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THE TERRIBLE ISLAND
1
* THE Aiui—
TERRIBLE ISLAND*
Bj BEATRICE GRIMSHAIT
Author of "Red Bob of the Islands," ''In the
Strange South Seas," etc.
LONDON: HURST y BLACKETT, LTD.
PATERNOSTER HOUSE, E.G. 1920
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CONTENTS
JiBi^ffli
CHirm
PXOB
I.
THE GIRL FROM THE SEA
-
- II
II.
" WHO AM I ? "
-
- 27
III.
THE MAN FROM THE WRECK -
-
- 53
IV.
HIS majesty's ship -
-
- 83
V.
ON THE TERRIBLE ISLAND -
-
- Ill
VI.
MAROONED - - -
-
- 129
VII.
UNFURLING THE BANNER
-
- 160
VIII.
MYSTERY OF THE PIG
-
- 191
IX.
RETRIBUTION - - -
-
- 209
X.
LADY MARY REMEMBERS
-
- 233
XI.
WEDDING RINGS
.
- 260
<:5U29
THE TERRIBLE ISLAND
THE TERRIBLE ISLAND
CHAPTER I
THE GIRL FROM THE SEA
IT was a moonlight night, and Rocky Jim and I had
come down to Sapphira Gregg's.
If you have never seen a moonUght night on a
coral island, there is little use trying to describe it
tc you. If you have, you will remember the white blaze
on the coral sand, the white sparkling of the polished
p-cdm leaves, the silver air full of light reflected from the
sea's great shining glass, better than I can tell it. There
is no moon like the moon of the coral isles.
Jim and I were in no sense of the word splendid, yet
w(; walked that night in the midst of splendour that
surrounded and rayed from us like the halo of glory
suiTounding and raying from a saint. Jim took off his
hat — you don't need a hat on an island night, but he
was never seen parted from his — and carried it in his
haad.
* I want to let that silver water run through my hair,"
he said. " It feels good."
I answered in the words of the poet whose name I
never can remember —
" God makes such nights, all white and still.
Par's you can look or listen. . . ."
' I don't reckon He does," said Rocky Jim, plodding
alo ig the sand at my side.
12 t*e' Terrible Island
Sapphira Gregg's house, its brown thatch silvered,
black velvet pools of shadow underneath its eaves, was
close to us now.
" I think," said Jim, kicking up the sand, " something
else makes these nights. It's starlight nights that's
religious. These ain't. Nor it isn't the devil that makes
them either."
" What then ? " I asked cautiously. You have to
tread with care, approaching Jim on spiritual subjects.
If you do not, he darts back into his shell.
*' Fairies, or such," offered Jim. He watched me with
one eye. " Not that one believes in fairies. But
sometimes you believe in a thing you don't believe in."
I was mute. Jim on folk-lore — I had not hoped for
so much.
With the uncanny intuitive power of the men of the
wilderness, Jimmy read my vivisecting thoughts.
" I reckon," he said briefly, " it's a night things might
happen." Then he spat on the sand, to disabuse himself
of any charge of sentimentality, and asked me for a
match, with the air of one who closes a subject.
" Magic things ? fairy things ? " I asked, forbearing
to quote Keats.
Jim looked at me absent-mindedly.
" I wonder '11 Sapphira have any beer left ? " he
speculated ; and I knew the hermit crab was back in its
shell, its claws crossed across the doorway. . . .
But since that night, the birthnight of so much
sorrow, so much joy, I have often wondered if Jim, wise
man of the wilderness, knew unconsciously what I, the
fool of colleges, could not know ?
Well I—Sapphira came out of the soot-black shadow
of the verandah to meet us.
The Girl from the Sea 13
"Mr. Flower's come," was her greeting.
* Good ! " said Jim, and " Who's Flower ? " said I, in
the same breath.
" New Government surveyor come to do my block,"
answered Sapphira. She stood out on the sand, those
strange black eyes of hers, that sometimes looked light
grey, staring unseeingly at us. Sapphira always looked
at you as if she did not see you, as if she were looking
through you, and beyond you, searching, searching
eve r ... I think, for her youth that was no more.
"Then there'll be no beer," I suggested, not feeling
particularly sorry. Though I lived in New Guinea, I
was not a drinker.
' ' Who says so ? " flashed Sapphira, her eyes suddenly
opt ning, and showing themselves not black, but the
colour of steel.
' I thought the Government officer . . ."
' ' When a Government officer comes to my house, he
knows what's good for him. Same as all of them.
Same as you. You came down here for beer. Go in
anci get it, and don't forget the money. The Govern-
ment officer can go ! " She said plainly and calmly
whiTe he might go to.
We did what she told us. On Croker Island, and all
about the long tail-end of New Guinea, where islands
and islands are, everyone, in those days, did what
Sapphira Gregg told them — unless they were within
the kingdom of famous Mrs. Carter of North-West.
There have always been more queens than kings in
Papua.
I was light inside the house, orange light of kerosene
lamps. The beer was on a shelf, the till beneath it.
If Mrs. Gregg kept a " sly grog shop," it had less slyness
14 The Terrible Island
about it than any other south of the Line. That was
Sapphira. She had never heard the saying " Pecca
fortiter," but she believed in sinning, if you did sin, in
the open.
We helped ourselves, put the money through the slit,
and came out on to the verandah. We heard the
Government surveyor moving about within, and
guessed that he could see about as much or as little as
he liked through the semi-transparent walls of sago
stem. Apparently he liked to see nothing. It was not
until we had settled down on the verandah with bottles
and glasses that he came out. He refused an offer of
beer, and found himself a long chair. Sapphira had
returned ; she dropped on the floor, sitting cross-legged
with amazing ease for a woman of her years, and stared
out through the door. Her marvellous knot of yellow-
grey hair showed on the top of her head like a cable
flemish-coiled for captain's inspection.
I lit a cigarette, and wondered what the new officer
was like. But I did not wonder much, for Jimmy had
said " good " when his coming was announced, and I
trusted the taste of Rocky Jim. It was true he had
acquired his nick-name through a transaction not
doubtfully illegal, involving the loading up of a boat
with copra that contained some tons of coral boulders
skilfully disposed. But there were two sides to the
story, and New Guinea, in its curious list of precedence,
that gives so little to money or position, and so much to
character, had placed him high. If Jimmy said it was
" good " that Flower had come, why, I was prepared to
hke Flower.
And on Croker Island, away at the end of New Guinea,
which is at the end of the world, with the wild cannibals
The Girl from the Sea 15
of the mainland for all our society, outside some half-
dczen traders, the coming of Flower or of any white man
was an event of supreme importance.
I could not see much of him, however, for he had got
ini o the dark corner of the verandah, and only his legs
were visible in the moonlight — immensely long legs,
with big flat feet at the end of them. Now and then,
when he moved his position, one could catch the ghmpse
of a big ugly hand, with a seal ring on it. When he
sp)ke, his voice seemed to match himself, it was big and
rough. But I did not dislike it.
We talked at first of the current " news " — ^the
cannibal raid in the hills a few miles behind us ; trade
talk of copra and pearl shell, the inevitable Papuan
chatter about movements of launches and schooners.
All the time Sapphira sat like a figure of some Oriental
god, cross-legged and immovable, staring out from
under the velvet dark of the verandah to the moon-white
beiLch and sea. By and by Rocky Jim let drop a stray
word about red shell, and she instantly awoke.
' Who are you to be talking of red shell, and what
do you know ? " she said, without moving.
" I don't know as much as you do, Mrs. Gregg,"
allc>wed Jim. " But I reckon I've fished it a bit."
' What is it ? " bourdonned the deep voice from the
Government surveyor's corner.
'Ask Mrs. Gregg," said Jim. "She's done more
trading in it than anyone except the Queen of North-
Weit Island. She takes a canoe and goes up and down
the coast. Anywhere she goes. Recruiting too. Places
where they'd eat you as soon as look at you. As for red
shell, she can find it "
" But what is it ? "
i6 The Terrible Island
" Shell they make the native money of," said Sapphira
explanatorily. " If you had been longer than six weeks
in the country you'd know without my telling you.
Why, that red money — you see it everywhere — is more
to them than our good sovereigns and shillings. You
can make a native give you ten shillings' worth of yams
for seven and six of native money any day."
" I think I've seen the stuff in Samarai. Like six-
pences made of a kind of dull coral. What's it worth ? "
" Every one of those is worth threepence to fourpence-
half penny, according to size. Oh, I can tell you " —
Sapphira spoke with a certain contempt in her tones ;
she was always a little contemptuous when giving
information to newcomers — " I can tell you, if anyone
could find Ku-Ku's Island his fortune would be made."
" What in the name of commonsense is Ku-Ku's
Island ? "
But here Rocky Jim and I broke in together. We
told him all about it in a breath. Everyone at the
tail-end of New Guinea was mad about Ku-Ku's Island
in those days. We told him — interrupting and supple-
menting each other, and getting quite excited — that in
the days before the Government came there was a chief
of the Trobriand Islands, further out to sea, called
Ku-Ku. He had been an exceedingly powerful chief,
from all one heard ; had raided, captured, and made
slaves ever jrwhere ; rivalled King Solomon in the number
of his wives, and in his old age owned twenty sons as
strong as steel. He had immense treasures, from a
native point of view ; besides the wives, he had pigs so
niany that they could not be counted, and a storehouse
full of stone axes, obsidian clubs, and the valuable red
shell money that can only be got at Papua's east end.
The Girl from the Sea 17
Now all the natives were anxious to know where
Ku-Ku the great chief got his shell, and the few white
mer who were in the country in those days were more
than anxious, for they knew there must be a fortune in
Ku-Ku's private store. His treasure-house in the
Trobiiands was well known, but there was another that
no one knew, away somewhere among the tang of
unknown islets, cays, and reefs that spreads far out in
the Pacific from New Guinea's end. There, it was
supposed, he kept the immense hoards of shell money
that had made him a Papuan millionaire ; there his beds
of wonderfully rich good shell must be. . . .
Oh, all New Guinea of the eastern end wanted to know
abou: it. And some of them got to know. But they
nevei told.
Once and again, Ku-Ku would set off for some
unna ned destination in his huge carved war canoe, with
his t venty sons acting as crew. And he would take
with 'lim a dozen or so of the Trobriand people, strong
younf: men, capable of much work. They would not go
wilUn 5ly, but Ku-Ku was a great chief, and — they went.
Mo>t of them never returned. Those who did, came
back — bUnd. They could not tell where they had been*
They :ould only say that on the long voyage out, Ku-Ku
made magic, and took their sight away. And when
they lot to the island they were made to work shell
money, which is a thing that a blind man can do if he
practices hard. Ku-Ku saw that they did practise.
And a f ter years and years nearly all of them died ; but
some one or two — ^for a caprice, or to prevent other
people seeking — Ku-Ku allowed to return home and
tell th- tale.
This was the story we told to the surveyor, who sat
B
1 8 The Terrible Island
there in the dusk, and listened without comment umil
the end. Then he said,
" It sounds Uke a native yarn. What happened to
Ku-Ku ? "
" He was stabbed by one of the bUnd men."
" He would be. . . . And the twenty sons ? Good
idea, that ; kept the thing in the family."
"Nobody ever knew, but most people think thoy
were all drowned together in the big gale of eighty-nine."
" Anyone ever go looking for the island ? "
" Some," said Jim. " But they can't get the natives
to tell anything about the direction. We all think thay
know, but are scared to tell."
"Why?"
"They think we'd have to bring some of them as
crew, and every nigger at the east end is scared of the
very name. Because they say that after Ku-Ku's
death, two men did go out and find the island, but the
devil-pigeons got them and picked their eyes out, and
they say the same will happen to anyone else who goes
there."
"The devil-pigeon," I explained, "is a well-known
Papuan superstition. They believe that a mahcicus
devil takes the form of a bird, and hides in the forests by
nights. It calls people, and they follow it up, hoping
to shoot it because it imitates the call of a bird thai is
good to eat. But when it gets them into the depths of
the forest, it takes its own form, tears out their eyes, s.nd^
leaves them there to wander till they die."
" Well," said the surveyor thoughtfully, " I should not
allow a tale of a devil-pigeon to interfere with me, if I
wanted to go hunting for a treasure island."
" It would be all right if one could get at the infon la-
The Girl from the Sea 19
Hon independently of the natives. But they're very
secretive," I explained.
'He's a bug-hunter, so he sees plenty of them,"
observed Rocky Jim.
'■ I collect hemiptera and coleoptera for Rothschild,"
I sidd. I am a little sensitive about this profession of
mire. It pays — in a country like Papua — but it is so
ob\ iously adapted to what I am. . . .
I felt the surveyor, in the dusk, turning away his eyes
froi 1 my lame leg and crooked side. He made no
comment.
" It takes one about the bush, and you have to get the
natives to help you," I went on. " I've often tried to
find out about the island, but they shut up Hke a knife
at the very mention of Ku-Ku."
" Was there any truth in the yarn about the blind
mer ? "
" There was," said Sapphira, speaking suddenly. " I
saw one of them when he came back."
" You saw him ? "
" I did, and he was as blind as a two days' kitten.
And never got over it."
" Curious," said the surveyor ; and there fell one of
the long silences of the far-out places. Where ships are
few, and white folk almost non-existent, the mind grows
strangely calm. Out back, one does not talk for mere
talking's sake. It is when the boat comes in, and for
long days after she has left, that the dammed-up river
runs . . .
I ihink — I really cannot tell for certain, because the
things that happened afterwards have blurred my
memory — but I think we were rather enjoying ourselves,
there in the shadows out of the moon, with our tobacco
20 The Terrible Island
and our glasses, and the sense of leisure deep and
exhaustless, of long quiet days when there would be
time and time for everything, flowing about us as the
sea, away below Sapphira's house, flowed over the
quiet reefs. It was calm on the water, but now and
then there came a dull, drum-like sound, as a wa^e,
rising mysteriously from the mirror-Hke sea, burst on
the coral sand.
Sapphira was the first to speak.
" There's been weather somewhere or other," she said.
" A long way off," answered Jim, after listening for a
mintite or two. He reached for his glass ; I heard his
chair scroop as he moved, and I heard the surveyor in
the dark corner clear his throat as if he were about to
speak ; some trifling remark, indeed, he had just begun,
when Sapphira's scream burst forth, and tore the quiet
as a jag of lightning tears the brooding clouds.
She was on her feet ; we were all on our feet. " What
is it ? " I was asking her; and the big surveyor was
hanging out over the verandah rail, turning his head
here and there ; and Jim, more self-possessed than
anyone, had reached for a jug of water, and was holding
it over Sapphira's head. "Stop that, and say what's
the matter," I heard him speak, through Sapphira's
screams. That something big was the matter we all
felt. Sapphira Gregg was no screamer.
She pulled herself together in a wink, shut her mouth,
and snatched the jug from Jim's hand. She set it dov'n
on the table, took three steps, dramatically — Sap-
phira was naturally dramatic—on the verandah and
pointed.
" If I'm not mad," she said, " a ghost has just wall<t3d
up out of that sea, and is coming to the house."
The Girl from the Sea 21
Jim took a good look.
" If you're mad, we all are," he said calmly, *' because
there is a ghost." We looked, and there was.
h was just as a ghost is described, a tall figure, all in
trailing white, and it came from the edge of the sea,
walking slowly, and it made for the house. Sapphira,
the bravest woman in New Guinea of her time (and
that is saying much) caught my hand, and squeezed it
so hard that she hurt me.
"Owen Ireland," she said, "your face is like an
ang( I's for all you're a poor cripply chap ; you must
kno^v some prayers. Owen, say them, like a good lad,
for I'm blessed " (but she did not say blessed) " if I can
rem( mber anything but ' Now I lay me.* "
She held tight to my sleeve.
" Pardon me," said the big surveyor in his bumbling
voice, " but it doesn't appear to be a case for prayers.
That's not a ghost, it's a girl."
" A girl your granny, walking out of the sea in the
middle of the night," said Sapphira, getting angry.
But ^he let go my sleeve.
The white thing out of the sea came on. At first it
had l^een so melted and mingled in the moonlight, as all
white figures are on a full-moon tropic night, that its
shape was indistinguishable. But now we saw it had
hands and feet and head ; now we could tell it was
some hing sUm and young, with hair that trailed dark
over its shoulders — now we saw that it sparkled,
stran-jely, all over, as if it were strewn with frost. . . .
"My oath!" cried Rocky Jim suddenly; "it's a
woman in evening dress."
As if the words had been a spell to unloose her frozen
faculties, Sapphira let out a cry, ran down the steps,
22 The Terrible Island
and seized the strange figure, but quite gently, by tlie
arms. It collapsed, and fell upon her breast.
Sapphira lifted the hght weight easily, and carried it
up the steps. In a moment she had come to dominate
the situation. We, who had been her protectors again ^f
the unknown, were now her henchmen and her slaves. ^
" Go and get the kettle on the boil — kareharrega "
(hurry up), she ordered Rocky Jim. Me she looked iit
and passed over ; I knew why. " Take her feet," slie
ordered the surveyor, and Flower took them. The full
light of the lamp shone on the strange group, as S^phiia
and Flower passed into the bedroom. I was not
conscious of seeing details at the time — for the whole
thing was dazing — but I remembered them afterwards.
I saw a tall — excessively tall — awkward man, with a
queer Punch-like face, hooknose, large ears, ugly chin,
and a pair of deep-set splendid eyes. He had to bend
low over his burden, since Sapphira had taken the head.
In his hands were two feet, as beautiful as a Spanish
duchess's, clad only in fine silk stockings. The stockin.^s
were badly torn, and, hke the spangled satin dress, were
dripping with sea-water. I could not see the woman's
face, because it had fallen aside. Her dark wet hair
swept the floor as they carried her into the bedroom.
Sapphira took the situation in hand as a man takes a
shying horse. I don't know how many minutes it was
— or how few — before she had got hot water and hot
blankets, hot (unlicensed) grog, and fresh clothes, put
the girl into dry garments, got her to bed, revived her
and left her alone, with an imperial command against
talking or attempting to keep awake. We useless men
sat on the verandah and listened to her. I think ve
felt obscurely ^that we were somehow in fault. Sapph ra
The Girl from the Sea 23
was a mighty nurse in certain emergencies of frontier
life, and she could not help putting on the midwife
manner, which, as you will remember, comprehends a
general pity and contempt for male mankind.
- She came out at last, dropped on the floor again, and
sat there, more like an Indian image than ever, with her
beehive coil of hair shining on the top of her head, and
her strange eyes, where the flames of her wild youth had
left a spark or two, aglow hke fading camp-fires under
autamn rain. Jim and I assailed her with questions.
" 3be's no^ awake — not rightly, yet," answered
Saj phira. " She didn't say where the wreck was. No,
she told nothing about the boat, if they got away in one.
Or ibout anyone else."
" We ought to look on the beach," said Jim, and was
off iown the white stretch of sand before I had time to
lift myself from my chair. I followed him slowly ; we
botii looked everywhere one could look, for traces of a
wreck or a boat ; we found none. Jim thought he saw
son ething black and low floating far out at sea ; it
mifi ht have been the keel of an upturned whaleboat — if
indeed he saw anything ; he was not sure.
" There's no trace," he said disappointedly, returning
with me to the house. "Only that." He pointed with
his hand, and stood still to listen, as one of the slow,
rolling waves that we had heard earlier in the night
began curling itself up out of the glassy water. It
swept restlessly in, and burst upon the sand.
" That swell is stronger than it looks ; it must have
brought her in. I take it she was unconscious, and so
fioa- ed naturally, and when she got to the beach and was
thrc wn on it, she waked up. But what beats me," Jim
declared, " is where the wreck can have been."
24 The Terrible Island
We were up to the house again by now, and the big
surveyor, his eyes turning from one to another of us (as
I thought) like the shifting lights of a lighthouse, was
listening. So was Sapphira.
" There's no liner runs within three hundred miles of
here," speculated Jim. " And if people were wrecked
and came in a boat — if that was a boat I saw, which I
don't somehow think " He got entangled in his
predicates, and appealed wordlessly to me.
" You mean, if people came three hundred miles in a
boat they wouldn't land in good condition and tidy," I
explained. Jim looked grateful.
"Tidy!" spat Sapphira. "With the sequin passe-
menterie hanging loose all over the d^coUetage, and
Good condition ! The girl's placket is spht from top
to bottom."
" God, Sapphira," said Rocky Jim, turning very pale,
" you can sit there and say that, and not a doctor nearei-
than Samarai. Is there any hope for her ? "
"The placket," said the big surveyor, "is, I under-
stand, not any vital part of the human body, but the
sort of gully where things run together at the back of a
frock."
" Where's your wife ? " asked Sapphira sharply.
" In Napier cemetery, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand,'
replied Flower composedly.
" I reckon," said Sapphira, fixing him with her
burnt-out eyes, " that she died some time ago, because;
plackets aren't at the back any more ; they're at the;
side. It's to your credit that you didn't know that,
anyhow."
" It is," answered Flower calmly. " What did tb;
girl talk about when you were putting her to bed ? "
The Girl from the Sea 25
" How did you know she talked about anything ? "
" Because women can't hide things."
" Don't you call me a woman ? " warned Sapphira,
looking dangerous.
"You're about a hundred and twenty per cent,
woman, Mrs. Gregg, so you might as well agree to it,"
was the big surveyor's reply ; and Sapphira, uncom-
prehending, gave in. I don't know what Jim thought ;
bm from that moment I knew that Percival Flower —
such was his hideously inappropriate name — for all his
plainness and his awkwardness, was of the unmistakable
class of women-tamers. And — I do not know why —
my thoughts flew instantly to that mysterious, beautiful
figure within the house, lying silent and insensible, with
her secret, whatever it might be, locked behind lips
that had been closed by God-knew-what of terrible
experience.
' You haven't told me what she said yet," went on
Flower.
Sapphira eyed us all cunningly, I thought.
" We're friends here ? " she said.
" Yes," almost shouted Rocky Jim. " Yes, Sapphira,
friends all right." It seemed as if he were defending her.
"Well," she said reluctantly, "the girl said — she
saic when I was undressing her — mind, she was only
raving Uke, and it might have been plain nonsense, or I
might have fancied it "
" Yes ? Yes ? " We were all on tiptoe to hear — at
least Jim and I were. You could not be sure what
Flo' ver felt.
" She said, 'They're gone, they're gone.' And then
she was quiet for a bit, and then she said, ' They're
gon«; to Ku-Ku Island.' "
26 The Terrible Island
"WhatI"
** Yes, that's what she said. And then she talked
about the water, and something about sharks, and then
she was saying her prayers — not knowing she said them,
I reckon, but no doubt they'll go down to her correct
account just the same. And then she went right off,
and that was all."
We looked at Sapphira with astonished eyes. Bvt
she was clearly speaking the truth.
" What do you think ? " I asked Rocky Jim.
" Looks to me," he answered in a low voice, " as if
Sapphira was just worked up, and had that name in her
mind, and thought she heard the girl say it, when all
she said was some name that sounded like it. Niu Nia
perhaps. There's dozens of islands with that name ;
it means coconuts."
" I think so too," I answered him.
But looking at the big surveyor's face, I saw by the
traces of thoughtfulness on its rugged s irface that he
reckoned otherwise.
#
CHAPTER II
" WHO AM I ? "
NEXT morning Sapphira gave us all breakfast
(Jim and I had stayed the night) and told
us that we need not expect to see anything
of the girl that day. Quiet was what she
wanted ; she seemed strange, and not in her right senses
yet.
' Has she suffered any injury ? " asked Flower.
Sapphira shot him a keen glance.
' I can't say, Mr. Know-all," she answered. " There's
a Immp on her head that won't go down, but that
mil htn't hr f.nything."
' It might not," agreed the surveyor.
We were disappointed, but I think everyone recognised
the necessity of submitting to Sapphira's judgment.
Without words, it seemed to be agreed among us that
we should all stay on at the store until the mysterious
lady from the sea became visible. I was not much
concerned about the supposed mention of Ku-Ku's
Isla nd — it was so ridiculously unhkely — but I wanted to
see the owner of those two beautiful pathetic feet, and
to Icnow what strange fate had led them into the wild
paths of Papuk. Jim had a vague idea that perhaps
there might be something in what the girl had said, but
the only reason he could offer was that the whole affair
wae so improbable that " one wouldn't be surprised at
anj thing." I snubbed him, and he gave in.
28 The Terrible Island
Flower, after breakfast, went of! to work with his
boys, who tailed behind him carrying his instruments
and chain. We saw them go, a picturesque crowd,
with their bushy, fiower-crowned heads, and their
Government-survey uniform of blue jumper and tunic
edged with forest green. Sapphira went into thi
kitchen, and began scolding her cooky-boy. I judged,
from the fragments that reached us, that he had been
caught in the too-frequent crime of washing his head
in the bread-basin. Jim and I sat on the verandah,
smoking, and enjoying, as men outside the profession ^
do enjoy, the ease of ten-o'clock-in-the-morning. Jim
could work like a team of bullocks when he had a mind
to, and I was making a decent income by the irregular
practice of my profession, but neither of us was tied to
any master but himself.
I don't know how it might have been with me if I had
been as other men--if, even, I had met with my de-
formity in the way of accident, which takes away half
the bitter from the cripple's cup. I might, then, have
done as my people wanted me to do, studied medicine or
law, made use of the family influence that was at my
call, and slipped into the harness worn by the successful
among men, with more thought of filled manger and safe
stall than of the inevitable drag of trace and rein.
Make no mistake, the stall and manger have their value.
But I was not as others, and the trouble dated from
my birth. I happened so, lame and askew. Not very
much — no, the trouble was
" Not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door,
But 'twas enongh,"
Enough to place me outside ; to make me walk j.
stranger among my contemporaries and equals ; t< >
** Who am I ? " 29
render me nervous and reserved, and throw me in upon
myself for amusement.
I found it. I became an entomologist, and astonished
my parents by telling them that I meant to take up
entomology as a profession.
I I had been one of their other sons — stalwart George,
sUm, active Arthur — I think they would have remon-
strated. The "bug-hunter" is always a mark for
ridi:ule. But crippled Owen could scarcely make
himself more ridiculous than Nature had made him
already. So they gave me money to study and take
the necessary degree.
There is not much employment for an entomologist in
England. I secured a post in Ceylon, at a salary that
divided my relatives between laughter and amazement
— it did seem so absurd that anyone should pay a man
hundreds a year for catching beetles — and went out
ther?. And in Ceylon the thing happened that broke
my life.
I jnust tell you first of all that I have a handsome face.
If a ay man may speak so without being accused of
vanity, surely I may. I have sat to artists once or
twic'i ; to a sculptor once — for my head, no more.
They asked me to do so ; begged me, or I would not
hav( done it. Nor would I have done it in any case,
if tley had not all been poor men, sadly in want of
modols. One painted me as St. John. Another used
me for his now well-known picture of Galahad and the
Grail. The sculptor, taking another man for the figure,
carved my head in enduring marble, and gave me to
the v/orld as that statue that horrified so many churches
— TiiE Innocent Soul in Hell. The sculptor was
right. I am no saint, no white-souled ascetic knight —
30 The Terrible Island
though I could not have sat for Lancelot or Gawain
with anything more of fitness— but I have suffered, and
the suffering has not been deserved.
It was a woman ; you knew that. She was young,
and very lovely, and she had the tenderest of hearts.
Living away from almost all the world on her father's
plantation, she saw few men but myself, when I visited
the place from time to time to do my professional
research work. She came to admire what God haii
given me of marred, incomplete beauty, and she pitied
the rest. We know what heavenly feeling stands
nearest to the all-but-heavenly feehng of pity. The
one step was taken ; she loved me.
Now this girl was not rich, she was even obscure,
with little prospect for her future but working for
bread, since the plantation was all but ruined by the
deadly " Hemileia Vastatrix " insect, and her father was
growing old in poverty. She had a brother in Colombo ;
I think no other relation. I had my salary, and a
prospect of money from relatives, if I lived long enough
to get it. My family was a good one. One might have
thought the match was possible at least.
I spoke to her father. He laughed in my face — a
laugh that will meet him again in the corridors of Hell —
and told me that he did not kick cripples — so far — but
he would rather not be tempted too much. And he
called for my horse.
" Ride," he said ; " you can do that, anyhow — an'l
I'll send your bugs after you."
I did not see her. I went to Colombo, and her
brother called on me. He was quite kind. He pointe I
out that young, lonely girls sometimes had hysteric 1
ideas ; curious attractions towards the unusual an I
'*Who am I ?" 31
deformed — morbid fancies, in which no one who had
their interests at heart would encourage them. He
spoke as if his sister had been caught chewing slate-
pencils or eating chalk. . . .
He shook hands very kindly when he said good-bye,
and just mentioned that Ena was two years under-age.
Of course, as a gentleman, I knew what my course
must be.
I lever saw her again. I wrote once, and she did not
ansv/er. I don't know whom it was they married her
to, c year or so later.
A ter that I dropped the harness of a salaried position,
dropped everything I had seen or known, and came to
the rnd of the world.
Now Guinea is the end of the world. To the capital
thero comes a three-weekly mail ; out back, you may be
six months without hearing of anything beyond the
ring of your camp-fire and your tent. CiviUsation, what
thero is of it, is a narrow belt around the shores. Inland
is untra veiled save by explorers and Government
punitive expeditions ; much is untouched even by
thes<\ There are a few hundred whites, and a
few hundred thousand natives, largely savage and
cannibal. You may live, if it please you, beyond
the ken of all your race ; you may take a new
nam i, and hve among your race, but dead to all
who have known you. In New Guinea, above all
countries in the world, it is possible to be forgotten, and
to fc rget.
Y( 'U do not ask each other, in this land of the lost,
whal has been the history of days spent elsewhere.
Thcj take you for what you are, for what you can do.
Thej have heard so many lying " histories " from the
32 The Terrible Island
remittance men of Home — who, one and all, are rightful
heirs to peerages, have been brought up millionaireis
cousins of marquises, and have been to school with dukes
— that they don't take much stock in what any man
may say about himself. Rather, indeed, by what a man
does not say, his rank stands in New Guinea. An:l
they don't ask. Nor do you.
I never asked Rocky Jim where he had been, and
what he had done, before he came to waste his thirty
years of splendid strength upon the cruel Papuan gold-
fields, that take their toll of life and health, and give
little in exchange. I knew he was a West Australian, and
that he had played tricks with people who cheated him,
before I came to the country — witness the piece of
mischief that had given him his name. Jim seemed
soft in some ways ; but you were better not banking on
that softness. He had a way of getting even. . . .
Samarai remembers to this day the swimming raa;
organised by Jim.
... It was a Government official, newly appointed,
and, like most ofi&cials fresh to the job, he was incUnecl
to strain his authority. It does not much matter what
he did to Jim. But Jim's revenge deserves a record.
The Government official was a bit of a dandy, a bit of
a ladies' man, very dignified. He was also something
of an athlete, and could swim. Jim and that Papuan
enfant terrible, big Mike Crabb, got hold of him, and of
one or two of the same sort, in the bar of the Universal.
They made him drink — all that he would drink, which
to his credit was not much. But it started him boasting.
Jim and Mike Crabb, apparently half asleep and all
infantile and innocent, got him to boast more. The,^
induced — in the same simple andchildhke manner — th
*' Who am I ? " 33
Grovcrnment officer's friends to drink a little, and boast
a Utile too. The friends were strangers to Samarai,
tourists with a high sense of their own importance. I
am afraid they would have described themselves as
supeiior, if not refined. . . .
Jim and Mike worked them up to a challenge swim-
ming race. It was twenty minutes to six o'clock ; light
still in the sky. They went down to the B.P. wharf,
still lx)asting of what they would do. They were very
quick in undressing. Jim and Mike, older men, were
slow. The superior youths were into the water in
three minutes or so.
And then Jim and Mike, who had taken off coats and
shoes, swiftly put them on again, snatched up the whole
of the clothes belonging to the superior young men and
fled.
Six o'clock is dinner hour in Samarai. Nearly all the
town dines in the hotels, and every hotel faces the
beach and the wharves. The superior young men could
not make anyone hear their frantic entreaties, because
everycne was just going to dinner. At last a native
heard them, and brought them two copies of the North
Queensland Register, which is used by Australian
" cockles " out back for a family blanket in the cold
season. They divided these among them, the two most
superior of the young men having a brief and bitter
fight on the steps of the wharf for possession of the pink
covers, which are thick. Then they ran the gauntlet of
the hctels. Samarai enjoyed it exceedingly. As for
Mike and Rocky Jim, when the aggrieved parties
reproa( hed them in pubUc with their perfidious conduct,
they said with one voice that they had been taken scared
at the 1 ist minute, because the water looked so dangerous,
II
34 The Terrible Island
and a man could not help being a coward. The superior
young men felt a little better after this explanation, but
the general audience, which knew Mike and Jim ard
their lurid history, enjoyed itself, if possible, more the n
ever. . . .
I was remembering these things, and many more, as
Jim and I sat on the verandah of the hotel, thinking tlie
" long, long thoughts " that men think in quiet places.
(How short-winded your thoughts get — how they spri:it
in bursts of speed, and stop and halt and rush, in tlie
hurry of the populated lands !) As for Jim, I dor 't
know what he was thinking. His mind was not an opm
book for everyone to read. Your Papuan gold miner
knows how to hold his tongue and his face. But by and
by he took his pipe out, spat disgustedly over the rail^
and said —
" Hang the fields, anyhow."
" By all means," I agreed. " But why hang them
just now ? "
"Because," said Jim, "they take you in. You
think you're going to come away with a good shammy
every time, and the new field's always going to do
what the last one didn't. But somehow, in this
country it's always half spent, or more, before it
comes." ,
I nodded. I knew the cost of packing to the gold-
fields, and the price of goods at stores on the various
fields. Sapphira's store wasn't within five days of the
nearest field, let alone the water passage, yet its nei§ h-
bourhood kept her prices up to a figure that would have
startled strangers.
"Well," continued Jim, "there are times when it
sort of gets you down — the idea of it all. And you wi:;h
*' Who am I ? " 35
thore was anything all ready in a lump, that you could
just lift and get away with."
" I suppose the men of Babylon felt about the same,"
I Slid.
" Yes. Or those jokers under the Ptolemies who built
the Great Pyramid." Jim, like most miners, was a
heavy reader. " I know it's not new. No more than
being hungry for your grub, or liking to own your bit of
land instead of renting it. But somehow, the things
that's common are the things that get hold of you
haidest. Now " — Jim leant forward, his elbows on his
knees, his odd, shrewd, humorous face turned to mine —
" it lias me pretty hard just now that I want to get at
something I can grab with both hands."
'I am perfectly certain," I maintained, "that
Sap'phira made a mistake. How could the girl have
said it ? " We were talking elliptically, as men do who
are much together, but we understood one another.
" I've an idea," said Rocky Jim, "that it's not a
question of whether she could or not. The question is
wh( ther she did. You might argue over the one till you
diec[ of old age, without coming much nearer, but
Sap )hira can tell us the other before a cuscus could
whisk his tail."
"She told us before," I objected, "and we didn't
beH»;ve her."
" Flower did," said Jim. There fell a silence. It was
filk'd for me, and I believe also for Jim, with dreams. I
don t know what his were. Mine ran on curious lines.
I had grown to love this strange wild tangle of unheard-
of isiands mo^e than any place on earth ; I saw a palace
arisf on one of them — a palace of coral, built of white
bloc its sawn from the reef ; I saw in the palace, rooms
36 The Terrible Island
full of the marvellous birds and butterflies of Papua,
preserved and set up as only I could set them ; gardens
afire with orchids that were worth their weight in gold ;
salt-water ponds that should rival the gardens and the
butterfly rooms in the wonder of their glittering,
jewel-coloured fish — a naturalist's Paradise, in short.
And Ku-Ku's Island was to pay.
" They said," remarked Jim suddenly, " that there
was something else."
" Who said ? "
" Don't know. People. But they always did say it."
" I never heard that."
" Likely not. I've been here years longer. But they
did."
" Why, what could there be ? It was a small coral
island, wasn't it ? "
" Yes."
" Couldn't have been gold ? "
" Lord, no, not on a sort of cay such as it must be."
" Pearls ? "
" Ku-Ku knew the value of pearl shell ; he'd have
lifted it."
" Guano ? "
" None of these islands are guano islands."
" Well, it couldn't have been anything then."
" Sounds that way. But they did say it."
" You talk Uke a parrot. Who said it, for any sake,
and when ? "
" Don't I tell you I don't know ? Just a sort of yarn
that crept about. Still, they did."
" Jim, if you repeat that again I'll break your
head."
" Well, you know," said Jim, turning his coppered
** Who am I ? " 37
face, with its corn-coloured walrus moustache, towards
mine, and looking serious, " when they kept saying it,
there must have been something in it."
" If you believe everything you hear in Papua, just
because people keep saying it, you'll go a long way on a
mighty queer road."
Jim sucked hard at his pipe, and said nothing.
On this Sapphira came out, wiping her hands free from
suds — by which I judged that she had executed justice
upc n the boy, and I attacked her at once.
" Sapphira, are you certain that girl said Ku-Ku
Island ? There's an awful lot hangs on it."
But Sapphira was in no mood to answer stray
questions.
"I'm not easy in my mind," she proclaimed. She
plumped down on the floor, and bit her nails. " I
beheve that girl's going to lose her intellex."
"Good Lord, why?" Human nature is a queer
thing. I was conscious of a distinct pang of disappoint-
ment, in that the girl was not likely — should she go out
of l.er mind — to be able to tell me what I hoped she
kne v. You must remember I had not seen her, or my
viev- might have been less selfish.
" Because she's normal temperature since eight
o'ck ck this morning, and she's taking all I give her to
eat ind drink, and she's as quiet as a lamb, but "
Sapi)hira chewed the top of her thumb.
" What ? "
" She don't know who she is."
" Good Lord ! "
" No. She don't know nothing at all. She can talk,
and answer me, and seem as reasonable as any other
Chriitian, but ask her a thing before she walked up out
38 The Terrible Island
of the sea last night, and she can't tell you. All she can
say is, ' It's gone.' "
There was a pause. The swell of last night, not yet
quite spent, burst on the beach. A Papuan cuckoc,
perched in the cool heart of a mango tree, tuned up its
quaint little song — three bars of the Venetian Waltk,
and a break ; three bars over again, always halting at
the fourth. ... I never afterwards heard the bird
without a feeUng of shadowy sadness. In that
moment, it seemed as if a cloud had crept across th<3
sun.
Rocky Jim looked at the sea and the flour-white sand,
his face so utterly devoid of expression that I knew he
felt dismayed. You could always interpret any of
Jim's emotions in inverse ratio to the amount of their
display.
Sapphira, from the floor, went on.
"I'm going to let her come out to-morrow," she
said. " She's pretty well all right in one way, and
it might shake her intellex up a bit to let her talk to
people."
" Do you think she really knows anything about the
island ? " asked Jim.
Sapphira put one hand, tinkling with bracelets oi
rough Papuan gold, upon the floor, and heaved hersell
up.
" I reckon neither you nor me will ever know if she
does," she said, as she disappeared.
Now I had seen almost nothing of Flower the sur-
veyor, and I knew nothing of him save that he coulc.
measure lands, but I felt, in this emergency that hac.
come upon the household of the store, that the bi^
surveyor was the person to be wished for. I did noi
'* Who am I ? " 39
knew what he could do, or what anyone ought to do,
when a beautiful girl who had walked up mysteriously
from the sea was found to be out of her mind. But I
was sure, somehow or other, that he would do it.
We told him — Jim and I — when he came in from his
work. He listened gravely, eating the inevitable
Papuan " curried tin " the while, and drinking tea as no
oth( r man I have heard of, except Doctor Johnson, can
pose ibly have drunk it. If anyone in Papua ever found
out Percival Flower's limit in the way of tea-drinking,
I m ver knew him, or her.
He made no remark till he had finished, just ate and
drank steadily on (his meal had been kept hot for him
after hours) and then, being satisfied, rose from the
table.
But we did not get much out of him that night.
"I'll see to-morrow," was all he said. " In the
meantime, I wouldn't worry; there's not much to
worry about."
It was little enough ; still, the note of authority
obvously comforted Sapphira. I could see that her
ordinary sickroom skill was of no avail to her here, and
that, in consequence, she felt mortified, discrowned. . . .
I am a young man still ; I may live to be very old —
but never, in all the years that may be left to me, shall
I think of the day that followed without a stirring of
the heart.
Y^s — ^when the strange-faced years, at whose dates
we now peer curiously, half timidly, shall have swept
down Time's arc to meet us; when my withered old
heait, wandering somewhere far away in the nineteen-
fifti( s and sixties, shall chance across some trace of the
littl( silken feet tliat once trod lightly, carelessly upon
40 The Terrible Island
it — why, at the bare ghost of those footsteps the iiivA
old heart, if still on earth, will
" Start and tremble. . . .
And blossom in purple and red."
And if not still on earth — ^well, the God who made us
knows, and He only — ^if a woman, at the last day, shall
stand beside the man who loved her the best, or the man
whom best she loved, to all eternity.
For, take the word of one who watches life aside, and
thus sees more than others, it is not once in a million
loves that the giver and the taker give and take equall>'.
This is not in the books, but you who read, is it not in
your lives ?
The sun was not long up, next morning, when Sapphira
dressed the woman of the sea, and brought her out to us.
I remember that the palm-trees cast blue streaming
shadows, and that the smell of wood smoke was in the
air outside. Under the verandah eaves, where our raffle
of beds and mosquito nets had just been cleared away,
light shot in low yellow rays. They struck the girl's
white feet as she came out of her room — she was wearing
her silken stockings, washed and mended, but no shoes.
I saw the small high insteps and the straight ankles,
under one of Sapphira's loose cotton dresses ; all above
was in dark of the roof — just the little feet, walking
forward. ... I cannot say how it moved me, knowing
as I did the lost wandering mind of the girl, and the
darkness of the road she travelled. . . . Then the full
light from the entrance fell upon her, and we saw her.
She was tall, I thought — no, not tall, but she looked it,
being so erect, and carrying herself so well. She had
"Who am I ?" 41
dark hair that rose up and fell back in long curves,
chaimingly, and was knotted, after the fashion of those
times, in a coil above each ear. Her face was more
exq lisitely shaped than any face I ever saw, save one or
two of Da Vinci's saints ; the line of cheek and chin was
like a song. But it was not at all a saint's face ; it was
too warm and human. . . . White-rose-pale as she was,
dehcately shaped as a fairy, with clear amber eyes that
seenied to float upon the paleness of her face, there was
yet something I cannot name or describe in her whole
presence that made me say to myself, as my eyes rested
on her,
" This is a woman who can love." And immediately
on it followed the thought —
" This is a woman who has not loved."
Need I say what the next thought was ? Though I
am a cripple, I am a man, but there is scarce a man in
all tie world who would not follow two such thoughts
as those with the inevitable third —
"This woman shall love me."
Thought outfiashes the electric spark. There was full
time tor all these things to pass through my mind, and
for me to rouse myself from the momentary trance they
cast rae into, and to see, suddenly, the great lighthouse
eyes ( f the surveyor shining on the girl with a look as if
lamp^ had been lit up behind them, before Sapphira and
our fairy maiden from the sea had taken three steps on
to the verandah. I was conscious then of a little
graceful bow that included all three of us, and of a sUm
white figure that looked tall and was not, standing
witli ii s hands charmingly at ease and in the right place,
and a pretty courteous smile upon its lace. Another
thought flashed its way home.
42 The Terrible Island
" This is one of the little soldiers of Society."
You must not think, because I spent an embittered
life at the far ends of the earth, dressed in rough cotton
clothes, and never saw a claw-hammer coat from on»3
year's end to another, that I did not know the " workl
where one amuses oneself." It must be remembered
that my people were well off. I had, in my time, don(i
my few years of the social conscription that every man
should pay to his world. A man who spends his Hf(3
attending social functions after five and twenty may b?
written down waster ; but youth should bear the yok<i
of the manners that " maketh man." I am not one of
those who gird at the world of pleasant things and
smooth-spoken people, nor at the stamp that it sets, for
life, upon its own.
Now the fairy girl bore that stamp, clear as the seal
set upon wax by a chiselled gem. She was broken,
drilled, to the line and rule of Society. She was trained.
She would never show her feelings where feelings could
be concealed ; she would be courteous if she wen^
dying at the stake ; she would be unselfish, she would
be brave. . . .
But if what I thought to be true indeed, and she was
not only of the army, but of those who bear high com-
mand, she would have the defects of those fine quahties.
To her I might be barely human, because I had once
known, and remembered, certain shibboleths. Flower
might be patronisable. Rocky Jim would be a person
to offer tips to — if she were no Australasian, anil
I thought she was none. As for my poor brav-
Sapphira
" Well, what will be, will be," I thought to myself ;
and stepped forward to take the fairy maiden's hand.
*' Who am I ? '' 43
But I saw she was not holding it out.
" Won't you introduce me ? " she said, with the little
solder smile that showed nothing, to Sapphira. And
I remembered that in the world where one plays, people
do rot shake hands on being introduced.
N )thing could put Sapphira out — save ghosts.
" That's Mr. Owen Ireland," she said, pointing a regal
finger at me. "That's Mr. James Todd. That's Mr.
Flover."
Tlie fairy girl met each name with a dainty little
inch lation of the head. But I saw the cloud grow and
darken in her eyes, as she noticed that her own name
was not spoken.
" Something wrong — somewhere," said the eyes.
She made a brave attempt. Without showing that
she I oticed Sapphira's apparent discourtesy in omitting
her lame, she came a little forward, and said in a
pleasant tone,
"It's so hard to catch names, isn't it ? I daresay
you didn't quite catch mine. I am "
Sh ) stopped dead, and I could see, and I saw that
Flower too saw, she was making plucky attempts to
hold herself together. But the bewilderment and the
terroi grew. She sat down suddenly, still keeping up
the li:tle smile, and changed the subject.
" What a charming view you have from your verandah
— it is yours, Mrs. Gregg, isn't it ? " she said. I noticed
that she had Sapphira's name correctly, at all events.
Flower did not give Sapphira time to answer. He
came over to the girl, and took a seat beside her.
"You mustn't make strangers of us," he said, in his
big, b irring voice, that I think all women liked. " We
all kn(»w you've had an accident, and it's better for you
44 The Terrible Island
to take things just as they are. You don't know your
name, and we don't know it, but that mustn't be allowed
to bother you for a minute. You arc in good hards
here, and you must just take things easy, until you
remember everything. You will, you know, by and by,
and there's no cause to worry."
" There is no cause to worry," she repeated. I could
see that she was trying to impress the fact on a mind
that kept slight hold of facts as they came just then.
"None," boomed Flower. "We'll make enquiries,
and find out where your friends are, and you'll get them
back soon."
" Do you know," said the girl, holding herself very
erect, yet with a pitiful expression of helplessness
somewhere in her eyes, " I don't seem to remember —
anything — about them. Isn't it strange ? "
" Not at all. You're suffering from a thing they call
amnesia ; loss of memory following on a shock. You
have had a blow on the head, too."
She felt her masses of soft hair, with a hand like a
white windflower.
"The bump is nearly gone," she said simply.
" I daresay the shock was the worst. I think you've
been shipwrecked."
At the word' she sprang to her feet.
" They've gone," she said, in a queer mechanical tone.
" They went, in the boats. Ku-Ku Island. Finsier
Island, Caradoc Reefs, Disappointment Island, Ku-]\u
Island."
" God I " swore Rocky Jim softly.
" Sit down," said Flower with extreme gentleness,
taking her hand and drawing her back into her che ir.
"Don't worry."
'* Who am I ? '' 45
" There is no cause to worry," she said promptly,
repeating his own words of a few minutes before. And
then, in the flat mechanical voice, " Finster Island,
Caraloc Reefs, Disappointment Island, Ku-Ku Island."
" Time for your medicine," said Flower, watching her.
" Yes," she said brightly, but with a certain indrawing
of the lips. (" She's been in the habit of taking medi-
cine out of health ; voyaging for health," said my
mind to me rapidly.) " They've gone," she went on.
" In the boats. Finster Island "
Sa;^phira had obeyed the surveyor's nod. Flower
held o the lips of the girl what looked like a fairly stiff
dose of whisky and water — for a fairy queen. She
swallowed it at once, and suppressed the shuddering
grime ce that I knew she wanted to make.
" Now," said the surveyor, " you can go and take a
little nap, because that will make you sleepy, and then
I hope you'll come out and give us the pleasure of your
compmy again."
