myself in about the girl as long as I did. I
don't know just what would have happened if the schooner hadn't come.
Chances are, since I was getting pretty near the limit of my
self-control, I would have blown off some other way.
"The opportunity which I saw to get rid of Bell in the schooner was too
great a temptation to be resisted. So far as getting him clean away with
the _Cora_ was concerned, I have only my own hot-headedness to blame for
failing. I was simply asking for trouble when I went prancing down to
take over the girl before the schooner even had her hook broken out; and
I found it. No more than I deserved, though."
Allen paused while the old humorous grin spread over his face for a
moment. Then: "I trust you won't mind if I don't go into details about
how I came to put my head into the noose," he said, still grinning. "It
wasn't very edifying, you know--from my standpoint, I mean.
"But it would have made no difference even if Bell had got away, while
the girl and I remained behind on the island. She wouldn't have had
anything to do with me anyway--at any rate, not while she had any reason
to hope that Bell was still alive,--and probably she would have knifed
me at the first chance for the part I had in getting him away. She would
have found the chance, too, let me tell you. That girl creates her own
opportunities--there's no holding her once she takes the bit in her
teeth. What she wants to do, that thing she does. And what she wants a
man to do for her, that thing _he_ does. She'll put through what she's
after if she has to go through hell for it--and no minding whom she
takes with her."
The queer unnerved look on Allen's face drew my first interruption. "So
it's come to that?" was all I said.
"Yes, it's come to that," he assented, the seriousness of his eyes
belying the whimsical smile on his lips. "But I'll be returning to that
presently.
"About that dope I gave Bell," he went on--"it was absolutely harmless.
I bought the stuff in Macassar a few months ago, more out of curiosity
than anything else. The old Sultan at Ternate had told me about it, and
I was just a bit interested in its effects. It was pretty concentrated,
though not a hundredth of the strength of the essence from the same
plant that Rona took it for--the deadly poison, which has the same
pungent smell. It was a considerable overdose of the stuff I took one
night that put me on to the fact that, after a short spell of rather
pleasant mental stimulation, it would drug a man to sleep for an hour or
two. Hardly any after-effects at all, except a deuce of a thirst for
liquor for a few days. I had talked about it with Doc Wyndham two or
three times, and am perfectly certain of what I tell you.
"It was the only stuff I could lay hands on that promised to do the
trick. You see, I was afraid that if Bell wasn't drugged, he would
become suspicious when I failed to return to the schooner, and come to
look for me--perhaps even chuck up the stunt entirely. If he hadn't been
pretty drunk (much the furthest along I ever saw him--probably on
account of the beastly heat--you remember it?) he must have sniffed the
half-dozen drops I put in his half-emptied glass of whisky while he was
conning that old chart he had on the wall. It was a light dose (I've
taken twice that much myself), and though he went under jolly fast--due
to his being so far gone with whisky, probably--he was up and taking
command of the schooner inside of an hour. And you'll remember how he
was going right on ahead getting under way to catch the tide, even
though I hadn't returned. The best nerves I ever saw in a man, bar none,
that chap had. Will of iron and eyes for nothing but the thing he set
out to do. There was a lot in common between him and the girl on that
score. No wonder they were so strong for each other."
Allen fell silent again, stroking his cheroot between thumb and
forefinger--the habit the correspondents had characterized as a sign of
modesty. "I hope you won't insist on my telling any more about the
voyage than I have to in connection with Bell's death," he said at last.
"I hate to speak of it at all. The thing is almost as much of a
nightmare in memory as it was in fact. You saw how things were on the
schooner when we got away. Well, just picture them getting worse and
worse day by day for--how long was it?--something over a week, I
believe, but it seemed a lifetime. The whisky I kept bracing up with
made it a lot easier for me to stand--kept me from going crazy and
jumping overboard, as so many of the niggers did. But Bell--he didn't
have the whisky--wouldn't have it. Yes, he kept up that mad joke of his
about being a 'soba skippa' to the end. That was what killed him--just
that, and nothing else. It was beyond a being of flesh and blood to do
what he set himself out to do--and live. He tried to (my God, how he
tried!)--and died.