" That's enough for the present," he said to Sapphira,
as thf girl disappeared, " but we must keep her with us
as much as we can ; she must not be allowed to brood."
" What was it you said she had ? " asked Sapphira.
" I < lidn't say she had anything, I said she was showing
a ceitain symptom — amnesia — ^that accompanies a
great ^hock, at times."
" H'T knees were as black as your hat," volunteered
Sapphira unsuccessfully. " She has been banged about
in tlie rocks something cruel."
"Did you learn that out surveying ? " I asked him.
If he vas conscious of any sneer in my voice, he took no
notice of it, as he replied,
"Nc. I went through the whole of my medical
46 The Terrible Island
course, except the taking of the degree, before I took up
surveying."
Rocky Jim, with the eye of buying a horse, looked
over Flower's mighty height. I know if he had been
an American he would have held out his hand just th(;n,
and said, " Shake." Being a New Zealander, he only
remarked,
" Weren't built for an indoor life, even the best sort,
were you ? Same way with myself."
" Same way with a lot of us in New Guinea," said
Flower.
Sapphira, on the floor, looked from one to another.
I don't know what may have been in the mind of that
much married woman (Gregg had been last of thn^e)
regarding the two men beside her, but it seemed as if
she were struggling with woman's immemorial jealousy
of her rival, the world of outdoor work ; for she jerked
out, at this juncture, a contemptuous remark,
" None of you don't ever grow up. You're all like
Idds that would rather play in the dirt than anything
else."
" Why, Sapphira," said Jim, " you yourself can
handle a tommyhawk with any man, except he was a
young man " (Jim was certainly too truthful for a suc-
cessful squire of dames), " and you go off recruiting up
the rivers in that canoe of yours for weeks."
" If I do, it's to make money, not because I like it,"
said Sapphira, unpacified. " I like what any woman —
any person with sense — does Uke. That's good beds and
clean floors, and table-cloths on your table, and starch
in your clothes, and a place where you can sit and s:'W
and watch the rain, and thank God you ain't got to j^o
out in it. But men — in New Guinea — oh, it's thrre
*'Who am I ?'* 47
you get back to where you belong in this country ; you
can be dirty " (I drew my unblacked boots under my
chaii) " and ragged " (we had done our best in honour of
the mysterious girl, but there were dropped buttons
and safety-pinned braces too many amongst the three ;
I think we all winced), " and you don't shave for weeks,
unless it's when a bit of a skirt comes along " (every
man s hand went unconsciously to his newly-scraped
chin], " and you hve in huts that isn't swept not when
you <:an grow potatoes on the floors, and only come into
thos( to sleep and eat, and eat it on a packing-case with
a newspaper six months old for tablecloth. I know the
lot of you." (With increasing speed to the end.)
Jim, the incorrigible, whistled.
" Both men and women originally sprang from
monkeys," he quoted, " but the women sprang farther
than the men." He reached forward, and laid a
rougliish caress on Sapphira's cabled crown. " Go
slow, old girl," he advised. " We aren't all gorillas."
Sai)phira rose with some dignity, though swiftly, and
remarked that if we had no work to do, which men
never did seem to have, she had, and must ask us kindly
to ex:use her. On which she went off kitchenwards.
Tht're fell a silence. Each man was waiting for
another man to break it. I looked at Rocky Jim ; he
looked at the floor. The misnamed Percival looked at
nobody and nothing ; his eyes seemed to have set
themselves upon something invisible, a little behind my
head.
I looked at Jim again, at Flower again. These men
of the wilderness were too strong for me. They could
have sat silent through a night and a day. I could not.
T spoke what was in the minds of all.
48 The Terrible Island
" She's given us the direction of the island."
" She has," said Flower.
" Who'd have thought it ? " asked Jim tritely, after
another pause. " Just there — where people must have
been passing over and over again."
" That was Ku-Ku's cleverness," I said. " Do jou
know the map about here ? " to Flower.
" Probably better than you do," was his composed
reply ; and I remembered that a surveyor was likely to
make himself familiar with the lie of the coast. " Finster,
Caradoc, Disappointment — they lie in a sort of slanting
string, north- westwardly. ' '
" There are several islands of no importance lying
beyond."
" It'll be one of those," suggested Jim.
" Very possibly," answered Flower.
Jim was musing. By and by he burst out into a great
fit of laughter.
" What a cunning old boy it was ! " he crowed, wiping
his eyes. " When people were looking away out beyond
the Engineers' and down to Rossel, there he was, as snug
as a bug in a rug, within two days' sail of the mainland
in anything you like to name ! "
" Two days in a decent boat, not a canoe," corrected
Flower. " If what the girl said was correct " He
paused a minute to unfasten his map case, and take cut
a chart. " If what she said was right," he went on,
looking at the map, while Jim and I hung over his
shoulders, "it must lie somewhere north-eastward of
the Lusancays. Near two hundred miles from Ku-Ku's
village on the mainland."
We hung gazing at the chart. I am one of the mer —
perhaps you are another, there are many of them- to
"Who am I ?" 49
whom a map of any kind is inexplicably attractive. I
can " read " one of Hampshire or Queen's County for an
hour at a time, if there isn't anything better to be had.
But give me an immense Phillips, with its lovely blue
seas and green and buff and pink countries, shaded with
creei)ing caterpillars of mountain ranges, and you need
not ':all me for meals. I always thought the map of
New Guinea the most dehghtful reading in the world.
Its n imes alone, running down from Port Moresby to the
east 3nd, are full of the romance of the South Seas, and
of wild days not yet dead.
Ca ition Bay, Bootless Inlet, Beagle Bay, Hood Point,
Kepf-el Bay, Cloudy Bay, Orangerie Bay — it is almost
poetry. . . . Andtheisland world of the east country —
the great D'Entrecasteaux and Louisiades ; the Con-
flicts ; Joannet ; Coral Haven, Bramble Haven,
Duchateau Entrance, Horaki-Raki and Wuri-Wuri
Passages . . . you can see them by their names alone.
Even one who has never sailed the Coral Sea, never been
north of Cape York Peninsula, can feel that these places
must be what they are — iris-blue islets floating in air
that i^ like glass or Uke gold, you scarce can say which
— white beaches combed by league-long breakers — high
towers and palaces of purple palms, tradewind-driven,
leaning over shores where not even the solitary footprint
of Crusoe's island marks the sands between the sweep of
tide and tide — shallows of flaming green, that turn the
clouds above them to their own strange hue — sun and
sun and sun, and the salt on your lips, and the mag-
nificent solitude of a world where the seas and the
winds, and the tangling, treacherous tideways, are
almost all, and man is almost nought. . . . That is
East Kew Guinea.
D
50 The Terrible Island
Flower rolled up the map, and wc went back to our
chairs. By common consent, pipes were Ughted. The
smoke curled up under Sapphira's high peaked roof.
** What gets me," said Rocky Jim, after a pause, " is
that it's all too blankyeasyto be right." He took his
pipe out of his mouth, looked into the bowl as if for
inspiration, and put it back again.
" How do you mean ? " I asked. But the surveyor
understood.
" There's something in that," he said. " It's a law
of nature that no good thing is easily had."
" I reckon ! " agreed Jim. " Gold, now. The way
Providence has hidden it away — and put it in difficult
and dangerous countries — and made it hard to find "
" Aren't you confusing cause and effect ? " I
asked. "Gold is surely valuable just because it's
difficult to get."
" No," contradicted Flower, who seemed to be always
in opposition to me at present. "Jim's right. It's
chiefly the qualities of gold — non-corrosiveness, un-
equalled ductile properties, apart from its beauty — ^that
have made it valued. There are plenty of rare metals
not worth twopence a pound."
Jim looked at the two of us, and I wonder, now, hew
much he saw with those childlike blue eyes of his.
" We're getting bushed," he remarked. " I thought
we were talking about the way to Ku-Ku's Island.
Anyway, I was. And I was saying that I don't Uke the r
way the thing pans out, because it's too easy. Therti's
bound to be a catch somewhere or other. If the phce
were as easy to get at as all that, some of the nati^ es
would have found it since Ku-Ku died. Or a white
man — ^there's a fair handful of whites this end of 1 he
'* Who am I ? " 51
ccuntry." (You must remember that I am writing of
a time now past ; in those days, long before the war, a
"landful" was a bad description of New Guinea's
eastern population.)
" Don't see where the catch is," I put in. " This girl
has evidently been thrown ashore from a wreck of some
soi, though none of us can make out just how it came
about. She has told us, accidentally, that someone, or
some people, from the ship she was on, went away in the
bolts — apparently deserting her; nice sort of people
they must have been — and made for Ku-Ku's Island.
Sh3 repeats, like a child that has heard something it
doosn't understand, a chain of something that must be
sailing directions. I judge the men kept saying the
directions over and over again, to impress them on their
minds."
"Can't you see what that points to?" broke in
Flower.
1 was silent. I hate being interrupted ; besides, I
did not see. Jim looked puzzled a minute, and then
brcke out,
' Why, yes, blanky blank blank it ! a blessed what-
d'ye-call-it would see that." (Jim meant nothing — he
ne\er did — but he does not stand verbatim reporting.)
"The etcetera what-is-its were in the boat when they
wcie talking hke that ; they had nothing to write it
down on."
" Well, if they were," I suggested, "she must have
been with them, or she couldn't have heard it, so they
can t have been quite as bad as you make them out."
Jim looked worried ; he was apparently very far from
wishing to whitewash the men who had brought our
Sea- Lady to the straits in which we found her.
52 The Terrible Island
" They were blanky cows, anyhow," he concluded.
" Cows or not," said Flower, " they were making for
the island a hundred to one, and a thousand to one
they're there now."
" Then, if they were," I said ruefully, " our chance is
gone."
" I don't know," said Jim, looking at the top of my
head in what seemed to me a very haughty manner.
" How do you suppose we're going to get there ? The
Tagula goes up to Mambare this time ; she isn't due for
weeks. By that time the men will have about cleaned
out the place."
" I don't know," said Jim again, and now he seemed
to have grown so scornful that his glance carried right
over my head, and fixed itself beyond.
" What are you staring at ? " I asked him irritably.
God help me, I am irritable at times. You would be.
" The Tagula," said Jim.
I jumped to my feet. Flower, who had been facing
in the same direction, looked out, like Jim, over the
verandah rail. We all saw the schooner. She had
come back.
" What can have brought her ? " I breathed.
" Whatever it is," said Jim, " I know what '11 take
her away, and where to. There's our chance for the
island."
CHAPTER III
THE MAN FROM THE WRECK
JIM was off in a burst down on to the beach. There
was not the slightest need for hurry, but I think
the gold-rush feeling had got hold of him —
Rocky Jim had been among the first on every
field in Papua, as it " broke out " — and he was evidently
suffering from a recrudescence of the excitement that
comes in gold-rush days. There was something of value
hilden away ; other people as well as himself were out
after it ; it was his job to get there first. ... I do not
m<:an that Jim intended to steal a march on Flower and
myself. In this matter we were his " mates," and what
a mate means to a Papuan gold-miner has often been
wiitten in letters of self-sacrifice and heroism that far
outshines the gold. But he was very eager indeed to
m( et the Captain of the Tagula as he came up the walk
from the beach, and to tell him, before the man had time
to say what brought him back, that he wanted to
chjtrter him and his boat at once.
"There's no knowing," said Jim to me, as I caught
him up where he waited — I had been coming slowly,
sinoe a slow pace allows me almost to conceal my
laneness. " The news may have got out somewhere
elsi." And he was at Captain Carl the moment that
red-faced seaman hove fairly into sight underneath the
wirdy, flying shadows of the palms.
54 The Terrible Island
I wonder why the shadows of palm-trees blown by the
wind are homeless and sad ? They are — on the brightest
day, beside the bluest sea. Their shadows flickered over
my heart that day, as I went slowly down the palm-tree
walk behind Jim, for whom all things were possible. . . .
By the time I got up again, Jim had unpacked about
half his story, and come to the most interesting part.
** She don't know who she is, or where she came from, no
more than if she'd just slid down from heaven on a
rainbow," he was saying. Carl, that good, inarticulate
Swede, was standing with his two hands politely clasped
in front of him, staring at Jim, and nodding now and
then through the midst of the river of talk, as a man
swimming rapids might occasionally raise up his head
out of the foam. . . .
" And all she can say," he went on, using something
of poetic license — for the Lady of the Sea had said a
good deal more — " is, ' Finster Island, Disappointment
Reefs, Caradoc Island, Ku-Ku Island.' "
He drew back, looking under his " banged " hair with
an expression of " Now then."
" Yes, inde-eed ? " asked Carl politely. " Ant that
is all she say ? "
" Isn't it enough ? What do you make of it, man ? "
" I make off-it the course I haff taken through the
Lusancays, sometimes." He stood waiting.
" Ku-Ku Island, man ! Ku-Ku Island, where all the
red shell and shell-money is."
" You want to sharter the TagUlaior Ku-Ku Island ? "
" If we can find it. There's a fortune in it."
" The sharge I make for the Tagula is two pounds
fifteen a day, and you shall always furnish the stores."
" Come up to the house, you old shell-fish," said Jim
The Man from the Wreck 55
lovingly, flinging his arm over Carl's substantial shoulder.
" Sapphira has some whisky that'll lift your soul out
by the roots, if you have a soul." He was obviously
chagrined by the impassivity of his friend the Swede. I
felt a little more than chagrined. I thought the much
discussed " catch " was not far away. By how much —
how very much — I was out, the story must tell.
" Certainly I haff a soul ; I am a member of the
Lutheran Ref -formed Shurch," Carl was saying. He
always answered every question you might put to him.
I had hardly time to reflect that the corollary to be
drawn from his remarks was hardly flattering to other
religious persuasions, before I reached the verandah
bthind Carl and Rocky Jim. Flower had temporarily
vanished. To give every man his due, I never met
anyone possessed of finer tact.
Sapphira produced the whisky, as she would have
produced it in the presence of half a dozen Government
officers (I always thought there must have been an
unspoken conspiracy among them all not to give her
away), and Carl drank it with an unmoved countenance.
I knew that brand and kept off.
" So you want to sharter my boat ? " the captain
asked, putting down his glass, and looking as if its con-
tents had " loosened him up a bit " — as Jim would have
put it.
^ " We do want to. We want to get to Ku-Ku Island,
arid shut down on the stuff that's there, before those "
— he described them — " can get their claws on it and
saJ away again. We think they hadn't anything but a
ship's boat, so it oughtn't to be difficult."
" Yess," was the captain's reply.
" You needn't think you'll be out of it. We'll take
56 The Tterrible Inland
Carl in — won't we ? " he appealed to the rest of the
party. Flower had come back at just the right minute,
and was sitting astride Sapphira's big table, his chin in
his hand, his queer great eyes fixed on Captain Carl.
" Of course," I said, and Flower came in with, " Of
course, if he wants it."
Carl looked somewhat brighter. Then a shadow came
down. " I haff not said I will sharter, yet," he observed.
" But man, you must " — from Jim. " We mean to
have that stuff. And we really know — or we can guess
— where it is."
" Yess. Maybe I shall sharter her to you if you can
findt a captain."
"A captain! But " -
" What's the objection ? " asked Flower curtly, his
eyes still on Carl's red, simple face. The captain turned
to him, as to the master of the situation, and answered
plainly,
" Be-causs I do not want to go blindt."
" Oh, koi-koi ! " yelled Jim, using the emphatic
Motuan word for "nonsense." "You don't never
believe all that rubbish — why, it's nothing but pouri-
pouri " (native magic).
" Maybe," said Carl, unmoved. " But I haf^ seen
that Orokiva man who came back from the islandt when
he was a little kid, and when I haff seen him he was a
man grown up, and he hadn't any seeing at all. Now if
I have no seeing, I can't work my ship, and I am no
use for to cut up for bait for fishes."
" But it's impossible nonsense."
" Yess, I think so. All the same I do not want to go."
" Look here," put in Flower, " how would it be if you
didn't land on the place when you found it, just took the
li
The Man from the Wreck 57
ship up, and stood off and on till you were wanted
again ? "
Carl seemed to consider.
* Yess, I will do that," he said. " But it will not be
honest then that you give me a share."
" We'll see you don't lose ; you can trust us," declared
Jim.
" Thank you," said Captain Carl. He paused to see
if anyone had anything else to say. But we were run
out for the moment.
After making sure that the way was clear, the captain
tool; up the word ; Sapphira had come out from the
inn( r room, and was standing beside me. He addressed
himself to her, with a sUght bow.
" Mrs. Gregg, I hope you don't mindt that I bring a
det body to your house."
" A dead body ? " replied Sapphira, with the utmost
caln ness. " Whose ? " She spoke much as if Carl had
found a purse or an umbrella, and was bent on returning
it to its owner.
" I don't know, Mrs. Gregg. I haff foundt it in the
sea, and it iss not the body of anyone off this country.
And I think, bef-fore I bury it, perhaps I hadt better
show it to some wliites, so they can see how he is like,
and maybe tell someone who may ask for him."
"Very sensible," said Flower. "So that was what
brought you back ? " He spoke as an old acquaintance ;
and indeed he and Carl had seen much of each other,
during the surveyor's travels up and down the coast.
" Yes. I shall ask my boyce to bring him up to the
house , and all you shall look at it, and I shall then have
him buriedt."
" Bring him along/' said Jim.
58 The Terrible Island
" I think they bring him now," remarked the captain.
And indeed, up the long walk of palms, there came a
slow procession ; four native boys in scarlet cotton
kilts, carrying a long bundle wrapped in a mat.
" How long has he been in the water ? " I asked
apprehensively. I had not the nerve of Flower and
Rocky Jim for unpleasant sights.
" Not long," answered Carl reassuringly. " About
two dace."
"Two days!" The same thought struck us all.
" Drowned, of course ? "
" I don't know," replied Carl cautiously. " He hass
been sticked with a knife."
"Then it's murder," pronounced Sapphira with a
certain relish. She had the delight of her class in tales
of blood. I could see regret welling up in her face at
the thought that here was no delightful possibility, such
as should have been in a civilised place, of inquest,
coroner and jury ; of policemen taking notes, and
herself, Sapphira, gloriously aloft in the witness-box,
hereafter to be described in the papers as " Sapphira
Gregg, Married Woman," with a column of leaded
question and answer following. . . .
Yes, I think that was Sapphira's regretful vision. But
as for Flower, Rocky Jim, and myself, we had but one
thought amongst us. Two days ago fixed the time of
the wreck. This was certainly another victim. Would
he furnish a clue ?
The boys brought up their burden, and laid it on 1 he
verandah floor. Carl unroped the mat, and pulled it
aside, and showed . . .
I don't know what I had been expecting, but it v as
certainly not what I saw. The man who lay so qv et
The Man from the Wreck 59
on the verandah floor under our staring eyes was not
the sort of man one would have expected to find as
shipmate with our Sea Princess. He was a Southern
European, ItaUan, Spanish, or Greek — very dark, with
a black moustache and a black unshaven chin. He was
dressed in the roughest of cotton clothing, and was
barefoot. His shirt was deeply stained all down one
side with a dark red patch that not even the sea had
avaiicd to wash away. Carl drew the garment aside,
and we saw a bluish, depressed cut in the skin below.
It so ?med a small thing to have let out the life of a man,
yet somehow I was sure, and so, I felt, were the others,
that this creature had not met with his death in the arms
of the merciful sea.
I don't know how long we stood round the poor dead
Jhin^ in its rough shirt and trousers, with its stiff yellow
feet sticking up apart ; I suppose it was only a few
secords. But there was a silence while we looked, a
reverent silence, I think and hope. Jim, who had been
a Ca holic some time long ago, crossed himself, and
mechanically murmured a Latin word or two.
Then there came a voice behind us, sweet and golden-
clear as only the voice of a cultivated woman can be,
" \7hat are you all looking at ? May I see ? "
Sa]*phira promptly got in front of the girl, who was
just coming from the inner room, and spread her ample
skirts out.
" \ ou go back," she threw over her shoulder. '* It's
no si{.ht for you and won't do you no good."
" \ou let her, Sapphira," said Jim. "There's more
in thi^ than meets the eye. It may help us to find out
who she is."
Th( girl stood quite still, her large eyes looking
6o The Terrible Island
incredibly larger. She seemed frightened, and ytt
anxious to know. . . .
Flower said nothing, but he watched her. Sapphira
stood back.
I expected that she would scream or faint, but I had
forgotten her drill. She did not come of the class tliat
gives way. I saw her turn extremely pale, but she
stood quite still, looking down at the dead man.
" Have you seen him before ? " asked Flower.
** Yes," said the girl. Then, with the painful puzzled
look coming back, " I can't remember."
" You must try," said the surveyor, cruelly, as I
thought. " Try if you can recall anything about him.
It may be important."
She put both hands to the sides of her forehead, where
they sank almost out of sight among the rich waves of
her hair. It was painful to see her straining and
strugghng ; her lips trembled, and the lids of her closed
eyes (she had shut them when she made her effort) were
all wrinkled up at the corners. But no words came.
Flower came over to where she was standing, and laid
his hand on her arm. I felt I could have struck him.
" Listen," he said imperatively. " Open your eyes."
She opened them. "Think. Did they go in the
boat ? "
" They're gone," she said. " They went in the boat.
But — not this." She pointed to the stain, and I coild
see her crush down a shudder.
" Did you go in the boat ? " asked Flower in a lew,
determined tone. I saw he was holding her hands now,
and fixing his eyes on hers, and it struck me suddenly
that he was hypnotising her. He had personal ty
enough to hypnotise a herd of elephants ; I hated to
The Man from the Wreck 6i
see A, and yet I could not help thinking that he was
bound to succeed.
H2r answer was far away from anything I, or I think
Flower himself had expected. She looked right into his
eyes, as no doubt he was willing her to do, and replied
in a dull, dreamy voice,
" When they came back I did not want to go."
" j^^id you go in the boat ? " repeated Flower. If he
had asked me anything in that tone, I should have
yielded up my very soul — hating him, perhaps, all the
time I heard Captain Carl draw his breath hard, and
saw 'lis blue sailor eyes fix themselves on the pair.
H( r answer came slowly.
" .Vfter they took me I jumped overboard, and it was
too rough . . . and when I swam, the waves went over,
and I was dead."
" You jumped overboard ? "
Thi next words electrified us all. In a tone of voice
that was almost caressing, she answered,
" Yes, Cedric."
FIc wer dropped her hands as though they were white-
hot. The hypnotic chain was instantly broken. I saw
the expressions that chased each other over his face —
amaz-ment, anger, jealousy, and then the sickness of a
sudden, cruel blow — before the big man shut down the
bUnd that commonly concealed his emotions.
Cecric !
If she had fired a pistol at his breast, she could not
have done more damage than she did with this one
word, spoken in the tone that she had used. I knew,
instartly, that Flower, in those two days, had let
himso f fall — there is no other word for it — down far
and dicp in love with our princess from the sea. And,
62 The Terrible Island
knowing as I did that my own love must count for
little, I w-as cruelly glad of his rebuff.
But Captain Carl was thinking of other things than
love. He had cast a glance of hearty sailorly admiration
on the girl when she came in, and had then returned to
the business in hand. He had listened to Flower's
questioning, and evidently decided in his own mind that
it led to nothing.
" Well," he said, " I am sorry that this young lady
cannot help us ; I think she iss wandering, for we are
not any of uss namedt Cedric. You haff all looked
well, so you can des-scribe him, if someone asks ? "
" Yes," answered Jim for the party. " We'll knc»w
the beggar when we meet him again."
" Boyce ! " called Carl to the boys. " Take him
away." The natives stepped on to the verandah ; they
bent to replace the mats. . . .
" Now, my Gawt, but I am stupid," said the Captain
self -reproachfully. " I haff forgotten this." He bent
over the corpse, and turned up one hand, exposing the
hidden little finger, and a ring.
" It iss no good to bury this," he said, working at the
swollen joint.
I have not mentioned it, but I may say now that the
body was showing signs that seemed to point to a speedy
burial as necessary and desirable. I was afraid of what
might happen ; I turned away.
'* Sapphira," I said, " don't let her look any more. ..."
But the girl was bending over the corpse with dilaicd
eyes, watching Carl as he worked at the ring. It ca: ne
off, luckily without mishap, and lay in his hand. He
turned it over.
" I think it not worth very much," he said
The Man from the Wreck 63
consideringly. " I haven't known that stone." It was
a curious pale pink gem, about the size of a small young
pea, held by a singulariy neat claw setting.
" It might be an amethyst," suggested Jim, who, like
most gold-miners, held all gems in high contempt.
" Amethyst your granny," was Sapphira's contribu-
tion " When Bari:le and me — that was my first — was
on the Queensland gem country, they didn't put no
cheap stones in rings made like that."
" Perhaps it's a " I was beginning, when the
Sea- Lady stepped forward, and took the ring out of
Carl s unresisting hold. Without a second glance at it,
she clipped it on the third finger of her left hand, drew a
long sigh, and disappeared into the bedroom behind.
Cci rl swore a strange sea-oath.
" She's madt, you tell me," he said, " but I think
then 's what you call methodt in that madtness."
" (van't you see," said Flower, speaking for the first
time since the girl had called him " Cedric," " that it's
her ring ? As to its being an amethyst, or anything like
that- -I know something of crystallography. . . . I'm
mucli mistaken if it isn't a pink diamond."
" My oath ! " commented Sapphira. " Well, I seen
it fla^h like — like — like a flash," she concluded lamely.
" Wl at would it be worth ? "
" Pink diamonds of such a colour are worth anything
you like to say," was Flower's reply. I could see that
he wis not well pleased. Did he connect the valuable,
beauiiful ring on that third finger with " Cedric " ?
(" But you know," I was saying to myself, " I was
quite sure — and I am — that she has never really loved.
It shows in the eyes. . . .")
Cai 1, dismissing all subtleties — if indeed he had been
64 The Terrible Island
conscious that any were in the air—remarked, " Well,
Mr. Flower, it's your responsibility," called " Boyce ! "
once more, and had the sad still thing wrapped up and
taken away.
" If you don't mind, I will haff him buriedt in yoi.r
groundts, Mrs. Gregg," he said, pausing on the verandah
steps to sweep off his hat and bow to Sapphira. " Some
off these local natives haff bad habits of digging people
up."
" Bless you, you may do as you please ; if you'll
plant him down among the cabbages, everybody'U lie
the better of it," repUed Sapphira amiably — causing nrie
to register a silent vow against the eating of Sapphira 's
excellent cabbages at any future time.
And the dark-faced man who had been known to the
Sea-Lady, who had worn her ring and, with his evil
companions, driven her from God knows what of horror
to all but certain death in the stormy waves — was taken,
silent, to his last long sleep. And I for one, with his
going, almost lost hope of ever unravelling the mystery
that had wound itself about the girl from the sea.
Carl came back again prosaically anxious for dinner,
and Sapphira rose nobly to her reputation as the finest
cook in the bush country of New Guinea. I recollect
that we had bush turkey, stuffed with native chestnut,
and I think there was sea-slug soup, and a jelly of pale
red sago from the sago swamp behind the house, served
with cocoanut cream. Flower, to whom these deUcaci(?s
were new, ate them with appreciation. Jim told nre,
during one of Sapphira's eclipses in the kitchen, that
he'd rather have a real chop and a real potato than t le
whole of it ; but he was very careful not to let o ir
hostess hear.
The Man from the Wreck 65
" She's bosker, Sapphira is," he confided to me
behind a weatherworn hand, one eye nervously watching
the kitchen door. " Bosker, she is. But you've got to
appr3ci-ate her. She don't like not being appreci-ated,
and you'd best keep it to yourself if there's anything
youM rather was otherwise. Unless you aren't par-
ticular about saucepans or teapots in your hair."
" We all like to be appreciated," I said vaguely. I
was vatching the Sea-Lady, and feeling reminiscent
of the old days rising out of tlieir graves, as I saw the
deUcate way of her eating. Not so did even the best of
our Papuan society take its food. . . .
Sapphira and the boy cleared the table, as Jim
whis])ered to me, " like they say the devil went through
Athl( 'ue — in standin' leps." It seemed to me, certainly,
as if ( >ur hostess were in a hurry about something.
As soon as the last trayf ul had been slammed jinglingly
down on the kitchen table, she took a couple of steps
down the verandah, walking much as Lady Macbeth
*may lave done when she stepped forward to claim the
dagg( rs, and remarked, centre of stage,
" Kow we'll talk."
When Sapphira took command, you might as well
give i!p the helm at once, and go down to smoke a pipe
in the cabin. Metaphorically speaking, we all did. It
seemed to be understood that the Tagula was not
goin:^' forth, nor Flower going out to work, again to-day ;
neither was Jim returning to the goldfields track, or I
to m} kilhng-bottle and traps. Other and weightier
matte s were afoot. . . . That is another of the
privileges we at the back of the world enjoy ; we can
twist the clock and the calendar about to serve our
purpoj^s. Sunday is Saturday or Monday if we want ;
66 The Terrible Island
Christmas, Easter, or any other feast becomes "mov-
able " indeed if the call of a steamer happens to hit it in
the wind, and shove it forward a day or two, or back a
week. . . . I've known all the traders of Nine (you do
not want to know where Nine is, so you shall not) agree
to shut up their stores together for two days, and go
picnicking, because they felt Uke it. I've known Samai ai
(you shall hear where that is ; it is the second town of
Papua) run a Majesty's birthday and a festival of tlie
Anglican Church into unnatural conjunction, chain-gang
an extraneous Bank Holiday on, and make a Roman-
Australian holiday out of the butchery.
So no one, away on Croker Island, made any bones
about dropping all business for a time.
" I suppose you think," said Sapphira, from her usual
throne on the floor, "that I'm going to talk about
Ku-Ku's Island. No, I'm not. Except by and by.
What I want to know is, what steps are you highly-
educated gentlemen going to take to find out who this
young lady is, and who she belongs to. Seems to me, if
I left it to you, she'd stay here till cocoanut trees droppjd
pineapples, before anyone did anything. But then,
I'm in "
I have been certain ever since that Rocky Jim knocked
the bottle on to the floor by no accident. But Sapphira
thought he did. There was an interval of duster, of
boy, and of brief, biting lecture concerning the value of
good drinks, and the sin of wasting them. Then, in a
gradually diminishing odour of smeared whisky, peace
returned.
I thought it was time I came in.
"It's perfectly simple," I said. "There's been a
shipwreck somewhere, and she was cast ashore, af er
The Man from the Wreck 67
jui iping out of a boat that got away from the wreck.
If \e can't trace any survivors, we shall only have to
wait till the next mails come up from south. The papers
will have an account of the wreck, and a list of the
missing passengers. That will settle everything."
" It sounds very well," said Flower, " but you must
rerrember that no Hner runs within three hundred
miles, except the Moresby, diud she went down to Sydney
just before I came, so she's two thousand miles away.
All the same, you're right in saying that the papers will
probably tell us something."
"Can't the young lady haff been in some ship?"
ask( d Captain Carl.
" Not much she hasn't," said Sapphira. " With the
dress she was wearing when she came here. . . . Why,
man , she must have been at a dance or something. It
was all gold and passementerie. And " — rapidly, in a
sort of ecstatic trance — "there was apphquey and
insei tion of something that was real Venice— or-I'll-eat -it
— al over the tablierr, and the skirt was nine-gored, and
the \.'ay the biases was done would make you think an
angei had had the scissors — there was a bolero, Venice
foundation with sequins and silk motiffs on top ; oh,
the t iblierr was mostly fillet, I forgot that — it was false-
hemried with gold cabUng, and there was just a fish-
tail oa the skirt, no more "
(" God be with us, did she think there would be
fins ? " queried Jim in a bewildered whisper. I shook
my h'»ad at him.)
— ' And there was re vers of self, all round, just where
it flaied. And they was held down with sort of ac-
cordic ned tabs, each with a "
R(K ky Jim got up from his seat. He walked round to
68 The Terrible Island
the place where Sapphira was sitting on the floor, hands
outspread and working in the air, autumnal-fiery eyes
aglow, lips going like the nose of a rabbit. He took h^r
by the hands, and lifted her to her feet with one swing.
I felt — as I often felt — a pang go through me at the sight
of his strength, and its easy, unconscious use.
She went on talking.
— " Button sort of herringboned round in them
iridescent sequins. The foundation was "
"Take an ex-married man's advice, and let her
run down," counselled Flower, with a twinkle in his
eye.
" My Gawt ! My Gawt 1 " I heard Carl saying to
himself, in a thankful kind of tone. He was unmarried,
as we knew.
"Think I can't stop a woman's tongue?" queri«^d
Rocky Jim, the man known to fear neither alligator,
shark, nor cannibal.
" Let me finish. It had a foundation of glassy, with
a balayoose all round the "
Jim bent from his six feet height, and kissed her on
the lips, a long, determined, I might say smacking ki^s.
Sapphira paused for one moment, to wrench herself frr m
his grasp with a twist worthy of Japanese Ju-jitsu,
deliver a box on the ear that made the miner reel, and
call out, loud and rapidly, like a phonograph running
down,
" It had a balayoose — and the silk of that was kn'fo-
pleated first, and then ruched and the corsage was ea: ed
here, and fulled there. The tucker was medallions with
beading on top gold drawstring there was a small Medici
transparent with Venice on fillet the fastenings 'vas
underarm and the petersham was reel white satin \n ith
The Man from the Wreck 69
the name of the place in gold letters now then Mister
Smart can you stop a lady saying what she wants to
say ? "
" I'm glad I didn't," said Jim coolly. " It's given me
an idea. Get us out that dress, won't you, and let us
see the Paul-what-is-it "
' Petersham ! " snapped Sapphira.
" Where the gold letters are. We might make
something out of that."
But we didn't. When the wreck of the Sea-Lady's
dress was produced, and the satin waistband exposed
to \ iew, we saw that one of the many rents had carried
away half the maker's name. Only "Modiste . . .
Rue de la Paix " remained. And that told us nothing
at a 11, for Paris toilets go the world around.
" It has a balayoose," persisted Sapphira, with a
victorious glance at Jim, holding up something that
migiit have been a trail of tangled seaweed. She was
clearly gloating over his defeat.
Jim said nothing at all, but — I blush for my manhood
to lepeat it — he took out his handkerchief, and in
Sap])hira's full sight, deliberately — wiped his mouth.
Tiie pioneer heroine laid down the dress, turned round
and disappeared. I saw her, as she vanished down the
steps of the back verandah, passionately tearing the
hairpins out of her hair, and — knowing Sapphira— I was
prepared for the distant echo of fierce sobbing that stole
into the strange quiet of our front verandah retreat, soon
aftei she had fled.
N(body took the slightest notice. Carl plunged at
once into an estimate of times and distances, stores,
mileige, and prevailing winds. Jim and I listened to
him, asking a question now and then. Flower seemed
70 The Terrible Island
to give us his attention only by Ills and starts ; he was
busy with a bit of paper, making calculations.
By and by he raised his head. I have the picture of
the verandah clear in my mind. We were in what
seemed a cave of black velvet shadow. Outside, the
fringes of the thatch were cut into silhouettes against a
sky of brass-hard blue. There was a blaze of white sand
in front, pencilled with restless, thin shadows of palms.
There was a flare of green, where the low bush joined the
shore. There was the lapping edge of the lagoon water,
and far out, white surf that crumbled on the reef.
Beyond inimitable blue, the tradeless, timeless, almost
untravelled plains of New Guinea's Coral Sea.
. . . Green, white and blue — they are the colours, the
flag of The Islands — that wide Pacific world that
stretches from Tahiti to Cape York. The world where
old men are young, and young men strangely old. The
world where ten years pass as a day, and a day stretches
out to ten years, and when the ten years are over, they
are a life-— for no man can eat the fruits of the islands
ten years and go back to the world again. The islands
have him then, and they hold.
Green, white and blue — the fiery green of the forests
and the bush, the blue of sea, the white of coral sand . . .
there are no colours like them beyond the island world.
Beside these pictures painted in gems and flame, the
rest of the earth grows pale. No other region has the
right to bear this flag. It is ours.
I don't know that Flower was thinking of these
things — though he had plenty of feehng for natural
beauty — when he raised his head, and looked long and
thoughtfully out to sea. I saw that some matter oi
moment held his mind. Carl was explaining to Jim and
The Man from the Wreck 71
myself why you must always take half as many stores
again as you think you will need, travelling these
uncertain and unchartered seas in a vessel without
steim power. "Ant," he was explaining, "the boyce
that I haff for crew will not be enough, if we shall stay
out a long "
I lower looked ro*ind.
' Just a minute," he said. "There's something of
inijortance. Todd, you've told me several times that
the e is something of value on Ku-Ku's Island besides
the shell and shell-money."
" Carl knows more about that, I reckon," said Jim.
" I don't know much," deprecated the captain.
" Tiiere was my countryman, Svensson, he hass found
an island that was worth some value, a good many
yeai ce ago, and I think it was near the Lusancays. But
Mr. Diamond from Port Morceby, he haff heard of it and
he v.ent to the Landss Office and applied for it, and he
guee 5t at the position, but he has not guesst right. Then
Svensson, of course, he won't tell him where, and he
won t make no applications, and so it stay till Svensson
die. And no one haff it. But there was some said it
was Ku-Ku's Islandt."
" Diamond is dead," explained Jim. " Killed by a
fall from a horse. If he had any possible claim it's
gone."
" A vile trick," commented Flower.
"When it is anything about islandts, they all go
madt," said Carl. "And after all, islandts is not so
mucl) worth. But I haff heard offten that Ku-Ku
Island hass sometliing, but no one knows what."
" Well," said Flower, " I sincerely hope it has, since
the shell-money will be practically valueless if we get it."
72 The Terrible Island
" Valueless I " cried Jim. " They said the old beggar
had thousands of pounds' worth hidden there."
" It's likely enough that he had ; the Trobriand
Islanders seem to have done some slave-keeping in the
past, and I daresay Ku-Ku made them work. But if
we got all he ever made, it would not be worth moie
than a very few hundred pounds."
" Why ? " I think we all asked together.
" Very simple. Because the money has no actual
currency except among New Guinea natives."
" Well ! you can buy anything from them with it —
shell, pearls, copra, b^che-de-mer — whatever they have.
Man, I tell you they'd rather have it than cash."
" Yes. And if you flooded the market with a big
discovery, it would have much the same effect as
flooding the world with gold. The purchasing pow(;r
would go down with a thump. There's no fortune in
shell-money. I doubt if New Guinea could ever carry
more than three hundred pounds' worth at once. If a
coin of it is worth fourpence, it doesn't at all follow that
ten thousand coins will be worth ten thousand four-
pences. That's elementary. Can't you see ? "
We did see, and it was as if Flower had dropped an
explosive bomb on the table. Our thoughts were
shattered.
"Why, then — then ..." stammered Jim.
Carl sucked the end of a pencil with which he had
been writing his list. He seemed a little disappointed,
not much.
" You will perhaps not want the sharter of tlie
Tagula," he suggested.
" Yes, we shall," said Flower unexpectedly. " I
think it's good enough. My impression is that the o^i
The Man from the Wreck 7^
cannibal took rather more than enough trouble to keep
people away. I don't think it was red shell alone. The
native, all the world over, does try to keep the white
mc.n out of his secret v/hen he finds anything that he
knows will bring white settlement in a hurry. I don't
"blcme him, poor beggar — but there it is. Ku-Ku
shut the door so very fast that I think there has been
something good behind it."
"The island's always been described as very small,"
suggested Jim.
"That may exclude gold, but not other things."
"What things?"
" Oh, I don't know," said Flower in the tone of a man
who does know. " Time enough to see when we arrive.
Wl en do you think you can get us away, Carl ? "
'To-morrow, I think. But that dependts on the
wird. The windts on this coast, they are very un-
certain." He began a discourse on the winds, to which
I did not listen. It did not seem to me that I was
concerned in it. If I had known just what this matter
of V inds was going to mean to us. . . .
The question now arose whether we were to take the
girl with us. Carl's schooner, though slow, was a good
corr fortable boat, with a two-berth stateroom, as well
as c cabin, fitted with the usual bunks. We could of
couise leave her in Sapphira's charge, at the store,
pro^•ided Sapphira had not set her heart on accompany-
ing the expedition. But I was almost sure she had.
FloNver, besides, was of opinion that the girl would run
mor<: chance of recovering her memory by going than by
staying. She might, he said, find her mind return to
its n Drmal condition if she were confronted with some of
the men who had carried her off in the boat. Already
FW
74 The Terrible Island
we had gathered some small information from her
encounter with the corpse of one of these men. A living
villain, able to use his tongue, might even without his
own goodwill recall to her everything that we wished to
know.
I trusted more to the newspapers from south than
anj^hing else, but Flower seemed to expect little in that
direction.
" It's a chance," he said, " no more — and in any case,
we can't get them for nearly three months, the way th(j
boats are running now. It's the Morinda's time for
docking, you must remember ; she'll be weeks later
than usual. No, the shortest cut, in my opinion, is to
take her with us."
At this point we were interrupted by the kitchen
boy, carrying a pile of ironed clothes on his arm.
"Taubada, where Mary? " he demanded.
" What name (which) Mary ? " I said.
"Mary. 'Nother Mary. Me givem him clothes."
" Oh — Mary, she stop along inside," I directed him.
" He means the — the girl. It's the pigeon-English for
woman," I explained to Flower.
" I think," was his answer, " the boy has solved a
problem for us. We can't go on calling her ' the girl '
as if she were a lodging-house slavey. She's not a day
over nineteen, so she can't much mind answering to a
Christian name, and there isn't any more Christian name;
than Mary to be found."
"There is not," said Jim, crossing himself. She
came in at that very moment, and he asked her straight
away, " Would you mind being called Mary, as we don'i
know your name ? "
*' I should like it very much," she said gravely. " J
The Man from the Wreck 75
sedn to remember something about the word . . .
something good."
"My heavens," said Rocky Jim aside. Then,
" Don't you remember your rehgion, whatever it
was ? "
"Rehgion?" she said doubtfully. "Some of the
wo ds tire me so. . . That's one that tires me, but I
know it's something good. Religion — God. . . ."
I saw her flowerhke hands clasp themselves together,
all unconsciously, in the attitude of prayer.
' God," she said, trying to remember. " God — I've
heard you say it." She turned to Rocky Jim. He
flushed crimson from chin to forehead.
" You'll never hear me say it again," he told her.
" Not the way you have heard me."
" I have heard you say it a great many times," she
repc ated consideringly. " God — hell — devil — damna-
tion. They don't all seem the same."
J m blushed nearly black, and looked down at the
floo- as if he hoped to discover a trap-door through which
he might disappear. Finding none, he pulled himself
together, and said, looking straight at Mary,
" They aren't the same, and I oughtn't to have said
then, not when you were close at hand in a rotten native
hou5 e hke this. Don't 5^ou say them."
" \ie you not good ? " she asked him, her beautiful
eyes, gold-brown hke wallflowers in the sun, fixed
carn'^stly on his. The word " good," I had long since
noticed, was strangely overworked in her vocabulary.
A travelled, cultivated girl from Mary's class of society
has Tjany thousands of words in her ordinary store.
The accident and shock that had taken away her
mem )ry, had largely reduced that store. " Good " with
76 The Terrible Island
her, meant not only morally good, but pleasant, dcbii-
able, agreeable, a dozen other things. . . .
Jim, however, perceived no such shades.
" No, I'm not," he answered simply. " I'm not
d , not very bad, you understand ; but good —
H Heavens, I mean, no, I'm not good."
His complexion, that had paled to its natural tan,
turned slowly red again.
Mary, with that pathetic look of a lost white lami:)
about her that had already touched and wounded all our
hearts, looked round the group of us, and said,
"There is something wrong here " (she touched her
dark masses of hair, seal-brown with red lights on it
when the sun shone), " but I think you are all good to
me. This man," she looked at me, " has it in his face —
what was it you said ? — God — he has God in his face. I
have seen him somewhere."
By this I knew that she had been to the Tate Gallery
in London, for the St. John that poor Will Lutterwortli
painted from my unworthy features is one of the chief
ornaments of the second room, and is a picture that
visiting schoolgirls are usually taken to see. A clue —
and yet no clue, I thought. In any case, I could not
give it away to these other men. Who would, under
the circumstances ?
You may think I was gratified by her artless word;-.
No. Sorrow, and the keenness of the cripple's eve] >
watching eye, had taught me many things about
women that most men — most women, for the matter (tf
that — do not understand. I know only too well th£ t
women do not love the men they compare to gods.
But Flower, less wise in such matters, as the happy
man is always less wise than the unhappy, looked
The Man from the Wreck J"]
somewhat darkly at me, and turned Mary's words off
wii li an unpleasant laugh.
. " Oh, weVe none of us angels," he said. " But we'll
take good care of you till you get all right. We are
int mding just now to take you for a trip in Carl's
schooner, if you feel you would like to come. We are
going to look for Ku-Ku's Island."
The name did not seem to distress her to-day.
' I shall be glad to come," she said politely.
1 cursed, in my heart, the ingrained society training
that made her answer everything with the same sweet
courtesy. Who was to know whether she wanted to go
or not ? This girl had been trained from babyhood to
make herself pleasant at any and every cost ; to join
smilingly in parties got up for her pleasure, whether she
liked them or not ; to keep her feelings under control —
alwiys under control ; that was the first Commandment
in 1 he Decalogue of her class — and look well, and look
happy, even if she were miserable or ill. It was utterly
impossible for us to know whether she was delighted or
dismayed at the prospect of the journey we were pro-
posing. She could see that everyone wanted it, and that
was enough for her. . . .
But, undoubtedly, it was the best we could do for her
inte ests. We stood a better chance of finding out
something about her in that way than in any other.
The time was the north-west season ; seas would be
calm — perhaps calmer than we wanted — we could
pro\ision the ship very decently, and the whole run
ougl t to be quick, easy, and free from all discomfort.
A p( rfect picnic, in short.
That was what we all thought and said. If we could
have known I . . .
78 The Terrible Island
We got away next day.
By sunrise, everyone was at work upon the provision-
ing of the boat. It had been agreed that Flower, Jim
Todd, Sapphira and myself were toput up equal shares
of the expenses, with a general idea of "something
decent " for Carl, if the expedition made a success. A
good deal of Sapphira's share was reckoned in terms of
provisions, and as she put them in at full retail price, she
enjoyed a certain advantage over the rest of us that no
one was unchivalrous enough to point out.
We took almost all the contents of the little store.
Carl of course was pretty well stocked as it was, but we
others were all agreed that things must be made as
comfortable as possible for our Princess from the Sea.
Sapphira had luxuries — ^these things pay, within hail of
a gold-field — and we drew heavily upon them. Piles
of tins labelled asparagus, pdU de foie gras, caviare, ox-
tongues, fruit-puddings, cakes, mincepies, turtle-soup,
shrimps, crabs, oysters, lobsters, grapes, peaches,
honey, entries of many kinds, fruit salads, French
creams, and I do not know what, were accumulated on
the counter, packed in bags and boxes, and carried down
to the ship. Sapphira, as a present from herself, threw
in " for Lady Mary " (she had given our guest a brevet
title, and insisted on using it), six bottles of a brand of
port rather popular in Papua, which is, I should suppos(i,
eminently fitted for taking paint off doors, if anyone
wanted to do a job of the kind without much regard for
the door. I did not quite see the Sea-Lady drinking it
— but Jim and Carl, I had small doubt, would see thjit
nothing was wasted.
It was a royal day. Most days in Papua we^j ,
unless one strikes a spell of storm, but this day seemtd
The Man from the Wreck 79
soirething above the ordinary. There was a dead
golcien stillness, so perfect as to be sad. In the forest
that rose high behind Sapphira's deep-cut clearing, bush
turkeys were whistUng after the melancholy-merry way
they have, and the little Pan-bird (I don't know its
projier name) fluted " piercing sweet by the river." As
the day wore on to high noon, the tops of the trees
beyt)nd the clearing seemed to be drenched in gold ;
gold dripped from their summits down on trunk and
limb, and splashed upon the ground, where any space
of eirth showed among the smoke-blue shadows. It
was a day when ill weather seemed a fable, misfortune
incredible, death a dream. . . . One felt that one must
live a thousand years.
We were all a bit " fey," I think. Anyone would
have been, on such a day. There was present among us
that feeling that is never quite absent from the Papuan
dweller " out back," no matter how hard he works, of a
kind of everlasting holidayness. You felt, as you do
feel i 1 these places, that there was nobody to tell you to
do anything. . . .
An d it was really,in schoolboy terms, a gigantic ' ' lark ' '
— this journey of ours in quest of a treasure island.
I s appose it was about one o'clock when we got ofi.
We ^^ ere all very light-hearted, going down to the boat ;
Jim vas foohng in his own agreeable way ; Sapphira
(who seemed to have forgiven and forgotten) was
grimly radiant ; Flower appeared to be looking after
every hing and everybody, and enjoying himself at the
same ime. I remember that he was carrying Sapphira's
pet laying hen for her, lest the boys should let it go ;
ai^ that Jim, who had come down from the field ill-
pro vi< led, was wearing one of his shirts ; and that he
8o The Terrible Island
walked, unobtrusively but determinedly, in the front of
the little procession, and kept back its pace by turninj^
to talk to i^eople — so that I never had to hurry to kee])
up. As for " Lady Mary," he carried a big sun-umbrella
over her head (the heat along that coral walk in full
midday was appaUing) and, when we came to tht?
whale-boat, which had an unusually high bow, I sav/
liim help her in, not by lifting her bodily, but by deftly
making steps of his two huge hands, so that she walked
as if on a flight of stairs. Light as our Sea- Lady was,
the feat demanded strength. I saw Rocky Jim look at
the two, and draw in his breath. Admiration ? of the
muscular feat, or of the delicate figure upborne by it ?
I didn't know, but I wondered, as the boys shoved off
the whale-boat, and started her away with long oar-
strokes, if we were all going to fall in love with the
Sea-Lady.
Carl was — and is — a seaman who never wastes time,
deliberate though he seems. The boys were hard at
work heaving anchor as we rowed out. We could hear
the heartsome clamour of the chain — ^the sound that sets
the wanderer's heart a-singing. . . . O woman, be very
sure of your gipsy lover's love, before you tell yourself
your voice is dearer to him than that call ! . . .
I said to Jim that there was no sound like it in the
world, and that going away in a liner that simply glided
off from a wharf like a train, destroyed one of the
chiefest charms of travel. What did he think ?
Jim, of the burned-teak face, and the poet-gipsy
heart, merely looked at me round the corner of his
profile, cautious and one-eyed.
" Got a match ? " he parried. But I knew what J e
thought.
The Man from the Wreck 8i
The pleasant red moon-face of Carl hung over the
bu.warks as we came alongside. I Hked the look of the
Tabula. She was one of those old-fashioned, South-
seaman-looking boats, with a white painted wooden rail
round her like the balusters on a staircase, and tall masts
with stately topmasts to them, not cut short as masts so
often are nowadays. Her decks were reasonably white,
anc her deckhouse just the right height to sit on. She
was beautifully designed ; her long, yacht -like lines as
she lay on the green water of the lagoon, swaying
sligiitly to the pull of the tide, made me think of many
things and places in no way connected with the wild
east end country of New Guinea.
For some reason or other, the face of our Sea- Lady lit
up \vhen she stepped from the Jacob's ladder on to the
deck of the Tagula. I saw her pause, and run her eye
aloft with the look of an expert. She seemed to like
what she saw, but there was a shade of doubt in her
expression.
" You like my ship, my lady, eh ? " asked Carl,
beaming. The Tagula was very dear to him.
" What's the use of asking her ? She don't know a
schocner from a soup-plate ; how could she ? " com-
mented Sapphira, aside.
Th'i Sea- Lady answered Carl, and I think her answer
struck us all dumb.
" I do like her," she said, " but she looks to me as if
she might not sail quite close enough to the wind, in a
light breeze." She threw another glance aloft, looked
at the boys who were making sail (there was something
critical in her eye ; Papuan sailors are, at the best, no
yachtsmen in point of style), and then stepped down
into tlie cabin as if it were her home.
P
82 The Terrible Island
Carl swore one of his curious salt-flavoured oaths.
" She hass a headt on her," he declared. " She iss no
fool, that young laty. Not much madtness ther»i.
That is the one fault of my Tagula, that you must tack
ant tack with her, if there iss no more than a half -capful
of windt. But you would never think it."
" No, I shouldn't," allowed Flower, looking aloft.
" Lady Mary seems to know a thing or two about
ships."
"She iss a dotter of the sea," declared Carl senti-
mentally. " She is worthy to be a Norsewoman. . . .
Up with her, boyce ! You black cowce, haul."
Sapphira went below to dispose of her many bundles ;
Flower, taking things easy as he always did when theie
was no need for action, found a long chair, and stretched
his great bulk in it, his face turned up to the sky, beneath
the shelter of the rising mainsail. Jim, far aft, was
already lighting up his eternal pipe. The Tagula caught
the wind from beyond the reef, and leaned slightly over ;
the sea began to talk along her counter. Carl, at the
wheel, his blue sailor's eyes fixed ahead, stood steering.
The voyage had begun.
CHAPTER IV
HIS majesty's ship
THE Sea-Lady seemed tired with the bustle of
departure and incUned to sleep, after we gut
away. She showed no symptoms of sea-
sickness, even when we met the long roll of
the Pacific outside the shelter of Croker Island, and
Sapj^hira, green as the foaming combers, staggered
mute ly to her berth. Opposite the suffering mistress of
the store, " Lady Mary " lay placidly all afternoon, and
slept, as Sapphira told us, " like a cat after a saucer of
cream."
Tovvards sunset she came out on deck. The Tagula
was 1 unning easily before a wind that was almost fair.
Then; was a pleasant, rain-hke patter of reef points on
the sails, and a talking of ripples all along the keel.
Aheady the high mainland, with Croker Island merged
in its fringes, was growing blue and mysterious, and the
foothills over which I had toiled in search of coleoptera
were taking on the aspect of some fairy country in-
habited by people of a dream.
" L idy Mary," swinging to the heavy roll of the ship as
easily as Carl himself, stood on the poop and scanned
the h( rizon — I thought, not idly ; she seemed to have a
sailor's eye. She was wearing one of Sapphira's white
dresses, drawn in to suit her slender shape ; shoes had
84 The Terrible Island
been fuund fur her, curious small things of scarlet
morocco, which I took to be a relic of Sapphira's long
dead little daughter, and to represent a sacrifice on our
old friend's part that was little short of heroic. Flower
watched her keenly from underneath his tilted hat as he
lay in the long chair from which he had not stirred since
we got away. I saw that, like myself, he had noted a
change in the Sea-Lady.
Presently she came towards us. . . . Is there any
setting in the world like a ship at sea to show off the
grace of a beautiful girl ? When does a woman look so
like a flower as when she is swaying to the dance of the
foamy keel, her hair wind-blown, her soft clothing
ruffled like petals ?
" She is like a white daffodil," I murmured, half to
myself, as the Sea-Lady came down the deck.
" She is," said Flower. The note of antagonism had
left his voice of late. I felt, rather than guessed, the
reason why, when I saw his glance flit to her balancing
left hand, and the strange rose-fiery gleam of the ring it
bore. And suddenly in my heart there arose the
chuckling contempt of the sharp-witted little man for
the slow-moving mind of the giant. Clever Flower
might be — undoubtedly was — but he saw no further
through a stone wall than most men could ; whereas I
—I did !
" Whatever that pink diamond means, it does not
mean love," I said to myself. " Flower thinks of the
ring, and the name she used ; I think of what can't
mislead one — her eyes."
And I remembered the scrap of wisdom I had on(e
picked up from a little-known translation of an Arabian
philosopher —
His Majesty's Ship 85
" Friend, if thou wouhlst know the secrets 0/ hearts, even
those which are hid from the owners thereof, heed not what
a man shall say nor overmuch what he doth, for a tongue
may be bridled as a desert steed, and the wild chariot of a
man's actions may be driven upon the road of prudence.
' ' But what a man says not, looks not, doeth not — there
shaU the secret be found. The steed that was never born
cannot be held in with the rein, nor can the chariot
unmade be driven where a man would go."
la a thousand ways have I, the man who looks on at
life, proved the truth of the old Arabian's philosophy.
But never, I think, more clearly than in the case of our
Sea- Princess.
. . . Well, of this afterwards. Lady Mary came to
us, swaying along the deck, and dropped to a seat on
one of the hatches. Flower and I sprang from our
chairs to offer her a better seat — or at least Flower
sprang, and I rose up.
" No," she said, settling her island Panama — another
of Sipphira's benefactions — more firmly on her head.
"Let me sit here. It makes me feel happy again. It
makt s me remember things. I have been in a ship like
this. At least, it was like this, only "
" (leaner," supplied Flower.
"Oh, he makes it very clean," she said anxiously.
" Bu' the other ship — there was so much whiteness and
shine about her, and the sailors had very good clothes.
Of ccurse, these sailors "
Sh( looked about the decks with the same anxious
expre >sion , clearly desirous of finding something pleasant
and p Dlite to say about the clothing of Carl's crew. Now
when we had got away from land, every boy had tucked
his caaco " ramie " tightly about his loins, and converted
86 The Terrible Island
it into a mere waistcloth. Some of the boys, indetd,
had discarded all clotliing but the native pandanus le if,
for greater freedom at their work. Enormously wiggt d,
decked out in beads, dogs' teeth, red flowers from Croker
Island, and chaplets of strung frangipanni blossom, thej-
were decent, and they were certainly not neglectful ol
appearance. But as to clothing ! . . .
Flower and I, seeing the humour of the moment, coi Id
not refrain from laughter, and the Sea-Lady, after a
moment or two, joined in.
"I'm afraid I can't say much for them," she said
merrily. " But the whole ship does remind me . .
I don't know what of."
" Don't try to remember ; it'll come," advised Flower
kindly. We both noticed, I am certain, the change tlat
had taken place in her appearance. She looked brighter,
happier, more like her natural girlish self. And God !
but she was pretty, with her wavy brown hair, gold-lit,
blowing in her eyes, and the sweet elfish laugh of hi?r,
over her shoulder, as she turned to walk the deck again.
We had not seen her laugh before. I thought lntr,
laughing so, like nothing in the world so much as one
of Romney's darling Lady Hamiltons, whom I have
always loved, every one of them.
" What's she up to now ? " bumbled Flower, unt'er
his wide hat, following her with an interested eye.
" She's going to talk to Carl," I said.
" Then she knows less about ships than she seems * o.
Talking to the man at the wheel "
He broke off with an ejaculation of wonder. The
Sea-Lady had had no intention of breaking one of he
ocean's most stringent laws. She had merely pan cd
beside Carl, exchanged a word or two with him— he
His Majesty's Ship 87
Swede answering her enquiry briefly, with a look of
pleised surprise — and had then taken his place on the
grating, and put her hands on the spokes of the wheel.
Carl, his broad red face glowing with smiles, stood
bel ind her for a minute or two, keeping his own hands
on che spokes, and aiding her. It was not all courtesy,
I t:iought — else I did not know the prudent Carl, He
was not going to trust the masts of his Tagula to the
wh;m of any lady passenger, be she as beautiful as the
da} , until he had made sure it was safe to do so.
iSut she seemed to satisfy him. In a minute or two
he withdrew his hands, stepped aside, and stood con-
templating the helmswoman with a grin of sheer delight.
Lacy Mary remained unconscious of his stare, her small
feet set far apart, her hands on the wheel, her eyes not
glm d helplessly to the " lubber's point," but glancing
nov to the compass, now aloft or ahead. It was clear
thai not to-day for the first, or for the fifty-first time,
had she laid her hands on a wheel. The Papuan crew,
standing ready to go about, grinned till their ugly
bett 1-stained teeth made gaps from ear to ear.
" That -fellow Mary him savvy too much," giggled the
bo'sun.
" Ready about ! " sang Carl. The boys rushed to the
sheets, the booms swung round. Carl, still taking no
chances, had reached the wheel in a bound, and stood
behind the Sea- Lady, his hands outstretched ready to
seiz< the wheel in an instant if necessary. But Lady
Mary knew her job. She put down the wheel hke a
veteran seaman, bending her slight waist to one side
and working hard on the spokes. I saw her little red
shoes press tight on the grating ; the evening wind was
getting up, and the Tagula, I could see, despite Carl's
88 The Terrible Island
high opinion of her, was none too quick in answering her
helm.
" That's it — meet her, meet her ! " cried Carl, above
the clatter of the booms. " By Gawt, you are worth an
A.B.'s wages, my ladty ! You are deserving to steer my
Tagula."
Lady Mary laughed ; her hair was a-sparkle with
spindrift ; the wind had blown her cheeks bright red,
and even tinged her dear little nose with pink, and her
eyes were dancing like the waves. You could see how
she loved to hold the slender spokes and feel the whole
might of those great towers of sail run through her two
small hands.
"We haven't called her the Sea-Lady for nothing,"
observed Flower.
" She has evidently been quite at home on a yacht,'
I said.
" Yes ? " he asked, turning his lighthouse head
towards me — the simile is absurd, but he always did
remind me of a lighthouse tower with the big lamps lit
and glowing. " You've seen a good deal of society in
England ? "
" I'm none the better for that," I said.
"No, but you can help us New Zealanders and
AustraUans in judging just where she belongs to. The
yachting set is very wealthy and important, isn't it ? "
He asked these things quite simply. The man, I take
it, knew that no society in the world would have refused
him entrance and did not care that it was so.
"It is," was my answer. " There is nothing more
expensive than keeping a yacht—except keeping a daily
paper."
" And yet," said Flower, " she was travelling on some
His Majesty's Ship 89
boat with those Greek or Spanish villains. Well, I give
it up for the present. I suppose it'll all come out in the
wash eventually. But if "
" Sail-ho ! " yelled the bo'sun, war-dancing on the
poop — where, by the way, he had no business to be ; but
Carl was no discipUnarian, apart from the actual running
of his ship.
All over New Guinea, down its long, long coasts, and
through its far-out many islands, that cry wakes every
heart. Between the boats, in our little wood-built
towns, among the palm arcades and fluttering rubber
groves of our plantations, in our lonely trading stores,
we vander only half awake — we dream. It's a beautiful
dream, this of blue and golden New Guinea, and the
days here are so long, in the absence of all the many
impcrtant-unimportant trifles of the outer world, that
then is ample time both for dreaming and for working.
But when the steamer call rips the silence of our wonder-
ful St ar-crystalled nights — when the dawn rouses to find
great masts and funnels standing strangely among the
long- necked stems of the palms beside the beach — then
we wake, and then you shall see
" All the long-pent stream of life
Rush downward like a cataract."
The Steamer siren — the ghmpse of a far-off funnel —
the frantic " Sail-o ! " of natives sighting a red and
black hull — these are the Prince's kiss in our palace of
the Sleeping Beauty.
Everyone and everything on board the Tagula was
waked up by the bo 'sun's call. All the crew joined at
once ii his cry, and " Sail-o ! " resounded in a deafening
shout from rudder-chains to bowsprit. Sapphira lifted
a wan face out of the companionway. Rocky Jim made
90 The Terrible Island
a jump into the shrouds, and hung on, one hand on his
hat, staring southward. Carl had his binoculars to his
eyes immediately ; he swung unsupported on the deck
Uke a sturdy palm in a breeze, watching the distant hull.
Only Lady Mary betrayed small interest. She just
glanced at the space of tumbling sea where a streak of
black vapour showed against the sky, and distant masts
and funnels pricked up like pins. Then she turned to
her compass again, with a seamanhke glance at the great
sail above her head. It was beginning to " slat." She
put up the helm, and " met her " again neatly.
" What '11 that be ? " I asked our Captain.
" A man-of-war — must be — ^there isn't anything
due," he answered. " I think I see her gunce." He
replaced the glasses in their case, and made for the
signal locker.
" Going to speak them ? "
" Yess. I cannot tell who shall be looking for my
lady. I think " — he was rapidly running up a collection
of flags as he talked — " she iss a great person in her
contry. I remember " — the flags were up and flutter-
ing now, telling their tale against the high blue of the
sky — " when I was a yongster, I haff seen some queence
and kingce, and there is something about her make me
think of them. It is the best thing we do, to ask these
officers if they know something about her."
He was right — undoubtedly he was right. I felt it
through and through, and was depressed to the soles of
my boots in consequence. For now I saw what I had
not fully understood before — that we should never ha^e
brought Lady Mary on this journey at all. She was n< t
really interested in the treasure hunt ; and I could see
— in the sudden light cast upon our plans by the acti( n
His Majesty's Ship
91
of Captain Carl — that the chance of benefiting her lost
memory by confronting the survivors with her was at
bt^st a very small one. How did we know for certain
that there were any survivors ? We only thought — or
feared — there might be. And we could, and un-
do abtedly should, have given up some of our chance of
securing Ku-Ku's island, to run the Tagula as far south
as Samarai, the chief settlement of East New Guinea.
There Lady Mary could have been comfortably put up
in a reasonably good house, with the Resident Magis-
trate, and have waited for the arrival of a steamer in a
month or two.
Yes, that was what we ought to have done. Jim and
Fk wer and I had no need to consult with one another,
while the flags went up the mast, to understand what
each was thinking. We had been selfish — not because
of ^ reasure, or at least not wholly, but because of other
things. One other thing, perhaps one might say. Or
perhaps one other person. Yes, that was down to bed-
roc !c at last. We had not wanted to lose the Sea-Lady.
Well, our sins — if they were sins — had found us out.
There was one of His Majesty King Edward's ships of
wai, squat and grey, and streaming smoke from her
funnels as no other vessel that ploughs the Coral Sea
ever does or did — for we have no true Ocean Greyhounds
on the Pacific side — and we were haihng her. And
undoubtedly we would see and speak to her officers.
And ten to one they would know all about our Sea- Lady,
and would take her on board, and with their great
spe< d run her down to Samarai in the course of a day.
And maybe they would use their wireless to get a
stea ner to call. Oh, I could imagine lots of things —
once we got in touch with His Majesty's ship.
92 The Terrible Island
I could have laughed to see the look on Flower's face,
I swear he had turned quite pale. And Rocky Jim
had put on the special cast-iron expressionless ex-
pression that he kept for moments of emotional stress.
I don't know what I was looking like ; very much
** down in the mouth," I should suppose.
But Carl, watching for the warship's answer through
his binoculars, seemed merely concerned with his duty
as a seaman.
The warship was making in our direction, and so fast
did she go that her funnels, and her turrets, and her
fighting -tops, all crept into view within a very few
minutes. It seemed no time at all till she was tearing
close up to us, two great cascades of foam pouring from
her formidable bow, a huge white wake marking her
progress tlirough the sea, and the turn she had made
when nearing us. Carl had hove the schooner to (he
did not trust the Sea- Lady with that job, though I think
she was fully competent, but took the wheel himself,
while he shouted orders to the scrambUng, squawking
boys), and the man-of-war, running smoothly with her
engines stopped, to within a few hundred yards of us,
came to a pause, lowered a boat, and sent her alongside.
A lieutenant, smart as — well, as a naval lieutenant ;
there is no simile — sprang up our Jacob's ladder, and
stood on the Tagula's deck, looking sharply about him.
He picked out Carl in the wink of an eye.
" You're the master, aren't you ? " he asked.
" I am," was Carl's answer. " I haff signalled to you
that there iss an English shipwrecked lady on board."
" Quite so. Is that the lady ? "
Lady Mary had not abandoned the wheel ; as soon as
Carl stepped away from it, she had come back again,
His Majesty's Ship 93
and was standing on the grating, her hands resting
lightly on the spokes, and shaking backwards and
forwards as the schooner swung idly in the trough of the
seas. I saw the young lieutenant look at her, and a
change came into his face ; it lost for a moment the
hard-cut man-of-war expression, and became suddenly
hun an and very young.
" Ah ! " was all he said, but it was enough to make me
dislike him on the spot. What right had he to be
" ah-ing " over our Sea-Lady ? He had not picked her
out of the Pacific.
I ^vondered that Percival Flower did not take up the
conversation, smce he was always inclined to look for
the lead. But I remembered, in time, that a captain is
king on his own ship, and that it was Carl's place to
manage things.
He was quite equal to the occasion.
" If you willstep a little forwardt, pleass," he said, " I
will tell you everything."
Thiy went out of Lady Mary's hearing, but not out of
ours, and Carl, briefly and clearly, despite his odd
accent, told the young officer just how the case stood,
not fc rgetting Lady Mary's loss of memory.
*' S) that iss how it iss," he concluded. " She does
not know who she iss nor where she wass wrecked. But
we think that you may haff been somewhere that you
may hear."
There was a puzzled expression on the young man's
face, hs he stood swaying upon the unsteady deck, the
gold buttons and strij^s on his white uniform glinting
sharply in the sun.
" Yt s, we're only five days out from Brisbane, and we
should know all about any wreck," he said. " But
94 The Terrible Island
there's been none recently in this part of the Pacific
that one has heard of. Certainly no big liner. Theut
was none due. We have had notice of a pretty big liner
wreck about three weeks ago — a terrible job ; Princess
of Siberia lost three days out from San Francisco ;
collided with a derehct, and every soul lost but two
men. But I don't see how that could have anything to
do with the lady you have on board. It was thousands
of miles away from here. Lots of important people on
her ; they were going south for the Sydney Inter-
national Exhibition. Terrible thing. By the way, do
you know whether we can get any fresh meat along this
coast ? Not likely to strike another chance for God-
knows-when."
" There is no meat, unless you could buy a few pigc(;
from the natives, and they haff not many," said Carl.
" H'm — Captain Cook pigs ; I know the kind ; all
leg and snout, and take half a day to run down with
dogs. . . . Not worth calhng for. But about this lad}'
—will you present me ? My name's Franklin."
Carl took him up to the wheel, and went through the
awkward one-sided ceremony. "This is Lieutenant
Franklin, my lady," he said.
The Sea-Lady bowed.
" I am glad to see you on board our ship," was whai
she said. I think she was dreaming, awake, of the
yacht on which she had learned that fancy seamanship
of hers, in another world and time.
I could hear him " oh-ing " again, in his own mine.
She was looking more than ever hke a white daffodil
blown out to sea ; he would not have been human, pr \
sailor — and sailors are doubly human — if he had net;
admired her.
His Majesty's Ship 95
" Well," he said easily, " how would you like to com«
over and have a look at mine ? "
" [ should be delighted," was her reply. But you
could not tell whether she was delighted or not.
" Then we'll go," he said. " I'm sure the captain
will L)e glad to meet you and your friends. You'll come,
of course, Mr. "
Carl introduced Flower and myself and Jim.
" 1 daresay," said the lieutenant, " we'll be able to
run lier down to Samarai for you. This trading trip "
(we iiad not seen fit to mention the real object of the
voyage) " is hardly the thing for a lady passenger. Of
course, we aren't allowed to keep ladies on board over a
day, even in these out-of-the-way places, unless under
very special circumstances, but I'm sure the captain will
run you down to-morrow if you like."
Of course ; I had known it ; I had foreseen it. And
there was the end of — of — of what ?
" Oh, of everything," I said to myself angrily, without
trying to define further just what it was that I was
going to lose. Flower took a step towards the bulwarks.
The Sea-Lady let go the useless wheel, I thought with
some regret, and came forward, a pleasant smile on her
face. But then she would have smiled like that if you
had b ien leading her to the stake.
" Will you come v/ith us, or would you rather not leave
your ship ? " asked the officer of Carl.
No direct reply came. The moon-faced captain was
gazing at the warship, as she lay rolUng gently on the
swell iome half-mile away.
"I think," he said, "those are signalce they are
sending to you." *
The lieutenant, with something very like a suppressed
96 The Terrible Island
oath of dismay, turned sharply round ; he had been too
much taken up with our Sea-Lady to see what he ouglit
to have seen. The signal for immediate recall w;is
flying from the great grey vessel's foremast.
" By Jove ! " he said, hastily hand-signalling in reply.
The flags fluttered down, and another string took their
place.
" Gad ! " he exclaimed. " Awfully sorry, shan't l)e
able to take you on board after all. The owner's caUin'
me to hurry up. Wireless talkin' some rot or other lo
us. I say, I mayn't see you again " — to the Sea -Lady —
" but you simply must write to me, and let me help to
find your friends for you. I'd do anything to help you.
I Good-bye. Good-bye." He was over the side,
and into the boat.
" Give way, men," he cried, and the sailors, who had
been staring hard at us all the time, bent to their oars
with a man-of-war swing, and sent the whaleboat
flying.
" Well ! " I said, as the boat grew smaller, nearing the
warship. " That's a curious sort of start."
Carl, busy lighting a pipe, said nothing for a while.
Then, as soon as the bowl was fairly glowing, and he had
taken a puff,
" She will steer to the north-east," he said.
" Why ? What makes you think so ? What did tlie
signals say ? "
" The signalce, off course they were code. But y<:iu
will see. That way hce German New Guinea, and wh-in
one off our ships " (Carl was a naturalised AustraHan)
" goce off in a hurry hke that, it is something in Germ. in
New Guinea that makes them go. I tell you, there is
dynamite up there, and some day it will explode."
His Majesty's Ship 97
W'e were not much interested in Carl's predictions.
" Does that mean that the warship won't come back ? "
I asked.
" I shall be much surprisedt if she does. Now,
boyce ! Look alife ! My lady, I will trust you to take
the ^v'heel again, if you like to haff it."
Ar d in another ten minutes we were rolling and
foaming away again, on our course to the Lusancays,
and he warship, miles distant, was growing small and
dim. She must have been doing two and twenty knots.
She ^vas hull down, she was gone, before we had made
anotlier couple of beats to windward. We might have
f ancit !d the whole occurrence was a dream.
But now we knew that the mystery encompassing our
Sea-Lady was a mystery indeed.
Two days should have been the voyage to the Lusan-
cays, with a fair wind. The wind was very far from fair,
and we took eight days to sight the first of the outlying
islets. I think we all grew rather weary of the eternal
beat, Deat to windward, of the Tagula's roll and stagger
in th( trough of combing seas, of spray rattUng Uke
heavy shot upon her decks, and sails eternally slatting
and thundering overhead. But the rapid improvement
shown by the Sea-Lady would have compensated me —
Flower also, I fancy — for ten times the inconveniences
we su:ifered. She seemed to glow and expand Uke a
blossom placed in water, from the very first day of the
voyage. She was clearly an out-of-doors sporting girl
of the modern EngUsh kind. Apart from her clever
handhig of the Tagula, she was a good shot with the
guns we carried in the saloon arms rack — trifle or shot-gun
alike— and beat all of us but Rocky Jim at the breaking-
G
98 The Terrible Island
botilc game. 1 could fancy her, in the perfectly-cut
tweed shooting-dress of country-house wear, tramping in
the moors with her gun on her shoulder, or glad in
mackintosh and "waders," skilfully throwing the fly
over the shallows of some quiet stream.
And yet there was something about her different from
the ordinary girl of good society. I could not put a
name to it ; it was floating, elusive. It seemed to lie
connected with a certain quiet way she had of standini^,
with her hands Hghtly crossed in front of her, for half
an hour or more at a time, without moving, except for
the swing of her figure with the swinging of the ship. It
made me think of things — and I could not tell what tlie
deuce the things were.
Then, her smile — who on earth was that smile like ?
What did the wide, open glance of those large eyes of
hers remind me of ? I didn't know, but I felt at time s
as if I too had had a knock on the head, and forgotten
something that I ought to remember.
Flower and Rocky Jim were of no help to me. I told
them, as well as I could, about the odd, formless remin-
iscences she suggested ; but they hardly seemed to
understand what I was driving at.
Nevertheless, we had many talks about the Sea-Lady,
when she had gone below to her cabin for the afternoon
sleep that she generally took. We got maps of the
Pacific, and worked out the distance from the spot wheje
the Princess of Siberia had been wrecked, to the place
where Lady Mary had come ashore. We asked eah
other if there was the shghtest chance that she cou d
have been connected in any way with that terriMe
disaster. And the verdict was that she could not.
Even supposing, for the sake of argument, that sor le
His Majesty's Ship 99
passenger liner had picked her up, and carried her lu our
pari of the Pacific, the hner would have had to keep a
pace that no boat save a New York-Liverpool flyer
could attempt.
No. Behind the moment when the Sea-Lady had
walked into all our lives, glittering in her satin and
jcwc led ball-dress, out of the breakers of the Coral Sea,
there was a sheer blank wall.
" .vU the same," said Flower on one of those after-
noons balancing himself against the roll of the ship, as
he Icunged on the top of the deck-house, "she must
have come from some ship, from some large ship, and
recently from some large ship. That stands clear. If
we d(»n't understand it, it is simply because some of the
figiu-( 5 in the sum aren't in our possession. It'll all dry
straight some day."
" I don't see how we are ever to find out," I said.
We were interrupted by Sapphira. For some days
nows le had been rapidly recovering, and on this after-
noon she reappeared on deck somewhat unsteady as to
her balance, but in full possession of all her faculties.
We Wire very comfortable that afternoon, I remember.
A coloured quartermaster was steering. Carl was
lying n a long canvas chair securely lashed to the cleats
( 'f the hatch cover, Jim was on the hatch cover itself,
with a pillow under his head, and an after-dinner glass
of whisky -and-water wedged in the crook of his elbow.
Flowei and I were sitting back to back against the
mizzer , smoking and reading. The sky was clearer
than V e had seen it for some days ; great lakes of blue
were floating amongst the clouds, and the eternal torment
of the vind and sea was beginning to die down. It was
a pleas mt afternoon, and we felt at peace.
100 The Terrible Iisland
Into this came Sapphira, trig, clean, and stowed-away
of aspect ; her massive hair cabled tightly, her apron
tied amidships and on top. There was a light in her eye
that seemed to make Flower uneasy, for he put down his
book and turned his pipe in his mouth, regarding her
watchfully the while. I remembered afterwards that he
was the only man of us who had been married.
" Are you aware," demanded Sapphira, in a carefully
restrained voice, " of the state of the kitchen ? "
"What's the matter with the galley? " asked Carl,
to whom her question was directed. He sat up in his
chair, as a concession to manners, then seemed to think
better of it.
" Haff my chair," he said, getting up.
" If you can sit down," said Sapphira, " with that
kitchen on your conscience — and smoke — and sleep — I
don't envy you."
Carl looked as if he did not particularly envy himself
at the moment.
" What's the matter ? " he asked again.
" The matter," said Sapphira, " is that this ship,
from the top of the staircase to the end of the bedrooms,
and from the snout of her " (Jim let out an eldritch
laugh) " to her tail, or whatever you choose to call it, is
dirty."
" She is notthing of the kindt," said Carl indignantly.
" Her decks are washed down every morning, and y(3u
won't see a speck on her brasswork. Ant the boyce
sweep the cabince every day."
"You call that being clean?" said Sapphira, sill
with that ominous restraint in her voice.
" If that iss not clean, what iss ? " asked Carl, pic-
serving his courtesy with evident care.
His Majesty's Ship loi
' ' You're asking me to tell you, are you ? ' ' The tension
of lier voice had increased. I felt as you feel in the
theatre when the Nihilist conspirator is standing with
his hand on the key that is to let off the explosive mine,
and the dialogue is leading up to the obvious clue.
" Certainly," said our captain. He had been touched
on cne of the chiefest points of a shipmaster's honour,
and for the moment he really did not fear Sapphira a bit.
" Then come ! " she exploded, taking him by the hand
— hf had dropped back into his seat — and fairly " yank-
ing ' " him out of it again she whirled him along the deck
— the Papuan crew stopping even their betel-nut chewing
to stare at the strange sight — brought him up with a
round turn at the galley door, and said, " Come inside."
Carl did not come. He stood outside the doorway —
there was indeed scant room for two — while Sapphira
swurg herself into the interior of the galley, and in the
open door confronted him.
"Does the cooky boy boil his dish-cloths every
after loon ? " she asked, with a terrible calm. " Does
he boil them every week ? every month even ? Does
he ev^.r ? "
"I'm sure I don't " Carl was beginning, but
Sappliira swept on.
" How long is it since the stove has been cleaned out ?
How long is it since anything in the place saw a lick of
blackiead ? Where's the stove-brushes ? What's in
that rubbage-can behind the door ? Do you dare to
look ? I knew you didn't. Is that the glass-cloths
he's been scrubbing the floor with, or is it the tea-cloths,
or is the dish-rags all one with them, and they with the
floorcloths ? "
" That's right, Sapphira," said Jim approvingly, over
102 The Terrible Island
the captain's shoulder. " Draft 'em all off into their
own yards. Let's have a proper round-up, and I'll
stand by to cut out any of them that doesn't belong.
Are they cleanskins, or are they proper branded ? "
" Clean ! " snorted Sapphira. " There's nothing clertn
about this ship. And as to brands, you just reminded
me, there's not a blooming one of them marked. How
can you stand there " — to Carl — " and call yourself a
captain, and sail these seas with not one of your kitchc n
cloths marked, giving-us-all-stomach-ache-and-domai i-
poisoning "(I inferred she meant ptomaine)- " and-flu2-
that-deep-under-the-bunks-and-water-six-months-in-tlie
bottles-before- God-Almighty-and-these-gentlemen- Carl-
you're-a-proper-^j^ ./ " [Prestissimo alfine.)
" Cut it, Carl, you're in the soup," remarked Jim. But
Sapphira was not to be put off so easily. She dodged out
of the galley, and got between Carl and the rigging.
"Come down below," she ordered; and Carl, ap-
parently hypnotised, obeyed her, murmuring dismayed ly
to himself, " My Gawt ! My Gawt ! " Sapphira
herded him down the companion. The skyUghts were
open, and her subsequent progress was easily to l^e
traced, by the continuous sermon that came flowing up
on deck.
"Do you see the date of that newspaper under tlie
cushion where it's been ever since you got it ? Five
months old. Shake them books in the bookcase "
(clapping noise, and a sneeze). " Yes, I'm glad you re
getting it. Argh ! stamp on it, stamp on it before it
stings. I suppose there's nests of them. . . . Hit it
with the knife — the knife ! . . . Now give me the k y
of them cupboards."
*' I am very sorry, but it hass been "
r
His Majesty's Ship 103
Don't say lost. Don't do it, Carl. I seen it coming
up to your lips. You give me them keys. ..."
An ominous pause.
' ' Whisky's clean, even when it's spilled. I don't take
no exception to whisky. And tobacco. That's a
disinfectant, they say. Well, I never seen a place
wanting disinfecting more. . . . You needn't tell me
you didn't know them tomatoes was there. You didn't
carx Got them in Thursday Island last month, I
suppose. Or last year in Brisbane when you went for
yoir annual overhaul. . . . Could any Christian woman
cas- away in this heathen land call them things socks, or
sho aid she say they was meant for rags to clean the door-
handles with, that's never cleaned anyhow ? . . .
Burst accordion, full of filthy cockroaches, and two
teaspoons, that I'll lay you never knew was lost, inside
of it. . . . What kind of pills? — Beecham's, well, they
didn't do no harm to them cockroaches that's been
eating of them, so I suppose they must have gone bad on
you , and no wonder, because fresh butter — yes, it was !
don t I see the paper the Company puts it in ? — isn't
meaat to trickle down from top shelves over everything
else when the sun's on that side of the ship, and destroy
everything it touches, and you have a master mariner's
certificate, and you let such things go on! Yes, I
thoi ght it was Jam — or it has been, you can always tell
by tnemusheroonsthatgrowsout ontopof thetin. . . .
Theie's only part of them there — two aces missing and
mosi of the spades, and anyway there's too much
play ng away of wages in this country, by half. . . .
Blacdng isn't meant to be stored along with table-
cloths, let me tell you, as you don't seem to know — not
even when they aren't tablecloths, but sheets that's had
104 The Terrible Island
holes burned in them and sauce spilled over. Pot of
honey with a hairbrush in it. The hairbrush'U wash,
but it's a sinful waste of good food. If you don't know
what that is, I'll tell you ; it's some of your carboUc
toothpowder, and there isn't anything on the face of
the earth will run loose among everything you've got
like carboUc toothpowder, if once you let it go. News-
papers and ..."
I heard no more ; not because there was no more to
come, but because I was doing what Percival Flower haci
done already — fleeing hotfoot to my cabin. It was i
four-berth one, none too big, and I shared it with Flower
and Rocky Jim. Carl bunked in what he persisted in
calling the " saloon." The big man and I were at one ;
we desired almost feverishly to get at that cabin, and
sort it up as far as might be, before Sapphira in the
course of her devastating career got round to us. I was
sorry to note that the wind and sea were dying down
every minute. Our only chance would have been a gale.
We found Rocky Jim in the little alleyway outside
the cabin, leaning against the bulkhead with his hands in
his pockets, and a twinkle in his eye.
"Here, you've just got time," warned Flower.
" Come in and stow your things, they're hung all over
the floor."
*' Not I," said Jim calmly, surveying our frantic
efforts — I am conscious, now, that we must have looked
exceedingly like a very large and a very small terrier
hunting unusually numerous rats in an -unusually dense
stack of hay. " I've too much regard for Sapphira."
" What do you mean ? "
" Don't you see how she's enjoying herself ? Ever</
crime she unearths makes her feel happier. The pocr
ir
His Majesty's Ship 105
woman hasn't many pleasures. Why should you take
away one of the few she has ? "
Flower muttered something about " fun to her, death
to us," as he scrabbled under my berth for our mutual
accumulated "wash." I was too busy throwing
assorted rubbish out of the port to say anything. We
made a kind of rough-and-ready clearance, and then
went up on deck again. Sapphira, for the moment, was
not visible. I judged by the sounds that she had got
int ) the forecastle, where the* natives slept, and was
organising what housewives know as a "turn-out."
Bu:kets of very dirty water began to trickle down Carl's
immaculate decks. He looked unhappy.
' I wonder," he said, his blue eyes wide and mourn-
ful," why the goodt Gawt should haff made women so."
' / wonder," said Jim, " if she'll scrub down Ku-Ku
Island when we find it, and sweep all the untidy shells
off the beach. It would only have to be done twice a
da}, when the tide came in and went out again, and
the 1 everything'd be tidy. I hope she will. I Hke to
see people happy."
"Do you?" said Carl in a hostile tone. "What
about me and the otherce ? I tell you, I shall not landt
on 1 hat islandt. Not for fifty treasures. It iss not so
badt on my own ship, where I am master if I like, but
on ^hore . . . No, I will standt off and on as long as
you like, but on that islandt with that woman, I will
not set my foot."
V,^e roared with laughing. But I daresay we might
not have laughed quite so much if we could have
foreicen what this freak of Sapphira 's was going to
cost us.
It did not end that day. Next morning she got on to
io6 The Terrible Island
the cabins, and had every article they contained, down
to the floor carpets, carried out on deck. I don't knc»w
what she and the boys did afterwards, in the emptied
rooms, except raise the devil generally, but I cannot
think it was chance made Carl discover, on that especial
morning, a weak spot in the main gaff that wanted his
personal attention, and necessitated his spending all the
time between breakfast and lunch aloft, swinging hke a
spider up in the high blue. By lunch — or rather early
dinner — ^time, the gale seemed to have blown itself out.
I do not refer to the weather, which had settled down to
calms and light breezes, but to the squall of spring-
cleaning that had broken on the ship.
Most of the crew had been taken off their work — it
was well the weather was fine — to scrub, swill out, wash,
boil, hang in the rigging, sort and stow away, everythhig
movable and immovable of the ship's domestic property.
Carl had escaped, as I say ; the two brown quarter-
masters had the course, and as the wind was fair, for
once, there was no '"bout ship" to bring him down
again. The Sea-Lady had gone to her cabin with a
book. Flower, up on the poop, was pretending to notice
nothing. Rocky Jim, who I think must have been
possessed of the devil, was going about after Sapphira,
cheering her on in her efforts.
" Here, Sapphira," I heard him say, " run your finger
round the inside of the main hatch coaming, and lick it
after — I did it, and I tasted dust as sure as you're bora.
Couldn't see dust, but it was there. Can't mistake tie
taste of dust. Sapphira, this is a dreadful ship, ar d
we're a dirty lot of cows, all right. It's awfully good )f
you to take all this trouble. I can't tell you how good I
think it of you."
■IT
His Majesty's Ship 107
The next thing I knew, he was after her about the
ports.
" You haven't noticed it, Sapphira, but these ports
have only been washed with soap and water, and the
brass cleaned, ever since we left port. Not a grain of
wiitening on the glass, or a ball of old newspaper to
shine them up. And they want it, Sapphira ; the sea
k(^eps coming ov^er them and dirtying them with salt all
da y long. Shall I set two of the boys to whitening them
III > between the seas ? • • • Did you have a good look at
the corners of that gilt moulding that runs across the
cabin ceiling ? Let me get you a toothbrush. I've
been to sea a lot, and I know they never use anything
else for cleaning out those carvings but toothbrushes.
Yts, do come into my cabin, I'd love to have you.
It's on my mind night and day, the state I have my
th ngs in. I'm a careless pig, Sapphira, and that's the
tn th. I ought to be ashamed of myself. Yes, that's
my swag. Let me capsize it. Isn't it a disgrace to any
respectable man to have his things in such a mess ? I
ne /er mend anything ; I ought to be keelhauled. I'm
such a bad example, too, I spoil all the others even if
th( y're inchned to be tidy. Oh, Sapphira, look at that
— ^vhat a beast I am to have all that bird's-eye spilled
among my clean shirts — if you can call them clean,
when nothing belonging to me is. And such a waste of
go<d tobacco too, it's enough to bring down a curse
from Heaven on me. The truth is, Sapphira, that I'm
too lazy to look after anything but my own comfort,
an( what's worse, I don't care. It's nothing to me what
sta^e things are in. Oh, this is a dirty ship, and a
disgrace to the Pacific Ocean, and I'm the dirtiest and
unt idiest thing in it. You won't be able to keep patience
io8 The Terrible Island
with me; nobody could, and I don't deserve it. If you
were my mother, Sapphira, wouldn't you "
1^
" Your what ? " It came up from the cabin hke t.
pistol-shot.
" My mother, my dear old dead mother. If you wei
her, wouldn't you give me a talking to ? But "
" Why, Lord bless your ignorance, Jim Todd, hov
old do you think I am ? "
" I wouldn't think about it, Sapphira ; it wouldn't he-
respectful, and I do respect you a lot. I wish you'd trj'
and teach me to be clean and tidy. I don't know that
anybody could, but it would do me good to be talked tc)
a bit. Just as if you were my "
I don't know what it was that went down or off with
a smash just then. When I asked Jim, he only said i1
was Sapphira's temper giving way. Give way it.
certainly did. She went out of the cabin Uke a rocket ;
I do not know where she disappeared to — it might havc^
been the hold — but we saw her no more till dinner-time.
And then, shortly after, it dawned upon myself and
Flower that Rocky Jim, the undaunted, had done what
no other man on the ship — nor any other in New Guinea
— could have done. He had tamed Sapphira.
She was tamed. We had a day or two to run yet
before sighting the elusive Lusancays, and during thai
time there were no more upheavals. Instead, she took
command of the galley, and produced meals for us thai
almost reconciled Carl to all she had made him suffer.
" The worst I haff to say of New Guinea," he remarked
confidentially, after a noble feed, "iss that there isv
almost never anything you may call nice to eat. In m;-
country "
" Talking of that," broke in Jim, " last time I was in
His Majesty's Ship 109
Port Moresby the steamer was in, and one of the usual
tourists was roaming about looking at things, and he
saii to a Government officer — you can guess who — ' This
is £ wonderful tree you have in New Guinea, this beauti-
ful pawpaw. I understand that besides being lovely,
and agreeably scented, it is a sovereign remedy for
dy pepsia and indigestion. Is it not, sir ? ' And the
old boy looked at him, and said, ' I don't know.' * You
don't know, sir ? * said the tourist. ' No,' says he.
' We never have indigestion in New Guinea — no such
luck.' "
We all laughed. Sapphira opened her mouth, but
before she could speak Jim burst in,
' But men are such pigs, anyhow. All they care
about is what they put in their faces. That's what
we're like. Give us a plateful of something to guzzle,
and the world might be on fire all round us, for what
we'd care. I've no patience with us. Have you,
Sapphira ? "
I saw her look at him oddly, but she was silent.
h was cool and pleasant on deck. We loafed, reading
and talking. Sapphira had gone below. Something
moved me to ask Carl — not Jim,
" How old do you think she is, really ? "
And Carl said soberly, " I don't know. She hass been
very handsome, once."
Jim looked as if he were about to speak, but thought
better of it.
Ii.to the midst of our talk came the Sea- Lady, walking
ligh- ly on the level deck.
" I think," she said, " the Lusancays are in sight."
It was true. We had been so much taken up with our
dinner — I fear Jim's burlesque statements had some core
no The Terrible Island
of truth in them — that nobody had noticed the low line
of pale blue dots on the horizon, until the Sea- Lady
drew our attention to it. Carl got up with a hurried
exclamation.
"That iss Finster ahead," he said. "And Dis-
appointment that iss just on the edge off the horizon. I
will tell you now, I haff a very good idea which is that
Ku-Ku Islandt."
" It won't tell us much, as we haven't seen tho
group," said Flower.
"Ant you won't see it either. Finster and Dis-
appointment, and that atoll that iss Caradoc — it iss just
wash — they are in a long line away out at the end of th()
Lusancays; we shall not go to them, but only Dis-
appointment we shall sight, and then we shall mak(3
nor'-nor'-east for about ten milece, and then there iss an
islandt that hass no name, and I think that might bn
Ku-Ku's. There iss two off them near together, ant
they are no good, and everyone goes a long way out from
them for they are dangerous. If that iss not Ku-Ku's
islandt, one off them, then it iss nowhere."
" We shan't get there to-day ? "
" We might, and we might not, but I shall not try.
Rather I shall take sail off her. I do not want to makv
that islandt except in good daylight in the morning. I
tell you, it iss a badt islandt. To-morrow morning it
will be."
And to-morrow it was.
CHAPTER V
ON THE TERRIBLE ISLAND
WE made the unnamed island about ten
o'clock next morning. The breeze had
failed almost altogether, and we had a
long beat of it, creeping up and up by
degiees, over a sea barely ruffled by the lightest possible
wind. I cannot hope to describe the wonder and beauty
of the waters through which we passed. It was not new
to me by this time, yet I could not help exclaiming, when
the Tagula went slowly leaning and sliding past some
mile long stretch of shallows coloured vivid verdigris
green, with deeps of blue — Reckitt's blue — running
shar )ly into it, and tracts of curious pale lilac showing,
and glancing, and eluding the eye again, as reef after
reef opened out. This beauty, of course, had another
side, and Carl expressed it vividly when he came down
from conning the ship in the cross-trees, and shook his
brou n fist at the sea.
" Why do you do that ? " asked Lady Mary. She
was not steering now ; the bo 'sun, a smart and capable
native sailor, was standing at the wheel, dressed in a red
bead dog-collar and two yards of blue-and-yellow
checked calico. He had been keeping a sharp ear for
his c iptain's calls from aloft, and now that we were
through the worst of the reefs, still had his eyes firmly
fixed ahead, looking for more.
112 The Terrible Island
"Because that sea iss full of those badt colource,"
•aid Carl, his English rather worse than usual through
stress of feeling.
" Oh, I never in all my Ufe saw anj^hing so lovely."
She stood smiling at him with that heart-melting smile
of hers ; she would have made any man disavow his
dearest convictions. . . .
" Well," allowed Carl reluctantly, " perhaps they ai e
pretty, but I hate them. Every time I see those
colource, I shake my handt at them, because they shall
put my Tagula in danger. No, Lady Mary, give me the
dee-eep blue water that is out of soundingce, not thecs
badt beautiful places. I hope no squahl come up when
we are here, or I shall haff to run, and that Ku-Ku
Islandt, it must wait for another day."
"Couldn't we land if the weather were bad? " I
asked.
" If the islandt iss the one I think it. . . . Well, wait
till you see, that iss all I say. Now, my lady, I shall
ask you to excuce me, I must go aloft again."
Flower all this time had been looking through his
glass, which was a magnificent one, at a dim blue mass
some miles ahead of us. He now folded the glass,
slipped it into his case, and remarked,
" As bad a looking approach, and as nasty a set of
reefs, as you could wish to see. Sort of natural sea-
fortress. If the island is all Carl says "
It was. Long before we came up to it we saw it
clearly, standing out high against the heavens, m
isolated, table-topped cUff of a place, heavily bushed :>n
top, and with long green streamers of tropic vires
dripping down its sides.
" It looks," remarked Sapphira, as we worked slov ly
On the Terrible Island 113
in, Carl displaying magnificent seamanship, ** like a big
white cake as had been iced too thick with green icing,
and the icing was dripping down its sides."