"I never felt such pity for any living thing, unless it was old Recoil,
my first steeplechaser, when he lived for twenty-four hours after
staving in his chest against a stone wall. I was hardly more than a kid
then. I lay in the straw of his box all that time with his battered,
bleeding frame, and swore I'd kill the first man that tried to shoot
him. Then I pulled myself together and did the humane job myself. But I
couldn't shoot Bell, and he wouldn't shoot himself. That would have been
the easy way out (since he had steeled his will against taking another
drink), but he wouldn't follow that short-cut either. Said he was--how
did he put it?--'goin' to ride the wata wagon all the way to po't, an'
then fall off good and plenty.' Some Yankee expression about keeping
strict teetotal, wasn't it?
"It got to me worse than the crazy niggers--watching the agony of his
mind and body contorting the muscles of his face, as he tried to hide
what he was going through. The girl was a good deal of help to him for
the first day or two, and he admitted that he was glad she had decided
to join his 'li'l' pa'ty at the last minnit.' But even she failed to
create a diversion as his cravings for whisky became more and more
intense, and he seemed to try to avoid her as much as he could toward
the last--probably because he couldn't hide his suffering from her. I
saw that it was killing him--that he would never last out the voyage on
the course he was heading,--and tried hard to make him see that it was
only reasonable to allow himself at least enough whisky to ease off the
tension on his breaking nerves. But he wouldn't listen to it.
"'I gave it out official,' he said, 'that I was goin' to keep soba on my
next ship, if I eva got one. An' soba's the wo'd.' To put an end to the
matter, he turned his back on me and went for'ard among the niggers.
"After that I tried to explain to Rona (I had managed to get on speaking
terms with her as soon as she became satisfied that Bell had not been
poisoned) how things stood, in the hope that she would fall in with a
plan I had for giving him small doses of whisky with the coffee he had
taken to drinking with increasing frequency as the craving for liquor
grew on him. She flew into a temper at once, however. Said that, far
from helping me to give him whisky on the quiet, she would taste every
cup of coffee after it was poured for him in the galley, and then take
it to him herself. She ended by saying that if I tried that trick she
would knife me with her own hands: in fact, rather regretted that she
hadn't done it when she had a chance at Kai. I couldn't for the life of
me see why the girl should take that attitude, when it was so plain that
whisky was the only thing that would pull Bell through; but take it she
did, and that was the end of it, at least as far as co-operation from
her was concerned, I mean. That simply left it up to me to watch my
chances and do the best I could on my own.
"Bell had insisted on standing watch-and-watch with me from the first,
usually, in his own watch, taking the wheel himself, probably because it
gave him something to occupy his mind--and his hands. (He was beginning
to tear the skin of the palms of his hands from clenching and
unclenching his fingers.) What broke him finally was discovering that he
was no longer fit for a trick at the wheel. His eyes went bad rapidly
under the strain, and it was not long before he could not distinguish
the readings on the compass card. He told me about it at once, but was
confident he could manage to hold a course by the stars. This went on
all right as long as it was clear. But one night, when it was squally
and overcast, he lost the 'Cross' (which had been giving him a shifting
but fairly approximate bearing), and fell back on trying to keep her a
couple of points off the wind. This would have done all right if the
Trade had held from the southeast. But it hauled up to east in a squall,
and Bell, following it around by the 'feel' of it on his face, had the
schooner all but onto the Baluka Reef and shoal at daybreak. I let him
extricate himself to save his feelings; but he knew that both the Bo'sun
and I had twigged what had happened, and why, and it must have been the
realization of the fact that he had become quite useless in navigating
the ship that hastened the final collapse.
"He came on the following night for his watch--the 'graveyard,' from
midnight to four in the morning,--but made no objection when I stuck on
at the helm. We were closing the tangle of the Barrier Reef by then, you
see, and it wouldn't have done to trust the wheel to a nigger. In fact,
when I went on at eight the previous evening, it was practically the
beginning of the thirty-six-hour trick at the wheel that ended when we
anchored off Townsville.
"When Bell let me stay on at the wheel at midnight, he showed the first
voluntary signs of giving in, not in the matter of closing his lips to
whisky--nothing could affect his decision on that score,--but to the
other alternative. I mean that he gave up hope of holding on till he had
brought his ship to port--gave up hope of living to the end of the
voyage. Up to that time he had always tried to pass the whole thing off
as a sort of a joke, running on with patter like that about the 'wata
wagon.' But he dropped all that from the moment I refused to give way to
him at the wheel.
"'Youah quite right, Allen,' he said in a weary sort of voice, and went
over and sat down on the rail of the cockpit. His voice was hollower
still when he spoke again, maybe ten minutes later. 'Allen,' he croaked,
'I've got a hunch I'm not up to pullin' my weight in this heah schoona
any longa. I'm all in--no mo'n so much ballast. Just a dead drag.'