" It looks," I said, half under my breath, " Uke the
end of the world." And indeed it did. In spite of the
marvellous beauty of the place, there was a sense of
finality, of fate — something like the strange aura of
sadness that hovers round the beauty of a late gold
summer afternoon, bringing reasonless tears to the eyes
— about this island at the end of all the islands. The
day was one of those too perfect days that throw a
magclight on the meanest things ; that gild a heap of
abandoned crockery into jewels, and turn a dustbin to
a thing of mystic beauty. What it was, about that
lonely, palm-crowned coral island in the midst of those
fairy seas, may be imagined, but never told.
Th:i Sea-Lady felt it. You could see the sense of the
wonder of the place run through her as the electric
curre!it runs through the wires. And I, who know so
much more about women than I would wish to know —
for ill the great game of life, as in the smallest, the
looker-on sees most — I knew that, in Lady Mary as in
meaner women, and in higher too, if there are any
higher than she, love would wake, under the heart-
warm; ng caused by all this beauty, as a flower wakes
under the sun. Because the seas about this island were
colomed like the gems in the heavenly city — because
the Txgula floated on green lagoon water like a white
butterfly hovering upon a meadow, and the day was one
•f a tl ousand days — ^the big surveyor would look noble
m my lady's eyes ; his voice would have tones unheard
by hei before ; her thoughts would go to him, brightly,
kindly like innocent birds on the wing, flying they knew
H
114 The Terrible Island
not whither in unreasoning gladness of summer. Oh,
I knew, I knew !
It took us a long time to creep slowly and cautiously,
under the sea of the high white coral cUff. We were tW
on deck, Sapphira, for once, quiet and unaggressiv<' :
Jim, hands in pockets, looking with an utterly i i-
expressive face at the formidable heights ahead ; Flow n
standing where he chose to stand, close to the Sea-Lady.
I hummed something under my breath ; I do not know
what put it into my head, or rather perhaps I do knew
too well and do not care to say. At all events Sapphira
heard me.
*' Owen Ireland, if you're going to sing, sing so that
we can hear you," she said. " Everybody knows you
ought to 'a' been on the stage, only for ..."
She broke off. I could fill the gap easily enough. But
I was not easily hurt by Sapphira, and I wanted our
Sea-Lady to know wherein the cripple was swifter and
stronger than other men. So I took up the air I had
been humming, and sang it full voice.
" Scenes that are brightest can charm awhile,
Hearts that are lightest, and Ups that smile,
But though above us all Nature beam
With no one to love us, how sad they seem ! "
I sang it through ; I sang it as I know that I can sing,
and perhaps not ten others under the Line. Like all
singers that are not mere canary birds, I was shaken by
my own song ; at the end I had tears in my eyes.
They cleared away. I saw Sapphira looking . . . no, I
will not tell you at whom she looked, and how. I saw
Carl, down from the mast again, and standing still a.s a
statue on the fore-deck, his eyes fixed thousands i ad
thousands of miles away— as far, I think, as Swed;;n,
On the Terrible Island 115
and its lakes and cold forests and its faithful, blue-eyed
maidens. ... I looked at the Sea-Lady for the glow
that the song should have kindled; well I knew where
Flo\ver's eyes would be, but after my song I hoped she
would have a glance for the singer.
She was looking, not to me and not to him, nor out
to t lie horizon, where our eyes go when our thoughts are
far away. Her face was bent down towards the deck,
and the red of a dawning rose that none of us had ever
seen was on her cheeks. Of whom was she thinking ?
The picture broke as the glass shatters with a blow.
" Down jib ! " roared Carl in a hurricane voice.
" Y( u Wai-Wai, all clear forward ? Let go anchor ! "
Tie boys went to obey his orders, but slowly, and it
seened reluctantly.
"Me no hkem this fellow place," growled Wai-Wai,
the l)o'sun. "This no good place altogether. Plenty
debil-debilstop along this fashion place."
"I'll debil-debil you with a rope-endt," said Carl.
" Gei to your work."
Th^ Tagula was anchored in calm water a few cables'
length from the island. The day was so still that we
had had hard work to get up to the place ; indeed, had
'it not been for an invisible sweeping tide, we might have
had t J make our way there in the boat for the last mile
or two. As the season went — it was now the north-west
time- -the ship lay safely, since the height of the island
cut o:f the prevailing wind, if there had been any.* But
Carl (lid not seem altogether satisfied. The boys were
gettirg out the boat.
" Put the kai-kai in," he told the bo 'sun. " Jim, you
might help me if you hke." He had brought up a
number of tins from the lazarette, and piled thera on
ii6 The Terrible Island
deck. The big water-breakers in the boat were already
fuU.
" Spare me days," said Jim, pipe hanging out of tlie
corner of his mouth, " we ain't going to eat all that this
afternoon."
"Nevertheless we shall put it in," maintained Carl.
" If any accident should happen, that is a badt, ba^lt
island t to be on."
" Anything to please," said Jim obligingly. The boys
slung tins intothe boat, and Carl, reading out from a Ust,
tallied them with Jim to count.
" Cap., you're mighty particular," observed the minor.
" I haff been cast away," answered Carl.
" You never told us about it."
" Now I never will."
"Did you kai-kai one another ? "
" How many tince of biscuit is that ? You do not
mindt your work." Carl was very much captain this
morning.
The boat was loaded and slung into the water. Do^vn
the Jacob's ladder went Flower, to steady things ; the
Sea-Lady, Sapphira, Jim and I.
" Come on, Carl," said Jim.
" I am not coming," said the captain. " It iss no use
I come, as I do not mean to stay. I will standt off and
on ass long ass the weather lets me, but on that islandt
I do not go."
"Why not? You don't really believe that yarn
about pouri-pouri ? "
" It iss not a nice yam, and I do not like it, but . . .
No, on the islandt I do not go."
"Can't Wai-Wai be trusted with the ship for an
hour ? "
On the Terrible Island 117
" [ would trust Wai-Wai with my Tagula from here
to Sumarai. It iss no matter. I am not going. "
"Now, Sapphira ! " remarked Jim reproachfully.
" What are you ' now-ing ' about ? " she demanded,
beginning to get up steam.
Ji;n burst forth.
'" What proper cows we are ! Every one of us the
same, and none of us better than another. You're
right, Sapphira, you're always right." (She had not
had i. chance to say a word.) " As for me, I'm the worst
of the lot, and you wouldn't give a bad halfpenny for
mc— no one would. When things go wrong I blame
you, just as if they were your fault, and when they go
right I never give you credit. I make you tired. No
woncer. I'm all gab and no get-and-get-to work.
Sappiiira, you're just sick of me."
" I am," said Sapphira, striking frantically with her
blunted weapon.
" Didn't I tell you ? " demanded Jim triumphantly,
as one who claims an honest victory. Then he swung
into t he stern seat and took the tiller.
*' So long, Carl, if you won't come," he said. " We'll
be back for dinner."
"You had better not stay too long in this weather,"
warned the Swede, leaning over the quaint banister rail
of the ship.
" \^'hy ? " I remonstrated. " It's perfect — a hand-
picked specially-selected pet day."
"Taat iss why," said Carl. " It iss too good."
" Y )u're in the sulks, Carl," shouted Jim, as the boat
pulled off. " Go and get a duster to play with, to keep
you fr^m fretting till we get back."
Carl ignored the remark.
ii8 The Terrible Island
" Row roundt the islandt till you come to somm safe
place," he called. " You cannot landt there, but there
iss sure to be somm little break, maybe where the water :e
run down from the top."
"Thanks," called Flower. We pulled away.
" Anyhow," I said, " if this is or isn't Ku-Ku's island,
the Greek chaps haven't found it out. There doesri't
seem to be a soul about the place."
In truth there did not. As we rowed on round the
precipitous cliffs, in the unnatural calm of that still gold
day, the oars of the native boatmen waked lonely echoc s
against the rocks ; white sea-birds dipped and screamed
above our heads, and the sea, sucking in and out of
unseen hollows, made a slapping noise. There were no
other sounds. No column of smoke curled up from 1 he
heights above our heads ; no figures moved, and as \ve
worked on round the island walls, no boat, canoe, or
raft showed up in any crack or gully. There were
several of these, but we couldn't find one that seemed
practicable till we had rowed so far round the island
that the Tagula, which had moved further out to sea,
came right into view again.
" This won't do," remarked Flower. " We have been
three-quarters of the way round now, and we've simp-ly
got to find a way up. If there is none, we may manage
sometliing with these vines ; they're as strong as
Manila hemp."
" That's right," observed Jim. " The old road to t he
Yedda fields, in nineteen hundred, went right up a
straight eight -hundred-feet cliff, and we had a ladder of
bush rope all the way."
But we did not have to venture by the perilous Yec J a
plan after all. When we had rowed a very little furtl er,
On the Terrible Island 119
Jim, Flower, and I all raised a shout together. We had
seen the gate of the island.
T; was not easy to find it by any other means than
tho;^ which we had adopted. You could have sailed
pas-; the island a dozen times, in a dozen directions,
witliout knowing it was there. It was a mere crack in
the wall of weathered coral, leading to a very narrow
waterway, up which our boat could only progress oars
in, Dushed by the hands of the boys. At the end of this
finger of the sea there was a minute sandy beach of the
purest sugar-white, and a mass of fallen rock and
detiitus, overgrown with shrubs, and sloping gradually
up o the top of the island.
C arl had arranged that the whale boat was not to wait
for us, but to come back to the ship, as he did not wish
to be left aboard without the major portion of his crew.
The natives unloaded the stuff we had brought — I
remember how we all laughed at the pile of tins — all
excrpt Flower, who seemed a bit impervious to the joke.
It <lid seem absurd to take such mountains of stuff
ash )re for a single afternoon.
We climbed the glacis of fallen rock, helping the
women over the stones and through dense nets of
tan„'led bush and vine. Jim and Flower, being accus-
tonred to live in the bush, both had sheath-knives in
their belts, and they had to cut the way pretty often
befcre we finally reached the top, and came out from the
choidng, sweltering heat of the sun-warmed gully on to
the windy height above.
\Je found ourselves upon a wide plateau, perhaps half
a n ile across, covered in places with tall beds of reed
grais, and in others with the same dense masses of
bushes and low trees that had impeded our ascent. In
120 The Terrible Island
the strong cool sea wind we stood for a few minutes,
looking about us, and trying to see traces of what we
sought.
" Would you call that the remains of a path or would
you not ? " demanded Jim of me.
I looked at the faint streak of thinness that ran
through the heavy bush ahead.
" It might be," I said. " If there ever was one, it
ought to run from just this point. What do you
think ? " I asked, turning to Flower.
Surveyors are constantly occupied picking up obscure
marks and traces of " former " Unes in the bush. If
anyone could find the path, it would surely be Flower.
But Flower was not looking for it. I could not mak:;
out at the moment what he really was looking for, or
at; whatever it may have been, it brought sudden
colour into his face, and an excited expression. He
hardly seemed to hear what I said till I repeated it.
"Track? Oh, undoubtedly," he answered at last.
" There has been one leading right away from this."
He did not seem a bit surprised.
" Then let's follow it," I suggested, for he was nor.
looking at the place at all, but bending down — I thought
— to retie his boot.
" Yes, we'll follow," he said in a minute, straightening
up. He sUpped something into his trouser-pocket — W(!
were none of us wearing coats. " Pity we didn't keep
at least one boy and a clearing-knife," he said ; " this h
going to be tough work."
Tough it was, but Jim and he managed it betweej,
them with their sheath-knives, and in half an hour or s«.
we came out upon a space of grass, apparently about thr
middle of the island.
On the Terrible Island 121
'Mind your eye," said Flower. "There are caves
here." We could see that for ourselves — more than one
dark opening showed in the waving grass. I was not
surprised ; those coral islands are often full of caves.
Bui I saw that we must advance cautiously.
The Sea-Queen had hardly opened her hps since we
started, but now she spoke.
" Mr. Flower," she said, " it's as well there are caves,
for I think we're going to get wet."
At this, we all of us looked up.
" My oath," said Rocky Jim, " if Carl wasn't right
after all ; there's going to be the father of a squall."
The sky, while we were fighting our way through the
ovt] grown track, had turned from blue to blackish
pur])le, all but a Uttle space. As we looked, the blackish
colo ir began to invade that also. A cool, rainy-smelling
breeze swept across the grasses, and shook their heads.
Tiie Sea-Lady spoke up.
" This is going to be bad weather. Hadn't we better
get back to the ship, in case she has to run for it ? "
I noticed, even at that moment, that " Lady Mary "
was ^peaking with a decision and — how shall I put it ? —
an ordinariness — that had been foreign to her before.
" She's coming back," I said to myself exultantly.
" Sht^'s coming back." But there was no time to think
about that. The squall was close upon us, and it looked
like ;i bad one. The few sUm coconuts that stood on
the if land top were beginning to lean over and show the
whitish undersides of their leaves, and the sea-birds had
takei up a curious, pitiful screaming.
VV( looked to the big surveyor.
" No time to get back," he instantly decided. " You
can only crawl through that bush, and before we were
122 The Terrible Island
^1
half-way down, Carl would have cleared out. It's all
he can do. He'll come back. Let's get into these
caves, kareharrega " (quickly).
There was a cave-opening not twenty yards awa3^
We made for it. Even in the hurry of getting away from
the squall, with the thunder bumping and bursting abov e
our heads, and jags of lightning making blue flame in the
trees, it struck me that the entrance was remarkably
clean and unobstructed. We went down an earthy
slope, with white coral Umestone walls and reef, that
began so low as to force us to bend half double, but
gradually heightened with the slant of the ground, till
they rose high above our heads. The slope ended in a
circular chamber, with three or four dark passagt^s
running off. We could not explore them, as we had no
lights with us save a stray box of matches or so, and,
anyhow, we were very well sheltered where we were.
The thunder came in furious claps now, and the lightnir g
was with it, after it, before it — you could not be sure,
but you could be very sure the storm was right overhead.
Jim and Flower ht pipes, after asking permission.
Sapphira and the girl sat close together, holding each
other's hands. I knew Sapphira hated the lightning,
but she would not even wince when it came, seeming to
strike again and again right over our heads. Lady Mary
was quite calm.
" I never," said Jim by and by, " heard such queer
sounds as there is in this place. I reckon it's the echc es
of the cave. It's hke rhinoceroses choking."
We hadn't noticed it, with the noibe of the thund r,
but now we listened in between the peals, and hea d
what Jim had spoken of. It was a curious snorting^,
bubbUng sound, as if (I thought) several water-pi] )C'S
On the^Terrible Island 123
somewhere had gone wrong. But there couldn't be
water-pipes on tliis sohtary island.
Nobody could make anything of it. I suggested that
it might be caused by rain-water falling through a cleft.
Th ? storm kept on relentlessly. To pass away the time,
wc fell to discussing the island.
" I think we'll get it all right," said Jim. " There's
bet n a path and this cave isn't altogether as Nature left
it. Daresay this was the place where they worked the
shell-money. The rocks at the sides are all worn and
polished where bare feet would have been treading on
them."
They were ; but there was no sign of broken shell, nor
any fragments of the old hand-drills they must have
used by the dozen. Flower pointed this out.
' All the same," he said, " I think it's the island."
So do I," said Sapphira. " I think it is, because
you can feel the devils creeping all about the back of
yoi r neck. The boys always said it was pouri-pouried.
I wish we was well off of it."
I knew what she meant ; there was an odd, fateful,
melancholy feehng about the place. But caves are
gloomy spots at the best.
I: seemed as if the " pouri-pouri " element was
getting on the nerves of the whole party, for nobody
spoke during a minute or two. The thunder lessened
and began to roll away. Outside the rain still reared
and beat. Trickles of water ran down the slope of the
cav ', and lost themselves in the dark side openings.
"That's the devil of a noise," remarked Flower
preiently, taking his pipe out of his mouth, and turning
his i>ig head anc^ lantern eyes towards the largest of the
dark corridors that opened off our refuge. It seemed as
124 The Terrible Island
if the choking and gurgUng were coming from that
direction.
" It sounds," said Sapphira, "just the way the men
does, when they've been and had two drops too much,
and is sleeping it off."
Jim was not paying much attention : he had been
staring out of the mouth of the cave.
" Rain or no rain, I'm going to see where the ship is,'
he remarked. " This has been a proper bad squall, and
I'd like to have a look."
" Right," said Flower, " There's no use in everyone
getting wet. We'll explore a bit of this cave while
you're away."
" Keep a few gold mey-deres and a diamond crucifix
or so for me," drawled Jim, as he went up to face the
storm. It seemed to eat him up the moment he went
out ; he was whirled away into the furious rain and
disappeared, head down against the blast.
"Well, now ..." began Flower, taking a box of
matches out of his pocket, and preparing to heave his
big bulk up from the floor. . . .
The sentence was never finished. A heavy peal of
thunder broke into it and drowned it. And on the heek
of the thunder came something that struck us dumb as
fish.
Out of the black archway walked a man, barefooted,
dark of face, dressed in rough dungaree. He dfd not
look at us at all, though we were full in view. He came
forward uncertainly, tripping and stumbling a little ove
the inequalities of the ground, with his hands stretched
widely out. Passing so close beside the Sea-Lady tha'
his brown dirty feet almost touched her white skirts, h< •
went in a blundering sort of way to a cleft in the wall o
On the Terrible Island 125
the cave, took out a black bottle, drank from the neck
of it, and slowly turned round again, his hand on the
wall to guide himself. All this time the gurgling and
snorting, somewhat diminished, went on in the inner
cave, and I heard a groaning yawn.
Then it was that woman's tongue betrayed us, as
woman's tongue has done so many million times in the
history of this tired old world.
Sapphira caught at my coat-sleeve.
' My God," she whispered — low, but not low enough —
" h'^'s bl "
On the instant the man swung round, snatched a
revolver out of his belt, and fired. The bullet splat-
tered flat against the rock an inch from Sapphira 's
head.
Flower, who was sitting on the other side of Lady
Mary, seized her ruthlessly, and flung her down flat on
the ground. I was too much bewildered to do the same
for myself. The man, staggering unsteadily on his feet,
his wild black eyes, fiercely opened, staring not at us
but at the roof of the cave, swung round and round,
firing at random. Five more shots went off in as many
seconds, and I felt something Uke a sharp blow on my
arm.
The surveyor was on his feet by this time, and rushing
at t :ie man, downed him in one furious blow. We were
all unarmed ; I cursed the folly that had induced us to
land, on any part of the wild New Guinea coast, without
firearms. But who would have thought them necessary,
on a desert island far away at sea ?
By this time, shouts from the interior of the cave told
us tliat the man's companions were waking from what
had evidently been a drunken sleep.
126 The Terrible Island
" Get out — quick ! " said Flower. He seized the Sca-
Lady and Sapphira by an arm apiece and seemed fairly
to swing them out of the cave. I followed as quickly as
I could ; the pain of my arm was turning me sick, and
a red stream was dripping on the ground. We got away
from the mouth of the cave, and half across the open
grass space that surrounded it, before we reahsed that
the squall had blown itself out as suddenly as it ha.l
begun, and that the sky was clearing again. I had
fallen behind ; I don't know what it was that made me
waste a precious moment or two by turning my head to
look at the mouth of the cave. . . .
Four men had come out of it, and were standing at
the entrance, their faces turned horribly up to the skj',
their hands on the pistols that every one of them
carried.
I gave a warning yell. Flower, quick in movement
as any man of half his size, swung round, saw what I
had seen, and dragged the women behind a pile of rocks.
I don't know how I reached the place, but I got there
just as a shot rang out. It missed. We all huddled
together in the shelter of the pile. For the moment we
were safe.
" Show me your arm," said Flower. He looked at ii;.
The bullet had passed through, leaving a hole on each
side. He twisted his handkerchief firmly round to stop
the bleeding.
" Loosen it a bit in twenty minutes or so," he whim-
pered. We looked cautiously round the corner of the
rocks. The men were still standing where we had san
them. They seemed to be hstening.
"Do you think," whispered Flower, "you could g< t
along the track and warn Jim, without any noise, while
f
On the Terrible Island 127
we stop here until we see what they're going to
do ? "
" Yes," I said. My head was clearing ; the pain was
not so bad. I got up and went slowly and carefully
forv ard.
I was just in time. Jim was making his way up the
beac h. He did not seem at all surprised when I met
him with a finger on my lip, a hand frantically waved,
enjoining silence. It was hard to astonish Jim,
We were a good way from the cave by now, but I
spol e in a whisper as I told him what had happened.
" [ think they're all bUnd," I said, " but every one of
them has got firearms, and they're mighty anxious to
use hem. We'll wait till we get them out of the way,
and then make for the ship as quickly and quietly as we
can, and pray God the women don't stop a stray shot.
Where's the Tagula ? "
" That's what I was going to tell you," said Rocky Jim
coolly. " The Tagula isn't there."
" Isn't there ? " I felt incapable of saying another
word. My wound was beginning to tell, and this
shock . . . What did it mean ?
I sat suddenly down on a stone.
" 1 reckon," said Jim, standing, hands in pockets,
beside me, " that squall — it was more than a squall, it
was li ' gooba ' " (a kind of miniature hurricane) " drove
her (>n to the reef, and sunk her. It came from the
wron I quarter, blast it. The only thing you can reckon
abou* the weather in these islands is that you can't
reckon upon it in any way. Carl was prepared for
anytling from the nor'-west, but this thing, this
'gooba'" (he described it in a few brief adjectives),
" was right from the sou'-west and got him."
128
The Terrible Inland
" Poor Carl," I said, half stunned.
" I think it's poor us," said Jim indifferently, " but
have it your own way. Where's this game of blind-
man's-buff being played ? We may as well take a hand
in It.
m
CHAPTER VI
MAROONED
WE crept as noiselessly as possible through the
screen of bush. I saw that Jim was
laughing, and I felt somewhat indignant.
*'This is no joke," I whispered. "The
brut< s will pot us every one if they can. It's a mercy
they can't see."
"Yes, but," said Jim, "it's all so damned funny."
We V 'ere up on the top by now, and he could see the four
ragged black-avised villains standing at the mouth of
the c ive, their guns pointed down the way where they
knew the only practicable road to lie. " I can't help it,"
he ajKjlogised, stifling a giggle. " Us creeping about
tryin ; to dodge them, hke the games one used to play
when one was a kid — spare me days I "
Nevertheless, he had sized up the whole situation in a
glanc \ Instead of uselessly returning all the way to the
rock where the rest of the party were sheltering, he
signalled to them to join him quietly. They did.
Flower walking behind the women, and shielding them
as far as possible from any chance shot. I don't know
how the Greeks heard anything — or even if they did —
but ojic of them, having lowered his gun for a minute,
suddcily flung it to his shoulder again. The women
and Flower were still a few yards from the break of the
hill. Jim saw the action of the Greek, and leaped with
I
130 The Terrible Island
the activity of a tiger-cat to Flower's side. The bullet
sped wide, but not so very far.
" Get a move on, girls," advised Jim, hustUng the
women unceremoniously. We were down the slops
leading towards the beach before another shot barked
out.
** Must have plenty of cartridges," commented Jim.
We all drew breath more freely, now that we were out
of shot, but Jim and the surveyor decided, almost
without words, that the slope below the hill was no safe
place for halting. " There's a bosker cave a little way
along," said Jim. " I found it while I was looking
around for the Tagula." He had already told them
briefly of the disaster to Carl and his ship. We crashed
through the cUnking coral on the beach with the noise
of bulls in cliina-shops — no help for it ; the Greeks were
probably too far away to hear, and in any case, it was
impossible to stop there. The cave ran back from an
insignificant narrow cleft quite near the place where we
had landed. Jim squeezed himself in : we followed.
It smelled of damp rocks and seaweed, with a whiff of
decayed fish ; it was dark, very cool after the fierce sun
outside, and there was a drip of water down one corner,
running green across the face of the white rock, and
making for the beach and the sea.
We were only a few yards in when Flower called a
halt.
**Todd, this'll do," he said. The cave had widened
suddenly after the opening ; it was now a fair-sized
gallery with a clean sandy floor. " We can explore by
and by. The thing is to get our stores in at once.
Some of those beasts might not be as bUnd as thy
look."
Mairooned 131
" Right -o," agreed Jim. " Ireland can look after the
women, and they can look after him ; I reckon he
wants it."
I did, but there had been no time to think about that.
Saj^phira took the wound in hand promptly and some-
whit callously. She washed it, satisfied herself the
bullet was out, and tied it up afresh.
' Spit on it first," she said. " When you've no drugs,
it's healing." She knotted the handkerchief skilfully.
Tht Sea-Lady, meantime, had been sitting beside us,
waiting for any opportunity to help. She took my hand
in hers, when the bandage was on again, and, before I
could stop her, bent her Ups to it.
"Thank you, brave man," she said; and suddenly
the ache that had possessed me since Jim and Flower
went out, leaving me " to take care of the women," died
away. Whatever else they had done, or would do, it
was I, and only I, who had shed my blood in defence of
our Sea-Lady.
But this could not go on. We were all wild to talk
the matter out. Flower and Jim, aided by Sapphira,
who went out in the sun and " lumped " tins ably in the
skirt of her dress, got our stores into the cave in a very
few minutes. Jim took a run up to the top to see what
the ' jreeks were doing and reported them as sitting on
the rocks outside their cave, drinking out of the necks
of bottles. Feeling secure for the moment, we all
plun ped down on the sand — I remembet how cool
it f«lt, and how cool was the unsunned rock on
whic'i we leant our backs — and began reviewing the
situation.
Tl e loss of the Tagula was the first consideration.
We were not agreed as to whether she had been driven
132 The Terrible Island
right on to one of the many dangerous reefs that stood
sheer up out of the deep water, and had shd off again,
fatally stove in, or whether she had been taken aback,
and in that way sunk without trace. Whatever had
happened, we knew, must have happened while she was
running for safety, some good way from the island, since
none of her crew had swum to land. Papuans of the
coastal districts are well-nigh amphibious, and no
matter how the ship had been sunk, some of her beys
were almost sure to have got away. There were a few
useless rocky little isles a long way out, and, for all we
knew, a boy or two might at that moment be sheltering
on one of them. That concerned us little. The ship
was gone ; Carl was gone ; and we were marooned on
Ku-Ku's island in company with five men, four of them
in good condition, one possibly injured, who were
clearly bent on doing away with anyone who might
dispute the possession of the place with them.
" What I don't understand," said Flower, " is, first of
all, this blindness business — ^we must look out and see it
doesn't hit any of us — and secondly, why the beggars
didn't welcome us, no matter what they found or what
they're afraid of being pinched for doing. You see,
they're helpless ; they don't know our ship has been
lost, and we must be their only chance of getting off
from the island, and seeing a doctor, if that's going to
be any good to them."
" Yes, that's a puzzle," Jim agreed. " Maybe
they "
"I think I can tell you," broke in the Sea-Lady s
silver voice. Did I say silver ? No, that her voice was
not; it was golden, rather: golden hke the on( e
famous " voix d'or" of once lovely Sara Bernhardt:.
ir
Marooned 133
" They expect their cutter any day. You see, when
they took me into it "
" What ? " I think we all said together. But I don't
believe anyone but I reaUsed, at that moment, the thing
that had happened. Lady Mary was remembering.
" When they took me into their cutter, off the big fast
ship with the guns that I told you about "
' You didn't tell us," cried Jim, but Flower nudged
him.
' Let her go on," he said. And she went on.
' We didn't come across the poor native in his canoe
for a whole day. And when they found him, and saw
how he was loaded with red shell and shell-money, they
raised a shout. And they took him into the cutter, and
did cruel things to him. . . . Oh, I don't want to talk."
She stopped, and put her hands before her eyes.
Fkwer, with quiet determination, took them down
agcin.
"Look at me," he said. "Now tell us. Go on
telling."
There were tears in her eyes, but she obeyed, breathing
quickly, as if she had been running.
' They stuck their knives into him, till he told them
sonicthing — he could speak a little English. Then they
repeated it over and over again and they said . . .
What was it ? "
" Caradoc, Finster, Disappointment," prompted
Flower.
" Yes, that was it." And then she began to sob ; it
broke my heart to see her. " Must I go on ? " she said.
" You must," said the surveyor ; his eyes were kind,
but in his voice was a ring of steel.
I could hear Jim breathing hard behind me. "I
^1
134 The Terrible Island
would like to punch him one on the Jaw," he whispered.
** Yes," I whispered back, " but he's in right of it."
" They put a hat over my eyes," she said, " and held
it there tight. And I heard someone cry, and there was
a sort of cough, and something splashed — into the—
water "
"Go on," said Flower.
I shall always bless Sapphira for what she did at this
moment. She shuffled a foot or two nearer the Sea-Lady,
put her arm round the sUght figure, and gathered the
wavy head right on to her capacious bosom.
" Now get it over, dearie," she said. And the Sea-
Lady, comforted, went on steadily through her tears.
" When they took the hat off again, the poor thing
was gone, and his canoe was floating on the waves with
nothing in it. So then we went on for hours and houni
more. And at first they were kind, but by and by • "
She shook as she talked ; I could see Sapphira take up
her hand, and stroke it.
" They said a great many things in their own language
and then they began to fight, and one man kissed me,
and another struck him with a knife, and he fell down.
So it was dark then, and I said a prayer to God, and
said, ' Good-bye, Cedric ' "
I could see Flower wince.
" And — I didn't tell you, but it was stormy, and the}'
had been drinking, and they kept letting the cutter run
up into the wind, and did not manage her at all well, sj
I was not much afraid they would pick me up : you see I
can swim rather well. And I jumped overboard. An 1
the cutter swept on ever so fast, and I never saw her
again. But the next thing I knew about, I was floatin;,'
somewhere in smooth water, and then I saw the shore. '
Marooned 135
She gave a long sigh of relief, as if she had but that
moment reached land, after hard battUng with the
waves.
' ' I think the cutter must have passed quite close to
Crcker Island. Something that was floating hit me on
the head, and after that I couldn't remember anything.
This morning, when I saw those men, it was Hke a
flash of lightning going through my head — and I
remembered."
' What about the return of the boat ? " asked Flower.
She was calmer now ; she had, on the whole, stood
th€ trying examination amazingly well.
" Oh, that," she said. "They talked Greek for the
most part. I know a little — ancient Greek, of course,
bur it allowed me to guess what language they were
using. And once in a way they would burst out in a
sentence of pigeon English. As far as I could make
out , some of them were to be left on Ku-Ku*s island, and
th€ rest return for them, but I don't know how soon. Is
it ^'ery valuable ? "
' There's no reason for making a mystery about it,"
sai' I Flower. He put his hand in his trouser- pocket and
pulled out a bit of bluish rock. "Do you know what
tha t is ? " he asked of the company in general. Jim was
the only one to reply, and he said, " Not I," with the
tru i goldminer's contempt for any and every mineral
bui one.
'That," said Flower impressively, "is about the
fine St specimen of phosphate rock that I've ever seen.
An 1 the island is mostly made of it."
' My colonial oath ! " was Jim's comment.
' What is phosphate rock ? " I asked.
' Stuff that makes more fortunes than gold ever made
136 The Terrible Island
— ^though I don't suppose Todd would subscribe to that.
It's used in any number of manufactures, and the supply
of it known to exist in the world is strictly limited.
It's really a sort of fossiUsed guano; this island must
have been the home of milUons of sea-birds for hundreds
of years, in prehistoric times, but some unknown cause
or other evidently drove them away. That happens
sometimes, but for the most part these phosphate islands
betray themselves by the clouds of man-of-war birds,
and the collection of modern guano you find on top —
which is, of course, exceedingly valuable too. I think
Ku-Ku must have known about it, and, in the way these
natives seem to have, kept it to himself for fear of his
own private treasure being looted."
"That's been the way," agreed Jim. "When the
natives know there's gold in a place, they keep it dark
if they can. They don't want the white people about,
even if there's no special cache of their own, hke there
was here."
" So we've found a fortune ? " I asked.
" We have. But as to keeping it ... It all depends
on whether the Greeks had savvy enough to recognise it.
You see, if they did, they would go to Port Moresby at
once — some of them — and put in a claim for a grant,
blocking anyone else. But if it was simply Ku-Ku*s
stuff they were after, they'd be more likely to run and
get stores, and just loot the place of all it had. You
can't get a lease of shell-beds out in the sea — no doubt
they are all round this island — and there would be no
sense letting other people into the secret."
" In the meantime," observed Sapphira dryly,
" we're left on this God-forsaken place for God knows
how long, with them beasts trying to shoot us every
Marooned 137
turn, and — what's to prevent us going blind the same
waj' they did ? I always told you Ku-Ku had pouri-
pouried the place proper. You would laugh at me, and
you would laugh at poor Carl who's dead and gone "
"God rest his soul!" said Catholic Jim, crossing
himself.
" But now you know it ain't anything to laugh at.
People who comes to this island goes blind. That's
what they always did say in Ku-Ku's time, and I told
you I seen the man who did, and so did Carl, and he was
as blind as bats or moles is, or as them black-faced devils
up ti'iere on top. And every one of us will be bhnd too
in another few days. And then we'll be feeling round
the i Uand looking for one another, and they'll be looking
too, md they'll find us with them guns of theirs, sooner
or later. Oh, a nice place this is that you men have
founl and brought us to, isn't it ? '*
" We never should have brought " I was be-
ginning, but Flower interrupted me.
" You're not very old, Ireland," he said, " but you're
old enough to have learned by this time that nothing in
the v/orld really matters except the thing that is. If
people would only cut out the time they spend thinking
of what ought to have been, and ought not to have been,
and might have been, and so on, hfe would be a deal
simpl'tr, and a deal longer. Let's drop what anyone
should have done. We're here and we're in a difficulty,
I grarit Mrs. Gregg so much. But I don't agree with her
we're all bound to fall into the same hole. Ku-Ku didn't,
and his famous twenty sons didn't, by all that one has
heard. There must be some way of avoiding the
dange •, and it's up to us to find that out."
There was silence for a space after that. I think we
138 The Terrible Island
were all tired with the events of the day — it is tiring to
be chased and shot at, and to lose your ship, and to find
yourself facing unknown, unheard-of dangers, idl
within an hour or two. Or else we had talked ourselves
out for the moment. At any rate nobody spoke for
quite a while. In the silence we could hear the creaming
of the waves upon the little beach, and the suck and slap
of the deep water along the impregnable outer walls of
the island. Very far off the reef sang angrily, not the
low, dreamy saga that is the true song of the coral reefs,
but the deep-voiced murmur that comes only in the
hours before or after storm. The sun was westering : it
shot low into our cave, and made, with the sea reflections,
golden water on the wall.
Somehow — I speak for myself, and I think for othc rs
too — ^that sad golden Ught that is, since the days of
Dickens, inevitably Unked with the thought of death ;
the melancholy noises of the sea ; the feeling of being
far and far away, beyond the knowledge of men, laid a
weight upon our minds which was felt by everyone,
though no one gave it voice. We wondered — I know —
for how long we were to live within sound of those
slapping waves ; for how long the cruel reefs, so murder-
ous to ships, were to hold us in their prison. VV^e
wondered what would be the end of it all : whose bones,
at the last, would whiten on the rocks : whose eyes, in
this home of deviUsh things and happenings, would
darken suddenly to the sun. But we did not wonder
about one thing — whether the Sea-Lady, left the last,
might fall once more into the hands of the wretches v ho
had almost driven her to death before. There was lot
one of us men who did not know, and would not h;ive
used, the way to save her from that.
ir
Marooned 139
The silence was broken by Sapphira.
" What I want to know," she said, " is what we are
goin:{ to do for our things."
" What things ? " I asked.
" Everything. Brushes and soap and clean stockings
and Florida water, and nighties, and basins to wash our
faces and cups to drink our teas in and "
" Plenty of clean sand," said Jim cheerfully.
" Lord help the man, we can't dress in sand, or wash
in it."
" You can do both, Sapphira," corrected Jim.
" When you have all your clothes in the wash and hung
out en a bush to dry, you can dress yourself in the nice
warm sand — dig a hole, you know, and leave your head
out — and you can have a real good dry scrub in it too,
when you feel the dirt getting too thick."
" Jim Todd, do you think I would ever on this
earth "
" We'll all come to it yet, Sapphira. Hang out our
clotb^s on the trees of a Monday morning, and dig
ourselves in in a row till they're dry. I'll let you dig
yourself in first, Sapphira, and then I'll dig next to you,
and (>ur two heads will stick up on the sand like two
melons ripening in the sun, and we'll converse till our
thing, are dry, exceedingly proper and convenient."
"Jim Todd, you're perfectly indecent."
"No, Sapphira, it would be very decent indeed, much
decenter than the evening dresses they wear at the Port
Moresby balls, because there's a lot more outside of them
than ust the head, Sapphira."
" I won't talk to you no more," said the mistress of
Croker Island. " You twist things round that way "
" T lank goodness we've got coconuts," I broke in.
140 The Terrible Island
It did not seem to me a happy occasion for another of
Jim and Sapphira's rows.
" Cups," said Jim. "Baskets. Mattresses." ^
" Lamps and oil," said I. ^
" Canvas for blankets," said Flower.
"Coconut milk," laughed the Sea-Lady. I was
glad to see her take a part in the game of cheering up.
" Whisky," said Jim, smacking his lips.
" You mean arrack," remarked Flower.
" Drink, cursed der-rink, anyhow," said Jim. " Thank
goodness we've a pound or two of trade tobacco." We
had put it in on the off-chance of finding natives.
" We shan't do too badly," said Flower. " What
lucky providence was it that induced Carl to load up
with a month's supplies ? "
" No providence at all," said Jim. " You're a new-
comer. Those of us who know New Guinea know what
these reefy islands are. Why, this is the sort of place no
boat could ever approach except in a dead calm."
" Then how did Ku-Ku get to it ? "
" Must have kept away the whole of the sou'-west
season, and only come during the nor '-west, when it 's
either gales or calms, not steady blow all the time as it
is from April to November."
Flower took this in, and I saw his big lantern eyes fix
themselves as he mused on it. He pulled out a pencil-
end from his pocket by and by and made a note on the
white wall.
" Why do you do that ? " asked the Sea-Lady.
"We have got a difficult problem to solve," sad
Flower. "It's like the old fairy stories where a ra in
had to guess a riddle that nobody ever had guessed, )r
have his eyes put out. That's just what's up to is.
Marooned 141
And all we can do is to accumulate every little fact that
may bear on any peculiarity of the island. No use
talking about pouri-pouri. There's a material reason
for every material phenomenon that happens on this
earth."
" Right," said Jim. *' Does something whisper
suppiT in your ear ? "
" Ir does," agreed Flower.
Sapphira heaved herself up from the sand.
" ^ ou make the fire," she said, " and leave the rest
to me."
She did well for us, from the miscellaneous stores
provided by the foresight of ill-fated Carl. We had hot
stew (ut of a tin, tea, apricots, and hot-buttered damper
baked in ashes. Afterwards, while light still Ungered in
the sky, Jim went up to the top and had a look round.
"Tiicy've turned in, I reckon," he said. " No sign
of them anywhere. I brought the spare mainsail that
the tins were slung aboard the boat in ; the boys didn't
remember to take it back with them. It'll make some
sort of a bed for the women."
" \\ hat are you going to have ? " »aid the Sea- Lady.
" We don't want anything." He dumped the mass of
heavy canvas at her feet.
" Shall we need this sail to sail away again ? "
"Not likely. They'll send out to look for us some
time cr other."
"Tien please cut it in two and take half." She
would have it, and there was no gainsaying her. I will
not say that, later on, we were not very glad of it.
Flov er and Jim collected bracken, of which there was
plenty on the slope, and piled it up for beds. We
gathered wood for the morning, assigned the inner part
^^^W'aB
142 The Terrible Island
of the cave to the women, and found ouisclvcs a com-
fortable spot near the narrow part of the entrance.
" Smoke before turning in," said Flower. " Leave the
women time to settle down." We went out on the
narrow beach. The heat had ceased with the going
down of the sun, as if a tap had been turned off some-
where in the sky. The anger of the reef was calming
down ; it only sobbed and murmured in its sleep, far
away at sea, while here at our feet the little waves r.in
up among shells and coral, soft and gentle as velvet-
pawed baby lionets. You never would have thought
that that great cruel creature out at sea was their
mother. . . .
From the narrow space of sky above the chff-hcld
beach, white stars looked down. The sun was set, and
there was no moon ; but a clear pale after-glow lingered
in the sky, showing me plainly the rugged features of
Flower, and the grave expression into which they had
relaxed now that Sapphira and the Sea-Lady were no
longer near us. Jim looked as gay and careless as ever ;
but Jim's face was ever a false index to his feehn.^s.
Somehow I gathered that neither of them Uked the
situation.
Flower ht his pipe and took a whiff or two before he
spoke.
" The thing is," he said by and by, taking the pipe (:»ut
of his mouth, and looking at it, "that they're afraid.
They must have recognised the moment Sapphiia's
whisper gave us away that people were there, and t lat
it wasn't their people. Now they have committed t wo
murders ; they don't know but what we've come ab )ut
that matter— which, by the by, the Government ^vill
have to deal with sooner or later."
Marooned 143
Ho looked at liis pipe again, as if seeking counsel from
it ; put it back in his mouth and went on,
" .'Uso they've come here after a pretty big treasure
— foi them — of shell-money, and possibly they know
about the phosphate, though somehow I don't think
it. What's that Greek Malay black- an d-tan colony
about the Trebriands and D'Entrecasteaux hke ? " he
askeci Rocky Jim. " I don't mean as to character ; I
kno^^ they're a bad lot. Have they any education ? "
" irhouldn't think any lovely delightful one of the
darhng angels," said Jim (I have taken the liberty of
trans ating his words), " could write his own beautiful
name."
" Oh," said Flower. He smoked for a minute or two.
" Watch and watch, of course," he said. Jim nodded.
The Vodda miner was f amihar with midnight watchings.
" Toss fo^ first watch," he suggested. He won the toss
himself.
" \ ou can take the four o'clock watch, Ireland," said
Flowtr. " I'll keep the middle one." I knew he had
taken the liardest of the three, but that was hke Flower.
Ne^ertheless, it was the morning watch that brought
the trouble. I do not think any of us had expected to
hear from the men on the top of the island. We kept
our watches more from a desire to leave no loophole
open I J accident than from any fear of it. When I woke
in the night, as I did several times, I saw either Jim's
figure or Flower's seated in the narrow entrance of the
cave, I dark mass blotting out some scores of stars ; I
heard the water slapping on the island walls, and the
small 'vaves tinkhng down the beach. No more.
My jwn tuin came. I sat in the opening, wide-eyed
and quiet, looking now at the beach, grey-ivory under
144 The Terrible Island
the stars, now at the whitish glacis of fallen rock that led
to the tableland above ; now at the upper skyUne. You
could not have seen anything if you had come out of a
light room ; but I had been asleep with shut eyes, and
after twenty minutes or so of sitting still and looking
into the darkness, I found it half transparent. No
doubt the reflecting powers of the sea lying all about us
helped towards this result ; it is never very dark on a
small island.
I suppose I might well have been startled, but I was
not, I was not even surprised, when, about half-past four
o'clock — the hour you may expect sleep to be at its
deepest, and unarmed men most helpless — I saw some-
thing stirring on the sky-line of the cove. . . .
I watched it for a minute, until it had passed the Une
of the sky, vanished, and appeared again as a grey
shadow on the darker grey of the glacis. Then I edged
into the cave, and laid my hand on Jim. I knew how
the miner of the Yodda would awake. They slept with
an eye and a half open, and a cocked revolver held in
both hands, about the Yodda field, in those not very
far-off days.
Jim was instantly and quietly alert. He put his hand
over Flower's mouth as a precaution, before rousing
him ; but the big man woke without a sound. We all
crawled to the opening, and craned our heads out, low
down towards the ground.
One of the Greeks was coming, with amazing sile: ice
and sureness, down the rocks of the glacis. He had his
revolver in his hand. We did not need to tell e;ich
other that the man probably knew all about the ca ve.
What we wanted to know was — could he see ?
"Some kinds blindness see at night," whispeied
Marooned 145
Flower, with infinite precaution. We watched ; I don't
know why we held our breath, but I think we all did.
It w'cS very still ; the tide was at ebb, like the night, and
the sea was almost silent. I heard the land-crabs
scuttering among the rubbish at high-water mark ; a
mope ke cried suddenly, once, Uke a child, in the bush,
and \vas quiet.
Then we saw the Greek again, making his way along
the b^ach. Away from the rocks of the glacis, where he
could guide himself by feeUng, he seemed none too sure
of himself, but I did not think he was stone-blind, by
the way he held his head. He crossed the beach,
keeping to the line of rubbish thrown up by the waves :
whether this was accidental or not I could not tell. We
saw him clearly enough against the scintillating stars
(you must remember our heads were low down), but he
could not, we thought, see us. He struck the wall of
rock some yards from the cave opening, and began
feeling his way along without a sound. He stuck out
his chin now and then in a way a man does when he is
trying hard to see. It was plain that he would reach
the opming in a few more seconds. He seemed to know
this ; iie shifted his revolver in his hand. . . .
Jim and Flower got to their feet. I saw a swift word
pass be tween them ; I heard nothing. Afterwards, Jim
told m<j that Flower said he was going to tackle the man
first ; if there had been time to argue, he said, he would
have s uck out for his own rights, but it wasn't the
moment for yarning. . . .
I, who had no part in this, kept in the background,
and prayed to "whatever gods there be" that the
women might not awake and speak. For, with the
slightest sound to guide him, the Greek would fire, and
K
146 The Terrible Island
at such range even a half-blind man would have a
chance of bagging something.
The Greek, moving soundlessly on bare feet, crept a
little nearer— halted, felt with one hand along the rock
for the opening. . . .
I saw Flower's great back, outUned against the stars,
quiver as a cat quivers before she makes her leap.
Then with all the love and fear behind the force that
hurtled him on to the Greek, he sprang. The man
staggered back beneath his weight, recovered himself
with amazing quickness, and fought like a devil. Jim
danced round them for a moment, looking for his
chance, and then, quick as a dog snatching a bone,
plucked the Greek's pistol out of the tnelee. The man
was strugghng to get at his knife. I knew, and Jim
knew, that he could beat Flower at that game if he once
got going. I clenched my fists so tight that the nails cut
the palms. Even if I had the strength of a normal man
— or of two — there was no way of interfering. . . .
Then I saw what Jim was after, and in another
moment saw him do it. I can't tell you how it was
done, or how he avoided shooting Flower — not one man
in fifty would have taken the chance. But a certain
sure recklessness was the moulding stuff of Rocky
Jim's character. He fired right into the middle of the
meUe, and got the Greek.
Flower, in a sudden collapse of all resistance, stumbled
forward and fell on the other man. He picked himself
up with almost ludicrous quickness (" I thought the
beggar would have his knife into me," he expla ned
afterward), and stood ready to attack again.
But there was no need. The Greek lay still, and all
spilled out on the ground as only a dead man Ues. It
Marooned 147
was almost five now, and being near the longest day,
dawn was at hand. We dragged the dead body away
from the mouth of the cave, and left it until the light
should come. Then we went back to see what the
women were doing.
" Can I strike a match ? " asked Flower, coming to the
mouth of the communicating cave that we had given
up to Sapphira and Lady Mary.
" \\^ait till I get my teeth in," came the answer,
in Sapphira's voice. Then, with clearer utterance,
*' Strike away. Did you get him good ? '*
" Jim did," said Flower.
"I wouldn't have, if you hadn't have got hold of
him," corrected Jim. The match had been struck, and
by its light we saw Sapphira and the Sea- Lady, sitting
up under the piece of sailcloth. Sapphira was twirling
up th( huge coil that usually ornamented the top of her
head. The Sea-Lady, in a mist of dark loosened locks,
sat leaning her hands on the sand, and looking at us with
startle i eyes Uke the eyes of some soft furry creature
disturl)ed at night in its nest. She seemed scarce
awake.
" Has there been a man killed ? " she asked. " Did
you ..." She looked at Flower, and I saw fear in her
eyes.
"I liad not the honour of defending you so far,
though I was willing," he answered. Jim seemed to
size up the situation.
"I }>lugged him," he said. The match was out;
nobody lit another. " You don't need to be shocked,
Lady Mary. I hope we'll all have one to our credit
before ^ery long. They're fair cows, and we've got to
get them before they get us. Or you."
148 The Terrible Island
I heard her sigh a little as she lay down again. Sea-
Lady ! Sea- Lady I I would have coined my heart's blood
to save you even that one sigh. In truth, this wild
place at the end of the world, with fierce men fighting
for their lives and for more than your life, was no place
for you. But complaint was not in you — beyond tliat
sigh. Flower would have given twenty years of his
life for the right to kiss it away. How do I know ?
Because I would have given all the rest of mine.
It was morning very soon, and we all went out on the
sand, that was wondrously cool under our feet, after the
freshness of the night, though by and by we should have
to put on our shoes, or scorch our soles as on the deck of
a burning ship, when we crossed over it. We looked at
the dead man. He was for all the world like the brother
of the corpse that had come ashore on Croker Island :
but these mixed half-caste races are wonderfully alike.
The bullet had gone through his chest ; he seemed to
have died almost at once, and bled hardly at all.
We examined his eyes with care, but could see nothing
whatever wrong with him, even with the aid of Flower's
medical knowledge.
" All the same, he was as blind as a bat in the dayUght,
and pretty near blind at night," declared Jim. ** Nice
sort of an island, I don't think."
Jim and Flower carried him to the top, tied a 8t( ne
to his feet, and dumped him over the chff into deep
water. They saw no sign of the other men. It was
plain to us by now that the Greeks kept within their ciive
during the daytime as a rule, and only went abroad at
night, when one of them, possibly all, could see a lil tie.
" We've got a revolver now, at all events," said Jim
cheerfully, as the two returned to the beach. "(>nly
Marooned 149
two cartridges left In it — he must have been popping
with it during the day — but that's better than nothing."
Tie Sea-Lady had come out, and was standing on the
beacji, her clothes a-flutter in the sunrise wind, the
sunrise light of youth upon her face. How young she
was 1 I felt my one and thirty years old beside the
narrt w tale of hers ; and I felt glad, spitefully glad, that
Flow or was six years older.
" 1 hirty-seven," I said to myself. " Near forty —
why he's middle-aged." It did not occur to me to
think of Jim, who might have had a year or so more, as
verging on elderUness. But then . . .
" Are you going to shoot the Greeks with that re-
volver ? " Lady Mary asked of Flower. I saw she was
standing nearer to him than to Jim or me, although
there was, one might say, an amplitude of room on the
beach . I do not think she knew she was doing it.
"II we can," he answered.
** You could not shoot them all with it ? " she said.
" No," answered Flower.
" Tiiere would be some left ? "
" It looks so."
" Aid you might all be killed ? "
** bit's hope nothing so unpleasant will happen."
" B'lt if you were — Sapphira and I ? "
*' Sapphira and you ? "
" Don't make me say it," she said, turning, I thought,
a littk paler.
" I Nvon't," said Flower, with that direct, kind way of
his. ' I know what you mean. You are afraid of
falling into their hands. You won't. Lady Mary, and
you w( n't need to keep those cartridges for yourself and
Sapphi -a either. Jim " — he beckoned to the miner —
150 The Terrible Island
*' it's time we talked this matter out. See that Sapphira
and Lady Mary aren't left alone at any time when they
are outside the cave ; not for a minute. You and I will
divide the duty. Don't you feel bad, now, Ireland."
(I don't know how he knew ; his back had been towards
me till he turned to speak.) " You're as good a man as
any of us but for one thing, that you can't run very fast.
You've got to be the bravest man of us all."
" How is that ? " I asked him.
'* For this reason," said Flower, strolling away a
little out of the earshot of the women. "You can't
defend yourself very well, since defence may mean
simply clearing out one-time, at any moment, and — Jim
and I can't defend you. It will take all we can do to
look after the women. Each of them must have a
strong arm and a quick pair of feet near her all the time,
in case of those devils trying a snap-shot — you must
remember we can't be sure how much they are or are not
able to see. But you, Ireland — you with your lame-
ness " — I liked the clean simple way he spoke of it —
" you must face the music alone. They've got you once
— how is that arm this morning, by the way ? " He
began untying it as he talked — " because you couldn't
be quick enough. And they may get you again. Yours
is the worst risk, but all the same, I depend upon you."
" Right," said I. And it was understood without
further words that if lives were to ba sacrificed, or risks
taken to save another, mine might be the forfeit.
Flower looked at the wound with a professional c ye.
" Not too bad," he said, " but would be better for
some iodine. We'll burn a pile of seaweed ; gei it
down to ashes, and then I'll tell you what to do. ( arl
slung in a thousand table bottles of quinine with the
1
Marooned 151
stores, because apparently that is stores, in New Guinea,
but nothing else. I needn't tell you to keep up heart ;
you don't need to be told. . . . We must keep the
women cheerful."
" Do you think it a bad business all round ? " I asked.
He did not answer for a moment or two.
"I don't know," he said presently. "The worst
thing is that eye trouble, whatever it is."
" Can't you make a shot at it ? " I asked, remembering
the Tiedical training of which he had told us.
" Not a guess — or, rather, so many guesses that
none of them is any good. Where there's an effect,
there's a cause. Island only inhabitable from November
till March — ^full of caves — has been a guano island
countless ages ago — might be a line of enquiry, and
migiit not, behind any one of those facts. Let's come
back; I think Sapphira has made breakfast. After-
wards we'll tally off the stores, and have them served
out properly. No knowing how long they may have
toh^st."
It was an odd meal, the first breakfast of ours on the
island. We ate it inside the cave, lest any of the Greeks
should by chance be possessed of enough sight to come
to tiie edge of the glacis and send a bullet into the midst
of us. Sapphira cooked in emptied tins. Jim had
picked up a few broken coconuts on the beach, trimmed
therii into cups with his knife, and cleaned them with
sand. There was some wild taro growing among the
stones of the glacis ; its great fiat leaves, two or three
feet across, made ample plates for our food, and small
sheLs were no bad substitute for spoons. When we had
don<:, and Sapphira, who scorned any aid, had rinsed the
cupi in the trickle of fresh water that ran down the wall
152 The Terrible Island
of the outer cave, we laid out all the stores and counte<i
them. There was enough for something under four
weeks, carefully managed.
" Of course," said Flower, " we'll use them as little
as possible, and try for all the stuff we can find in th»3
shape of wild vegetables, or fruit or fish, or coconuts.
As this is pretty important, I think we'll have a hunt
over the island. Do you know anything about botany
in general, Jim ? I'm no great hand at it."
" Ask our scientific man," suggested Jim. " I don't
know a pea from a prussic-acid bean."
** Is there a prussic-acid bean ? " asked Sapphira
suspiciously.
" Why not ? " said Jim firmly, and no one seemed to
be able to answer the enquiry, though I saw the word
" Potassium " trembUng on Flower's lip. He turned
away, stroking his moustache.
" Well, come along," he asked me ; " can you name
any useful things ? "
*' I'm an entomologist," I said, " but you can hardly
take that up as a profession without running more or less
into botany."
" No, I see that. So you're going to be the chief
character of our boys' romance — desert island "
" Desert — no such luck," growled Jim.
*' Desert island according to the usual specifications,"
persisted Flower. " And you know there always has
to be a character who has seen all the plants before, and
knows what they are good for."
" I remember," said Jim. " About the milk tree that
gives milk, and the boot-trees — I read about them in a
Yank magazine — where you can pick a pair of Welhng-
tons or a satin sUpper number small two, and the shrut
ill
Marooned 153
that grows rum shrub for the bad characters, and
the "
" Really," I broke in, for I wasfeeUng a little excited
and rather important, " the most awful mistakes are
made about those matters. Practically all the food
plants except coconuts are cultivated, and "
" Suppose we go and solve the problem by walking,
according to the classics," suggested Flower.
" Oh, I must go too," said the Sea-Lady. " I always
did ove boys' books better than girls', and it's really
most exciting to be in a desert island adventure."
" (^rtainly," said the surveyor. " Jim, I know, will
take ^ood care of Sapphira. We don't want to leave the
stores unguarded."
" 1 wouldn't presume to take care of Sapphira," said
Jim. " I hope she'll take care of me. Won't you,
Sapphira ? I'd hke to be told some more about all my
bad iiabits. Tell me about how I smoke more than is
good for my health — I just love to hear that — and how
I had three more whiskies than I ought to have had last
time i- went down to Samarai for a bit of fun. And tell
me a^ ain how you've got no patience with me, and how
you V ish I was dead. I think it's good for me to hear
that."
Sapphira eyed him much as one might imagine a
handsome gold -eyed wasp would eye something or
somecne who had painlessly drawn its sting, and pre-
sumed to mock it. We left them to discuss the rules of
conduct and started on our trip.
The c was not a sign of any one of our enemies about.
On th: top of the island the wind blew free, and the
^assci were shaking. The place was not very large ;
and y)u could sec the rim of sea all round it — sea
154 The Terrible Island
wonderfully coloured, like sheets of chrysoprase and opal,
where the reefs ran under, and shading, through pink
and lemon-ivory colour, into the blue of deeper waters.
We walked, with caution, past the mouth of the cave.
Flower taking the lead. It had been blocked up inside
in a most ingenious way, with piles of beer and whisky
bottles, arranged so that a touch would cause them to
fall down with hideous clatter.
" No catching those weasels asleep," remarked
Flower, after we had passed by. "I think there is not
much danger from them in the daytime. It looks to me
as if the blindness that haunts this place didn't work so
completely at night, and in that case "
" There's a banana. I saw them in the West Indies, '
remarked Lady Mary.
" Oh," said Flower. " Have you remembered about
the big ship with the guns, and how it brought you
here ? "
" What ship ? " said the Sea-Lady innocently. And
I saw, and he saw, that the door had closed again. But
she had made advance all the same. She never hesitated
for an ordinary word now, and I knew that her re-
membrance of greater things than those we wished to
know had returned to her, for — dare I tell it ? — I had
heard her, through the dusk and silence of the cav(3,
murmuring her innocent little prayers, after we had all
gone to rest.
"Well, you've made the first score," said Flower.
We stopped beneath the banana. It was a very tall one,
I suppose twenty feet in height, with a great bunch A
fruit at the top.
" I beg your pardon," I corrected him; "that is a
wild banana."
Marooned 155
" What ! "
' ' Yes. The bunch of fruit stands right up instead of
drooping down. That would prove it alone, but knock
down some of it with a stone if you want. . . . There !
Uneatable, you see, and full of seeds."
"No score, decidedly," said Flower. "And score
on(^ to me, for I see citrons. I know you can't eat wild
citrons, but you can drink them all right." We loaded
ourselves with a few of the great round rough golden
fruits, and passed on.
" Score one," cried the Sea- Lady excitedly. She had
found a bush with small green fruits.
' Now, Swiss Family Robinson," urged Flower.
" Don't let her cheat. That is uneatable, I'll bet my
hat."
' It is," I pronounced.
' Forfeit, Lady Mary," cried the surveyor.
'■ No," I said, "for she's got the best thing yet —
canilenuts. These have an oily kernel that you can
string on a coconut leaf rib ; they burn down and down,
anc! are as good as any candle."
The Sea-Lady rejoiced, mocking at Flower in a way
tha^ I think he enjoyed, and that I know I did not. We
hunted industriously, and Flower presently declared
that he had found raspberries, but that it wasn't possible,
so ihey must be a delusion. I told him they were
real, but never much good below two thousand feet
level.
" Cherries," said Lady Mary. " Score one."
I had a look at them. They were too long for my
fancy, more like red peppers in shape. I tasted one.
It vNas not bad, rather agreeable than otherwise, but as
I could not identify the fruit, I preferred to let it alone,
^1
156 The Terrible Island
spitting out, for precaution, the one I liad put in my
mouth.
" We'll give you half a mark till we try it on a bird or
something," I suggested. Lady Mary laughed pout-
ingly.
" You are none of you playing fair," she said.
We continued our walk, but found nothing more
until we got down to the beach, where I, rather unfairly,
scored two at once, by telling Flower that the beach
hibiscus, with the yellow flowers, furnished excellent
fibres, and that the red hibiscus we saw growing on the
glacis was admirable for blacking shoes. " You rub
the petals on your shoes," I explained.
*' That oughtn't to count," said Lady Mary, " because
we shall never black our boots at all. People on desert
islands never do, I'm sure."
" Very well," I said, " I'll give that up, and put in
another. I think that's the paper mulberry, growing in
the gully. If there's more of it on the island, we may be
very glad of it."
" We aren't hkely to write many letters," objected the
Sea-Lady, anxious to win her game,
" No, but we may wear out some of our clothes."
" And how on earth is a Uttle shrub with horrid Uttle
rough leaves going to dress us ? "
" It dresses most of Papua, away from civilisation.
You can beat tappa cloth out of the inner bark."
*' Tell me some more clothes you can get in the bush,"
asked the Sea-Lady, regarding me with an interest that
warmed my heart.
"Haven't you seen the canvas that grows on the
coconut ? "
" I'm afraid I'm awfully unobservant ; I haven't."
Marooned 157
" Oh, almost nobody does notice it ; I can't think why.
But if you are an entomologist, of course you are always
poking round the bark of trees. . . . Take a piece
yourself. It's wrapped round the shoots."
Slie picked out a young coconut standing close to
high-water mark, and reached up into its crown.
" Oh, oh, how wonderful 1 " she cried. " It is real
can^'as, brown canvas with a warp and a weft ! Oh,
how does the tree ever weave it ? And what big pieces,
hke the gores of skirts. Oh, Mr. Ireland, I must have a
coconut dress to-day. Where can I get needles and
thread ? "
" I can show you a dozen plants with excellent thread
— that wild banana for one. But as to needles "
I paused ; I was fairly gravelled ; there are no vegetable
needles of decent quality. . . .
Flower, I think, had had enough of my small triumph.
If he possessed a weakness, it was the desire to lead.
" If curved needles will serve you. Lady Mary," he
put in, " I can spare one for you and one for Sapphira.
I've almost forgotten I ever studied medicine, but I do
carry a pocket-case."
New she turned to him, and I could see she was more
grateful for that promise of a needle than for all I had
found and told about. But all she said was,
" How very providential that you did study medicine.
Thin): if anyone should be ill."
" I never practised ; I did not even go up for my
degree," he reminded her.
" I think we could trust you," she said ; and those
golden eyes of hers looked up into his. . . .
"It's beginning, it's beginning," I said to myself.
" Damn it 1 " I thought, as I limped away along the
158 The Terrible Island
beach towards the cave ; but what I was damning, or
what I thought was beginning, I could not easily have
put into words. This girl was almost certainly engaged
to someone called Cedric ; she was, certainly, of a
disposition almost quixotically honourable ; Flower was.
not the man to steal another man's sweetheart, especially
under such circumstances. And as for me, I did not
come in anywhere or anyhow. What was there to curse ?
Jim, when I reached the cave, was sitting outside it,
on a heap of ejected bracken, looking quizzical, and
smoking a pipe.
" Where's Sapphira ? " I asked.
" Making the beds," said Jim. A volley of bracken—
I can call it nothing else — was fired out of the cave at the
same moment, and half buried him in its descent. He
shook it aside like a water-dog shaking off water.
" That's one she's making," he explained. " She's
swept up all the caves nicely with a coconut broom,
and she's scrubbed all the opened tins with sand, and
put them in rows according to size of the ridges of the
walls. And she's cleaned off all the green that the water
makes trickling down. It'll last nice and clean till
to-morrow. And by and by she's going to tackle all
that untidy stuff that the waves have thrown up close
to the cave, and have it burned in a heap. And "
" Did you stand by and let her do all that work ? " I
asked.
" She drove me out with the broom," explained Jim
equably. " I told her all the things she ought to do,
and of course she couldn't let a mere ignorant man
know more than her, so she invented a few more, and
then shooed me out."
"Won't she be frightfully tired?" I suggested,
Marooned 159
listening to the sounds of scraping and throwing about
that were going on inside.
" Her troubles ! " was Jim's comment. " What did
you find on top ? "
But I was not chiefly interested, at that moment, in
what we had found on top.
' Jim," I said, with what might have seemed irrele-
varce to an onlooker, "did you ever do any horse-
bre iking ? "
" Whips of it," he replied, cocking a mischievous eye
at me.
" Did any of them ever get the better of you ? "
" Don't seem to remember it, if they did."
" How did you do it ? "
" Kept them going till they was tired."
" And if they jibbed or bolted ? "
" Kept them jibbing or bolting. What are you
getting at, you little devil ? "
" I'm trying the Socratic method on you, Jim."
" I know as much about Socrates as you do," averred
Jim, and bar the pronunciation, which on his tongue
rhymed to "dates," he may well have been right.
" Just answer another, Jim. What did you do with
a horse when you'd broken it ? "
" Your turn to answer," said Rocky Jim. " What
vdid they do to Socrates ? "
" They poisoned him," I was compelled to state.
" Moral plain," said Jim, getting to his feet. " I'm
goin^ for a walk." And I was left to reflect, not for the
first 1 ime, that few people were able to boast of having
"got change " out of Jim.
No • was I altogether gratified, for once, to hear the
Sea-Lady's golden laughter, close at hand.
CHAPTER VII
UNFURLING THE BANNER
NOW began our life on the island.
The first problem we had to solve was the
matter of signals. It was true that few ships,
or none, ever came within sight of this far
outlier of Lusancays. The place was on the road to
nowhere ; it was dangerous even to steamers because of
its uncharted reefs and fierce shifting tide-rips and
currents ; and to sailing vessels, as we had seen, it was
deadly. Nevertheless, some chance might send a ship
in our way, and we could not afford to neglect it. Pro-
bably the cutter of the half-caste Greeks would be the
first to turn up. Well, that had to be risked ; we
thought we might be able to make them hear reason.
But we hoped very hard that some surveying man-of-
war, or some schooner driven out of her course, might
run near enough to sight the island, before the Greek
boat came.
*' She is a good bit overdue," pointed out Flower.
" If they went to Samarai for stores they ought to b-
here by now. Of course, if they went on to Port
Moresby to make application for the island "
" I don't think they did," said Jim.
" Why not ? "
"Couldn't say. I just don't think it. I'm wilUn j
to suppose she's met with some bad luck. You must;
remember Lady Mary told us they were half -drunk."
Unfurling the Banner i6i
" Well, however that may be," persisted Flower, " a
signal we must have ; a permanent one flying from one
of t'le trees, and a smoke as nearly all the time as we can
manage it."
" Did you ever," said Jim, " try to keep up a per-
manent smoke signal ? It takes one man doing nothing
else all the time but humping wood, and tending it —
because it blazes or goes out if you don't look after
it."
" Besides," put in Sapphira — we were talking in the
cave, after supper on one of these first days, I can't be
sure which — "the natives is always making smokes
whei . they burn off for their gardens ; no one would take
any notice of a smoke on an island, anywhere about
New Guinea."
" Must be a flag on the top of a palm-tree trunk
then " declared Flower. "We can do without that
piece of sail now, since Sapphira has made our blankets "
(she liad spent the whole of that day, with Lady Mary's
assistance, sewing together wads of coconut canvas for
I he heds), "and if we cut the top off a palm it will
make a fine flagstaff."
" I never saw the white man yet who could chmb a
coconut," remarked Jim.
"T me you did, then," was Flower's reply. And he
gave us all the exhibition next day. He did not attempt
the di-ngerous and all but impossible feat — for a white
man— of "shinning" the tree. He cut sharp-ended
pegs ( f hard wood, hammered them in with a heavy
stone as far up as he could reach, and then stood on
them o hammer more. In spite of his great bulk, he
was exceedingly agile and active ; the task was no easy
one, but he carried it through. Before long, a dingy
L
1 62 The Terrible Island
banner of sailcloth floated from the top of ^h<3
decapitated palm, carrying its message across the sea.
We were all well pleased ; it seemed that a stej)
towards freedom had been taken. . . .
But next morning the palm was lying prone on the
ground, chopped off through the trunk.
Neither of the women was about when we found it.
I thought it just as well ; Jim would surely have burst
if he had been compelled to retain in his system the
flood of descriptive language that came forth when he
caught sight of the chopped-down signal tree. I
gathered, without much difficulty, that he held the
Greeks responsible, and that he disapproved of them,
singly, collectively, presently, and retrospectively, and
also of all the work of their hands, past, present, and to
come.
Flower put his hands in his trouser-pockets, looked at
the tree, and remarked simply, "Damn."
I said that some one of the Greeks must be able to see
a bit more than we thought.
** I shouldn't be surprised if the whole lot of thein
could see fairly well at night," mused Flower. " Theic
was some dilation of the pupil in the case of that man
that Jim shot."
" We can't signal, that's clear," I lamented.
Flower said nothing, but later on I saw him busy
collecting pieces of driftwood, and aimlessly, as it
seemed, carrying them to the top of the island and
throwing them into the sea. After he had thrown the m
he would stand watching them for an hour or more. I
wondered if he were going out of his senses.
" No, he isn't," said the Sea-Lady, when I gave vo ce
to my fears. " He has something in his mind he
Unfurling the Banner 163
doeMi't mean to tell." I saw how she spoke for him,
and how she took it for granted that she understood him
better than anyone else did.
"You don't, then," said I to myself. "Women
always think they * understand ' the man they take an
inteiest in, but as often as not they're only dressing him
up ill their own fancies." But aloud I only said, " Well,
let's hope it is all right."
Tl e Sea-Lady stood watching him for a minute, and
then she did a curious thing. She went down to the
beac.i, where a few of the many bottles that the Greeks
had strewed about the island lay gathered in chinks and
open ngs of the rocks. She picked up a couple of them
and tarried them to Flower.
" Lady Mary, Lady Mary, you mustn't wait on me,"
he exclaimed, turning round from his earnest gazing at
the sea, and taking the bottles from her hands. " Thank
you all the same." Then he seemed to awake. " How
did y )u know I wanted these ? "
Tlu Sea-Lady stooped to tie her shoe. I, hke a fool,
came forward eagerly to do it for her ; and then I saw
that she had bent down her head to hide her face. . . .
She let me tighten the lace, the while she stood up
bravely, with a tell-tale glow on her usually pale cheeks.
" I — just knew," was all she said. Then, after a
pause — for I think the sudden fire in the big man's eyes
was a little too warm for her to bear — " Great minds
think together, you know," she said, with an air of
ightncss, bending down again to that troublesome shoe,
and I, wiser this time, let her adjust it herself.
I wc nt away. What else could I do ?
Later, I saw them together on the beach, busy filling
bottles with wide leaves on which Flower had written
i64 The Terrible Island
some message with a thorn, and corking them up witli
corks that anyone of us could find for the gathering, in
the neighbourhood of the cave where the Greeks kept
hid all day. Flower had wax too, from the candlenuts
I had discovered, and smeared the corks well with it
when they were driven home. Then he and the Sea-
Lady lashed the bottles to little rafts of driftwood. I
stood watching for quite a while ; I did not offer to help,
as I knew they would rather be left alone. . . .
It was the Sea-Lady's idea to put sails on the tiny
crafts that carried our hopes of freedom. She had been
knotting and fastening the fibres that secured the bottles
with true sailor skill — all the work of her hands was
neat, finished and effective ; there were no loose
ends about Lady Mary — and by and by she took a
sharp shver of driftwood, and began hammering it into
the little raft.
" Let me do that," said Flower. " What do you
want ? "
" Would they not go farther and faster with sails ? "
she asked.
" I was depending on the currents ; I estimate them
at seven knots an hour in some places. However, the
sail could do no harm."
" Let me," she pleaded. " They are such pretty
toys."
Toys ! When one came to think of it, it could not have
been more than five years or so since she was playing
with actual toys, herself. And yet she had three men
that I knew of, held in the hollow of those flower-1: ke
hands, and how many of whom I did not know ? What
was it we all loved in the Sea-Lady? I asked mysi3lf
the question often enough in those days. She \ as
Unfurling the Banner 165
vory, very pretty, but it was not that. She was young,
unmarked, unfurrowed in body and mind as a lily or a
bloomy peach. But it was not that. She was as brave
as Nelson ; as gentle as her own grandmother, and as
brilliant and self-helpful as, probably, her own grand-
daughters would be. But you do not love a girl because
she balances gracefully between the generations, catching
the sunset gold and the sunrise glow aUke.
Why did her world find the Sea-Lady irresistible ?
I night answer that question, now, by asking another.
But I did not know the other in those days — not even
wlien I looked at our Sea-Lady, and saw something in
our faces, and vaguely sensed something in the pretty
names we gave her, that seemed to point towards a
solution of puzzles unsolved. . . .
Well ! I gave it up for the moment, and pleased myself
by watching her. She had hammered the sHp of wood
ho ne now, and Flower had hammered one or two others
on one or two other rafts. And they got the indispens-
able coconut canvas, and made little sails out of it, and
set them cunningly on the tiny masts, so that the fairy
ships would sail with anything approaching to a fair
wind. And then they carried the fleet down to the sea-
channel, where the tide was running out strongly
towards the outer walls of the island, and put them in,
and craned their necks to watch the ships go out. And
aft( rwards, they, and we, went up to the top of the
isla id to see the little vessels floating away and away.
TIk y went surprisingly fast, tiny as they were. We saw
the:n make their way tlu-ough the reefs as if they had
eacii a pilot aboard, and string themselves out in the
daric blue channels beyond.
" Will anyone ever find tliem, I wonder ? " said the
1 66 The Terrible Island
Sea-Lady, looking wistfully towards the little ships. I
knew what she was longing — ^that she, and perhai)S
another, were on the decks of the fairy fleet, sailing
away and away from the Terrible Island. It seemed
hard that the Httle boats could go, and that we could
not. You know how it is when you write a letter to one
far away, and wish, and wish that you could slip
yourself inside the envelope, to go with it whither it was
going. . . . Well, I think she was feeling somewhat
after that fashion. And I know, so did I feel.
The fleet had better luck than the tree signal ; but we
did not rely on it over much. All this time, I need
hardly say, the Greeks were constantly in our minds.
It seemed absurd that we, two strong men and another,
and two women in the full possession of health and
strength, should be terrorised by the miscreants in the
cave. Yet a way out of the difficulty was hard to find.
They had plenty of firearms and ammunition ; we had
one revolver and two cartridges. They were absolutely
unscrupulous as to ways and means. We knew there
were many things at which we should draw the line —
shooting them as they had attempted to shoot us, when
we were (supposed to be) asleep, for example. This
matter had been debated between us. Flower held that
it could not be managed in any case, since the Greeks
kept their cave thoroughly closed all daytime, and that
therefore we need not discuss the idea. Jim, and iov
the matter of that myself, had a notion that some wa y
might be found. But, as we were all agreed that the
act was impossible to us, that made little difference.
On one thing we were agreed — that some means )f
making the island safe might be, and should be, found.
Flower decided that, as a preliminary, he would spend a
Unfurling the Banner 167
night concealed near the Greeks' cave, and keep watch
on their actions. " There's no knowing what we may
pic k up about them that would be of use to us," he said.
Jim, cheerfully preparing to share his vigil, was curtly
told to show a little common sense. " You must stay
do vn at our own cave, and look after Lady Mary and
Sapphira," explained Flower. " We can't leave them
to [reland ; but I shall be very glad to have Ireland with
me " So he salved the wound he could not help
inficting.
We found a place to hide ourselves in, before the sun
wai down. There was not much difficulty about it:
the piles of overgrown coral rock near the caves furnished
moe refuges than one, and we had only to choose.
" You find one, Ireland," said Flower, " while I take a
walk round, and see none of the brutes are out."
"Sou have seen the dolmens, menhirs, kit-cote houses,
of iJrance and England, no doubt ; or if not those,
photographs of them, which are common in many
tou ists' resorts. I fixed on a sort of natural dolmen, a
littli cavern made by a large rock lying on the top of
two or three smaller ones. Once inside this, with the
trai ing vines draped down in front of the opening, not a
soul could have seen us even in broad daylight, much
less in the second-quarter moon that we expected.
Flov^er and I got ourselves safely into it before the light
failed, and waited. We did not dare to smoke ; mos-
quit)es were active, and our quarters cramped. The
wait promised to be a long and an uncomfortable one.
It did not last half an hour. No sooner was the light
fairly out of the sky, and the thin moon cUmbing up
fron the east, than the bottle barricade began to clink
furic usly inside the cave. They were coming out.
1 68 The Terrible Island
Forth they came, four of them, stumbling and feehng
their way. . . .
" Why," I whispered to Flower, " they're all as blind
as bats."
" Wait a bit," said Flower. The fourth man walked
with more certainty than the rest. He did not pause at
the entrance, as they did, and then feel for the nearest
rock, and sit down on it, yawning and stretching. He
stood erect, and walked forward. I thought he was
looking about him, though his sight was clearly not
normal ; he strained his head forward, lifted his chin,
and peered through half -closed eyelids.
Having satisfied himself that no one was about, he
spoke to the three others. They lurched forward, and
took their seats on a flat rock, while the first man went
into the cave again, and came back with a load of tins.
I felt rather dispirited as I saw the liberal helpings of
food that he distributed to the company squatted on the
rock ; it was clear they had plenty of everything. They
ate largely, picking the meat out of the tins with their
knives, and tossing it rudely down their throats. They
passed round a bottle of gin, and drank out of the neck.
It was a weird scene, up on the top of the lonely, windy
island, under the feeble moon. The men were dressed
in the rough khaki stuffs that are popular in New
Guinea, away from the townships ; they seemed almost
to melt into their surroundings in that pale light ; one
could have imagined them to be so many gigantic f unjri
growing on the rock, but for their occasional movement:.
Above them, the flag-hke leaves of wild bananas flapped
against the sky ; on the high summits of the coconut ?,
eighty feet in air, huge plumes, moon-silvered, writhe:!
and beat among the gUttering claws of Scorpio, and
■I
Unfurling the Banner 169
eclijDsed, and showed, and eclipsed again, the white
lamps of the Southern Cross. And the wind cried in the
grasses, and the lonely sea complained below.
Hunger satisfied, the Greeks rose and stretched their
Uml>s, with animal yawns and howls. They lit pipes
and smoked ; they lurched about the open spaces,
trying to obtain what exercise they might, after their
cranped day in the cave. We heard them talking to
eacl other, but it was all in Greek or in some bastard
Graeco-Malay dialect that Gilbert Murray himself could
not have made head or tail of. What Flower and I
guessed of their sayings was put together out of their
gest u-es, which were, Uke those of all half-civihsed
people, very free and expressive. The three men who
were completely bhnd seemed to be abusing the partially
blind man, perhaps for having brought them to the
island, perhaps for having failed to guard sufficiently
against the evil that had struck the whole crew. I saw
then, raise their hands to heaven, and shake their fists in
a kird of despairing way ; and once or twice one of them
struc k at his bUnded eyes as a dog bites at the wound
that smarts and burns. The other man seemed to be
trying to calm them down. We noticed that he pointed
more than once to the beach below, and laid his hand
upor the big navy revolver in his belt. When he did
this, the other men mechanically felt for their revolvers,
and one of them, once, facing down towards the caves
where he supposed us to be, spat fiercely.
B} and by the man who could see appeared to tell
them that he was going to the beach. It had been our
habit of late to sit out on the sand at dusk, coohng down
after the heat of the day. I guessed that the Greek
inten led to try a snap shot from some safe corner, and
170 The Terrible Island
my heart seemed to turn over in my breast, as I realised
that Jim and the women would not know he was coming,
and would probably expose themselves to his fire. But
Flower had seen that as soon as I did. He gathered
himself up, slipped out of the shelter-hole, and whispc r-
ing to me to await his return, ran soundlessly after the
Greek.
I thought to myself, watching him go, that it was
indeed a lucky chance that had sent us to the island
provided with a pair of rubber-soled shoes apiece, for the
rock cUmbing we expected.
"Those shoes, they are goodt thingce to take," Carl
had said. " In that breaking-neck place, they may save
your hfe." They had done that already, more than
once, in the hideous game of blind-man's-buff we were
compelled to play.
Left alone with the three blind men, I kept quiet, and
on the watch. I knew that any unguarded movement
of mine would send a hail of lead pouring in my direction,
and I had no wish at all to stop a bullet — probably
dum-dum'd — ^from one of those forty-fives. For some
few minutes the men remained as they had been leit,
only shifting their position so far as to stand a little
closer, and back to back in a triangle. It was plain that
they were taking no chances. This movement brought
them nearer to me, and with the temporary dying dov/n
of the wind I was able to hear clearly a few of the words
that passed between them. I am no mighty Gretk
scholar, but I have passed my B.A. in Arts, and modern
Greek is vepy Uke its ancient prototype in a large number
of verbs and nouns. I was almost sure that they W( re
talking about a box. What box ? They seemed to i^it
a value on it. . . -
11
Unfurling the Banner 171
" And that word is ' girl,' if I am not mistaken," I
thought. " ' Box * and ' girl ' — what have they to do
with . . ."
One of the men repeated the words ; and this time he
motioned with his hand towards the cave.
Instantly a new thought struck me. They were
talking of something that belonged to the Sea-Lady.
If I had been attentive before, I was all one strain of
attei tion now. I didn't hold my breath — one does not
— bi t I remember I listened with my mouth as wide
open as a frog's. That helps you to hear. I heard
more ; I understood another word or two, helped out by
gesti re. They were saying that she ought to be where
her box was, and one of them kissed an imaginary
maicen. . . .
I liave never since then blamed juries for acquitting
a murderer under the " unwritten law." In the flash of
blooc -lust that went through me like a jag of Ughtning,
and 1 jft me dry-lipped and shaking, there in my hiding-
hole, I understood, once for all, how men kill because of
a wo: nan, and how other men in defiance of law forgive
them. . . .
And now I was not afraid, at all, of those blunt-nosed
bulle s of theirs. I called myself a craven for thinking
such blinded brutes worthy of fear. I was determined,
coldly and unalterably determined, on knowing the
secrei of their cave, before Flower had time to chase the
seeing: villain back again, or to shoot him with one of our
two precious cartridges.
Ha /e you ever been to New Zealand ? Do you know
the Dragon's Mouth — the cavern that is full of fiercely-
boiling water for eighteen minutes and a half out of
every twenty, and empty for the remaining ninety
172 The Terrible Island
seconds ? Have you ever, in company with a guide
made callous by continual risks, gone down into that
cavern while it is dripping and steaming with the breath
of the newly-withdrawn waters, and cUmbed through
and out again, death dragging on the soles of your ievX,
before the furious flood comes back with a howl of
escaping steam ? Lame as I am, I have done it. I felt,
that night up on top of the Terrible Island, when I
crawled with exceeding care out of my hiding-hole, and
made for the empty cavern, as if I were taking, once
again, that nightmare trip through the Dragon's Ca\e.
If one did not get out in time . . .
The three Greeks were listening intently for any sound
from the direction of our beach ; I think that may have
drawn their attention off, in some degree. At all
events, they did not hear me, as I crept out of the hole,
rose slowly to my feet, and walked, on the balls of my
toes, to the cave opening. I did not dare to light a
match ; the scratching would have betrayed me. I
could only feel my way down the slope where we had
sheltered on the day of the storm, and into the opening
from which we had seen the Greek come forth. If they
came back and caught me, I knew I shouldn't have a
dog's chance of escaping their bullets in that confined
space. But, after what I had heard, I just had to go,
and that was all there was to it.
The cave was not nearly so large as I had expected.
Four or five short strides, even of my lame leg, broug] it
me across it. " Ten feet or so," I thought. I tried : t
the other way ; it was two or three yards longer. >'o
doubt there were other caves. I hoped I had got the
right one. I got down on my hands and knees and begc n
clawing round the walls. If they had a box, it was tc a
i
Unfurling the Banner 173
to one they would use it as a seat ; in that case, I should
find it somewhere on the floor.
I came across a number of other things — blankets,
coconut shells, heaps of oil tins, loose bottles ; and
mon^ than once only the greatest care saved me from
making a noise by displacing some of these miscellaneous
gooes. But no box. I stood up and felt round the
walls. I was almost frantic. It could not be long till
the :nan who could see returned, or until some alarm
connected with his absence caused the others to seek
refu^ e in the cave — indeed, I wondered that nothing had
happened yet. Surely Flower must have caught up the
Greek — surely the three outside would know by this
time that everything was not right. . . . Was that one
of them coming back? I halted, scarcely daring to
breathe. No. I had only heard the sound of water
drip])ing somewhere in unknown crevices. The men
were still outside. I fumbled on about the walls.
Sure y I must have gone almost round . . .
M\' fingers struck on something smooth and hard. In
the same instant, I heard an unmistakable sound of
scuffling outside. They were coming back !
I grabbed the thing I had touched ; it was un-
doubtedly a box, small, and covered with something
that clt like leather. I got out of the cave as quickly as
I could ; there was some little light from the sky on the
way back, although coming in I had been in utter
darkness. Could I get up the slope in time? . . . were
they . . .
Ag linst the spangled violet of the night rose up three
dense black shadows. I was trapped.
Th'Te was only one thing .to do — flatten myself
against the wall of the descending passage, and hope for
174 The Terrible Island
the best. If any one of the men happened to touch ni^
in passing, I did not rate my chances of escaping vei y
high. Apart from my lameness, and apart from the
pistols they carried, every one of the men was ex-
ceedingly handy with a knife, like all his kind, and cou'd
whip a blade out of his belt, and into something wann
and human, while a more civilised type of man would
be wondering if there was really anything there. I
squeezed myself up against the dank Hmestone of the
passage, and hoped the Greeks might walk fairly
straight.
They came grunting and shambling down the slope ;
one of them was smoking a cigarette. It fell out of his
mouth ; he stooped, felt about for it, and picked it up
again, striking a match to relight it. My heart gave a
horrid jump as the flame shot up, but I reahsed almost
at once that they could not see me, and that I had no^v
an opportunity to glance at the box. The match
flickered, wavered, went out. But I had had a look. I
was carrying a leather-covered dressing-case.
After that I would have faced the devil himself to get
my booty safely away, for I was certain that the case
was our Sea-Lady's. It might have papers inside. It
might have jewellery. It might have all sorts of things
that would serve to identify her ... if only I could get
safely away.
Two of the men passed me with a wide margin of
safety. I flattened myself against the wall of thti
cavern, and felt as one does when one is overtaken by i
train in a tunnel or cutting, with no " refuge " at han:l
to get into. The third man was walking unsteadily ; htj
smelt strongly of gin, and I made no doubt he had mor:;
than his share of the bottle they had been handing rounc .
Unfurling the Banner 175
He passed me with the smallest possible margin, and
then staggering slightly, stretched out one hand to
steady himself against the wall. The hand descended
flat upon my face.
He raised a wild whoop, and snatched at my nose
with one hand, while with the other he fumbled about
his b3lt. If he had not been half drunk, there would
have been the end of Owen Ireland. But providentially
he Wi s, and that gave me the moment I wanted to duck
away Of course, the other two had flung round in-
stant y, and they were sober. Cursing me in Greek — I
can't say how strange those fragments of academic
cultu;e sounded, in such a place, and from such lips as
theire — ^they made for me like dogs falhng on a hare.
I hid not time to think — one acts by instinct in such
momt nts as these. There was just light enough from
the starry sky and the pale moon outside the cave for
me to see where I was going. I dodged, but not into the
open passage and out at the entrance way. Instinct
shout 'd to me to get back — where they would least
expec me to go — into the cave.
In their eagerness to seize me, they had collided
again; t each other, but they drew apart at once, and all
three nvung round towards the cave mouth, fired in the
direct on of the opening — ("They would have got me
sure v'ith that," I said to myself) — and then stumbled
and scrambled out. I went after them, as quietly as I
could, thanking Heaven and Carl again for those rubber
shoes. They never thought of guarding the cave mouth,
but sj'read themselves out beyond it, near the rocky
table ^vhere they had supped, and stood listening, their
revolvers in their hands. The night had become very
still, tiiere was not a sound but the faint breathing of the
176 The Terrible Island
Pacific, far below, and, now and again, the winnowing of
some huge fruit-bat's wings. I saw the men stand
silhouetted against the stars ; you might have thought
them images of black stone. . . .
Now this was a pretty pickle, because I could not, hke
Flower or Rocky Jim, move easily without making a
noise. My lameness handicapped me ; I never could
be sure the weak foot would not drag. It was im-
possible for me to steal past those three listening forms,
on the track, and if I got off it the rustUng of the grasses
would have been as good — or as bad — as a bell about my
neck. I saw nothing for me to do but keep quiet in the
cave-mouth, ready to move as soon as I saw a chance.
" I wonder," I thought to myself, " if I'll be aUve in five
minutes' time — in half an hour ? " and I looked up,
with mingled curiosity and awe, to the glorious spanghjig
of the stars overhead. Was their secret, in a httle
while, to be mine ? . . .
Then I remembered that whatever wonders and
glories might be the heritage of my departed soul,
voyaging loose in the universe, there would not be, from
the outermost of the far-fixed stars to the near famihar
moon roaming now among the silvered vanes of the palm
trees, the face of one dear woman, the sound of her
golden voice. And eternity seemed cold. And more
than ever I was resolved that my Ufe should not end
here and now, at the will of these eyeless brutes.
" I know she's not for me," I thought, " but I want
to be on the same earth with her, as long as she treads it.
If she were in Tasmania, and I at Klondyke, it would
still be something to know that the same old world held
us both — that we went spinning round the sun 1o-
gether." I clutched the leather dressing-case mere
Unfurling the Banner 177
tightly under my arm, and swore that I would get away
clear with it — to her.
I don't really know how I intended to manage the
business, but I am sure I should have worked out some
plan or other. As it was, fate decided for me ; I had not
beer standing there in the cave mouth for more than a
minute or so, when I heard the noise of feet running
hard along the track, and of a voice shouting something
in G-eek. The man who could see was coming back.
What he said must have been a warning, for the other
three men, dropping their hunt after me, made for the
cave opening as fast as they could, arms stretched out,
and hands feeling the way. They could not go very
fast ; I saw that I might have time, covered by the noise
of tl eir movement, to get out of the cave, pass the
Gree.^ somehow or other on the track, and get myself
hidden before the fourth man arrived. But it would be
toucl and go. If I could have moved as quickly as
Flower . . .
W( 11, I could not, and that was all there was to it. I
crept at the best speed I could muster along the wall of
the entrance slope, reached the opening, and slung
myse'f round the corner of it just as the first of the three
men groped his way to the place where I had been
standing a couple of seconds before. I cast a look down
the track. White moon, and the trembhng shadows of
palms ; a fruit -bat winging through the stars ; the
night- wind stirring the plumes of the pampas-grass.
As yet , no more. I scuttled out on to the track. Pat-pat
came the feet, drawing nearer ; he would be in sight
immec iately. Reckless of making sound now, I flung
myself into the cave refuge where Flower and I had
been l:eeping watch. I barked elbows and knees ; I
178 The Terriblte Island
wrenched one foot cruelly ; I knocked the wind out of
my lean body as I fell — but I fell inside. And just as I
fell, I heard the feet come pat -pat up behind me, and
pass me like the wind.
No, he had not seen. He was in a hurry to get back
to the cave ; no doubt he had looked neither to the rig ht
nor to left, but kept straight on. It had been a very
narrow escape. I hugged the box tighter. We wt^re
nearly out of the wood now. The Greek rushed down i he
cave slope, and in another minute I heard a babel of
voices beginning. I got up and out, and in spite of my
lameness and my wrenched foot, went hobbling at a
pretty good pace towards the slope and the way to the
beach. It would not take them long to talk things over,
and if they started hunting for me with the help of i he
man who could see . . .
" Flower ! " I gasped. The big surveyor was coming
back.
" Why, Ireland ! " he said, halting. " Did the brute
get away ? '*
" He's into the cave by now," I said. " I hope to
God he "
" Oh no, he didn't get anyone. He saw me, worse
luck, or I'd have had him ; it would have been worth
risking one of our cartridges. This isn't a healthy place
just now ; we'd best get back."
I was with him there ; the whole length of the path-
way lay open to fire, and the moon was climbing higher
and growing brighter every minute.
" Give us your arm," said Flower. We hurried al ^ng
together. " No use chasing after him now," regrelied
the big man. "He's safe. What have you got urder
your arm ?"
Unfurling the Banner 179
" Box. Dressing-case," I gasped. We were slam-
ming along at a five-mile gait ; I really don't think he
knew that he was hauling me like a bundle of wash.
" r>ressing-how-much ? Is it a joke ? "
*' It's Lady Mary's," I panted.
Flower, with the steady remembrance of the job in
hand that always characterised him, got me and himself
under the lee of the slope before he stopped and burst
out,
" Vhere did you get it ? What is it ? How do you
know "
" I ^ot into the cave for a minute while the men were
out," I explained. And in a few words I related my
adventure.
I tliought he would have stove in my spine. He
clapped me on the back like a housemaid beating a
pillow.
" You damned plucky little devil ! " he swore. " I
wouldn't have done it myself."
"I'm quite sure you would and better," I coughed.
" Let'i^ get on. I can't be easy till we have the thing in
safety "
They were all waiting for us outside the cave when
we arrived. The sound of shots had been heard down
on the beach. Lady Mary and Sapphira, in the light
of our driftwood fire, looked anxious and pale-faced, as
if they had been listening and wondering. Jim was
seated comfortably on a flat stone, eating coconut. I
do not think he was very fond of it, but he said it passed
the tin e.
** I r-ickoned you'd get back all right," he observed
comfon ably, shifting a junk of nut from one cheek to
the other.
i8o The Terrible Island
But when he heard about the box, he was as much
excited as anyone. I handed it over to Lady Mary ;
we all went into the cave, and Jim lit up, with prodi^jal
display, almost the whole of our stock of candlenut
torches. We crowded round the Sea-Lady. Of couise
we should have looked away, and pretended not to take
any undue interest in her private property, but we
simply couldn't do it.
" It's locked," said Jim.
"It's been broken open," said Flower. He \\as
right ; the lock closed, but did not catch. The box,
now I saw it in full light, was a beautiful thing ; deepest
violet Russia leather, with handles, lock and name plate
of engraved brass. On the plate all eyes were instantly
fixed.
I cannot hope to tell you how disappointed we were
when we saw that it was engraved with a Christian name
alone. " Alix," cut evidently in facsimile of a written
signature.
" Is that your name ? " asked Flower of the Sea-Lacy.
She held the box in her hands, looking curiously at the
plate.
" I don't know," she said presently, raising her head.
" You call me Lady Mary."
** Alix," said Flower. " AHx. Does that reciU
anything to you ? "
She stood looking at him, her lips a little apart, the
delicate line of her eyebrows seeming to waver. I :lo
not think for an instant he knew, but he had spoken l.er
name in the accent of a lover. It seemed to me tliat
she was hstening, not to what he said, but to that to le.
" AUx," he said again.
She shook her head.
IP
Unfurling the Banner i8i
" Lady Mary," put in Jim, "if you don't open that
box 5oon, some of us are just going to curl up and die
of suppressed curiosity."
" You suppress it a lot, don't you ? " commented
Sapi hira.
" I'm not sure that it is mine," said the Sea-Lady,
"I I an't remember. ..." And the old distressed
expn ssion, that we had not seen for long, came clouding
over her face again.
" Uetter open it and see," counselled Flower.
Th 3 Sea- Lady, obeying him, as she always did, put the
box i 1 his hands, the while she manipulated the lid. It
seemod to me, and I daresay to the rest, that her fingers
moved as if they were familiar with their ground. In a
few s< conds she had loosed the lid, and the dressing-case
was (pen.
It was a wreck.
Th< re had been bottles, jars, toilet apphances of all
kinds fitted into it, as one could see by the numberless
moro( CO loops, differently sized and shaped. There was
still a writing-case, dehcately tooled, but devoid of
pencils and pens. There was a beautiful bmall jewel-
case, emovable, but fastened in with catches. It had
been loughly dragged open, and the velvet Unings were
torn 1 x>se, apparently in search for some secret recess.
It was empty. The case had been most thoroughly
looted
** Tliat's been silver fittings it had — likely solid," said
Sapphira reUshingly. " The brutes has ripped loose
every bit of metal."
" Not every bit," said Jim, who had taken the case
up, ai d was turning it slowly over. " They missed
this." He laid his finger on the name plate, which we
1 82 The Terrible Island
had supposed to be engraved brass. "That's gold,"
said the miner. " And the handles."
"Then," I suggested, "the fittings must certahily
have been gold too. No wonder they looted it."
" Gold I " said Sapphira, almost smacking her Ups.
" That's doing it proper, that is. But I might have
known it. When she was thrown ashore her little
shimmy," went on Sapphira narratively, " was hke a
spider's web trimmed with the frost off of a window-
pane."
I felt grateful to Jim for foregoing the mischievous
comment that I saw twinkling in his eye.