"I didn't reply to that. I was too much awed--yes, awed--even to urge
him again to take the drink I knew would be the saving of his
mind--perhaps his life. He didn't speak again till after I roused him to
prevent the main boom giving him a crack on the head as I put her about.
(We were working through a nasty patch of broken coral--the outskirts of
the Barrier--but scant seaway and fluky airs.) As he settled back on the
weather rail of the cockpit he said, speaking very slow as though hard
put to control his voice: 'Allen, I make it about two hundred miles to
Townsville by youah noon position. Say thirty-six to forty hours'
sailin', with the wind holdin' up. Do you reckon you an' Ranga--good
man, Ranga--do you reckon you an' he ah up to pullin' it off alone?
I'm--damn it all, I'm seem' hell-west-an'-crooked just as we hit the
dirty navigatin' Allen, take my wud fo' it, this soba skippa stunt ain't
all it's cracked up to be--not by a long shot. I'd rather ha' had the
plague by a damn sight, Allen.'
"He wouldn't mention the other alternative--whisky--even then, and I
simply didn't have the nerve to take advantage of the opening and
suggest it to him outright. But I did what I thought was the best thing
under the circumstances--waited for a stretch of open sailing, gave the
wheel to a nigger, fished up a convenient bottle of whisky, and set it
down just behind him against the cockpit rail. I didn't speak even
then--just pressed his shoulder, tilted the neck of the bottle against
his hand where it clutched the rail, and went back to the wheel.
"I had the feeling (and I still have) that I was doing the decent and
humane thing, just as I did when I put old Recoil out of his misery;
though the cases aren't quite parallel of course. But I knew it would
force a crisis one way or the other, and that was what, in all
sincerity, I thought was the kindest thing to do. If Bell drank (though
it well might be that he would go on drinking until he fell in a
stupor), it would surely save his life. What if he did get dead drunk?
He wouldn't be any more useless in navigating the schooner than he was
already. On the other hand, if he still refused to drink, the heightened
temptation of the handy bottle would increase the tension and hasten the
collapse of mind and body, which was now but a matter of a few hours at
the outside. I think you'll agree with me, Whitney, that I did the
kindest thing possible under the circumstances."
"I wouldn't venture an opinion on that offhand," I temporized; "but, in
any event, it's the thing I would undoubtedly have done myself had I
been in your place. There's no question in my mind on that point at
least."
"I'm glad to hear you say that," he said warmly; "especially as there
was one person--a rather important person to me--who didn't approve of
my action.
"Bell's only acknowledgment of what I had done," Allen went on, "was a
sort of disjointed muttering. 'Many thanks, ol' man. Nothin' doin'. Good
intentions. Soba skippa to the fareyewell!' (I think that was the word).
He shoved the bottle along out of easy reach, but didn't even make a
bluff at throwing it over the side. I have an idea that the reason for
his restraint on that score was due to the fact that he remembered I had
told him that the supply was running low (I had been putting an awful
crimp in it), and didn't want to deprive me of it. He was quite
considerate enough to think of that sort of a thing, even with his
senses toppling, as they must have been from the beginning of the watch.
"It was a moonless night, and heavily overcast, so that I could just
make out the blur of Bell's head and shoulders against the deckhouse
where he sat hunched up on the port rail of the cockpit. But there was a
crack opening up in the beastly binnacle, and through it an inch-wide
welt of light slashed diagonally across his tortured face. One eye, the
side of his nose and half of his mouth were sharply lighted up. The rest
was a shadowy blank. The vivid gash of light, like a magnet, kept
drawing my gaze away from the compass. That one eye, wide and staring,
never blinked in the bright beam. The nostril, distending and
contracting jerkily, was red, like that of a horse that has been
galloped to the point of death. The teeth looked to be clenched through
the lower lip, and blood was trickling over the lighted streak of
clean-shaven chin. Not all his sufferings had made him miss his morning
shave. Almost like a rite with him, that was."
"Holdover from his Naval life," I suggested hastily, fearful less he
should be tempted to digress upon irrelevant details.