"Here," said Flower, somewhat hurriedly, "give it
back till I have another look. May I hunt right through
it. Lady Mary ? "
" Oh, please do," she said. She was not nearly so
much interested as the rest of us were ; the question of
her own identity did not seem to sit very heavily on her
mind. But she watched with attention while the big
man's big, dexterous fingers felt all over the case, inside
and outside, to ascertain whether anything of interest,
value, or significance had been left behind by the
robbers.
I did not expect that anything would come of the
search, but Flower was determined to have the Irst
secrets out of the box, and his efforts did not go un-
rewarded. A fiat morocco letter-case came to hght.
" Now we have it," said the surveyor in a satisfied
tone. " This is certainly some of your property." And
he handed the case, unopened, to the Sea-Lady.
She drew out of it a simple letter, written on forei;^n
paper. I saw her turn it over, but not a gleam of
expression came into lier face.
Unfurling the Banner 183
" I do not think it is mine," she said. " Will you
read it ? "
" .Uoud ? " said Flower.
" Why not ? '* she answered him.
Hti looked at her curiously, but opened out the letter.
We were all standing round him ; none of us had
thought to sit down. The light from the candlenut
torches, smoky and glaring, fell on the ring of interested
faces, of which the calmest and least interested was
certainly that of the Sea-Lady.
Fl)wer read —
" G Club, Piccadilly.
*' My Darling Alix,
" I have written to you already by this mail —
though indeed I scarcely expect my letter will catch you
up, on your flying journey. I am writing again, not
becaise there is anything special I have to say, but
beca ise I must repeat just once more how I love you,
and how sweet you looked that day down at Liverpool,
when I saw you off by the ever to be cursed Caronia.
Alix Alix, Alix, get quite well soon, and come back
quic-dy. You are rich in unspent years, but I am so
poor that I grudge every day you spend away.
" 1 saw H. M. the other day. She was most gracious,
and asked me to send you her kindest regards. She
tells me that it is a poor return I make for favour, in
taking away the best of all her maids, and I can only
agre«^ with her, but man is selfish. Dear, you should
have heard how she spoke of that other Maid ; it seems
more Uke twenty days than over twenty years, she said,
since Margaret left her. ' I shall not easily forget her,'
she s lid, ' but your little Alix is sweeter. ' She looked at
me ;is if she would have said much ; H.M. forgets
noth ng, and you, of all people, don't need to be told
what her lovely tactfulness can be.
" Lnjoy yourself, enjoy yourself — I grudge you
1 84 The Terrible Island
nothing, though I wish it could have been shared by mn-
Tell Lady Grace to guard my jewel, I almost fear to le t
it go so far from my safe keeping. I came up to town
yesterday; the Court looked so lovely I was loth to
leave it behind. They are working hard at the Dutch
garden, and I hope it may be worthy of its mistress. I
got Adams mantelpiece, it will replace that Jacobean
one that was damaged. Queen Elizabeth's bedroom is
being cannily treated, but some of that panelhng has
simply got to come down and be replaced. I agree witli
you about the engravings ; they are banished to thii
housekeeper's room. For all I can do to the place, for
all the many people it harbours, the Court looks empty
and sad. It waits, like its owner.
" Good-night, AUx, sweet Alix, so hke your god-
mother. I pray the Seven Seas may treat you ever
kindly, and carry you back safe to old England. ' And
your petitioner will ever pray ' —
" Always yours only,
"C DE C."
There was silence in the cave, after the reading of the
paper. Flower folded up the sheet, put it back into the
violet morocco case, and handed it to the Sea-Lady
without a word. I did not dare to look at his face.
The pause was broken by Sapphira.
" Well, if that's not a nice love-letter — and do you
know anything about them people, dearie ? "
" I do not know," answered the Sea-Lady. There
was struggle, almost pain, visible on her face.
" It's written to some girl in service in a big house,
who's gone travelling with her mistress, I reckon. They
say things about a maid, and taking her away. I'd
guess the chap who wrote it was the steward or bailiff
or something of the place they call the Court ; he seems
to have a lot to do with the repairs. . . . Well, it's an
11
Unfurling the Banner 185
interesting letter, but it don't tell us much, does it,
dearie ? and how do you think you ever got it in that
dressing-case of yours ? Was it your maid that it was
written to ? "
The Sea-Lady was silent ; I doubt if she heard a word.
I \vondered that Flower, who had been so keen on
helpi ig her to recover her memory, had nothing now to
say. It seemed a matter of no moment to him — to
judge by his demeanour — whether the Sea-Lady ever
recovered her memory again or not. And yet this was
far ai d away the best and biggest chance that had ever
prese;ited itself of lifting up the dark curtain that
heretofore had covered all her past. Could he not even
ask l.er a question or two ? I fancied that memory
must be very near to dawning in her mind. Of course,
I did not take Sapphira's view of the letter. I guessed,
more accurately than anyone else in that place was
likely to do, the full astonishing significance it bore.
But V hat use was that, or anything else, as long as the
Sea-L. idy could not remember ?
Anc still Flower was silent.
It V as Jim who spoke.
" W hat about turning in ? I've got first watch, and
I wan* to get it over."
" Give it to me," said Flower, speaking for the first
time since he had handed the letter back to the Sea-
Lady. " I don't feel sleepy. I'll look out now, and
you ca 1 have the middle watch."
Sapphira and the Sea Lady went into their cave.
Flower, the handyman, had made them a partition of
woven palm-leaves, with a sort of swinging flap for a door,
so thai they enjoyed complete privacy. Jim dropped
\Mi 11 his bed of bracken and coconut canvas, flun^
1 86 The Terrible Island
his arms above his head, and sank instantly to sleep. I
lay down near the doorway ; it was a warmish night,
and I wanted to feel the breeze on my face, and look at
the stars as I lay. Old tropic wanderers will want to know
what we were doing about mosquito nets ; there is no
sleeping in hot countries without them. I can answer
that we were very well off in that particular. The ever
useful coconut canvas, open in texture, and capable of
being split to different thicknesses, had been sewn into
nets that did all that was required. But Ku-Ku's
Island was not much troubled with mosquitoes, and
often enough we did not lower the nets till near morning.
I lay, then, with my face to the open sky, waiting for
the sleep that I knew would be long in coming. On m(;,
and me alone, of the company, the weight of a great
secret had descended. I knew about Lady Mary.
Her name, it is true, I did not yet know. But a single
telegram sent to any centre of civilisation when — or if —
we got away from the island, would bring all the in-
formation that we could desire. I knew where the
telegram should be sent ; I knew to whom it should be
directed. I knew that Lady Mary, whatever she was,
was not Lady Mary ; Lady she might be, probably was,
but her real name was Alexandra, and she had been
named after the greatest lady in the land, and the
loveliest in the world, whose goddaughter and Maid
she was.
No wonder that I had thought I remembered thjit
still, self-possessed way she had of standing with h-ir
hands before her — I had seen its hke on the platform oi
a hundred pubhc functions, in England. No wond r
that a likeness to the world's loveliest lady had hauntc d
me, unknown to myself, when I looked at our Sei-
Unfurling the Banner 187
■Maiden. It is well known to certain sets of Society —
of \v hich sets I once was an outer, unconsidered member
— ^that those in constant and immediate contact with
the very great often acquire an amazing resemblance to
then. And the features of Lady Mary — the very large
eye? with a beautiful fulness underneath ; the oval
chin : the long neck, and sweet, close-set mouth — ^were
the best possible foundation for such an acquired
likeiiess to grow upon.
V^ hat was the fascination of the Sea-Lady ? What
was, and is, the fascination of the " Sea-King's
dau{,hter " whom she served ? There are no words
to t«;ll. But the heart of an Empire in one case, and
the hearts of us poor, comparatively humble men in the
other, leaped their own reply. . . .
I ( ould not rest, even with the quiet stars to calm me.
I turned again and again , looked to the darkness of the
cave, with the face of Rocky Jim showing as a dim white
blur ; to the beach, moon-silvered, with the wild
bananas swinging their vanes, hke great dark snatching
hanc s, across Orion's jewelled belt and sword. I heard
the ipward crash and downward suck of wave after
wave on the island walls outside ; I heard the sinister
hum of the reefs away at sea, like the call of a myriad
giam hornets. The moon chmbed up and up among the
whit^i stems of the palm trees ; the bell-bird ceased its
tinkling in the forest ; the ghost-pigeon, that wails in
deep night, when all true pigeons are asleep, and that
lures— so Papuans say — the wanderer into dark places
of tie bush, where he loses sight and dies, took up its
mela icholy crying. And still I could not sleep.
I thought that Flower's watch must be almost over.
I gut up and walked barefoot over the cold sand ; there
1 88 The Terrible Island
was no use lying awake like this, when I could have a
companion to relieve my loneliness. But I could net
see the surveyor.
I supposed he had gone up to the top of the island
to look about him, and make sure that no more
trouble need be expected from the Greeks. I found ;i
quiet seat among the rocks — my strained foot was
giving some slight trouble — and settled myself t<3
wait.
In a minute or two I saw him, coming up from th'3
edge of the sea. His hands and hair were dripping ;
he had evidently been bathing his head to cool himseli.
I was about to speak to him, when I caught sight of his
face in the full moonlight, and saw that upon it which
closed my lips. . . .
..." God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb." It
was Sterne who said that, and he ought to have known,
for, with all his genius, he was weak to stand against
the winds of hfe. I think God does so temper the
cruellest of all winds for us who are shorn of the strength
and splendours of other men. I suffered, bitterly, in
Ceylon, when the girl I loved with a young man's first
passion was taken from me. I had suffered since that
day, when the Sea-Lady first stepped dripping and
sparkling out of the ocean into our lives, with the
knowledge that she was not, could never be for me. But
the hell that I saw in Flower's face when, thinking
himself alone with the night and his agony, he looked up
to the unpitying skies, and stretched his great arm?;
abroad, and beat and wrung his hands, was as far fron:
me as the heaven that he had hoped for was for ever oul
of my reach.
I felt shamed to my soul to have spied upon hii
f1
Unfurling the Banner 189
agony. I knew, now, why he had not spoken ; why he
had wanted the first watch of the night so that he might
be alone to wrestle with the blow that had fallen on him.
I knew that he had never taken the ring the Sea- Lady
wore, and the few unconscious references to " Cedric/'
very seriously; that he had hoped, and that he had
love i, as few men in the world can love, with all the
grea: heart and soul enshrined in his great body. I had,
in tie days that passed, heard something of the history
of h s first marriage. It was a sad and a heroic tale.
He had married a woman who drank ; the trouble had
developed during their engagement, and Flower had
insisted on carrying out his promise, in the hope of
saving her. He had not saved her ; after a struggle that
lasted for long and bitter years, she had died — of drink
— lee ving him defeated, free, and so weary with the fight
that he had never, since her death, cared to give any
worn in a second glance, until Lady Mary came, and —
as h( did not tell me, and as I knew — ^took him captive
with the first look of her innocent, lovely eyes, for as
long as Ufe should last.
Yes, he had hoped. And this was the end. No one,
reading that letter, could have mistaken the fact that it
was ^vritten by a lover to the woman who had given him
her promise, and upon whom he relied as he relied on
God or Heaven. I could not understand all of it
myself, but so much was clear. Clear, also, was that
other dizzying truth that I thought Flower had not even
perceived — that placed our little Sea- Lady, by right,
within the range of the " fierce hght that beats upon a
throre." . . .
If I had ever thought of pointing out to him this
additional barrier, I lost all idea of it now. Best keep
I go The Terrible Island
the secret, so long as it could be kept. There was no
good end to be served by reveaUng it.
The question of the moment was how to get back to
the cave without being seen. I turned cold when I
thought of Flower, reserved as an Indian, sensitive as
only a strong man is sensitive, knowing that I had
watched him in his moment of abandonment. He had
calmed down now, and was sitting with his head propped
upon his hand, in an attitude that spoke no more than
quiet dejection. Not even his sorrow could make him
unmindful for a moment of his duty. He sat where hi
could overlook the whole of the slope leading down from
the summit of the island, and from time to time he raised
his head, and scanned it closely, in the light of the fuU-
risen moon.
Something or other that he saw, or fancied he saw,
caused him by and by to rise and walk a little forward.
I seized the chance of slipping unseen into the cav<i
again. But then, or thereafter, there was little sleep
that night for me.
CHAPTER VIII
MYSTERY OF THE PIG
FROM the day on which we found the letter, I
dated a change in Flower.
Up to that, though he had worked hard at
times to supply comforts for the women, and
to mike our cave-home safe and pleasant — aided by
Jim's effective help, and my shghter assistance — he had
taken things easy when there was nothing special to do,
and had loafed as big men do loaf. They are not like us
small fry, who must be always on the fidget after some-
thing or other, amusement, diversion, the overseeing of
our n iighbour's business, if we happen to have none of
our own. They work more in fits and starts, and
though accompUshing as much on the whole as the
restless little folk, they seem to enjoy long periods of
doing nothing at all.
Flo ATer had taken his share of pleasant dozing in the
heat of midday under the cool shelter of the cave ; of
bathing in the dawn or at sunset, in the clear green
water i of the cove ; of lounging and smoking near the
light ( 'f our driftwood fire when all the various tasks of
day were done. Now he rested no more, he amused
himse f no more. Like the famous statesman whose
name I cannot remember, he showed that he could
"tcil terribly." Long before Jim and I had dis-
entangled ourselves from our bedclothes, he would be
192 The Terrible Island
out on the beach, collecting the fine white wood-ash
that was our only soap (and very good soap it is),
running fresh water into the breaker, and scrubbing
down with a wisp of coconut fibre ; dressing again, as
much as any of us dressed, and getting away to colic ct
a bit more firewood for Sapphira, or to fish off the oul er
wall of the island, or to look for wild peppers for the
inevitable stew. He would eat hurriedly, and get away
again before the rest of us had finished ; a hundred
tasks he had found, or made, seemed to be always
waiting for him. He had undertaken a geological
surveyof the whole island, and used to spend hour after
hour, under the fiercest midday suns, with a smoothed-
down slab of wood, and a rough charcoal pencil, drawing
and making notes, tapping strata with a makeshift
hammer of rock, and breaking specimens away ; peering
into chasms and over " faults " that showed on the high
edges of the cUffs. ... He would hunt unwearied ly
through and through the bush for anything animal,
vegetable, or mineral that might be of use to our little
community of castaways. He would try, undaunted
by failure after failure, to catch some one of the Greeks
outside their fortified cave, daytime or night-time, and
make him prisoner. " If we could only get hold of one
of the brutes, and make him listen to reason," he said,
"one might arrive at some understanding about the
ownership of the place." But no such opportunity
presented itself.
He would cut down mulberry trees with his knife,
working hard for hours to fell one or two of the slim
trunks, and rip them open, and collect the inner baik,
driving Jim and myself, his helpers, as if we were all in
danger of imprisonment or torture, if we did not prod ce
Mystery of the Pig 193
a certain tale of work by a certain hour. And he got
flat Jogs and set them out of the sun in a cool part of the
beach, and made wooden beaters, and set everyone to
beat ng tappa cloth out of the fibres. And when we were
all tred, or had gone off to other jobs, he would sit
there still, a strange figure, loose wild hair standing up
all over his head, torn shirt hanging off his neck, hands,
each with a beater tight held, working up and down like
parts of some machine — tap-tap, tap-tap till sunset ;
he nt ver rested. He never stopped to yarn with any of
us, 0/ to have a quiet smoke — he smoked as he worked,
and poke only when it was necessary.
An d he kept away from the Sea-Lady.
I c o not say that he avoided her when there was a
chante of doing anything for her or for Sapphira. But
he made no occasions to seek her company. He peeled
candlenut torches, so that she should have the Ught she
fancie i of nights in her sleeping cave, and in silence left
them where she could find them. He plaited her a new
wide liat, almost as big as an umbrella, out of palm-
leaves, and handed it to her without a word, leaving
barel} time for thanks, before he turned away into the
bush again. Often, in the night, when it was Jim's
watch or mine, we might see Flower's great shaggy
head lifted up from his bracken bed, and peering from
the dc or way of the cave ; or one of us patrolling about
the slope might suddenly come upon him, loping down,
with that deerhound stride of his, from the plateau,
whitlu r he had gone to make an unexpected visit. He
seeme< I to trust no one but himself to keep guard over the
Sea-Li dy.
Jim and I, talking things over, agreed that he was
taking the Greeks almost too seriously. After all, we
N
194 The Terrible Island
argued, things could not go on like this for ever. We
had been near three weeks on the island, and in all that
time the men of the cave had never — to our knowledge
— been out in dayhght. If they came out at night it
was with the utmost caution, using the man who could
see as a sentry, so that they could get back in a hurry,
should any one of us come along. They would certainly
get tired of this sort of thing. They would run up some
kind of a flag of truce — appeal to us in some way — try
to make terms. So Jim and I argued.
Flower used to hsten to us, if he were present, in utter
silence. He was not much of a talker at the best of
times, but this want of responsiveness on his part had a
chiUing effect.
" Don't you agree with us ? " I asked him once. It
was the time of the evening meal. We were sitting
inside the cave, our log stools placed about a table that
we men had managed to knock up out of the natural
planks found buttressing the roots of certain great
Papuan trees. We were careful with our ship provisions
nowadays ; lemon-grass tea smoked in our tins ; lish
from the lagoon were served on platters of banana leaf,
white coconut cream, with red peppers cut up in it,
stood in a coconut shell at everyone's elbow, to dip 1;he
morsels in, since we had no sauce. We had a single
precious biscuit apiece ; and Sapphira had stewed a
mess of miscellaneous fruits in a couple of ox-ton;.;ue
tins, and served it for a sweet course. Despite the
absence of the story-book breadfruits and yams jind
oranges and bananas, which are never found on t ue
** desolate islands," we thought that Ku-Ku's Island vas
doing us none too badly.
Flower dipped a piece of parrot -fish in the cocoimt
sauce, and ate it, before he made reply.
w'^P Mystery of the Pig 195
" No," was all he said.
. " Why not ? " Jim and I demanded together.
" Because," said Flower, setting down his emptied
tin (I knew he missed the " real " tea worse than anyone
else in the party, but he would not touch the remainder
of our httle store, preferring to leave it for use in possible
sickness) " you've forgotten their point of view."
" rhey haven't got any," said Jim. "They're half-
cast* 's — or quarter at the best. You can't reckon on
them as you would on white men."
" You can reckon on human nature, be it black or
white," declared Flower. " For some time past, those
men have been saying to each other, just as we have,
that this state of affairs can't continue. They probably
exptcted their boat long ago. I daresay the blow that
did or poor Carl may have accounted for her too, if
one jnly knew. Well, they must be beginning to see
that. They are asking themselves, ' How is it to end ? '
And you may be sure that they will find some answer
befoie we shall. Because if things are unpleasant for
us, they are just about twice as unpleasant for them.
We liaven't committed two murders that would hang
us, at Port Moresby. We aren't trying to ' skin ' the
island of its shell and shell-money — which I suppose
they have hidden away before someone else discovers it
— our game is to apply decently to the Lands Office for a
lease We aren't shut up all day ; we haven't, so far*
gone blind, any of us. Oh, the light end of the stick is
ours, without doubt. That's why I say that they will
makt the first move."
" What do you think it will be ? " asked Lady Mary.
Th ; Hght in his eyes as he turned to her ! the bitter
longi ig beaten down by his will as a man beats a fire
back into the ashes from which it has burst forth. . . .
196 The Terrible Island
" I can't tell you that," he said, with the gentlenes>s
that his voice always held when he spoke to her — which
was hardly ever now. I wondered if she saw the double
meaning that I could not help reading into the words.
I do not think she did. Sitting there on her rough
log stool, her much-washed and mended cotton dreis
faUing over her Dian-shape Hke the draperies of some
fair statue, a blood-coloured hibiscus burning in htr
hair (why had she placed it there ?), the Sea- Lady, I
knew, was thinking hardly at all of anything Flowtr
might say. She was thinking of him ; looking at him ;
wondering, grieving over him. She had spoken only
to make him speak to her.
Did she love him, then ? It was impossible to tell.
That supreme self-control of hers, like clear ice about a
flower, showed, yet protected, the beauty of her heart
and mind. One saw — one suspected the sweetness c>f
that which lay within, but one could not scent, could
not touch the lovely thing. The Sea-Lady's secrets
were her own.
Yet I thought that the shadow which rested on the
face of the big surveyor, in these latter days, threw some
portion of its shade on her.
But he had not done speaking. He held out his tin
to Sapphira, for more of the lemon-grass tea, swallowed
it, as if to clear his voice, which seemed less und(T
control than usual — perhaps he had caught some cold
wandering about the island — and went on — with a chan^;e
of subject that seemed curiously abrupt,
" I want to do some hunting to-morrow."
" What are you going to hunt ? " demanded Sapphira,
alert at the mention of anything that might concern tie
kitchen.
Mystery of the Pig 197
" Pigs," said Flower.
We who walk somewhat apart from the rest of
humanity have strange intuitions at times. I cannot
say wvhy, but at that moment I felt an unreasoned
conviction that Flower had not changed his subject so
muc'i after all. I was sure the pigs had something to
do w ith it.
" ] thought there wasn't any," objected Sapphira.
" There are a very few. I've found traces lately. I
thinl: we could manage to trap some in that stretch of
big 5crub."
" Why aren't there more ? " demanded Jim. " This
ought to be a mighty good place for them, judging by
other islands."
" I should suppose," said Flower, choosing his words
with some care, and looking only at the piece of fish he
was ( ating, " that the island, for some reason or other,
does not suit them."
" Where do you reckon they came from ? "
" Ku-Ku probably brought them."
*' Im't there food for them here ? "
•• Plenty."
Thi conversation seemed to languish. Supper
finished without much more talk. Afterwards, Jim
went up to do sentry while the rest of us enjoyed
a quiet lounge on the beach, in the cool of the
twilight.
Ev«!ry man has his faults, and I am no exception. The
worst of mine, or one of the worst, I fear, is curiosity.
I can't mind my own business, exclusively. I must
know what the rest of my immediate world is thinking,
feelin ^ fearing. Especially I must hunt down a secret
when I suspect one. II this is a meanness, it has at all
1 98 The Terrible Island
events never led me into mean conduct. I play fair.
I don't trap. I ask. . . .
That night, I was hot on the trail of a mystery. What
had Flower meant ? What was the inner significance
of his talk about pigs ? I knew it was waste of time
for me to question him, the big man was not the
sort of person with whom one could take a liberty—
unless . . .
Yes, that was the way. If the Sea-Lady asked him
he might or might not tell, but he would not at all events
be angered.
" Lady Mary," I whispered.
She turned her head in the twilight. We were sitting
on the outer rim of the little group.
" Can you sUp aside to speak to me ? " I said softly.
*' Something about Flower."
She did not appear to hear ; she made no answer — but
she rose by and by, and changed her seat. We could
talk now without being overheard.
I told her, in a few words, that I thought there was
something behind the hunting plan, and begged her to
try and find out. She nodded, and by and by went
back to her place.
*' Mr. Flower ! " I heard her say. He started just a
little, as a horse starts when a spur touches it. He
turned his head to look at her ; he had been looking
darkly through the gathering darkness, out to the
prisoning sea.
" What are you going to hunt pigs for ? "
" For you to eat," he answered.
" Is that all ? "
" No, Lady Mary." We knew now that her name v> as
not Lady Mary — but it had become a habit to use it.
Mystery of the Pig 199
And she herself laid no claim to the other. " It may be
mine," was all we could get her to say.
" Am I not to know ? " I would have given her all
thai she asked even to the half of my kingdom, had I
been a king and she a slave who asked in such a tone.
FloH^r felt it — even more than I, perhaps.
" You shall know, if you wish ; but it might be better
not to trouble you," he answered.
" I think I would rather be troubled," she said. And
tlir( ugh that hateful clairvoyance of mine, that always
told me everything which was Ukely to pain me, I knew
she was asking and persisting, not because I had set her
on, but because she wanted to be assured that no
special danger to Flower lurked in this new enterprise,
whatever it might be.
" Well," he answered her after a pause, " I can tell
you what I want them for, if you wish ; I want them»
par :ly for food, and partly for experiments."
" Experiments ? " Her voice showed dismay, almost
hor -or. " You were a doctor — do you mean — oh ! "
" I was a medical student," he corrected. " And I
dor't mean vivisection. My experiments, if I make
anj , will not be in any way troublesome to the pigs."
1 here was a note of finaUty in his voice that seemed
to t ell her she had asked enough. Yet she ventured one
more question.
' Why do you want pigs, in especial ? "
' Because, in some ways, they resemble human
beings."
S he asked no more. I could have put a question or
tw(» on my own account, but Lady Mary, once satisfied
that no danger to Flower was involved, left the subject
aloie. I do not know if further asking would have
200 The Terrible Island
brought further repHes. He had gone very far out of
his usual road in answering even so much.
The pig-hunt took place next day. It resulted in the
capture of three small pigs, which was all to the good ;
but they were — we thought — rather dearly paid for by
the expenditure of one of our cherished cartridge s,
which Jim was obliged to fire off in the face of a big boar
that charged him, tusks bared and champing, in a
narrow forest track. He stopped the boar, but it left
us with just one cartridge for all possible emergencies.
" I wonder was I worth it," he speculated aloud, as
we filed out again, in the later afternoon, carrying our
trophies. I had filled the rather ignominious part of a
mere beater, but anything was better than giving rio
help. Sapphira and Lady Mary had been safely blocked
into the cave with big stones before we left ; and in any
case we had the Greeks' cave practically in sight most of
the time ; so it had been possible for all three to join the
hunt together.
" Yes, you were," answered Flower calmly, as one
taking his part in a serious discussion. " If I hadn't
thought an extra man worth saving, I wouldn't have
brought the revolver with us. Of course there was
always the chance of a boar charging. It would have
ripped you up, and made you useless, if it didn't kill
you, and we can't afford useless people."
His words were to bear a bitter meaning before long ."
but none of us knew that then.
He had captured the baby pigs alive, and slain th'-
old boar. The sow we had not seen. It seemed odd
that she was not about. The piglets, though past th<?
age when they would have depended solely on her,
looked as if they had suffered somewhat for the want oi
I!
Mystery of the Pig 201
mat^mal care ; they were thin and poor looking, and
theni were but four in the Utter — the three we caught,
and one that got away.
" Something must have happened to the old pig,"
said Jim.
" Something must," agreed the surveyor.
I CO not know if I mentioned that the coconut trees
on the beach were all young ones, and that the tall old
trees in full fruit were situated on the top of the island ;
but ihat was the case. We used a lot of coconut in
our iood ; it was our only source of fat. Every day
someone had to go up to the top, and bring down a few
nuts from the windfalls, before Sapphira began her
serious cooking. It was my job next morning. I went
up as usual, found everything, as usual, tranquil,
gathered my tale of nuts from under the biggest tree,
and was turning home, when I noticed something odd.
It wijs a mere nothing, but our nerves were all more
or lejS overstrung in those days, and I stopped to
investigate closely the glittering thing I had seen.
A button, nothing more — a trouser button with the
edge worn bright, and gUstening in the sun where it had
fallen .
I pjcked it up, and brought it down to the beach with
my loid of coconuts. I was in two minds as to saying
anything about it, but the smallest subject of conversa-
tion vas a boon to us in those narrowed quarters, and I
thought someone might have a word or two of comment.
I sho\yed it to the whole party, and we all had a good
look at it, and decided that it was just a common trouser
button of British make, imported into Austraha for the
finishing off of cheap cotton goods designed for the
Pacific Islands trade. Also that the Greeks evidently
202 The Terrible Island
^i
had not provided themselves with needles and
thread.
Then we dispersed to our various tasks, for there was
always plenty of work to do. Sapphira had fish to
prepare for dinner ; Lady Mary was busy with a tappa-
cloth dress ; Jim had to open and split up the coconuts
that were wanted for cooking purposes, and to husk
neatly the dozen or so that we always kept ready for
drinking. I purposed to go and get bait off the rocks,
and in the small pools of the reef, for fishing later on.
I don't know what Flower had planned out ; but
whatever it was, he seemed to have altered his plans, for,
after standing for a minute or two in deep thought^, he
bent down, picked up a few coconuts, and carried them
to where Jim had already begun work with his sharpened
stick planted firmly in the ground.
" Come with me, Ireland," he said to me. " Bring
the rest of the nuts."
I gathered them up.
" Is that every one ? Don't leave any."
" Every one," I assured him, wondering what was up.
" I may be wrong," said Flower, half to himself, as
we walked over to Jim with our load, " but there's no
use taking chances."
Jim was at work on the young drinking nuts, stripping
the coat of fibres off, and converting the great lumps of
smooth-skinned green, as big as a child's head, into
globes of rough-tooled ivory.
" Hold on a minute," said Flower. He took the nut
Jim was holding, and looked at it closely.
" Show me the rest," he said. One by one he w nt
over the pile of drinking nuts, examining them minut( ly,
especially about the point, where the two "eyes" of
Mystery of the Pig 203
the coconut — ^the soft spots one opens for drinking
pur})oses — are to be found.
I began to see light. I remembered that Flower's
first job in New Guinea had been the surveying of a site
for a magistrate's residence, in the Trobriand Islands.
I recalled what I had heard about the Trobriands — these,
or o :hers — it mattered little. . . .
There is only one place in the world — that I know of
— wliere drinking coconuts can be, and are, poisoned
withDut opening them or leaving any visible trace.
Thai place is the Trobriand group, where Uve the
mos accompUshed native poisoners in all New
Guinea.
I followed Flower's thought easy enough. But I did
not agree with him, nevertheless ; I was almost certain
that continual thinking and worrying over one particular
matrer had induced a sort of monomania in his brain.
It \\as surely absurd to trace poisoned coconuts to
Trobriand pearling and that errant trouser button.
FI Dwer seemed to follow my thought with considerable
acci^racy.
" It can do no harm to try," he remarked, somewhat
drily. " We'll drink water for to-day — and, Todd, you
miglit refrain from bringing Sapphira any coconuts for
her cooking."
" .\nd when she begins asking questions ? " queried
Jim
" Tell her the truth, but don't tell it till you need.
Thai's a good all-round motto."
H; was examining all the coconuts as he spoke,
holding each one up, and searching all over its husk for
mari^.
" Found anything ? " asked Jim.
204 The Terrible Island
" No. They know their work better than that, I
fancy. There's only one way of finding out.**
"What*s that?'*
For answer, he got up, and walked over to the pen of
heaped-up stones we had made for the small pigs. He
lifted a pigling out. It squealed and struggled wildly.
And of course the women came running to see what was
the matter.
Flower gave them a considering look.
" They*ve got to know," was his conclusion. And he
made no remark when Sapphira, her hands spangled
with silver fish-scales, and the Sea-Lady, roUing down
her sleeves after some domestic task, came up to the
pen, eager to know what was afoot. Lady Mary, I
noticed, looked rather white. She was not quite easy as
to Flower*s intentions towards the pig.
It was to her that he turned, by and by, having taken
out the pig he wanted, and tethered it by the hind leg to
a tree.
" We are not going to hurt anything — if we can help
it," he said, with that note of kindliness in his tone that
would have reassured a member of the Anti-Vivisection
Society. " We are only going to give this little piggy
a drink of our own coconuts. If they disagree wilh
him we shall be sorry, but we shall feel he's done a good
work.'*
Lady Mary made no comment, but her eyes seem(:d
to dilate as she watched the little pig greedily drinking
coconut water, poured out in a giant clam shell. It
took quite a lot, and afterwards ate the meat of one or
two of our eating nuts.
" These are not so easy to poison, but one may as wdl
be thorough," said Flower.
Mystery of the Pig 205
" Ix)rd, is that what you're after ? " asked Sapphira.
" Art them brutes in the cave up to that game ? "
" That is just what I am trying to find out," repUed
FlowT.
Never was pig more carefully attended to than the
little captive under the hibiscus tree, for the rest of that
morning. He seemed quite well so far as we could see.
Hour after hour passed in the carrying out of our various
tasks Every now and then a visit paid to the pig by
anyone who happened to be in his neighbourhood, found
him well and cheerful, though evidently desirous of
being let loose to wander on the shore, and pick up a
trifle of decayed fish, if such were to be had.
Ab)ut twelve o'clock, when we had almost ceased to
watch the pig prisoner. Rocky Jim had occasion to go
down the beach after a tin of salt water. Coming back
again, he halted by the hibiscus tree. In another
momt nt his yell drew everyone round him.
" i^^ggy's got it in the neck I Piggy's going to wink
out ! ' he cried.
The little creature, dark, hairy and spotted, as these
wild pigs are, an odd spectacle at the best of times, was
lying on its side, kicking violently. Its mouth was very
wide open, and it choked and snorted in its efforts to
catch breath. Its belly seemed swelled up. It squealed,
at int.jrvals, in a feeble, jerky way. By and by, ab we
watch id it, it rolled over on its back, and stuck all its
four small hoofs in the air. In that position it remained
some ime.
The Sea- Lady stood beside Sapphira watching ; her
lumds were tightly clasped ; her breast heaved.
"Poor Uttle beastie! Oh, poor Uttle thing!" she
cried. " We've killed it."
2o6 The Terrible Island
We had. Even as we watched it, it stiffened sud-
denly, rolled over on its side again, and lay still.
Lady Mary took out her handkerchief, and patted at
her eyes.
" It got up this morning so happy," she said piteously.
" It wanted so to hve. It didn't think it would be lyiag
dead like this before noon. It'll never, never run in the
forest again, or eat the things it liked so much to eat,
or "
Her voice was breaking.
" You ought to been a vegetarian, Lady Mary," said
Sapphira. " Didn't you never eat a breaded lamb chop
in your life ? Lambs is much nicer Uttle things than
pigs. And you've eat pigeon pie — made out of Utcle
doves that sings. And as to veal "
** Let her alone," said Flower.
" Well, if she seen them bleeding veal — and it all
alive — she'd never "
" Let her alone ! " Even Sapphira quailed before the
tone. It was another man who spoke to the Sea-Lady.
" Lady Mary, we had to find out, for all our sakes, if
we ran any risk of poisoning. I know now we do, and
I'll take care it is guarded against. As for your poor
little pig, he has saved the whole party. If he hadn't died
to-day you would have had him roasted to-morrow."
The girl looked up at him with wet eyes.
" Somehow, that sort of thing seems different," she
said. " Perhaps only because one is accustomed to
knowing it is so. I can't help feeling sorry for t lis
little creature, because — it makes one feel — all the pain
in the world ..."
She was near tears again.
" Everyone gets that way at times," proffered Jim, w Iio
was busy, as usual, lighting his pipe. " It don't las."
W^9 Mystery of the Pig 207
Lady Mary was sitting on a rock. She seemed to be
struggling hard for self-possession.
Then I saw Sapphira do a curious thing. She
reached out to Jim, and inflicted a pinch on his arm so
vicious that his teak-hke face gave a sudden twitch.
Without another word or sign, she turned her back, and
marched off to the kitchen. Jim followed her with his
eyes for a moment. Then a hght seemed to strike him,
and le went after. I became curious, and went also.
Bit when I got to the cave I saw only Sapphira,
stanting idle with her hands upon her hips, and Jim
loafii g beside her.
" ^Ticeand cool in here," said Jim, cocking an eye at me.
Saophira cast a glance outside. Flower and the Sea-
Lady were not, from this point, in view.
" If he doesn't, he's a fool, " said Sapphira oracularly.
" Doesn't what ? " asked Jim, with such simplicity
of m mner that I was sure he knew the answer to his
own question — whatever that might be.
" Ninny 1 — what does a man do when a girl's crying ? "
deme nded Sapphira,
Jii 1 leaned over her, and inspected her eyes with a
medi :al air.
" You're crying, Sappliira," he pronounced (a brazen
lie). And promptly he " did it."
Su Idenly awakened, I made for the doorway.
" ^'ou stop," cried Sapphira. " Me and Jim, we don't
mind you much ; but Lady Mary will have a fit if you
catch her letting impudent brutes take Uberties." With
a loo c at Jim that seemed to fasten the epithet on him
rather than on Flower, " I'd ought to 'a' boxed your
ears or that," she pronounced.
" I was hoping you would," confessed Jim shame-
lessly . " I enjoy it nearly as much as you do yourself."
2o8 The Terrible Island
" As I what ? " The " what " was emphasised in a
manner that echoed in the cavern roof.
" Do it again," said Jim, with one cheek reddened,
and a wicked eye. Sapphira hesitated ; even that
indomitable woman knew when she had met with a
foeman worthy of her steel.
" I won't," she said ; and Jim's self-possession did not
avail to hide a flash of disappointment.
" You would never have done it a third time," he
said.
" Why ? " demanded feminine curiosity.
But Jim had strolled out, hands in pockets, leaving
her to consider the mystery in which he had departed.
I followed him into the white-gold sun of noon, on to
the beach where corals lay scattered among pink and
pearly shells, and yellow and scarlet blooms from the
hibiscus trees.
The Sea-Lady was walking back towards our end of
the beach, alone. I did not see Flower anywhere, but
I saw by Lady Mary's face that Sapphira, wise with the
wisdom of the pioneer woman, had guessed aright. The
big surveyor had " done it."
I met him afterwards up on the top of the island, and
it seemed to me in one of those odd bursts of comparison
that strike one Uke a breeze from no one knows where,
that he looked Hke a man who had stolen a crumb of
holy bread from the altar to sate his earthly hunger, and
by the sacrilege had but made its edge more bitterly
keen. . . .
As for Lady Mary, she was busy beating tappa clc :h
on her wooden block, and no one now could see her
face at all.
CHAPTER IX
RETRIBUTION
THE night was very dark. It was the time of
the waning moon ; not till hours later
would her wearied, outworn orb Uft face of
tarnished silver from the rim of the reef-
scarred sea, to light the palms, and the cottonwoods, and
the pillared banyan trees on the plateau summit of
Ku-Ku's Terrible Island.
There was not much wind. Now and again the
immense banana leaves, swaying on their elastic stems,
would strike one another with a sound like soft clapping
of hands; or the palms, touched among their lofty
crests Ijy a fl5dng breath of air that never reached the
ground, would stir into sudden pattering Hkc a squall of
rain. Then the wind would pass, and the night, that had
stirred and sighed in its sleep, would rest without sound
once more.
We \vere all on the summit of the island, hidden behind
immcn se weathered coral boulders, and trunks of solitary
trees. Not only Flower, Rocky Jim and I were taking part
in this midnight adventure ; Lady Mary and Sapphira
were there too. In a general council of war, we men
had decided that the time had come tomakc another effort
towards capturing, or obtsiining speech with, the Greeks
of the cave. The attempt at poisoning was the very
last stfj.w. From that time on we were resolved to have
no men y.
o
210 The Terrible lisland
Flower had made the plans. That afternoon, the
Greeks' cave being as usual tightly closed, and fortified
with the ingenious bottle-alarm that I have spoken of
before, we had gone up on the plateau and cleared a
small path parallel to the track worn through the grass
scrub by the feet of the men of the cave. We made it
run right out to the end of the island, which was not
very far away. The cave track didn't go quite so far ;
it petered out inconclusively among the lalang-^;rass
some way past the cave mouth. But our track was
destined for different uses ; it was to enable us to move
quietly, unencumbered by rustling grasses, if we wanted
to follow, or to avoid, the horrible, pistol-armed chief
players in this ugly game of blind-man's-buff. Sc> we
carried it as far as seemed necessary.
What we hoped was that one of us — perhaps Jim, the
crack marksman, who carried our only Colt and soHtary
cartridge — would succeed in doing for the man who was
really dangerous ; the one who at night time could see ;
and that after that we might surround and capture
the remaining four. Flower and I had armed ourselves
with stone clubs made New Guinea fashion, out of a
lump of rock strongly laced on to a heavy stick. We
had also filled our pockets — or what remained of them
— with stones as big as could be made to go in. A
well-pitched stone is a weapon not to be despised.
Then when we had the whole thing settled, it v/as all
upset again by Sapphira. She said she would come too.
Flower said he wouldn't have her.
" And how are you going to stop me ? '* demanded the
pioneer heroine, hands on her massive hips, eyes flaming.
" You that's been a married man, how do you st )p a
woman doing what she's a mind to do ? You tltat's
Retribution
211
nothin;,^ more than a new chum in the country, how do
you know what the white women of New Guinea can do
or can t ? Give me one of them waddys of yours " —
helpinL herself to a formidable stone club, and giving
it a ski ful whirl about her head — " and see whether I'm
as gooc as a man or not, if it comes to scrapping. Look
at tha:." She rolled up her sleeve, and clinched a
biceps :hat a Clyde engineer might have envied — " look
in my iye." She opened her eyes till they blazed into
Iiis. ' Am I fit to help you, that's got only a man and
a half :o your back, or am I not ? "
"It's not a question of that, Sapphira," said the big
man k ndly. " It's a question of whether we men are
going 10 let women fight for us. And you know, if you
came, Lady Mary couldn't be left all alone."
" W 10 are you calling a woman?" demanded
Sapphira. " And as to Lady Mary, I reckon she'll be as
safe somewhere up on the top as she'd be down on the
beach. . . . Isn't there holes in the rocks there as well
as here ? Percival Flower, as sure as your mother
named you like what you aren't, which is a bom fool,
I'm coining."
Flo\\ er abandoned her for a moment to appeal to Jim.
" Cai you do anything with this wild woman, Todd ? "
he ask» d.
And Jim answered coolly, " I reckon I could, but I
reckon I won't. It is true what she says. She's as good
as ano- her man, if it comes to a row."
"You reckon you could, do you ? " was all Sapphira's
comment.
" Oh yes," answered Jim calmly.
"Do you mind saying how?"
with Litter sarcasm. " It might
inquired Sapphira,
be of use to this
212 The Terrible Island
gentleman who knows everything, next time he tliinks
of getting married."
" I could do it," said Jim, " without saying a word, or
laying a finger on you."
Sapphira seemed to be boiling up, hke a kettle.
There was no escape of steam as yet, no bubbling, but
a slow steady rise of tension and temperature.
" I'll bet you what you like you couldn't," she said,
shivering.
" Go you for your biggest wedding-ring," replied Jim,
the unperturbed. "Against my Yodda nugget." He
had a swastika-shaped nugget on his watch-chain, which
we all knew he prized superstitiously. Sappl lira's
wedding-rings — she wore all three — formed a notable
collection on her third finger.
" Show me then 1 " The kettle had not yet boiled,
but the contained steam was beginning to steal out.
Sapphira's breath came quick.
" You walk to the end of the beach first," replied Jim.
" I can't tell you if you don't."
Sapphira, looking out sharply for concealed snares,
started down the beach, her back turned to the kitchen
cave. Jim let her get some twenty yards away, and
then picked up a long coir fibre rope we had madc^ for
dragging timber, and with the unerring eye and hand of
the AustraUan cattleman, hurled it through the air. It
caught Sapphira as neatly as possible about the waist,
lapping her arms to her sides, and dropped her on the
seaweed, in a helpless bundle.
In three bounds Jim was at her side.
In two swift movements of his hands he had loosed
the rope again and Ufted Sapphira courteously tc her
feet.
I
Retribution
213
" Now, tell me how you could have come with us ! "
he demanded. " And did I lay a finger on you ? "
Sapphira, standing erect again — rather more erect
than usual — looked at him for a moment in perfect
silence. Still in silence she drew a wedding-ring off her
third finger, and handed it to Jim, who promptly put it
on liis own little finger.
" Call it even ? " queried Jim agreeably.
" I V ill," said Sapphira, " if you'll tell me "
"Tel you what?"
" Wl at you meant the other day when you said that
I wouldn't smack your head a third time, if I did it a
second time. You was mighty confident about that."
" I'll tell you all right "
"Well?"
** — Some day," concluded Jim, walking off. Sapphira,
her nostrils dilating so that she suddenly and oddly
reminded me of a rocking-horse, looked after him for a
momenr ; then stooped down, picked up the stone club,
and holling it under her arm, untwisted her hair. Still
holding the club, she let the huge coil down to her knees
swung i: up again, and coiled it with vicious tightness.
She took pins from some mysterious spot — I rather
thought I saw her pull them right out of her breast —
and reefed her skirts well up. It was sunset, and none
of us wa-i wearing a hat, but she produced a hat-pin from
somewhere or other, and stuck it carefully in her belt
dagger wise. Thus accoutred and prepared, she
remarked briefly, "Come on."
And V c all came.
The Sia-Lady, with the fine courage that was hers,
accompaaicd the party as a matter of course.
" If ycu will just tell me exactly what to do when we
214 The Terrible Island
get up there," she said, " I will do it." Flower nodded.
I don't know quite what had passed between them, or
the memorable afternoon when the big man had dried
her tears, but I did know that he avoided her, if pos^ ible,
more than ever since, and now would scarcely cvei
address even the most necessary words to her.
We planted her in one of the many safe hiding- holes
among the rocks, and Flower told her, briefly, but very
emphatically, on no account to come out, or ever put
out her head, if any shooting was done. Then, taking
our own positions, we all settled down to wait, as Flowci
and I had waited only a few nights earlier. But this
was a different waiting. We were one and all determinec
that, by hook or by crook, it should be the last. Tht
vile trick with the coconuts had had the effect that c
certain thing called " f rightfulness " — of which the work
knew nothing in those days — had, later on, upon nation;
and people oppressed. It drove us to determinec
retaliation.
I pass over the hours of waiting. They were long, til
the moon came up. We scarce expected the Greeks tc
come out before. Flower had arranged an ingenioui
signalling system of fine threads fastened from one tc
another of the watchers. If anyone saw anything, oi
fancied that another was asleep, he could give warning
or wake the delinquent, without making a sound. . . .
For a long time everything was still up on the plnteau
under the cloudy stars. Then a small wind from fai
away began to stir, low down, among the leaves. Ii
drew from the dark east, when the moon had net ye1
risen, and brought with it, among the palms and pa^ '-pav
flowers, cold scents of seaweed and sea. Strongs r anc
stronger it drew, till I feljt my uncut hair rise u[) anc
Retribution 215
flutter about my forehead, and heard the great bananas
clap :heir hands together, in the swing of the streaming
air-current. It was the wind that goes before the moon.
A ^old spark burned on the blackness of the sea-Hne.
A go d flame peered ; a gold fire sprang. Then , wan and
tired, but splendid, the waning moon took air, as a diver
takes the water, and sailed high into view.
There must have been some chink in the cave through
which the captain of the Greeks — ^the one seeing, or
semi -seeing man — could see when moonlight came.
Almost immediately on the rise of the moon, a chnking
of bDttles became audible. The barrier was being let
down.
Ii a minute they were out, all five of them — the man
who could see leading the other shambling after. The
moo.i was cHmbing up and up ; we saw that all five had
thei;- revolvers strapped in their belts, and that they
kepi their hands on the butts. Once out on the track,
the\ all stood and Ustened, craning their heads this way
and that, and staring, open-mouthed, with sightless
eye^. . . .
A few minutes' watchfulness seemed to satisfy them
that no one was about. They came forward, loosening
hole of the revolver butts, and relaxing the tension of
thei: strained bodies. The man who could see moved
slovly but surely about. He seemed to be carrying
their food.
It had been agreed that Flower was to give the signal
for a general rush — a slight twitching of the thread,
repc ated three times. On the third pull we were aU to
rise and make for the Greeks, Jim, with our pistol, was
to try and down the man who could see. The rest of
us, not omitting the valiant Sapphira, would do our best
2i6 Thfe^Terrible Island
to *' get " the blind but fully-armed men, before they
** got '* us. We had agreed that the chances of someone
being shot were not small, but that even the loss of one,
or more than one, of our number, was better than the
wholesale slaughter of the party that was Ukely to come
about sooner or later, now the Greeks had started the
game of poisoning.
The plan was a fair one, and might have succeeded in
the ordinary course of events. But that course was
thrown from its orbit by nothing more dignified than the
circumstances of a sneeze.
It was Lady Mary who sneezed. She told us, after-
wards, that some of the wild peppers just about her
hiding-hole had been bruised, and that they touched her
nose, letting free their irritating juice upon the edge of
her nostrils. She pressed her forefingers hard into the
corners of her eyes, schoolgirl fashion, to keep back the
impending disaster. But nothing would keep it back.
She gasped, choked, choked again, and — sneezed !
The Greek who could see — I think his sight must have
been exceptionally good that night — did not waste a
single moment. Before any of us really understood
what was happening, he had swung round, caught a
gleam of a light dress somewhere in the shadows of the
rocks, and, guided by the direction from which the
sound had come, sprang upon the Sea-Lady. His hand
was on the hilt of his knife even as he sprang. I think
she had as little chance of escaping him as a lamb had
of avoiding the leap of the tiger, before the white teeth
sink home.