"I don't know just when it was that the end came," Allen resumed. "I was
expecting every moment that he would jump up and begin his restless
pacings, as he had done on previous nights. But at six bells his
position was still unchanged, and to blot out that beastly slash of
light across his drawn face I threw a piece of canvas over the top and
back of the binnacle, so that the beam from the crack was cut off. Just
as the morning watch was called a nasty bit of a squall was threatening
to bore in and give us a raking, though it finally passed astern of us
and spun off down to leeward. My hands were full for some minutes
preparing against the imminent onslaught, and it was not until the
menace was past and I had taken over the wheel from Ranga (who had
relieved me when I went for'ard to have a squint ahead for myself), that
it struck me that Bell had been paying no attention whatever to all that
had been going on--didn't appear to have shifted at all, in fact.
"I was just going to call to him to suggest that he go below and turn in
for a spell, when the nigger on the lookout in the bows sung out
'breaka--dead ahead!' It was a near thing, but I managed to sheer off
and avoid grounding on a patch of barely submerged coral, just becoming
visible in the shimmer of the false dawn. As I knew that the main wall
of the Great Barrier must be close at hand to lee, I was chary of
letting her fall off very far in that direction. I had just ordered a
man to stand-by to heave the lead at the first sign of shoaling water on
the starboard bow, when the tail of my eye caught a glimpse of Rona
stepping out on deck from the cabin companion way. (We had sulphured out
the Agent's cabin and made it fairly comfortable for her use. It was out
of the question her sleeping on deck, on account of the incessant
squalls.) She headed straight for Bell, who was still hunched up on the
weather rail of the cockpit, the outlines of his face just beginning to
show in the ashy light of early morning.
"As her hand touched his shoulder she let out a shrill squeal and
plumped down on her knees beside him. In doing this she must have bumped
the whisky bottle, which had been rolling back and forth on the deck
with the lurches of the schooner. It was with more of a hiss than a
scream that she grabbed it up and flung it straight for my head. Oh, I
should hardly say _straight_," Allen corrected himself, "for Rona
evidently can't throw any better than the run of her white sisters. The
bottle smashed against the wheel, deluged the cockpit with broken glass
and one of my last half-dozen quarts of whisky. If I had not been pretty
sure that Bell was already dead, the fact that the smell of the old
familiar juice welling up from the deck didn't bring a twitch to his
nostrils would have been enough to drive it home to me.
"Without waiting to observe the effects of her throw, Rona launched
herself right on after the bottle--only a shade better aimed. Unluckily,
the cross-cut she took to my throat carried her right over the
wheel--and at the very instant that the appearance of a second line of
foam down to leeward confirmed my fears about our desperately scant
working room. The instinctive lifting of my right arm to block the
girl's grab at my face came near to bringing disaster. I fended the
clutch from my throat all right, but the weight of her body falling
across the wheel tore the spoke from my left hand and threw the schooner
up into the wind.
"Ranga's quick presence of mind was all that saved the situation.
Jumping into the cockpit regardless of the broken glass cutting his bare
feet, he grabbed the girl about the waist, disentangled her flying arms
and legs from the wheel, and smothered her struggles against his side. I
threw the wheel back an instant before she jibed, and then, for two or
three seconds, things hung in the balance. Finally, very slowly, she
filled away on the port tack again, and the immediate danger was over.
Had the schooner gone about, nothing could have saved her from running
onto the reef. There was not enough room left in which to wear her
round.
"Bell must have given up the fight along toward the end of the
'graveyard' watch. I heard him muttering off and on for a while, but the
last coherent words that came to my ears were, not unfitly: 'Nothin'
doin'. Soba skippa to a fareyewell.'
"That rub with the reef was the nearest squeak we had--though I can't
say that I remember much about the navigation that took us through the
Barrier and on to Townsville. Drunken man's luck doubtless. I was sure
drunk, and no mistake, though both my legs and my head were grinding
right along to the finish--only ceased functioning when there was
nothing more to do.
"The girl--when Ranga let her go again--went back and settled down by
Bell's body. Wouldn't let anyone come near it. Only left it on the two
or three further occasions that she took to fly at my throat when she
thought I wasn't looking. I didn't want to lock her up (it was inviting
the plague to force her to stay 'tween decks for too long), but managed
to get around the difficulty finally by having one of the crew stand-by
to push in and absorb the impact whenever she made a break in my
direction. She gave up trying after that. Seemed to loathe the touch of
a nigger. But with Ranga it was different. She grew quiet as soon as he
picked her up--something like a kid with its nurse.
"The big fellow was wonderful, by the way. Always doing the right thing
without waiting for an order, always cool and quiet, always
good-natured. Spent his spare time sitting on the taffrail and peeping
to the sea-gulls on a queer little Malay flute he always carried in his
belt--some kind of hollow stem, full of little wooden balls that gave a
weird sort of ripple to the notes. First and last, Ranga was the man to
whom the bulk of the credit was due for taking the schooner through. I
still feel a bit guilty that I didn't divide the whisky with him. But
perhaps it was best to stow it where I did.... You never know how a
yellow man or a black man will react to the stuff. It's hard enough
guessing with a white man sometimes."
Allen smiled whimsically as he lighted a fresh cheroot. He was through
with the worst of the story and seemed a good deal relieved. It was
plain enough that he spoke the truth when he said that the memory of it
was still a nightmare, and that he hated to have to speak of it. He said
a few words more in explanation of why he had not buried Bell at sea,
which appeared to have been mainly because he was afraid the girl would
have followed the body over the side. He had no misgivings about keeping
it aboard, he said, as he was quite certain that it carried no plague
infection. He mentioned incidentally, that they had found a lot of stick
brimstone among the stores, and that the thorough smudging they gave the
after quarters with this was probably responsible for the fact that the
plague had not reappeared there. It had been impossible to devise a way
to disinfect the big 'midships hold where the labour recruits were
housed, on account of the more or less crazy condition of all of the
niggers.
Allen looked at his watch, but went on with his story as though in no
particular hurry. "You're doubtless impatient to hear about the girl's
turning up again," he said. "You've already heard of the rather
remarkable escape she made from the Quarantine Station--Butler, one of
the doctors, mentioned that he told you about it on your steamer. At the
Station it was the theory that the girl had broken out so that she could
kill herself on Bell's grave--that she was more or less off her head
anyhow. That was a mistake, though a natural one. She had just one thing
in view when she clambered out of the mad cell and over the wall: that
was to lie low until I came out and then, watching her chance, try to
make a better job of polishing me off than she had done on the schooner.
She realized that they were on their guard against her at the Station,
and that she might be kept under restraint indefinitely, or at least
until I was out and gone beyond her reach.
"Her mind was working well enough to make her reckon that that Chinese
shawl (which everyone would have noted) was the one garment she had that
could not fail to be recognized. So--it must have been something of a
wrench for her--she left it on the bank of Ross Creek and went to seek a
hiding place.
"Luck was with her in the search. Locating the native quarter after
wandering for a while, she circulated around until she came upon the
signs--in Hindustani, I fancy--in front of the shack of an old East
Indian drug seller and money changer. How she got around him I don't
know; but at any rate she persuaded him to keep her there until I was
out of quarantine. She even contrived to get the old rascal to spy out
the refuge I had flown to--a bungalow just out of town, where I figured
I would be a bit quieter than at the hotel. Then she took a hand in the
game herself.
"It was on the second night after I came out, and I had turned in early.
I had taken no precautions of any kind against attack. Never have
bothered much with that kind of thing. The doors and windows were wide
open. I had a servant--a Chino,--but he was sleeping in his own hut in
the rear of the grounds.
"It was the window she came in by, though she could just as well have
used the door. I was more than half awake (hadn't been sleeping very
well any of the time since my two-day snooze after landing from the
schooner), lying on my back under the mosquito net, with no covers over
me. It was probably her intention to slip up quietly and get her hands
under the net before disturbing me. She had no knife, by the way. They
had taken that little Malay dagger away after she had tried to stick me
at the Quarantine Station. As she would have had no difficulty in
raising another through old Ratu Lal had she wanted it, I take it that
she felt confident enough of doing the job with her hands. No idle dream
that, either; you know something of the strength of them.
"I sat up in bed in a dazed sort of way as her shadow darkened the
window. (There was a bit of a moon, shining on that side of the house.)
It must have been my movement under the netting that made her change her
plan. Very naturally, she counted on my shooting first and asking
questions afterwards. It was the rational and proper thing to do, and it
is probably what I would have done had my pistol been handy. But, not
dreaming of an attack (this was the day before old 'Squid' Saunders
turned up and took a jab at me), my gun was in my coat pocket. I have
always carried it there--when I had a coat on--ever since I saw your
little exhibition of pocket gunnery at Kai," he added with a humorous
smile.