Jim, whose nerve never failed him — I frankly confej^s
that I should never have dared to fire so close to the
girl — threw his revolver into the air, and fired almost
11
Retribution 217
instemtly. But the Greek, coming sidewise, had seen
his hand go up, and ducked. The bullet went over his
head. I heard Flower's low groan, " Oh, my God ! "
as hti leaped forward, too far away to be of any use. I
saw Sapphira, who was nearest the Sea-Lady — as I Was
farthest— swing her waddy up in the air ; it showed
blaclc, an instant, against the moon, and then it fell.
And with it fell the Greek, uttering a cry. She deUvered
another blow as he dropped, but I do not think it could
have been needed, nor could the mighty crash of Jim's
stone club, as it came down a moment after. The Greek
was -nded.
I have often, since then, thought of what happened
after, and tried to guess what would have been, had
things turned out a very Uttle differently. I think we
shou d have knocked one or two of the Greeks success-
fully on the head, and that they would have " got " one
or tvN o of us. Or they might have defended themselves
succL 5sf ully, blind as they were, by that trick they had
of sti Jiding back to back, and firing all together. Two
dozen dum-dum'd forty-five caUbre bullets, if they could
have emptied their revolvers, would certainly have done
some damage.
But it was, after all, the unexpected — the utterly
unloc ked for — ^that did happen. And our pathway was
responsible.
I believe, since then, in New Guinea, we have been
accus id of doing the thing on purpose. It is false. Not
one cf us was capable of so mean a trick. We were
wiUing to fight the Greeks, bUnd as they were, with all
the si ratagem of which we were masters, because their
firearns gave them an immeasurable superiority — not
to spt ak of their utter unscrupulousness and disregard
21 8 The Terrible Island
of human life. But the treachery of which some have
chosen to accuse us was never ours. We made the
track for our own use alone, without ulterior thought.
And now I must tell what happened ; it is as well that
that should be clearly understood.
When the leader dropped beneath Sapphira's wadcy,
Jim, Percival Flower and myself all sprang forward
together, bent on attacking the other men before they
had time to grasp the situation and shoot. I think we
expected that they would bunch together, and start
firing all round. It would have been the wisest course,
from their point of view.
But we had not allowed for the panic into which they
were thrown by the dying cry of their leader. There
was that in it that could not be misunderstood, even by
the blind. I think they knew at once that he was fatally
struck. And, instead of grouping together, they spread
out their hands, as a blind man does, and made for the
shelter of the cave.
They had walked a hundred times along the track,
and it was no doubt a familiar guide to their feet.
They trusted themselves to it now, and ran. We
weren't within fifty yards when we realised what was
happening ; we could not have caught them up even if
we had wished — and after all, I do not know that we did
wish. But who can tell what his desires may or may
not have been, after a scene that has used every faculty,
strained every passion, to its uttermost ? In such a
storm of the mind, the individual wave can leave notra:;e.
I can only record that the four Winded Greeks, think-
ing they took the path to safety and the cave, in realty
set their feet on the path that led to neither. Tl ey
blundered on to ours, followed it, yelling, in mad flight ;
Retribution 219
an i before we could have stretched a hand to save any
on I of them, had passed the end of it, and gone staggering'
ani stopping too late, clutching wildly at one another,
too late, screaming too late for the help that no man
CO lid give — over the cUff. . . .
For the space of some twenty seconds we stood still,
stcxing blankly at the edge of the chff. . . .
' Are they killed ? " asked Sapphira, presently, of the
isLind in general. Her mouth gaped open, black in the
moonUght. Her wonderful hair had fallen ; it dropped
frcm waist to knee, a great rope frosted with silver,
wliere in the daytime it was gold.
" Killed ? " said Jim. "It's two hundred feet of a
drop, and coral rocks like knives at the foot, and as
miny hundred fathom of water as you Uke just along-
side. Waste of time to go and look."
But he went, nevertheless, and so did Sapphira and I.
Flower stayed behind, with Lady Mary, who had come
foilh from her hiding-place, and was standing white, but
apparently cahn — she had a wonderful nerve, for the
m^re girl that she was — on the pathway, as far as she
cc uld get from the dead, still body of the Greek.
On the edge of the island the rising wind blew strong,
whirUng up from the face of the cliff, and bringing with
it the damp, mossy, unforgettable smell of the coral reef.
li you tell me that one cannot smell a reef, I will tell you
tlat scores of island captains have saved their vessels
0:1 dark and misty nights, by the help of that very
unmistakable, strange perfume. . . .
There was not even the trace of a body. The wretched
men had rebounded, and fallen clean into the sea.
" Well," said Jim presently, in that agreeable drawl of
h^, " I don't see that there's any sense in standing
220 ThejTerrible Island
weeping over the smash-up of four cows that we were
trying as hard as we could to kill, anyhow. Whoever's
sorry, I'm damned glad, and I don't care who knows it.
Sapphira, what about a bit of supper and some of that
vile der-rink I made ? "
I have not mentioned it before, but Jim had spent a
day or two in manufacturing arrack out of palm sap.
The process was simpUcity itself, but the resulting
liquor would have produced speedy dehrium tremens in
any constitution less hardy than that of Rocky Jim.
Even Flower, who was no weakling in the matter of
ordinary male tastes and habits, pronounced it " rather
too stiff," and hardly touched it. But Jim said he
found it good, and it seemed to have no appreciable
effect upon his head.
To his inquiry, Sapphira made no reply. She stood
unmoving on the top of the high cUff, her cotton skirts
a-flutter in the upward-drawing draught. The moon
was high above now. I could see that the pioneer
woman's features were working with emotion. The
demon that draws absurd analogies whispered in my ear
that her face was Uke a pan of milk a-quiver before it
boils. And it really was.
" Sapphira," said Jim, " a man cares for nothing but
his stomach, no matter how many people are dying ;
it's pig, pig, eat, eat with us, from morning till night.
There's not one of us has an idea above what he puts
into his face. And it's a blessing when we do get
something to put into our faces, because it stops us
talking nonsense, which otherwise we'd do as long as
there was a drop of drink or a crumb of tobacco left in
the whole world." He was filling a pipe as he spoke.
" Come and give the pigs a feed, Sapphira."
Retribution 221
But she was far from the mood that commonly urged
her to the chastening of mankind ; she seemed scarcely
to hear what he said. She was looking out across the
cruel stretch of reef-pricked sea, as it lay painted in
smoke and ivory, underneath the moon. Her hands
hung down by her sides ; in one of them the waddy was
still unconsciously grasped.
Jim took a step to her side, and saw her face.
'Are you performing over the smash-up of those
bl: nky blank etcetera what is its ? " he demanded.
(A ;ain I have taken the Hberty of translating.)
' No I " screamed Sapphira.
"Then what, God bless your soul and mine, woman ? "
Sapphira sat fiat down on the grass, so suddenly that
he] heels projected over the edge of the cliff.
" I've killed a man," she said ; swept up the edge of
her petticoat, regardless of the two swelling limbs
displayed, and wiped her eyes furiously. Then she
rep laced it, and let out a sob.
Jim sat down beside her. He regarded her with that
wi( ked cock of the eye that generally preceded his
mi^ chievous feats or remarks.
' And that's the woman who got snake-headed when
Flower said she was a woman, this evening," he observed.
" Y/hat do you call yourself ? "
Sapphira took no notice of him whatever.
' I killed him dead," she said. "I seen his head
go jX)p."
' Well, didn't you want to ? " asked Jim.
" Yes," she replied candidly, wiping her eyes again —
with her sleeve this time.
' Then what are you going to do about it ? "
" I don't know."
222 The Terrible Island
" You'll be haunted with remorse all your day* ,
Sapphira. You've taken away a life."
Sapphira to this made no reply. She had observed
the remains of a tattered handkerchief in Jim's shirt
pocket, and taken it out, as a matter of course. She
was now engaged in blowing her nose. I have often
wondered what the many weeping heroines of romance
did when they had cried enough to come to this inevit-
able point. One never remembers that they used a
handkerchief. Perhaps, knowing the disenchanting
nature of the process, they fainted away in good time ;
weeping and fainting seem to have gone hand in hand,
in the palmy days of Victorian love-tales. . . .
But Jim was made of less flimsy stuff than the Vic-
torian hero. He merely told her to hang on to his wipe
as long as she hked ; she was welcome to it, though it
was the only one he had — and continued his conversation.
*' Sapphira, did you hear me when I said you'd taken
a life, and would be followed by remorse all the rest of
your days ? "
" What's the use of rubbing of it in ? " she demanded,
with a slight return of her former fierceness.
*' There's only one way of ever, ever putting it right."
" Well ? I know you, Jim. You just want to be
talking. Seems to do you as much good as blowing
does a whale — I suppose it does do them good, or they
wouldn't take the trouble, when no one want 'em to."
Sapphira was evidently recovering.
" The one way," said Jim quite coolly, blowing a cloud
of smoke from his newly-hghted pipe, and taking it OMt
of his mouth to look at the stem — " is to replace him "
"My God, Jim Todd, do you think I can perfor a
miracles ? "
Retribution 223
" I reckon you can," said Jim, and put his arm round
her waist.
T le light that must have broken on Sapphira at that
moment broke on me too ; I will swear I had not known
what rocket Jim was going to explode. I got away, as
in duty bound, and found, somewhat to my relief, that
Flower and Lady Mary were walking off towards the
cavt , a good twenty yards separated from one another.
" Well, that's a blessing, anyhow," I thought. It
seemed to me I had about as much as I wanted for one
night.
It was a glorious supper that we enjoyed. Lady Mary
was grave — she had come to the cavern shivering and
pale , and Flower had made her drink a spoonful or two
of J m's arrack, exceedingly diluted, to bring the warmth
and colour back to her face. But the rest of us were
gay, and Sapphira had completely recovered, and was,
if ai ything, rather harder on mankind than usual. She
cool ed us up an amazing meal, with double allowance of
all he tinned dehcacies we had been reserving for
eme gencies — (" if this ain't an emergency, what is ? " she
asked, when Flower made some half-hearted objection) —
and we ate with an appetite unknown to the island for
long. A weight had been lifted from every mind. No
mor i should we have to set guards at night. No more
should we suspect poison in harmless fruits of the earth.
No 1 Dnger would it be necessary to walk warily about the
plat :au, looking every moment for sudden death to
burst out upon us from some unseen lurking-hole of the
Gre( ks. The island was ours now, the cave was ours,
the whole Pacific Ocean, we felt, was ours. And any
day a boat might come and rescue us. Why, there
wasn't a thing to worry about.
224 The Terrible Island
It was dawn before we separated for the sleep we ^
needed so much — ^the first really peaceful sleep that we
had enjoyed shice the loss of Carl and his schooner cast
us away on the Terrible Island. Away to eastward, the
reefs were turning red in the pure sunrise blue of the
sea ; small bright clouds, like flights of pink and golden
parrots, were trooping upthe sky. The dawn wind bl(;w,
the coconuts shook sparkhng leaves to the new day.
" I feel," said the Sea-Lady, pausing at the entrance
of her cave (how like a statue in a shrine she loofo^d,
against the dark arched background !) " as if all the bad
luck were over now. I am sure we are going to be
happy, and that there's nothing but good fortune
ahead. I can feel it coming."
" You hadn't ought to say things like that," reproved
Sapphira. " It brings bad luck. You'd ought to think
them if you like, but not talk them right out. Every-
body knows that."
" I'm sorry," said Lady Mary. " But somehow I feel
happy."
" So do I," I supported. " I believe there's good luck
ahead of us now, and I'm not going to ' sin my mercies '
by denying it."
" You'd ought to go to bed," said Sapphira.
" We all ought to," said Jim. " We've been up all
night, and I don't know what the rest of you feel, but
my eyes are as tired as if they'd had sand thrown -it
them. I've just got to shut them up and sleep."
Flower looked at him ; looked again — but said
nothing. He seemed depressed.
" Kill-joy," I thought. " If things are not all sun
with you, you might at least try to look pleasant."
We went to bed.
Retribution 225
Of course no one could do any work, or settle anything
next day, until the cave on the plateau had been
thoroaghly explored. Amid all the disturbances of the
past few weeks, we had almost forgotten what had
broug ht us in the first place to Ku-Ku'b Island. But now
the vision of riches began to take first place again. We
stoppjd and stared at the bluish, ugly phosphate rock,
wherever there was a scrap in sight ; we wondered how
many thousand tons there were of it, and just what it
migh^ be worth a ton. We argued amicably on the way
up to the cave, as to where the red shell-beds might be
situated; where Ku-Ku's living-place and workshop
had l>een, in the years long ago ; and I think we got
thoroughly out of our depths — at least, I can answer for
Sappliira, Lady Mary and myself — discussing the value
of she ll-money, and the effect of suddenly throwing a big
find en the market.
Jim was not with us. He had declared himself too
tired to rise. He said he thought he had a touch of
fever, and would thank us to leave him the quinine and
a tin )f water, and go out and enjoy the picnic without
him. So we went, leaving him alone in the cave — a course
that I nay seem heartless to people who do not know
New Guinea ; but to those who do — if any ever read
what I have written — will appear natural enough. " A
touch of fever " is the commonest of ailments — in Papua.
We were very gay as we went up the glacis ; very
active and light-footed, inclined to hum bits of tunes, and
to ma ke friendly fun of one another. God knows there
was material enough. We were a party of scarecrows
— €XC3pt for Lady Mary, who, with the innate good taste
and f ne sense of suitability that was part of her very
gelf, I ad abandoned the worn and dirty remains of her
p
226 The Terrible Island
cotton dress, and made herself a robe of whitey-brown
tappa cloth, somewhat after the fashion of the tabards
one sees on the figures of court cards. Sapphira was a
mass of patches, skilfully put on, considering the lack of
proper sewing materials, but rather too picturesque. I
had tied myself up here and there with string till I
must have looked like a fowl prepared for roasting.
Flower's khaki trousers, being made of tough mateiial,
showed no serious damage as yet, but his blue shirt
hung open over his tanned neck and was cut off short
below the elbows, and pieced on the shoulders with bits
of greyish sackcloth. I don't know how Sapphira and
the Sea-Lady had managed about the washing of their
clothes ; but they used to disappear now and again for
some hours, and come back looking wonderfully fresh
and neat. The rest of us simply went in bathing at the
back of the island when we had a wash day, and stopped
in the water till things were dry. . . .
The first set-back to our enthusiasm occurred when we
reached the cave, and found it vilely dirty and ill-
smelling. The Greeks were not, we knew, a cleanly
crowd at the best of times ; and, handicapped as they
had been by their blindness, they had fairly surpassed
themselves here. Nothing has been cleaned or cleaied,
no tins carried away, since they took possession of the
cave — or so we judged. Sapphira and Flower for once
agreed on the question of tidying-up, went vigorously
to work, with what aid the Sea-Lady and myself cculd
give, and in ten minutes or so we had the place cleared
of its most offensive rubbish.
" They's ought to *a' died of teutonic plague," [)ro-
nounced Sapphira. " Or spotty typhus. I hope we
don't catch anything."
Retribution 227
" Lady Mary, we really don't want you ; you'd better
go outside till we've done," said Flower suddenly.
" Am I always to shirk everything ? " asked the Sea-
Lacy.
" We don't know how these men went blind," said
FloA^er gravely. "Until we do — Lady Mary, please
oblige me."
She went to the doorway.
" You mustn't forget I am curious," she said. " Who
knc ws what is in here ? . . . May I come now ? "
Flower cast a hasty glance about the cave. We had
thrown away clothes that the men had left behind —
the/ were very few — had slung out the stinking meat
tine , and tossed the dirty blankets as far away as we
could, upon the path.
"Yes," he pronounced. " Sapphira, have you the
tore hes ? "
She had. We lit them, and ventured, with a sense of
agreeable excitement, into the Bluebeard's chambers
thai lay beyond.
" Well ! " cried Sapphira. " My oath ! Owen Ire-
Ian" 1, did you ever see the Uke ? "
" Yes," I told her; "in Egypt." For I had, when
waiidering up the Nile long ago, been shown many
ton bs, among the ruined cities of the desert, that were
curiously like this rock chamber in the heart of the
South Seas.
Ecliind the cave that the Greeks had used as a living-
roon, opened out several smaller and larger cavos. I
jud ;ed them to be natural in the main, with a little
shanng from art. One of them was long and high, with
a w ndy roof lit dimly from a rift. Laid down the middle
wai a big log, roughly squared into a sort of table, which
228 The Terrible Island
could only have been used by people squatting on the
floor. And the floor, all round it, was polished glassy-
smooth.
There was shell in here — the big white cockle-sh(ill
with the poppy-red Up, that is so highly prized in New
Guinea. It lay in heaps upon the floor. It was
scattered in chips and fragments about the log table. It
had been cut into rounds, and smoothed, and half
smoothed, and bored, and partly bored. And at one end
of the table there was a heap — evidently collected by the
Greeks — of completed shell-money: hundreds and hun-
dreds of the bright red discs, bored in the centre, that the
Papuan loves beyond all the white man's money. For
traders, such as the Greeks were, it was a fortune.
Flower, standing with a candlenut torch in his hand^
looked thoughtfully at the glowing pile of shell-money.
" But you know," he said, " it ought to have been
more. There isn't such an enormous quantity here."
" That's right," agreed Sapphira. " They always did
have it that Ku-Ku kept the place full up of slaves he
had working for him, and there'd ought to be tons of it."
** Judging by the look of the floor," said the surveyor,
there must have been a pretty extensive factory here.
I see they used the old flint drill." He picked up a
pointed stone from the floor. The bow and the twist<}d
cord had vanished long ago, but the object itself was
unmistakable.
" Then where is the rest of it ? " asked the Sea-Lac y.
She seemed rather taken with the stuff, which inde:',d
was pretty. She gathered it up in handfuls, and filled
the rude bag-pockets of her tappa dress.
"I shall have such curious ornaments made with
this," she said, "when we get away." Then, with a
Retribution 229
momentary shadow flitting across her face, "If wc
get away."
" I judge," said Flower, " that the secret has not been
such a secret after all. The canoe found by the Greeks
proves it. Rely on it that a fair number of natives had
some knowledge of the place, and came back and went as
theyUked."
*' But why not all ? " I asked.
" I think they didn't all know the real secret of this
da this wretched island. I wish we did. It's clear
that some of the natives understood very well how to
avoid misfortune, when they came here. Still, that's a
point to remember." He made a note of it on the bark
tablet he carried. He had been filhng it up with notes
of rr atters that might bear on the problem of the Terrible
Island, ever since we found the Greeks in the cave.
W*e had been enjoying ourselves up to this — ^the sense
of newly-recovered freedom and safety, the pleasure of
getting into the cave, and finding Ku-Ku's strange old
pris< tn-factory, had raised all our spirits. But now the
shadow that brooded over the Terrible Island seemed to
be filling again. We remembered that Sapphira had
seen a man who had gone to the island, and returned
Wind for life; we recalled the fate of the Greeks. They
had not found out the secret. Why should we flatter
ourselves that we should ? As Ukely as not, when the
rescue ship came to the island — if it ever did — it would
find us wandering about bUnd and all but helpless,
half- starved, ragged, dirty — the mere ghosts of human
bein,;s. Whatever Ku-Ku's curse had been, it was still
in full working order, and the chances were we should
none of us escape it.
There were stone clubs in the cave, as well as shells
230 The Terrible Island
and shell-money, and these clubs are worth much gold.
But we did not care to look at them. The cave had
become suddenly oppressive ; I think we all felt a longing
for the open air and the sun. . . . Did we fear that a
time might come, and that soon, when " the wind on the
heath " would still be ours, but the sun no more ? . . .
If we did, no one spoke of it. I said that the ca\'e
was stuffy, and Flower said there wasn't anything moie
to see, and Sapphira said we might as well get out of a
place that was nothing but a dirty hole. And so we left
it. And the light of our candlenut torches died away,
and Ku-Ku's prison, long years silent and abandoned
to dusky twilight and to bats, fell into stillness once more.
Once out into the fierce white sun of morning, and the
wind among the grasses, we all recovered spirits.
" The find is certainly worth something," said Flower.
" There should be a good many hundred pounds' worth
of stuff all ready made, and a few tons of shell."
" It's twenty pounds a hundredweight in Samarai/*
I remarked.
" Because it's scarce," said Flower. " We must
dribble it on the market. Same with the shell-money.
But the real value of the island is that phosphate rock.
It's getting scarcer the whole world over. The shell-
money will come in nicely to pay expenses in taking up
and disposing of the island. We might float a
company ..."
" If you do," observed Sapphira, who was striking on
ahead, her dress kilted well up out of the way of t'le
thorns and bush lawyer vines, " you won't have me in
it. I don't beheve in no companies."
" Why not ? " I asked.
" Because," said Sapphira, "I've lived in Nt w
Retribution 231
Guinea twenty years, and I've learned what companies
is. It's all the same if it's gold or osmiridium, or land
for rubber, or coconuts, or hot springs in Ferguson, or
cold storage in Port Moresby. You get something
that's worth something, and instead of taking of it off
into a comer to kai-kai by yourself with a few friends,
as you'd ought to, you walks out on the road with it,
and asks everyone you meet to take it away from you,
and give you a bite of it just when they feel hke. And
the\' do. Only they don't give you no bite, for they
don't never feel Uke it. And they cuts it up among
their own friends. And you go back to wash gold for
wa^es and nothing more, or boss niggers for somebody's
manager. That's what companies is."
" What do you recommend ? " asked Flower seriously.
He had too much brain to pass over a bit of sensible
advice simply because it came from an uneducated man
or ^r'oman.
" You take up the island and sell it outright," said
Sapphira. "Don't you go taking part cash and part
paid-up shares. I know their tricks. The shares is
paid up when you get them, but a bit afterwards they
fine there's more paying to do, and if you can't do it —
which of course you can't, and they don't mean you to
— out you goes. . . ."
" Can that possibly be true ? " asked Lady Mary.
" I'm afraid it is," said Flower. " I've heard about
tha- sort of thing. . . . You see, this is a very far-away
pla:e. But I don't particularly care what I get any-
how."
' Oh, why not ? " She was walking beside him
through the long grass ; we were nearly at the top of
the glacis. " I thought you were so keen on it. You
232 The Terrible Island
wanted — didn't you ? — ^to have a yacht, and sail and
sail and sail her all over the Pacific."
" I did," he answered ; and I knew by his tone that
there was more to be said, had I not been there. But I
was just in front, and I could not go any faster than I
was going already.
I heard her give a Uttle fluttering sigh. We came
up on the slope, out above the white beach where the
yellow-belled hibiscus, and the red-rosetted hibiscus, and
the pink beach convolvulus grew. We saw the opening
of our cave. Jim was nowhere visible.
" Lazy beggar," said Flower. " He has been sleeping
it out."
But as we came down to the beach, we saw that he
was not sleeping. He was standing in the archway of
the cave, a little back, so that the shadow fell on his face.
" You don't know what you've been missing, Jim," I
cried. "We've found Ku-Ku's old factory, and all
sorts of things."
" What have you been doing ? " asked Flower.
" Smoking," said Jim. "It's not true what they
say."
" What do they say ? "
" About smoking. They say a man can't enjoy a
smoke unless he can see."
" What's that to do with it ? "
" I can enjoy it all right. They didn't tell the truth. "
" My God, Jim, what do you mean ? "
" Only one thing to mean," said Jim, shifting his pij>e
in his mouth. " I'm blind."
CHAPTER X
LADY MARY REMEMBERS
1HAVE seen much heroism in my time, among the
strong men of the wilderness, even among the
wrecks of the wilderness, cast out from civilisation
— but I have never seen anything braver or finer
than the way Jim took his bUndness.
He simply didn't take it at all. Any reference to the
blasting blow that had fallen on his life he laughed
away. Any pity he refused to hear. Help he would
not have — he found things for himself, dressed and fed
him , elf, somehow or other, and on the whole far better
than anyone could have expected. He could not
gather wood for the fires any longer, nor could he wander
over the island, getting fruits for stewing, and candlenuts
for light, but he fished off the rocks industriously hour
after hour, beat tappa cloth till we all had enough for
at least a suit apiece, and scrubbed Sapphira's tins and
makeshift cooking- vessels till they shone. He was never
idle, and seldom silent. He told yarns of the " old
days " (six or seven years old, but that is a generation in
Pap la) on the gold-fields of Sudest Island, or when the
Yodda field " broke out." He made as many jokes as
before — ^more, in fact ; I saw the difference, and it cut
mc, for I knew what it meant, myself, to hang on
desi'erately to a straw for humour in a drowning sea of
phy iical misfortune. No one, for an instant, night or
234 The Terrible Island
day, alone or in company (for you must remember that
a blind man is often seen " alone ") ever surprised him
showing, by as much as a clouded brow or a bitten lip,
the agony that he must have been suffering, in company
and out of it, morning and evening, every instant of his
life. For of all the sorrows that can fall upon an active,
outdoor-living man, blindness is the last and worst.
What of Sapphira ?
I found it hard to understand how things were going.
That Jim had proposed to the much-married woman,
that day on the top of the cHff, I knew ; I more than
suspected her answer. But it was not easy to read the
rest of the tale. There was something — some under-
standing, some secret — I knew not what — between the
two. Sapphira watched him hke a mother, tended him
like a man's own mascuUne mate, and — I am very sure,
now — loved him hke a lover. But on the surface there
was little to see or hear. Her bitter tongue was by no
means tamed down to sweetness. I think she knew
that would hurt him worst of all. . . .
Flower, from the day of Jim's blindness, worked as
no two men I have seen could have worked, to find out
the cause. I knew the horror that haunted him night
and day ; I knew why he glanced so often at the golden,
gem-clear eyes of the Sea-Lady, and what he feared to
see in them. I knew why he examined Rocky Jim's
eyes almost daily, and tested them, by dayhght and dark,
in every way eyes could be tested. Jim's bhndness w;is
worse than that of the Greek who had given us the mo-t
of our troubles ; he could not even see in the pale light
of the moon. Day, dawn, moon or midnight were e U
the same to him.
From end to end of the island, through every corn ;r
Lady Mary Remembers 235
of i:s caves, up and down every valley, along every
beach, ranged the surveyor all the hours of daylight,
seeking, always seeking the key to the secret that no
mar yet had unlocked. He even went to the red shell-
beds (he had found those in a day or two) and dived over
them again and again, bringing up shell fresh from the
dep hs, and rotting it out in the sun in festering heaps,
to s?e if by any chance the problem of Ku-Ku's Island
mig-it be linked with Ku-Ku's treasure. He caught live
birds, and shut them in plaited cages, to study their
habts, and the quahty range of their sight. He brought
rats into our cage, much to Sapphira's disgust — she was
mortally afraid of rats, and did not Uke anyone to know
it — and subjected them to draughts arising from
cre\ ices in the rock, in the hope of discovering poisonous
gas( s. It would take me long, and patience would fail
those who may read my tale, if I were to tell the half of
all the tests, the investigations, the experiments he
made.
And without result.
The birds gave him no information. The rats were
scornfully neglectful of mephitic vapours. The shell
was like other shell. In none of these things was the
key to be found.
" I tell you what," said Flower to me, " I am un-
commonly sorry Sapphira was with us when we went to
the Greeks' cave."
"Why?"
" Because she was in such a hurry to get everything
cleaned up and heaved out over the cUff. There might
have been some clue."
" There might," I said. A silence fell between us ;
the sea, outside the island walls, slapped and gurgled.
236 The Terrible Island
making strange noises among the coral caves, like a
giant suffering from a giant cold in the head.
'* At any rate," he said — and the unspoken links were
clear — " it can't be long till something turns up. The
signal ought to bring them." (We had replaced th«
flag on the beheaded palm.)
" How are the provisions holding out ? " I asked.
*' With those stores the Greeks left behind, we have
enough for another month."
*' Another month," I remarked, " will solve the
problem one way or another. Either we shall be away
from here, or we shall all have gone bUnd — and in that
case the best thing we could do would be to join hands
and jump together over the chff, where the Greeks went
down. It would be pleasanter than starvation."
The big man made no answer.
And now came down upon the island a period of gloom.
The weather failed us. Up to this, day after day had
been golden; the air, morning after morning, had been
of that indescribable, glassy blue that I think is nowhere
seen in such perfection as in New Guinea's island world.
Everything on earth and sea had been sapphired or
gilded over. A Une of gold ran down the centre of each
palm tree frond ; rocks in the sun were hke huge nuggets
from the Yodda or the Waria. Trees at a distance,
rocks far out at sea, were washed with pure ultramarin^^.
It was a fairy world — though hke the fairy worlds of
folk-lore and childish tales, a world without a soul. Fc r
nature, even as La Motte Fouque's Undine, has no soul
till human creatures give it her.
But now the beauty faded, the fairy spell was broken.
Lady Mary Remembers 237
Storm came upon the island. The rainy season was
more than due ; and at night it broke with a terrific
thunderstorm, that seemed to shake the chffs to their
very roots far under sea. After that we had thunder
and lightning every night, and furious rain all afternoon.
The mornings were sometimes clear, with the fatal
ominous clearness of the wet season, but by twelve
o'clock clouds were gathering again, and all the after-
nooi s had to be spent within our cave.
FlDwer would not move to the Greeks' cave, though
it was better and more pleasantly situated than ours.
He said, wisely enough, that so long as we did not know
the source of the blindness that cursed the island we
were better avoiding the place where its victims had been
living and sleeping.
" It may be infectious," he said. " You did right to
move to another sleeping cave, Todd." For Jim,
though I have not mentioned it, had taken his bed from
our cave away to a smaller one that opened out a few
yards further down the side of the cliff, and had been
sleep ing there by himself.
An odd expression flitted over the sightless features of
Rocky Jim ; he half opened his mouth, and then shut it.
I found myself watching him curiously.
Nothing more was said at the moment. The rain
cam*^ down in a stamping, screaming flood. You could
hear it thrash upon the sand and batter the tortured
leafage of the palms. Papua's wet season had begun in
carn-ist.
" It's coming in," said Flower. ** We must shift."
We shifted back into the big cave ; it was not so hght
now, but the splash of stray drops from the entrance
was avoided.
238 The Terrible Island
We had nothing to do ; what work the rain permitted
us was finished for the day. We had nothing to read ;
not a Une of print was owned by any one of the party
save the few scraps of newspaper that had been among
our stores ; and these everyone had read over and over
again, advertisements and all. We had nothing to talk
about, for bUndness and starvation were in all our
minds, and these are not things for castaways to speak
about until speech can no longer be avoided. And it
was not yet ten o'clock, and there were ten mortal hours
before anyone could think of going to bed. . . .
The rain stamped on the sand. The sea, outside our
sheltered bay, struck furious hands on the walls of the
prison island. Drop, drop went the water-trickle in the
corner of the cave. . . .
Lady Mary moved to the back of the cavern, and
sUpped behind the curtain of her own corner. I saw her
flit out again by and by, a ghostly figure in her lobii of
pale tappa cloth. She had something in her hands.
We all looked at it with interest, even curiosity. Our
minds were starving.
It was the violet morocco dressing-case.
" I can't help thinking," she said to no one in particular
— yet I thought she meant Flower — "that I didn't go
over this as closely as I might have done."
"I am quite sure you didn't," asserted Flower,
drawing liimself up against the wall of the cave — he liad
been half sitting, half lying, on the chilly, unsunned
sand.
f She looked at liim with a strange, unsteady ex-
pression — her eyes were Uke golden butterflies. . . .
" I knew you thought I should have done so," she
answered, " but it has been — painful."
Lady Mary Remembers 239
" I understand," he said. " The effort to remember
is necessarily distressing. But for your own sake **
" Yes," she rephed quickly; "for my own sake, of
course. I've always been more or less sure I had over-
looked something. But how could that be ? " She
was addressing him directly now ; I saw that her
instiict, left free play, always urged her to turn for help
or for guidance to the strength of this strong man
besicie her.
" I think," he answered her very gently, " that your
memory is partly awake, and that you know something
has l)een left in that case — perhaps in some secret drawer
or opening. Only you can't remember what. That's
my g uess, at all events."
" Take it and look," she said.
H< took the case from her. We were all passionately
interested, and I don't think any one of us thought of
concaling his or her interest. The barriers of polite
reserve, of minor restraints and courtesies, are apt to
brear: down when one Uves on a desert island with a
handful of other castaways. Sapphira came out of the
kitchen cave, wiping her hands as usual, and stared
hard ; I drew a Uttle closer ; Jim, sightless Jim, leaned
forwurd and seemed to listen more than ever.
Fl )wer, with his big clever fingers, felt the case over
and over, inside and out. He took a bit of grass, and
mea^ ured. He held it up, and looked underneath. . . .
" The measures don't tally," was his verdict. " Here
— and here."
W-; saw they did not. There was a small space
unaccounted for.
" Mightn't that be the bottom of the jewel-case ? " I
askel.
240 The Terrible Island
" No," said Flower. " I measured down to that.
. , . No, there's a space of some kind. Can you
remember the spring ? "
He put the case into the Sea-Lady's hands. She held
it on her knee, and sUd her white, slim fingers here and
there — pressed — shook — tapped. . . .
*' I can find nothing," she said at last. " But I
seem to remember — half remember ... I know there
is a spring."
It was Jim who solved the problem.
" If you can't find the spring," he drawled, " why not
smash the box ? "
Strange to say, that had never occurred to any of us.
" Would you mind ? " asked Flower.
" No," said the Sea-Lady ; and yet I thought I saw a
certain shrinking in her face. " It isn't the smashing
up of the box she minds," I said to myself. " It's the
thought of finding something inside. She doesn't really
want to find it, whatever it is."
Flower had taken the case again, and was looking for
a stone. He found one, laid the box down on another,
and with one blow smashed sides from bottom, Hd from
sides, and spUt the thing to pieces. There was a sharp
tinkle of glass.
*' Ah ! I'm sorry, I've broken something," he said,
" but it couldn't be helped, if the thing was going to be
opened at all."
*' My word ! " cried Sapphira, grabbing shamelessly.
She snatched up something that shone. . . .
" Bring it to the light," said Flower, taking the
glittering thing from her, and laying it in Lady Mary's
hand. We all crowded together in the doorway of the
cave, with the rain beating on our faces.
Lady Mary Remembers 241
la the small, smooth palm of the Sea-Lady lay a
miniature framed in gold. The glass had been broken
by Flower's assault, but the picture was undamaged.
Ii was the head and shoulders of a man. Men do not
often sit for miniatures, but this one had evidently
thought it worth while to spend a good many hours, and
a good many sovereigns, in obtaining a perfect and
permanent presentment of himself. I do not say the
face was not worth it. It was a fine, manly countenance,
handsome, hawk-featured, blue-eyed, with the sweeping
moustache that is only worn by middle-aged men
nowadays, and a framing of hair just Hghtly touched
witl: grey. The head was covered by — of all things on
eart 1 — a cricket cap.
" Oh ! Give it to me ! " I said suddenly. Lady
Mar/ handed it over.
" Do you know who it is ? " I said.
H ;r face paled with the effort of trying to remember
som« thing that just eluded capture.
" I . . . he . . ." she stammered. She put both
banc s to her temples with a gesture of despair.
" Ireland, do you know ? " demanded Flower. " Tell
us if you do. I seem to know the face, and yet I can't
actuUly name it."
" 1 can't be certain," I said, " but I am very nearly
certain that it is Lord Cedric de Crespigny."
" \Vhat, the cricketer ? " All the world knew — still
knovs — Lord Cedric 's name. For a quarter of a
century it had been the most famous title in the world
to lovers of British sport. You must remember that
thisvas in the days before 1914. Then, it still seemed
entirely praiseworthy and right that the Duke of
Annan's younger son, strong, clever, with all gifts and
242 The Terrible Island
all opportunities lying close to his hand, should find a
reason for his existence upon earth, and an occupation
for all his faculties in his mere uncommon ability for
throwing and striking a ball. . . .
You remember Lord Cedric de Crespigny. You recall
those interviews in the Windsor and the Strand : those
photographs of the splendid figure bent above the bat ;
those tables of averages and scores, lovingly conned over
in every publ^ school. You have seen those almost
Roman triumphs in the arena of Lord's. For five and
twenty years every English schoolboy wanted to grow
up to be another Lord Cedric. It was LiUie Langtry,
Joe Chamberlain, Gladstone, Lord Cedric de Crespigny,
in the illustrated Saturday papers ; for years then nearer
names — and Lord Cedric ; the South African war — and
Lord Cedric efficiently cricketing on the veldt, when he
was not inefficiently chasing after De Wet. A gold-
mine to the photographers, during all the last years of
the nineteenth century, and some of the first years of
the twentieth, was the Duke of Annan's magnificent
cricketing son.
" Jove I " said Flower, and leant over the picture.
"Of course." Sapphira craned too; Sapphira, too,
remarked, " Why, of course, that's the cricketing lord."
We were all so interested that for a moment we forgot
Lady Mary. Then someone looked up and saw that she
had fainted. She was sitting against the wall of the
cave, her head drooped sideways, her eyes open, liut
rolled up almost into their Uds. She looked exactly as
if she were dead.
Sapphira reached out, and laid the girl flat on the floor
of the cave, with a cool practised hand.
" Get out of the way, and give her air," she s? id.
Lady Mary Remembers 243
" It's been too much for her. Like as not he's her
father."
" No," I said. " Lord Cedric isn't married. I've
heard a lot about him ; the Annan family own all the
land about where my people live. I've seen him lots of
times. Oh, I remember. He was to marry "
I stopped dead, and for the first time understood the
meaning of the phrase, " My tongue clave to my mouth."
*' Who ? " asked Sapphira. I saw Flower's face, in
the dusk of the cave. His eyes were Durning Uke pale
fires, but he did not speak.
" Give me that water," said Sapphira. " She's
coming round all right. She just got a turn." With a
skilful hand she dabbed the water on Lady Mary's
forehead. " Who did you say ? " she asked.
" I didn't say," I answered her. " But I saw it in the
paper. He was to marry one of the Queen's Maids of
Honoiu:, the Honourable Alexandrina Meredith."
•* Then I'll lay you," said Sapphira, " that's ' darling
Alix.' "
There was silence for a minute. The unceasing rain
thrashed on the bending palms outside. The sea
battered on the cliffs.
" Don't try to sit up," said Sapphira to the girl.
" You'll be all right presently. You just come over
bad. How do you feel ? "
" I think I am all right," answered the Sea-Lady. I
thought otherwise. Her eyes were dilated, and her
usually pale face flushed pink, now that the whiteness of
the faint had vanished. She looked to me ahnost as if
she had fever.
But Flower understood.
" She has remembered," he said.
244 The Terrible Island
" Have you remembered, Lady Mary ? " cried
Sapphira. " Or I hadn't ought to call you that, had
I ? You're the Honourable Alexandrina Meredith,
aren't you ? Is that as good as being a Lady ? "
" Don't worry her," warned Flower. " Let her rest."
The Sea-Lady, whom we were never to call our Lady
Mary any more, was sitting up now.
" If anyone cares to know who I am, or anything
about me," she said gently, " I am quite ready to tell.
It has all come back — in a flash. . . . Have I forgotten
long ? What is there that I have not told you ? What
does anyone wish to know ? "
" You have not told us," said Flower, " who you are,
how you came to be in the big ship you spoke of, and
why you left it for the cutter of the Greeks. Or "
He broke off for a moment, and then went on deter-
minedly, " who it is you are engaged to marry. Of
course," he explained a little hurriedly, " it's our duty
to let him know as soon as there's any chance of doing
so."
Sapphira, agreeably excited, and enjoying the whole
scene with a mind more single than any of the rest of us
could boast, wriggled herself, sitting, over the sand to
the Sea- Lady's side.
" You lean up again' me," she said, presenting a
massive shoulder. " You make yourself proper com-
fortable, and tell us all about it. My oath, Jim, isn't it
Uke the yarns in the Home Romancer ? "
" 1 haven't heard it yet," said Jim.
The Sea-Lady, leaning up against Sapphira, and
looking, in that position, Uke a white dove nestled
against a fat comely farmyard hen, began her tale.
She looked — I could not help noticing — at no one in the
Lady Mary Remembers 245
ca>'e ; not at Sapphira, nor at Jim or myself, and never
for an instant at Flower. Her eyes seemed to see the
beiiting rain outside the dark archway of the cave, and
the drenched red flowers blowing loose along the beach,
and the froth of creamy foam that gathered, and blew,
and spun away with the wind, from the mouth of the
stormy inlet ; nothing more. ... It was a wild, a
sobbing, a sad and homeless-sounding day.
"The story begins a long way back," she said. And
she held the miniature in her hand as she spoke, and
looked at it now and then. " I suppose it begins
tw'nty-one years ago. My mother — she was Lady
Grice Marlowe — was engaged to Lord Cedric."
" Your mother ! " cried Sapphira. " You mean you."
" I mean my mother. Of course, I wasn't born. They
had been engaged for a year, and were to be married
very soon. And he loved her very, very much. He was
only twenty-two ; he didn't care so much for cricket in
these days, though he played very well. His people
int aided him for the diplomatic service and he had just
lefi Christ Church. They thought a great deal of him.
Hi: degree wasn't — well, it might have been better — but
everybody knew he could do anything he Uked. . . .
And so he was going to marry her, and they were going
to be happy ever after. And then — she met — my
father."
There was a momentary pause.
' My father was splendid. He died-— two years ago.
I cm't talk much about him, because — I loved . . ."
SlK*struggIed for composure and then went on, changing
the subject. " My mother Uked him — better. They
didi't tell Lord Cedric, because they were both honour-
able people, and they thought the only right thing was
246 The Terrible Island
to go on with it. So it came to very near the wedding.
And my father was going out to India with his regiment.
And he came to say good-bye. And— at the last — he
kissed my mother. And Lord Cedric saw them.
*' So — because he was so good and so unselfish — he
stepped right out of the window where he had been
standing, and went to them that moment, and told her
she was free. And you know, the very church was
decorated for the wedding, and the bridesmaids were
staying in the castle — my grandfather's place. It was
a dreadful thing to break it off. She would never have
had the courage, I think. But he did. And he went
away at once, and stayed in South America for a year.
And so, by and by, my mother married my father.
"And Lord Cedric came back. Everyone said he
took it so well. But he never went into the diplomatic
service, and never seemed to care much about anything
— except just cricket. He used to come and stay with
us, and I always came — and ran — and sat on his knee.
H^ was so good to me, always. He said I grew more
like her every year. And after she died he seemed to
care — more. . . .
*' I was only a child then. But of course I grew up,
and he still — liked me — very much. And you know,
the Queen has always been a very great friend of his
family, and he used to stay with their Majesties at
Sandringham. So when it was my turn for duty, I met
him there — oh, I did not tell you that mother was one
of Queen Victoria's Maids, and dear Queen Alexandra
asked for me as soon as I was old enough. . . . She
never said anything at all to me about Cedric, but I
think she may have said some little thing to him. The
King too — he is so fond of sport, and he admired Cedric 's
I
Lady Mary Remembers 247
cricket. He has laughed at me — in a way that was like
talking — and you don't know how a word from Their
Majesties can influence. You can't think how we wor-
ship her and her wonderful beauty. No one who hasn't
come near it can imagine. . . .
"Well — Cedric and I became engaged. And he said
to me — he said — I can't repeat it — but it meant that
the old trouble was gone. ' The wound is healed for
eV(T ' — that was the end of what he said."
'Did you love him, dearie ? " asked simple Sapphira,
putting the question that burned unspoken in Flower's
mind and mine.
'Yes," answered the Sea-Lady. Then, slowly, "I
think I — did — love him."
She went on.
' I had a very bad attack of influenza — last winter.
The doctors said my lungs were threatened, and that I
mi ist go a long sea voyage. We had some friends — Lord
and Lady Clowes — who were going out to New Zealand ;
he was to be Governor. And they took charge of me.
And I was to stay with them for a little, and then ^o
heme. ,
" We took passage from San Francisco on the Princess
of Siberia. ... I'm getting very tired — no, don't stop
m ,', I want to finish now, but I must cut it short. . . .
The ship was wrecked. It was dreadful — dreadful !
SI e ran into a derelict, and ripped herself open from end
to end, and before they had time to get out half the
beats, she ..." The Sea- Lady covered her face with
her hands.
** Don't go on," said Flower. But she would go on.
" I must finish now I have begun," she said, in an
excited voice, removing her hands. I saw that her
248 The Terrible Island
cheeks and eyes were burning. " She's as feverish as slie
can be," I thought. "She'll pay for this."
"We were having a dance," she continued. "We
didn't even have time to get any wraps. My maid —
poor girl — ^ran after me with my dressing-case, because it
was my jewel-case too, and when we got into a boat she
flung it down to me. She went in another boat, and I
never saw her again.
" My boat — it drifted away — I don't know how it
happened, the confusion and screaming were so dreadful,
and the ship went down almost at once, but no one else
had got in and I found by and by I was quite alone : it
had drifted off from the ship in one of those great ocean
currents, and the people hadn't had time. They were
drowning all round me a little way off, and I tried and
tried to get back to them, but the current kept carrying
me on. . . .
" And then they were all gone, and it was daylight
again. And a great ugly boat that looked hke a cargo
tramp was coming up, oh, ever so fast. They saw me,
and lowered a boat. When they took me on board I
found they were Germans, and it didn't seem hke a
proper cargo-boat at all — though I didn't know much
about such things. It was the maddest ship — a sort
of nightmare. They were not at all pleased at having
to take me on board, I could see. They were kind
enough in a way, "but they made me keep inside my
cabin all the time, and never walk about on deck. And
I think a lot of them were naval officers. One knows
\he type . . . but what they could have been doing . . .
" Well, the ship went for a week or two most terribly
fast ; she used to tremble all over, and the funnels
roared so. I could see out of my porthole how the seas
Lady Mary Remembers 249
went rushing past. Then one day I heard them talk-
ing ; my port was open, and they were on the deck
abo\e. Of course one has to know German at Court.
.... They said something about being near home, and
about Simpsonhafen. And they spoke of me — not
very kindly I thought. And someone said, ' We will
put lier off near the British coast ; no one could expect
us tc' do more. We have done too much as it is.'
" Then, the next day, they came upon the cutter, and
they stopped, and asked the captain if he would put me
off a: Samarai. They paid him — oh yes, I remember
they did what they could. But they ought to have
seen . . . Only they were in such a hurry to get away
to wherever they were going. They almost hustled me
off, iind stood between me and things that were on
deck —things covered up. I don't know what it could
have been that they did not want me to see."
*' I reckon," said Sapphira, '* if Carl weren't lying at
the bottom of the sea, he could 'a' told us something."
" Perhaps," said the Sea-Lady. Then, all of a
sudd' n, she seemed to break. "I am so tired, Sap-
phira," she said plaintively. " Can't I go to bed ? "
" "^'ou can go to bed at any hour of the day or night
you Uke, my lamb," said Sapphira, rising to her feet,
and helping up the girl. " You go right off now, and
I'll h ive a nice cup of tea for you in two shakes. And
if an\- of you makes so much as noise enough to wake a
* pigcoi in its nest," she said threateningly, to the rest of
the pirty, " I'll knock the blooming head off of him, I
will so."
Flower seemed to snatch at the opportunity thus
offered.
" III go out," he said; "she has been through a
250 The Terrible Island
tremendous strain. She ought to be kept perfectly
quiet for the rest of the day. A drop of water won't
hurt." And before anyone could remonstrate, he had
dived out, hatless, into the battering rain.
*' You, Owen Ireland, go and stop him," cried Sai>
phira. " He'll get his death."
*' What about Ireland's death ? " inquired Rocky
Jim.
" No matter about me," I said, " I'll go." I had not
the least intention of interfering with Flower, but every
nerve in my body, every fibre in my brain, ached to be
alone. How could I sit in that place all day, under the
eyes of other people, and suffer what I knew I must, as
soon as I had had time to think out the whole significance
of what we had been hearing ? If I thought of anything
at all besides myself, I suppose I realised in some dim
way that Flower, on that relentless morning, had gene
forth into the storm to seek exactly what I was seekhig,
and for exactly the same reason. But there was little
room, in my thoughts, for the sorrows or disappoint-
ments of anyone in the world save Owen Ireland.