"As I was saying, the stir I made under the mosquito net forced the girl
to speed up her schedule a bit. You saw the jump she made the time she
caught up the schooner at Kai. Well, it must have been about that same
kind of a spring over again. She never touched the floor between the low
window ledge and my bed. Landed right on my chest, bringing down the net
under her weight, and went to my throat with an instinct as sure as that
of a fighting bulldog. She was choking me right through the net before I
really knew what had happened.
"Of course, taking it for granted that she was dead, I didn't have the
ghost of an idea it was Rona who was sprawling on my chest and shutting
off my wind with steel fingers that seemed closing in to meet at the
base of my brain. I didn't even know that it was a woman. In fact, the
deadly pressure of that grip argued all the other way--that I was being
throttled by a man, and a deucedly powerful one at that. If I did any
speculating at all, I probably figured it as some kind of a thieving
stunt. But a man fighting for his life--and that is precisely what I was
doing--doesn't waste much time in conjecture. My immediate problem was a
simple one. If that grip wasn't broken inside of a minute, it might stay
there forever as far as my shaking it off was concerned. I had been
choked before, and also done a bit of choking on my own account; so I
knew to within a few seconds how long it is before the head of a man
whose wind is shut off begins to reel.
"Still quite the master of myself, I tried on, very deliberately, the
best thing I knew for breaking a strangle grip--that simple little
_jujutsu_ trick of thrusting your arms between those of the man choking
you, and then throwing back your shoulders and expanding your chest.
Stiffening the chest muscles, I mean--of course you can't expand it with
air while your windpipe is closed. That never fails if you are both on
your feet, and will sometimes work even when you are on your back. Here
the tangle of the net blocked the up-thrust of my arms, and I failed to
get enough leverage to break the hold on my neck.
"Then I tried my next best bet--that of turning over and over and sort
of unwinding the grip on your throat. I was a shade less confident now.
Time was getting short. I did some jolly active wriggling in trying to
work along far enough to roll over the side of the bed, but again it was
the net that defeated my effort. I was getting a good deal peeved with
that bally canopy; and yet, in the end, it was the very thing that got
me clear.
"Nine times out of ten a man being held down and choked by another
man--that is, if the choker knows his job--has no chance of doubling up
in a ball and kicking his assailant off by straightening out his legs.
If the man choking you flattens his body closely enough against yours,
you simply haven't the room to start doubling your knees. My assailant
knew his business right enough, but the folds of the net (some of the
corners of which were still clinging to its frame), prevented his
flattening in close to my legs. The sag of the woven bamboo bed springs
also gave me a few inches of leeway.
"There was nothing deliberate or confident in the jerk with which I
began drawing my knees up against my chest. I had already failed twice
with what I rated as decidedly better bets than that one, and the time
limit was nearly up. My head was already beginning to swim. It was neck
or nothing this heat. The sheer desperation of my effort won out for it.
The push of my knees against the chest of the incubus did not lift it
quite enough to break its hold, but it did enable me to squirm my right
foot up and get it firmly planted in the pit of the creature's stomach.
Then, with all the strength left in me, I straightened out in a terrific
kicking push.
"In reverse, the flight of the muscular body that had been holding me
down must have been fully equal to that opening jump from the window.
Indeed, I am almost sure that it hit the further wall before it did the
floor. The hold on my neck was the only point of contact that did not
break readily, and there the result was--as you saw a moment ago. As
those steel-claw fingers would not give an inch, they simply ripped out
through the flesh. I can consider myself dead lucky that they didn't
hook onto my windpipe or jugular. Both of them would have come right
along with all the flesh and hide those unrelaxing talons took with
them.
"It didn't occur to me for a few moments that I might have knocked out
my assailant, and I was a good deal surprised when he neither returned
to the attack nor made any break to escape. The laboured gasping in the
darkness on the other side of the room quickly told me the reason,
however. I had knocked the wind out of him with my mighty kick. I knew
that spasmodic gasping for air meant that I wasn't going to be greatly
troubled for a minute or two at least, so took my time about fumbling
for my automatic and lighting the lamp.
"A bit dazzled by the light for a moment, I took the lanky yellow figure
huddled up against the wall to be a Hindu coolie. The thin legs and arms
were like those of the East Indian indentured labourers of the sugar
plantations, and the two or three yards of white cloth trailing off
along the floor suggested a Madrassi waist and shoulder rag.
Presently--for that one rumpled wrapping was all she had worn--I saw
that it was a woman; and then--but as a matter of fact I think that the
girl spoke before I recognized her face.
"'"Slant,"' she piped out in that bird-like chirrup of hers; '"Slant," I
guess I make a meestake. 'Scuse me, ple-ese, "Slant."'
"Could you beat that for cheek? Trying to tear a man's throat out one
minute, and asking him to 'ple-ese 'scuse' her for it the next. And what
do you think of a man who would tumble for it, especially after the way
she had made me jump through and roll over at Kai? But that's Rona; yes,
and that's me. I tumbled, and--I may as well admit it--I am still
tumbling.
"Having the girl turn up like that--after I had been thinking of her as
dead for a week or two--didn't give me quite the shock it would have if
that voice had come out of the darkness without my seeing her first. It
was a deuce of a surprise even as it was; but, when all is said and
done, a pleasant one, in spite of the rather startling way she chose
to--to re-materialize. I was glad to find that she was alive, whether it
meant anything more to me than that or not.
"We didn't talk much that night--there wasn't much talk left in either
of us as a matter of fact. Rona continued to croak and hiccup, while my
own swollen vocal chords smothered every other word I tried to get past
them. I managed to assure Rona that I quite understood her feelings
against me (though I didn't entirely, and don't yet), and begged her to
give me a chance to explain the way Bell had come to his finish. She
admitted that she had begun to believe that she might have been hasty in
her decision and action, and said she would be glad to hear what I had
to say. She told me where she was in hiding and asked me to come there
in the morning; also to do what I could to square her with the
quarantine authorities for breaking out of the Station ahead of time,
and on no account to let anything happen to old Ratu Lal for giving her
refuge. She seemed to take it as a matter of course that I would do
these things. You'd have thought I was some sort of a _mayordomo_ taking
orders.
"It was not very late and, luckily, the bungalow (which Ralston had
occupied himself at times) had a telephone. I ordered a closed carriage
sent out, and also got the Quarantine Station and arranged for one of
the doctors--Butler, the chap you talked with on the steamer--to come to
the landing and wait for me to pick him up. They had been very decent to
me at the Station, and I wanted to avoid having to explain things to a
strange doctor.
"Rona tied my neck up for me--very handily, too--and when the carriage
came I bundled her in and gave the driver the direction which carried
him along the edge of the 'foreign quarter.' I dropped her at a corner
not far from Ratu Lal's joint, promising to look in on her early the
next morning. Butler was waiting for me at the landing when I got there,
and I told him about Rona's coming to life, and its sequel, as we drove
back to the bungalow. After he had dressed my neck I told him what I
wanted him to try to do for me and sent him back to the landing, where
his boat had hung on for him.
"Rona was looking a bit white about the gills when I called the next
morning, and complained that her stomach 'got mad' every time she sent
food down to it. I told her that she still had the best of me, as I
didn't expect to be able to get any food down to my stomach for a couple
of days yet. That seemed rather to buck her up, and she had a good laugh
over it. Then we got down to business, and had an hour's yarn in the
drug-scented quiet of old Ratu Lal's back room.
"As my Malay is fairly good, we talked without difficulty. I told her
more or less what I have just told you about Bell and why I had given
him the whisky. She said, rather grudgingly, that she thought she could
understand why I had done as I did. Then I said a few things
about--well, about my personal feelings toward her. Finally, I asked her
point-blank if she would go back to the Islands with me. Told her she
could live anywhere she wanted, and in any way that she wanted. I didn't
say that I was willing to marry her, because (since, if she has any
religion at all, it's Hindu or Mohammedan) I felt that would make no
difference to her one way or the other.
"Am I really willing to marry her?" (It was the lift of my eyebrows that
suggested the query to Allen, for I did not speak.) "Well, yes, I think
I am, if she made that a condition. But I don't think the question is
one likely to arise.
"The girl took in the whole thing without giving away by word or look
how it impressed her. When I had finished, she coolly suggested that I
run along and square matters up with the quarantine people about her and
Ratu Lal. She added that she would be obliged if I'd look up her Chinese
shawl for her. She also started to speak about her dagger, but changed
her mind and said to let that go for the present. As for what I'd been
telling her.... Well, perhaps if I could see my way to dropping in again
toward evening she might have an answer for me. High and haughty as a
Sultana, she was, sitting cross-legged on a mat and pulling away at one
of Ratu Lal's big 'hubble-bubbles.'
"I went to the Quarantine Station straightaway, and, in spite of the red
tape tangling up a thing of that kind, managed to get them to agree to
discharging the girl without anything more than a perfunctory call from
a doctor to certify her free of plague. That done, the rest was easy. I
told the story--omitting, of course, the girl's attack upon me--at the
Police Station, and they agreed not to arrest Ratu Lal as long as the
quarantine authorities were satisfied and lodged no complaint against
him. They said they were only too glad of a chance to do me a favour.
Then I got them to let me have the shawl, and begged them to keep the
news of the girl's turning up quiet as long as they could.
"'Squid' Saunders's little diversion that afternoon gave the pressmen
something else to take up their minds, and the matter of the missing
girl was forgotten, at least for the remainder of my time in Townsville.
The fact that she did not drown herself must have leaked out since, but
they probably haven't been enough interested in it--now that the hunt
has followed me here--to wire it south.
"When I broke away from the official reception committee and dropped in
on Rona at the end of the afternoon--impatient enough, I can tell
you--she gave no sign that the matter I had come for an answer about was
in her mind at all. She grabbed the Chinese shawl out of my hand with a
yelp of delight, but almost dissolved in tears when she saw how the
embroidery had been smudged and ruffled in her scrambles over trees and
walls and ditches the night she escaped from the Quarantine Station. You
may remember that it was a big peacock that was embroidered on the
shawl--pretty nearly life-size--rather a fine piece of work, it always
struck me. Well, ignoring me entirely, she spread that old peacock out
over her breast--something in the way she used to display it when she
wore the shawl in Kai--and began chirping and crooning and muttering to
it like a dove to its nestlings. She would nuzzle into the plumage,
smoothing the ruffled feathers with her lips, just like she was the old
peacock preening himself. Every little bit of torn floss she would try
to put back where it came from.
"Stiff with funk, I sat quiet until she had gone all over the moulting
old bird, but when she started in working down from his crest again, I
thought it was time to remind her of my presence. I had never sat around
waiting on anybody like that before, Whitney; even my old nurse couldn't
make me do it. So I cut in and told her that I had arranged things at
the Quarantine Station--that she wouldn't need to go there again; also
that old Ratu Lal need not worry any longer about a visit from the
Police. Incidentally, I mentioned that I was making him a present of ten
pounds to show my appreciation of his consideration in not claiming the
reward offered for her.
"She took no notice of anything I said. Just went on crooning and
preening and stroking down the ruffled feathers, giving a little sob
every now and then as she came to a place where they were badly mussed
up. Then I went off on another tack, saying that I knew of a shop in the
town that carried Chinese embroideries, and suggesting it was possible a
skilled needle-worker might be found there competent to undertake the
restoration of the bird's damaged plumage. She deigned to cock up an ear
to listen to that, but her only reply was a disconsolate shake of the
head, as though anything like proper restoration was a matter beyond all
hope.
"That quieted me for a while, but after twirling my thumbs through ten
or fifteen minutes more nuzzling and crooning, my patience gave out. I
jumped up to the accompaniment of a good lively string of oaths, and
asked her point-blank if she had made up her mind about the matter we
had been speaking of in the morning. She broke into a ripple of smiles
at that, and cooed sweetly: 'Ye-es, I think 'bout that plenty, "Slant."'
Then she slipped into voluble Malay and laid down a perfectly simple and
direct proposal, on the fulfilment of the conditions of which she was
willing to return to the Islands with me. It was not what I had
expected,--not what anyone would have dreamed of expecting under the
circumstances; yet ridiculously easy of fulfilment in the event a
certain third party fell in with the idea. That third party is you,
Whitney. That's the main thing I have come to see you about. Everything
is up to you now. Perhaps that will make it easier for you to understand
why I rattled on for an hour or more in the hope of putting myself right
with you about Bell. I've never tried to justify myself with any living
man before, and probably will never do it again. But it had to be done
this time, Whitney, and I hope I've been successful."
My nod might have meant almost anything, but I was not unwilling that
Allen should interpret it in his favour. As a matter of fact, he had
convinced me wholly that--after the abortive attempt at drugging in
Kai--he had played straight with Bell. As for Rona--well, if he was also
ready to play straight with her (and he had just about convinced me on
that point, too), what was it to me? If she could forget Bell so easily,
it was her own affair. If Allen were trying to carry her off against her
will--that would be a different matter of course. But he was not.
Plainly it was the girl herself who held the whip hand. The whole thing
was a bit obscure yet, but what Allen had still to say might do
something to clear it up. Without committing myself by more than that
one nod, I waited for him to go on.