Sapphira screamed something after me as I went out ;
I do not know what it was. I was caught up in an
instant by the tempest, and had all I could do to keep
my feet, and walk against the whirling blasts that tore
down the glacis from above. Yet I struggled on. I am
not weaker than other men, if I can take my own tune,
and am not hurried to keep up with swifter feet. I took
my time that morning, and gradually fought my vfay —
drenched, beaten, yet somehow helped by the vry
fierceness of the weather, which seemed to overwhc Im
and quiet the storm in my own mind — up to the toj of
the island.
Lady Mary Remembers 251
Oh, but it was a wild, a wicked day up there I The
coconuts bent and whirled, and flung their long pale
tresses over their cowering heads, like women crouching
away -rom the blows of a brutal aggressor. The grasses
rose and fell in waves Uke a stormy sea. All the small
shrubs had been cruelly knocked about ; branches,
flowers, berries, came flying like birds in the wind, or lay
crushed and destroyed upon the track.
*' It will be a job getting anything for Sapphira's
stewed fruit, this next week or two,'* I thought. That
had always been the task of Jim ; now it would devolve
upon me, together with many other small duties that a
bhnd man could not carry out.
I kiew whither I was heading — to the cave of the
Greeks, I did not believe overmuch in the idea of
infection, and even if there had been any, we had all
agreed that mere roving about in a place did not infect
it — otherwise Jim would not have spent his days in our
cave. I didn't think, myself, that his sleeping there
would have done any harm to anyone, but Jim had been
the first to propose that he should shift elsewhere for the
nights.
I was quite clear as to what I wanted. I wanted to
get a\vay by myself for an hour or two, think over all
that the Sea- Lady had told us, and steel myself, as soon
as possible, and as completely as possible, to the utter
death of hope.
It N/as news to me that I had even cherished any. I
had s( > often told myself that a lame man — ^a poor man —
a mar without a country, or a position, or a home, could
never hope under any circumstances for the love of one
so sta ry, so far above ordinary women as our Sea-Lady.
That, from the. very first. Later, I kept reminding
252 The Terrible Island
myself that even had I been able to approach her on an
ordinary footing, her interest was straying — had perhaps
already strayed — elsewhere. I told myself, over and
over again, that I did not love. I quoted " Villette":
" Nobody ever launches into Love unless he has seen, or
dreamed, the rising of Hope's star over Love's troubled
waters." That star had never risen for me; then it
was certain I did not — could not — love the Sea-Lady.
I reverenced, worshipped her — no more.
And on the morning when the last coil of her strange
story was unwound for us — when I knew her to be, what
I had long suspected her, one of the great ones of earth,
and trebly, irrevocably pledged to a man of her own
kind — then I realised in one scorching instant that I
had loved, did love, and for ever would love our Lady
Mary — let me call her again by that sweet "little"
name.
Why ! the passionate soul who wrote " Villette "
herself had loved bitterly, against all hope and right ;
had launched, as all the world now knows, her bark
upon Love's troubled waters, without that star to
guide. Charlotte Bronte's love for the cold, calculating
Heger, who never even gave her copper coin for her gold,
who penned a shoe-mending account on the back of her
most passionate letter — is one of the world's bitterest
heart tragedies.
In Love there is no wisdom.
I had remembered all that I might well have for- ^
gotten, and forgotten everything I should have rem 'Um-
bered. The " beautiful girl, too white," who had li vcd
in Colombo, years ago, and loved the face that God tiad
given Owen Ireland as a consolation for his crip 'led
limb— other women, of whom I have not spoken, for
Lady Mary Remembers 253
they are compassionate as angels, sometimes, and a
man's infirmity may even draw the best to him — these
had C()me to my mind. I had remembered that the
island we had found was better than a gold mine to
every one of us, should we ever win safe away, and that
I could approach the Sea- Lady, not as a poor man, but
as one who could match her own fortune, whatever it
might be. And I had forgotten. . . .
. . . The brother of the "girl, too white." The
looks hat had burned hke fire, equally, whether they
were f itying or scornful, since ever I had eyes to see.
The hard, rough hfe I had led, that had made me no fit
mate, scarce even a fitting friend, for a deUcate flower of
England's nobility. All these things I had forgotten ;
and now I needed not even to recall them, any more
than I needed to recall my foolish hopes, or my futile
disgui^e of them from myself. Under any circumstances,
anywl.ere, beneath our earthly sun and moon, the Sea-
Lady < ould not have been for me.
As jften happens when one thinks most deeply,
surrou idings had been wiped out for me. I reached the
platea 1, walked along it from end to end, and found the
cave, without the sUghtest consciousness of what I was
doing. I was wakened, as I stooped to pass under the
low arohway, by the sight of Flower.
He ^vas sitting on the block of stone that the Greeks
had u ied as table. His legs hung down ; one was
crossed over another, and his elbows rested on the
raised- up knee. His chin was cupped in the palms of
his haids. His face, with its curious marked Punch-
feat ur< s, looked old and hard as stone.
Whi t a man would ordinarily do, under such circum-
stance s is easy to tell. He would slip away, silently,
254 The Terrible Island
without letting himself be seen. He would never let
anyone know that he had surprised the soUtudt*, the
grief, of another — least of all would he let that other
know.
But it came to me, there on the stormy summit of the
island, that wind-racked, weeping day, that this was
no time for common conventionalities. I knew that
Flower had fled, even as I had, to face, in solitude, an
unbearable sorrow. I knew that the sorrow was, almost
in all things, the same as mine. But I knew something
more — ^that it need not, and should not have been.
Because, whatever claims and duties might keep the
Sea-Lady from showing all her innocent heart — she
loved him.
" Not Lancelot," the handsome knight of the court,
*' nor another " — (oh, bitterly the other acknowledged
that !) — but just our big, rough leader ; the man of the
wilderness, the man who lived under open skies ; the
man in whose hands, since ever we came to the Terrible
Island, almost all our comfort and our safety had lain —
he, with the ugly, kindly face and the misfit romantic
name — Percival Flower.
I could not tell if he knew that she cared for him ; I
did not know what effect on his hopes, or his actions, the
knowledge might have. But I was determined that it
should, at least, be his.
I don't think I have ever done a braver thing i::i my
life than I did when I walked right into the cave c f the
Greeks, and, interrupting without ceremony the solitary
musings of our leader, spoke his name. For you kn :)W —
or you should, if I have told my tale even half \^ cU —
that Flower was not one with whose ways, or wishes , one
could Ughtly trifle. i^
Lady Mary Remembers 255
He jumped off the table and fairly snarled at me. If
I had not been what I was, I think he would have
struck. . . .
" V/hat do you want ? " he asked me, with a red-hot
word or two tacked on to the enquiry.
" I want," I said, " to keep you from making a fool
of yoirself."
Th'.Te was this of rarity and fineness in Flower's
kind, that he saw, and answered, often enough, the
thou^ ht that lay behind a man's speech, instead of the
speech itself. My words were only the words of a
meddling fellow who wanted, Hke some fidgety woman,
to sa' 'e him from a wetting. But he read them through.
He looked at me with that lighthouse gaze of his. I
saw che dark circles, the burned-out look, that one
half-liour's bitter agony had written about his eyes. I
saw the Ught, in the midst of all that wreck, unchanged.
And ;o myself I said, " There is something in him that
is worthy even of her."
" Will you sit down again ? " I said. " I have
something to tell you, and I'm not fond of standing."
He took his seat again without a word, and I sat there
too, en the rough stone table, in the twilit cave, with the
rain tiil trampUng and pouring down outside, and the
sweer smell of crushed leaves blowing in.
" I want to tell you," I said, " that Lady Mary loves
you."
" She is not Lady Mary," was his only answer ; but I
felt i: bore a double meaning.
" Names don't matter," I told him. " Facts do."
"Honour," said Percival Flower, "is about the
biggt St fact in the world. Or factor. You see, I think
that names are of some account."
256 The Terrible Island
" Do you mean," I asked him, "that you would let
her promise to a man she does not care for stand in the
way ? "
" Did you hear h«r say that she did not care for
him ? " was his reply.
" Why," I said, " I did hear her say that she ' thought
— she — did — care ' for this Lord Cedric. Would you
have been satisfied with that ? "
A contraction passed over his features, gone as soon
as seen.
" By God," he swore, " I would not." But I think —
he would.
" And do you intend to stand aside ? Are you one
of the people who think an engagement as sacred as a
marriage ? I never thought so, and I don't fancy most
men do. If there is no treachery "
" This is not," he said, " an ordinary case in any sense
of the word. You heard her story. I've no doubt that
if she and I came to an understanding, and told Lcird
Cedric de Crespigny that she had come to care for
another man more than for him, he would do exactly as
he did twenty-one years ago. He would set her free,
as he set her mother free. I daresay he wouldn't even
cut his throat over it. He didn't the first time. But —
I leave you to think what a double betrayal like that
would mean."
I did not answer him.
" It isn't merely a question of love," he went en.
" She took up this thing — if I judge her rightly — more
out of a singularly fine sense of honour than for any
other reason. She had always felt that her mother's
desertion — ^if one calls it nothing worse — had spoilt 1 he
man's life — ^turned it into a thing of no significance, Irid
Lady Mary Remembers 257
it waste with utter trivialities. She felt as she grew up
that she, and only she in the world, could set the wrong
riglr . And I think the great people who mean so much
in h( r life must have thought so too."
" Doesn't love count ? " I asked weakly. I held to
my own opinions, but, as always, the force of his per-
sonality was beating me down.
Hti did not answer for a minute. He looked out at
the ^vrithen palm trees and the thrashing rain. Some-
thing ; in the storm and the suffering of Nature, I
think, made answer to that which was in his own
mine .
" lx)ve," he said presently, " counts. Yes. But —
it isr 't everything."
" 1 think it is — almost," I said.
"It isn't — honour," he went on, as if he had not
heartl me. " It isn't a man*s self-respect. Nor his
common honesty. It's not all those. If you put them
in a scale against it — why, the scale shakes, if it doesn't
go down. And you know, Ireland, Hfe isn't a novel. A
girl does not break her heart and die because Fate gives
her t :> a good-looking well-born fellow, with plenty of
money and position, and a sort of hereditary liking for
her lamily. If — when — she carries out the promise
that her mother didn't, the Honourable Alexandrina
Meredith will not go off in a decline. She will be
presented on her marriage, and she'll lead the life she
was torn and trained to, and she'll keep a little senti-
mental regard somewhere for — well, Ku-Ku's Island,
let's say. And it won't do her any harm. Or count
much She'll be fond of her husband ; a good woman
is. She'll never look outside — or know — there was
anything greater in the world than what she ..."
R
258 The Terrible Island
His iron self-possession was breaking down — almost.
He could not finish the sentence.
*' Flower," I said, springing off the table, " tell me in
one word — do you mean to break her heart ? "
" I have told you," he said, recovering himself,
"that it won't come to that."
*' But if it did ? If you knew that in holding her and
yourself to a point of honour, you were breaking her
heart ? "
" Then," he said, and I saw in his eye the light of that
sternness that made many fear him, while they loved,
*' I would break it."
*' Well," I said, breathing hard, " I can only say
your ideas of honour are very much loftier than
mine."
*' Are they ? " said Flower, turning round to face me
full. " Are they, small man ? I wonder just what it
cost you to come up here after me to-day and tell me
what you've told. Do you know, you're not a very
vain man, Owen Ireland. I think, if I'd thought as you
do, and seen a lucky opening for myself, I might have
rushed into it, instead of "
** I couldn't be a beastly sneak," I said.
*' Ah," said Flower, " neither could I, you see. But
don't talk of standards being loftier. ... Do you know
that both of us are running the best possible chance of an
attack of fever ? "
" I wondered if you did," I answered him. We were
dripping from every thread.
" Suppose we go down and get scolded by Sapphira,"
he said, leading the way. " And suppose we don't talk
any more about things that nothing in the world can
ever change. Shake hands, Ireland."
II
Lady Mary Remembers 259
We stopped and shook hands, with the absurd self-
consciousness of Englishmen denied any more impulsive
f c rm of expression. And then we went back to the cave,
and, as Flower had anticipated, were first of all most
thoroughly scolded, and afterwards compulsorily fed
with warm pepper drinks, by Sapphira.
CHAPTER XI
WEDDING RINGS
SAPPHIRA was aggrieved, and everyone in the
cave was feeling it.
She didn't mind (she said) the greediness of
men. That she was used to ; every woman
was used to it. What she did mind was the fact that
even their well-known greediness was eclipsed, on the
whole, by their laziness. They wanted to be fed, of
course, whether it was Saturday or Sunday, daylight or
dark. She supposed the first thing Adam said to Eve
when he woke up and found her alongside of him was to
tell her to hustle round and get his dinner ; and she*d
lay, when the Last Trump sounded, if a meal happened
to be on the table at the same time, the men would
insist on finishing it before they'd pay attention to
Gabriel. Of course, she knew all about that.
But she did feel Uke " going to market," not to say
like performing proper, when she found them too lazy
to do a hand's turn towards helping to find their own
food, when women were slaving their insides out cooking
it for them. How one was supposed to make a sweet
course— on a desolate island — without anything to make
it of, and how one was going to find fresh meat to replace
pigs that lazy men who'd ought to have had a fellow
feeling for pigs, seeing they was so like pigs themselves,
had let go away in the bush ...
Wedding Rings 261
Sapphira, here becoming entangled in different and
irreconcilable predicates, broke off, merely remarking
with some sharpness that she hadn't a berry for the
stew, nor a bit of fish for the dinner itself, and that she
supposed the best thing she could do was to go and get
them.
Of course, this woke up everyone in the cave. We
had been, I must confess, a little lazy. Two or three
days of rain, w^hen almost nothing could be done outside,
fiad famiharised us with loafing habits ; and neither
Flower nor myself had turned out quite so early as we
ought to have done on this fine morning. Sapphira
did not know — how should she ? — ^that Flower had been
sleeping scarcely at all ; but I knew it, since I had to share
ids bed ; and his sleeplessness, joined to my own not too
easy mind, had given me more than one " white night '*
of late. But of this she was not aware, for, finding it
inconvenient to pass in and out of our sleeping place to
their own, the women had arranged another place,
\v^ith a separate exit, which was part of the same great
system of shore caves as ours, but gave them greater
privacy.
So Sapphira, being unaware of any reason why she
should temper justice with mercy, " gave it to us " hot
and strong as her own favourite pepper mixtures for
colds. And Flower and I, feehng guilty, hunted our-
selves out at once, I to fetch the fruit, he to run down, if
jossible, the pig-errant. And Lady Mary, whom he
liad not asked to accompany him, came to the door of
the dining cave, and looked at him with such sweet
humble eyes that he would have been more — or less —
than man, if he had not answered their entreaty by the
invitation she wanted.
262 The Terrible Island
So we went up to the top of the island. And the Sea-
Lady being after all young — so young I — and light -
hearted even in the face of trouble, would have it that
they were to cut long spears, tie pods of annatto on to
the blunted points, and go " Pig-sticking properly" — a
touch from the smeary, painty annatto pod to count
as a wound ; two to be, conventionally, the death of the
little pig.
Flower humoured her, though I think such sport
would have been more in the line of Jim — Jim who,
as far as we knew, would never hunt anything, or
play his amusing, mischievous tricks on anyone any
more. . . . They found the little pig almost at once,
where it was running about joyously in the long grass,
and they set to work to "pig-stick" it with their
annatto-pointed spears. But an unexpected obstacle
appeared. The pig had become so tame with handling
that it would not run away. It came cheerfully to greet
Flower and the Sea- Lady ; it poked its snout against
their legs, ran round them grunting wildly, and expressed
a candid desire to be fed.
" Oh, this is no good ! " said Lady Mary, throwing
away her spear. "It's Hke shooting a sitting partridge.
We shall get no sport out of poor piggy."
"We shall get some dinner out of him later on,"
remarked Flower.
Her eyes dilated with horror.
" I can't bear to think of it," she said. " I wish we were
all vegetarians. Poor piggy, he is so happy, and he
wants so to go on living."
"Nevertheless, I shall knock him on the head this
morning, and get him ready for dinner," pronounced
Flower. " We all need fresh meat."
Wedding Rings 263
'* Will you kill him yourself ? " she demanded, with
horror in her voice.
" Who else did you think was going to do it ? "
" I— I don't know. I didn't think— exactly." But
I saw she had thought. It would not have hurt her
fe ,'Iings nearly so much if I had been the one marked
out to conduct the slaughter. As a matter of fact, it
would have turned me deadly sick, while Flower, brought
uj) on a cattle station, was probably able and willing to
k 11 and dress half a dozen beasts a day.
However, I bore her no grudge. I only wanted to
Sr ve her feelings in every possible way, and I bethought
me that she would not trouble so much over piggy's fate
if the execution were put off for a day or two, until some
morning when she should not have been chasing and
playing with the little beast. So I remarked, " I'm in
no hurry for fresh meat ; the tinned is good enough for
me."
** And I won't eat a bit of the poor Uttle dear, any-
how," said Lady Mary. " Can't he be spared — or
reprieved — anyhow ? "
Flower hesitated. I have never tried to paint him
V hat he was not — perfect — and I am compelled to allow
that one of his most prominent faults was tendency to
rduse any request too earnestly put — " to harden," hke
the horrible Grandcourt of George EUot, " under
beseeching." He had made up his mind about the pig ;
we were really getting short of tinned stuff ; and
Sapphira had been practically promised the pig's head
en a charger — not to speak of the rest of him — for that
clay.
Lady Mary saw that the pig's fate was trembling in
t be balance. ... It was ; and more than she, or Flower,
264 The Terrible Island
or I myself dreamed of was trembling in the balance
too. I shudder still to think of what might have
happened, that very day, if the Sea-Lady had not
prevailed. . . .
But she did. If Flower had his full share of plain
male obstinacy, she had hers of feminine persistence
and of ruse. She did what she seldom ventured on —
laid her hand on his arm ; I think, though I would not
swear, she even squeezed a httle. . . . The best of
women is a human being at bottom.
" Please," she said — ^and the shameless little thing
looked 2l kiss — all for piggy.
Flower wilted. %<
" Piggy lives," he said. " Now you and I have just
got to hustle about, and help Ireland to find plenty of
fruit ; Sapphira won't be so bad to face if we bring the
basket full."
It was easier said than done. The recent storms had
made sad mischief among the few edible wild fruits of
Ku-Ku's Island. The wild mangoes had been tumbled
in cartloads off the trees, unripe ; the raspberries were
mere pulp; the pretty, nectarine-like nutmeg fruits
were scattered, dirty and damaged, all about the track.
We had some trouble getting a supply. I went at last
to the place where the cherries grew close to the cave ;
I hoped at least to fill up the basket there ; they were
small, but any port is good in a storm. I found, to my
disgust, that the pardoned pig had celebrated his release
by getting at the cherries before myself, eating up nearly
all the windfalls, and slobbering and chewing the rest.
And on the bushes not very many were ripe. I got a
few, however.
I relieved ray feelings by giving piggy a good smack,
Wedding Rings 265
whic 1 he took in quite a playful spirit, driving his snout
into !ny worn trouser legs in return. Then, with Flower
and Lady Mary, I went down to the lower part of the
islan 1 to look for fish.
W«:' got some, fishing off the rocks with cuttlefish bait,
and lines twisted from wild banana fibre. And then we
returned, endured Sapphira's reproaches, and found
ourstlves useful tasks until dinner time.
• The meal was served about twelve o'clock, in the
dinir g-room cave, upon the table that Flower and Jim
had nade. I am not ashamed to say that we eyed it
with eagerness. Our food was one of our chief interests
in th 3se days, as is always the case with prisoners. And
Sapphira was a wonderful hand at making something out
of nc thing.
She had done well for us to-day. We had — I remem-
ber i- all, I am never likely to forget that dinner — oyster
soup thickened with sago from the forest ; some small
wild yams, roasted brown ; fish ; cabbage from the
crow 1 of a coconut palm — and better cabbage does not
exist, only you must wait for stormy weather to enjoy
it, si ice it can only be obtained from a palm that has
been felled or overthrown. She had made lemon-grass
tea for us, and confected a " shape " of the invaluable
sago. Togo with the " shape," she had a row of meat tins
filled with stewed fruit.
Wi had not reached the stage of the sago and the
fruit , but were still eating our fish, when the Sea-Lady
utteied a sharp exclamation.
" (k)t a bone ? " asked Sapphira.
" No," she answered. She was staring at her hand —
tlic 1 ft hand on which usually shone the ring set with
t he V onderful pink diamond. The third finger was bare.
266 The Terrible Island
*' I've lost my ring," she said, in a dismayed tone of
voice.
Sapphira, of course, asked the foolish question that
everyone asks,
" Where ? "
" I — I don't know. It might have been up on the
top of the island when we were getting fruit. Or it
might have been when we were fishing."
She looked pale and troubled. I think she felt there
was some omen connected with the loss of the ring, on a
day when — one may guess — her thoughts had been very
far from the giver.
Flower got up from his seat.
" Probably it was when you were picking fruit," he
said ; "it must be got at once. There's more weather
coming up, and if the place gets all wet and knocked
about again . . . There I listen to that."
A sharp patter of raindrops, advance guard of an
approaching host, had sounded on the leaves outside
the cave.
" Don't wait dinner for me," said Flower, hurrying
out. " I've had all I want."
We went on with our fish. I remember that, good as
it was, it was very bony, and required careful picking.
Sapphira produced a surprise for us soon after, in the
shape of some river crayfish which she had caught
herself. "It's a pity that Flower went gallivanting off
Uke that," she said. " These are real good."
She cleared away, helped by Lady Mary, who would
take her part in all household duties, and then brought
the sago and the fruit on the table.
" Hand us the coconut cream," she said, and pour.d
it liberally over the helping in each tin . We took up o ur
il
Wedding Rings 267
spoons of shell, and were just about to begin, when Jim
said something funny. I have not the least recollection
of what it was, but I know it made us all laugh, and I
choked over a mouthful of lemon tea, and Sapphira
beat Die on the back with an unopened coconut, which
made us all laugh more, in the childish way of people
who hve in the wilderness. . . . And just as we had all
settled down again, there came a crashing and smashing
on th ' glacis, as if a couple of bulls, and two or three
runaway horses, were coming down it in leaps and
bounds. And in another five seconds Flower, white,
panting, with a look of terror in his face, burst into the
cave.
" What in Heaven's name ? " I began. But he
waitc 1 for no questioning.
" Ha. — have you eaten any ? " he gasped out.
" Any what ? "
" Fruit."
"No. Is it ?"
He had reached out, seized all the tins, two in a hand,
and dung them out of the doorway on to the sand,
befor_^ I had time to finish my sentence.
"Is it poisonous ? " asked Sapphira. " Are you
bahny ? What's it all about ? "
Flower, who was beginning to recover his breath now,
came inside the cave, and sat down on a log. I could
sec, by the wetness of his hair, and the white look about
his nouth, that he had been running furiously.
"It's the — the pig," he said, panting a little still.
" I f( >und him on the top of the island "
" Dead ? " cried Sapphira, her thoughts on future
dinn ,'rs not to be.
"No! BUnd!"
cau;
268 The Terrible Island
J they
" Blind ? " we all screamed together. Lji^t
*' Yes. Blundering about and running his head intcLgij
things. ... I picked one of those mangoes he's so fond
of, and put it right in front of him, and he stared at it,
and never saw it. But he smelt it, and began nosing
about, and by and by he found it — only by the smell.
I tried him with other things. It was all the same.
Then I clapped my hands suddenly, and he scared like
anything, and began running, and I was just in time to
stop him from going — right over the cliff. I tied him
up. We must keep him and watch him. But he's
blind — Wind as a mole."
" Did you get the ring ? " interrupted Sapphira the
practical.
" Oh . . . the ring. ..." He handed it carelessly
to the Sea-Lady and she shpped it on her finger with a
half absent-minded "Thank you" ; there were things
of greater import than rings to consider.
" I fully believe," went on Flower, white with excite-
ment, " that we've run down the trouble at last. I've
had an idea for some time that some local poison might
have been accountable ; that was really why I got the
pigs in the first place — the Greeks' trick was just a
coincidence. ..."
" I did have a notion," I put in, " that there should
have been more pigs in a place like this. . . . They
usually overrun the out-of-the-way islands."
" Yes," said Flower excitedly. "It's those cherri:!S
— I'll swear they are in it somehow or other. I was
looking at the bushes just now, and by Gad, they a:e
not indigenous — they've surely been planted. Wh<;-
ever put them in stuck them at pretty regular intervals
allowing for a few that have died. And the pigs — well,
Wedding Rings 269
they seem very fond of the fruit, and I've not a doubt
that it has killed them off, by driving them over the
walls of the island. This pig, you must remember, was
caught very young, and shut up on the beach."
*' But how could cherries blind anyone ? " I asked.
Maiiy who read this will of course have the answer
ready in their minds. But they must remember that
these things happened years ago, in an obscure and
lonely place, and that all the castaways were New
Zealaiiders or EngUsh. If we had had a North Queens-
lande]- among the party . . . Yet even in North
Queensland the thing was not universally known — at
the bt ginning of the century.
Flower had no reply ready. He thought for a
moment or two.
" Tliere is some analogy in the case of belladonna,"
he said. " It is not an impossible thing. Anyhow the
facts are there. And everything you think of seems to
prove it. The cherries were all up on the top, near the
Greek / cave ; they must have been eating them from
the beginning. And we didn't touch them, because we
kept clear of the place."
*' Birds ate them," I remarked.
"That isn't the proof of wholesomeness that people
used to think. We can eat things that kill birds. And
the converse. The pig runs us much closer."
*' I always told you so," remarked Sapphira, tren-
chantly. And the seriousness of the discussion broke up
for a moment into laughter.
" I .:an give you a better proof than any," spoke a
voice 1 hat had been silent hitherto, the voice of Rocky
Jim. " I was eating those cherries the evening before
I went blind."
270 The Terrible Island
" Had you eaten any before ? " asked Flower.
"Don't think so. I had got the habit of chewing
coconut, and I missed it, up there on top, so I took a
few cherries instead. They were fairly good to eat."
" And one must say they look most inviting," I put
in. " They are a bit longer than ordinary cherries, but
otherwise they're just right — cold, sour, surface little
specks and all."
" And they have been planted, if they were planted,
just where no one going to see the cave could miss
them. ... I begin to think that Ku-Ku was an
amazingly cunning old brute."
" But," objected the Sea-Lady, *' no fruit bears all the
year round. What about the part of the year when it
wouldn't be bearing at all ? "
It took the surveyor a minute or two to work out i hat
problem. " Let me think . . ." he said. " I have it.
From what Carl told us, and what we can see ourselves,
Ku-Ku's Island is inaccessible all through the south-<iast
season. This is the north-west season ; the island is
accessible — ^more or less — and the berry is in bearing.
. . . What a head the old sinner had 1 "
" I wonder where he got the stuff ? " speculated Jim.
" I never saw it anywhere else in Papua."
" Ku-Ku was a bit of a traveller," was Sapphira's
contribution. " They blackbirded him in the old days,
and took him to the Queensland sugar fields, and lot^i of
other places."
" Well," said Flower consideringly, " the chances are
that we have the secret at last — thanks to your saving
of piggy." He looked at the Sea- Lady. " Of coi.rse
you've saved him for good now. He must go away w ith
us as soon as any boat comes along, and see the doctc r."
Wedding Rings 271
At that word Jim raised his sightless eyes.
" You're pretty much a doctor yourself, aren't you ? '*
he asked. " What do you think of my chances ? "
Flower temporised. I think he had in his mind the
recollection of the native Sapphira had known, who
never saw the Hght of the sun again, after his fatal
disco^ ery of Ku-Ku's Island.
** Medical science is progressing rapidly," he said.
'* Wh' n we get away, the first thing to do is to get you
to the School of Tropical Medicine in Brisbane, and see
if they can't fix you up all right."
" \^'hen we get away ! " How many times the words
were repeated in the days that followed ! A fever
of unrest had seized us all. We no longer feared the
greati st peril of the island ; the lesser peril — that of the
murderous Greeks — had been swept away ; we had food
enough^ to keep us from starvation for a good many
weeks. Yet now we longed and ached to get away, as
we had never longed in the days when peril seemed to
encompass every step. We could not settle to anything.
Tappc:. cloth garments were always being wanted, for
the pc: pery stuff did not wear well, and fishing had to be
done, and wood collected, and pigs and pigeons snared.
But ad these tasks were hurried through, or, as often as
not, lift undone. We could not keep ourselves from
runniig ceaselessly to the top of the island, to see that
our si, jnal was flying from the palm tree and to look, far
and v\ ide, eagerly and always, always fruitlessly, for the
streak of black smoke or the sail that was to set us free.
Of :oursc, one could not catch a glimpse of the open
sea fiom the landlocked inlet where wc lived. The
tower Jig clifis shut off everything but a narrow stretch
272 The Terrible Island
of enclosed green shallow lagoon water. The boat
channel that led to the open sea wound crookedly
between high rocks. An army might have burst upon
you unawares, down by the cave houses of the beach. . . .
The days dragged on. I remember one in particular,
that seemed at least twenty-four hours in length. We
had got up rather early, to look for cuttlefish bait among
the pools, before the sun should have made the reef
unbearably hot. We had loafed and slept a good deal
of the forenoon, waked up feeUng hot and livery, as
people who " cat -nap " in the daytime do feel in
tropical countries, and gone down — at least Flower and
I had — ^for a bathe in the lagoon. It was extremely hot
there, and we came out warm and sticky, and not at all
refreshed. And we walked up to the top of the island
to see if that eternal ship was coming, and of course she
wasn't. And we went for a stroll in the big forest at the
far side of the island, looking for we didn't quite know
what, and we didn't find that either. And then we
made back to the beach again, quite convinced that it
must be dinner-time at the earliest ; and our sundial
clock (a stick stuck upright into the sand) informed us
that it was not more than eleven.
"Oh. blow ! " said Flower feelingly. . . .
The day did wear through at last.
" Although the day be ever so long,
At length it ringeth to evensong,"
hummed Flower, in his deep bourdon bass, as the sun
dived sharply behind the wall of the coral cUff. It waij
not evensong yet by any means, if by evensong ono
meant actual dusk ; for up on the top of the island, an(
out at sea, full dayUght would hold for quite an hour
Wedding Rings
273
But here, below, the shadows were beginning to gather,
darkening the white sand, touching the ivory-coloured
walls, and slowly, slowly filUng the well-Uke space of
the little cUff-bound bay. We seemed to be drowning
in th( flood of the advancing night . . . even as all of
us, \\hether we knew it, in rare dark moments, or
whether we did not, were drowning, slowly, surely,
through twenty or fifty or seventy long years, in the
flood by which all mankind are overtaken at last. . . .
At ihis hour it was always pleasant to come out from
the cave, and sit upon the sand, listening to the chuckling
calls of birds settling down for the night among the
hibisc is trees, and smelling the fresh scents that came
up as :he dews began to gather. We were all out on the
beach together, that evening, perched on various lumps
of rounded coral " brainstone," and doing nothing at
all. Nobody was even talking, except Sapphira, and
she wi s merely relating an anecdote about some miner
who didn't know how to cook, and wouldn't learn, and
hadn't a cooky boy, and Uved on biscuits and whisky, and
in consequence died "on the Woodlarks," which
expres ion I understood vaguely to mean a certain island
goldfield, and not a mortal disease, as might have been
supposed.
" I cion't say that whisky hasn't its uses," she was
concluding. " It kills the insects in the blood that
bringb fever and other things. But whisky for break-
fast — aid lunch — and morning tea — and afternoon tea
—and din "
The Sea-Lady never interrupted anyone. At least,
she had never done so since we first met her, that long-
ago, wc nderful evening on Crokcr Island, and I do not
suppose she had ever done so before then, being the most
s
274 The Terrible Island
courteous of little ladies. But now, without a shadow
of poUteness, without the least consideration, she cut
into Sapphira's tale.
" Look ! " she said. " Look ! Look at the boat ! "
The last four words were a scream.
We were all of us, except Lady Mary, sitting with our
backs to the narrow lagoon, and to the crooked passage
by which we had originally come to Ku-Ku's Island. At
her words we jumped to our feet, and whirled round.
And there, just turning the corner of the passage, glidi]ig
along, fending off from the rocky walls with oars and
with hands, was a dinghy full of men.
For one stabbing moment I had the thought, "It is
the rest of the Greeks ! " Then I saw that the crew
were natives, and that the one white man who sat in
the stern, steering, and keeping a sharp look-out over
the painter of his boat, was — Carl !
I don't know what you would do if you were suddenly
rescued from a desert island by a man you thought to
be dead. I know what we did ; it was not dignified,
but it was very natural. We shouted — all sorts of
things: greetings, exclamations, and words stranger
than exclamations ; we ran up and down the beach ;
we spread out hands of welcome to Carl and his men
before they were within fifty yards of us, and I am not
at all sure that some of us didn't try to dance. I cer-
tainly saw Sapphira jumping madly up and down in one
place, almost unnoticed in the excitement of the arrival.
Lady Mary, however, did not dance, did not scream,
did not even clap her hands, as I know I was doing.
She stood quite still in one place, with her hards
clasped before her, and looked at the boat. And I sa w,
even in that moment, that she had grown very white.
Wedding Rings 275
On the face of Rocky Jim, however, a great light had
dawned, and I knew then, seeing how he welcomed the
chance of deUverance, what the bitterness of his un-
alleviated, unhelped misfortune must have been.
I don't know which of us got hold of Carl first, when
he landed. I think all of us, or all but Lady Mary,
seized whatever piece of him was within reach. I know
thit he remonstrated laughingly, crying to us not to
pi- 11 liim in fragments before he got a chance of saying
a ^vord. And then we led him, among us, to a rock, and
se- him forcibly upon it, and began asking questions,
very loud and all together.
" Where did you come from ? Weren't you sunk ? "
" What ship ^re you in ? "
" Where's the cutter with the rest of those damned
Greeks ? '*
" Have you got any real tea ? "
' Have you a drop of decent whisky ? "
' Does anybody know where we are ? "
" Did you see our signal ? "
' Wasn't there any search-party sent ? "
'Tell us everything about everything."
'Giff me time — giff me time!" said the Swede
slowly. " You are all in such a hurry. How can a
man tell all these thingce at once ? I am not come in
on : ship " (with pride), " I am come in two. Yes, there
is ;t search-party that was looking for you everywhere,
and that iss one of the ships, but they would not haff
found you if I had not meet them, and brought them
heie with me. I am in an auxiliary ketch" (with
increased pride). " It iss that one of Wilson's. Andt
th( seairch-party are in that Uttle steamer Murua."
Here we broke out again.
276 The Tierrible Island
" But why didn't you come sooner ? Why did you
leave us here two months? How did you get awaj^
yourself ? "
" There iss one answer to thoce two questions. My
Tagula she was driven on to the big reef in that
gooba "
" I told you so," from Jim.
" Andt she slid off, and went down — oh, my lovely
ship ! — into fifty fathom. I have no ship any more."
*' You've got as good," said Jim. " We've found
Ku-Ku's stuff, ^nd something much better, and we yvon't
forget you. Where were you all this time ? "
" In hospital in Samarai. The current ce, they carried
me to another reef, and all day and all the next day I
lay there in the sun."
Flower made a clicking noise with his tongue. We
all knew what was meant by full exposure to the New-
Guinea sun, even on land, and with a hat to protect
you. And this man had lain, for two days, unsheltered,
upon a reef, with the reflecting sea all round.
" If you aren't made of cast iron, you ought to be
dead," was the surveyor's verdict.
*' Then I am made off iron, for I did not die, though I
was struck very badt with the sun, and the nativce,
they found me and took me in a canoe, but they thought
I was quite dead. Then when they foundt I wass not,
they threw the sea water on me, all the time, and we
were dayce and dayce getting in, and I do not know how
it was that I did not kick that bucket, but they brought
me at last to Cape Nelson. So the Merrie England, the
Government yacht, she wass there, and she ran me as
fast as they could go to Samarai, and the doctor he
said, ' What for do you bring this man ? He is already
Wedding Rings 277
very dead.' But I got alive again, and then he see he
will have plenty of feece from me, so he work very hardt
ard here I am, but I am easily tiredt still."
" Have a coconut," said Flower. " We can't offer
you anything else."
" Oh — the beer," said Carl suddenly. " Get it,
bcyce. I haff thought," he explained, " that you will
all feel like a drink of nice be "
He had no time to finish the sentence. The boys were
carrying large cool-looking bottles out of the boat ; and
Flower, myself and Jim — the latter led by Sapphira —
W'Te already precipitating ourselves upon our prey.
We didn't wait for corkscrews, but simply knocked the
n(cks off the bottles, and poured the frothing, amber
h(iuid into coconut shells.
"Thank God!" said Jim piously, raising his face
out of his cup. " Sapphira, have you had any ? "
" No fear," said the pioneer woman contemptuously.
*' I like beer well enough, but I don't go down on my
kiices to pray to it, and them that do had better keep
it all."
There was such a flavour of contempt for mere male
sensuality in her tone, that none of us dared to offer her
ai.y further share. We felt better when we had emptied
tie bottles. It was almost dark now, but the cooking
file gave light. We proceeded with our catechism.
" Carl, have you "
But the sea-captain interrupted us.
" Now I haff answered enough," he said. " I shall
as k some questionce, for my turn. What iss the matter
with Jim ? "
" I'm as blind as a bat," explained Jim coolly.
" Is anyone else blindtcd ? "
278 The Terrible Island
"No." We told him how we had at last lit upon the
long-kept secret of Ku-Ku's Terrible Island.
*' My wordt 1 My wordt I " he kept saying. "And
who iss those Greeksce you keep talking about ? "
This meant another explanation. "Did you see
anything of their cutter ? " I asked, at the end of our
tale, with some anxiety. For if the Greeks had recog-
nised the real value of the island, and gone to Port
Moresby to claim it . . .
" I saw nothing at all off her, not hass anyone else.
I haff heard no talk of her at all. I think that gooba
that killed my Tagula, it hass done for her."
" Please the pigs, it has," said Jim piously. And I may
add here that nothing more was ever heard of the boat.
" Now it iss my question," put in Carl. " I want to
know when this Jim hass married Sapphira."
"What?" Even the Sea-Lady joined in that cry.
Jim and Sapphira did not. " What on earth do you
mean, Carl ? How could anyone "
" I haff travelled a lot all ofer the worldt," remarked
Carl, not at all perturbed. " I am Lutheran, but I
know some thingce. Haff you a match ? " He had a
cigarette in his hand.
" Of course not. Take a fire-stick," I said, handing
it to him. At the same time Flower and myself fell
upon his packet of cigarettes, and plundered it, handing
a share to Jim. . . .
" What on earth " demanded Flower.
" Look what he is wearing," said Carl. And we all
saw what, somehow or other, we never had noticed
before — ^that Jim still sported the wedding-ring he had
won from Sapphira, and that it was on his third finger.
Also that Sapphira had one ring, and no more, on hers.
Wedding Rings 279
"What have you done with the rest?" I asked,
amazed.
" Jim has one," she repUed composedly ; " the other
I chucked into the sea. I don't want to rub it in that
I've been married three times before."
"Before? But Sapphira, there's no clergyman or
magistrate "
"Of course not. But Jim and me, we're both
Ca:holics. I let up on it a bit for some years, but "
'She's been attending the annual muster all right,
this last year or two," explained Jim. " And she's
originally branded Holy Roman. Oh yes, she belongs
to the herd all right."
' But what's that got to do with it ? "
* You heretics," said Jim calmly, " don't know much.
The Pope allows us just to marry each other, if we've
been two months waiting for a priest and none has
tu-ned up. Sapphira and me, we waited the two
mmths quite regular. Then we said the service all
o\er. I didn't remember the run of it much, but she's
pretty well up, you know, and I'll lay we didn't miss
ar.y of it. We're married all right, according to the
Church, and that's good enough for me, till we can get
to a magistrate to tie up the rest of the knot."
" I should think so," said Sapphira loftily. " What's
er ough for the Holy Father is enough for any miner
that ever scratched dirt on the Yodda. Or ought to be."
" But you know," said Jim thoughtfully, " you
oughtn't to have married a man you'll have to lead
alwut with a string."
"Huhl" snorted Sapphira. "I'd 'a* done that
anyhow. With any man that ever walked on two feet
-blind or seeing."
28o The Terrible Island
"Oh no, you wouldn't, Sapphira," said Jim softly.
" Just you wait till I get down to the Tropical School of
Medicine. ..."
** Well, when you do ? "
"Did I ever tell you," asked Jim conversationally,
" what I meant when I said that you wouldn't smack my
head a third time ? "
" No. . . . You can tell me now, if you want to so
bad as that."
" I meant," said Jim agreeably, " that a man who
could throw and brand a wild cow from the bush, up in
the Territory, as I've done time and again, wouldn't
have much difficulty in spanking one wild woman."
*' If you wasn't blind " said Sapphira, shivering.
'* I won't be always, Sapphira, and then you can
smack my head again — if you dare to."
" When you two love-birdce haff done cooing,"
remarked Carl, *' we might as well be getting any thingce
you haff ready for the boat."
*' Do you mean to go off to-night ? " asked Flower.
" Yess. The tide suits, and it does not always suit,
about a place with these badt currentce. Pleass, will
you get your thingce ? "
" Sapphira," said Jim suddenly, " I want you for a
minute. They walked away together, and conversed
for a little while out of earshot. In the hght of the
fire, I saw Sapphira's face convulsed with sudde::i
laughter. She slapped Jim on the back, and then put
her hand over her mouth, and became surpassinglygravc .
Wc were not long getting " things " on board ; w:-
had incommonly little to take away. The pig and
the shell money — which during the last few days Flowe:
and I had carried down to the beach — were the onl'/
I
Wedding Rings 281
articles of luggage in which anyone betrayed much
interest. There was plenty of tinned stuff left from the
stort^s of the Greeks. Jim and Sapphira said they
would take charge of that, but I didn't see it in the boat
when the four of us got in. I thought Sapphira just a
trifle rude, in insisting as she did that she and Jim should
go lirst. But I suppose she was anxious about the
safe;y of the blind man. And the dinghy would not
hold more than three, besides the crew and Carl. Carl
cam 3 with us ; he said he would not trust anyone else
to steer the boat through the reefs. " They'll come
back for you in half an hour or a very httle more," he
said to Flower and Lady Mary apologetically. And, of
course, I knew better than to insist on staying with
theiii. . . .
So we rowed away down the tortuous boat passage,
leaving Flower and the Sea- Lady standing alone, beside
the lying fire.
As to what happened after, I believe there are people
in I'ort Moresby and Samarai even to this day who
mai]itain that I knew more about it than I chose to
allo^v. That is entirely untrue. I will not say that, in
the place of other people — another person — I would not
have acted as he did, provided the idea had occurred to
me. But it did not ; it was not Ukely to. So I decline
to liear the responsibiUty for anything whatever. I
onl> relate the facts.
W hen we got outside the boat passage, we found a
caln. sea, lit brightly by the afterglow of sunset, and
partly by the stars. There was no moon. Out beyond
the 1 eef , a safe distance away, lay two ships, the wretched
littU steamer they had sent out in search of us, and the
282 The Terrible Island
auxiliary ketch captained by Carl. For the latter boat
we steered. Jim and Sapphira made an astonishing fuss
about getting their things on board, and it was nearly
twenty minutes, I should guess, before Carl found
himself free again.
" You haff kept me too long," he said. " Mr. Flower
and the Lady Mary, they will be wildt with me."
" Why, what do you mean ? " asked Jim. " They
aren't going in the ketch."
" Not going in the ketch ? "
" No. Didn't you hear Flower explaining ? Perhaps
you were too busy. I heard him all right. He's in an
awful sweat about getting to Port Moresby as quick as
possible, and he said he wouldn't travel, or advise Lady
Mary to travel, in this auxiliary brute of yours, for a
fortune. Said he knew too much about her, and didn 't
want any more wrecks. Said when there was a steamer
going, it was his duty to put Lady Mary aboard of that.
You send over the dinghy for a minute with Sapphira,
and she'll make them get a hustle on, aboard the Murua."
'* Well, if he wants it," said Carl, obviously huffed,
" he can travel on any damn steam pot he likes. If
Sapphira will be so kindt — I have no wish to leave any
ship again, if I can help it, about this badt sort of island
— but if she will go "
I
" Of course she will," said Jim.
Sapphira, with astonishing amiabiHty, climbed dov.n
into the dinghy again, and told the boys to " Shake hor
up and go along Murua." We saw the dinghy run
alongside ; saw another put out from the Murua, and
head towards the mass that represented Ku-Ku's Islanil.
The last traces of sunset were gone now ; no moon h< d
risen, and it was very dark.
Wedding Rings 283
We waited till we saw the Murua^s boat reappearing
out o*^ the gloom. Sapphira had returned ; she leaned
over the rail of the ketch and shouted out, " All right ? "
" All right : he come," howled a native in reply.
"Up anchor 1 " shouted Carl. " We've hung about
here too long. Get a move on, you black cowce." He
swuni: a rope's end threateningly among the crew.
Obvicusly the Swede was out of temper at the insult
offere 1 to the boat he was captaining.
We got away a minute or two after the Murua. Using
our engine to work out, we were not very far behind her
at fir^t ; but Carl shut off the engine as soon as we
cleared into the open sea, and felt a favouring breeze
caress our sails. The course of the Murua was, natur-
ally, not the same as ours, and we lost sight of her in the
glooni of the moonless night almost at once.
Saf phira arranged with Carl to call at Croker Island,
so th;Lt she could get her "things" and settle with a
neigh 'X)ur (ten miles away) to come and take charge of
the store. Then we went down to Samarai. The
Murua, when we arrived, was reported as passed, and
well en her way to Port Moresby, where the officials who
had s( nt her out were doubtless awaiting her return with
anxiety.
Jim and Sapphira, as soon as the B.P. boat came in
(which was a few days later), went on board, taking
their * ickets for Brisbane. I had no intention of leaving
Sama "ai for the present, but Jim insisted I should travel
to P( rt Moresby.
" I tell you," he said, " we shall all lose the island if
you don't. The people on the Murua don't know what
we fo ind, but . . . Anyhow, you've got to go."
*' What do you suppose Flower will be doing ? " I
284 The Terrible Island
said angrily. *' Won't he have taken up the island long
before this ? "
" I bet you Sapphira's wedding-ring and mine," said
Jim — (by the way, they had had their canonical marriage
duly ratified by British law, at the magistrate's office)
— "that he won't be doing any such thing."
*' You seem to think you know him better than I do,"
I remarked.
" I know some things better than you do. Theie's
no use arguing, Ireland, you've just got to come."
And come I did. I was exceedingly puzzled, especia lly
as I could see that there was some confidence or other
between Jim and Sapphira, which appeared to be of an
amusing nature, and to which I was not admitted. But
on the morning when the Moresby came in sight of her
namesake port, the mystery was solved.
We were tying up to the wharf ; the usual crowd was
standing staring up at the steamer ; the hills of Port
Moresby, green and purple with the north-west season
rains, stood up high and peaky all about the town. I
was gazing at it all, and thinking of the many strange
things that had happened to me since I last saw those
hills, when Jim came up beside me, feehng his way by
the rail.
" I say, Ireland," he remarked, and blind as he was,
the old wicked twinkle shone visibly in his eye. " I
suppose you think Flower and Lady Mary are somewh<?re
in port here — staying at Government House, no doubt."
" Aren't they ? " I asked.
"Not much," chuckled Jim. "They're still on
Ku-Ku's Island."
" On Ku-Ku's ! . . . Jim, are you mad ? "
" A lot saner than you are. Think I was going to let
Wedding Rings 285
that duck over in England have a bonzer girl hke Lady
Mary, when a good New Zealander wanted her, and she
wanted him? Seems to me Lord Mustard-and-Cress,
or whatever his dashed name is, hadn't the knack any-
how of keeping his girls, and a man who can't keep his
girls — I always have any I wanted to. . . . Well,
anyhow, Sapphira and I, we just planned it up between
us. And they're left behind. We told the people on
the Murua that they'd come with us, and we got the
Mur ia's boat to run along under the lee of the island for
ten Minutes, just to take you all in "
" How did you account • "
*' Oh, told the Murua' s crowd it was necessary, to see
if the tide was turning — they didn't know the place, and
would believe anything. And Sapphira fixed it up with
the lx)ys to give that hail. She can talk any native
lingo you hke, and they'd rather obey her than any of
their own ' taubadas.' That's the way it was done."
" I Jut, my God, Jim, what are we going to do about
it ? They can't go on stopping there."
*' No," said Jim coolly. " We'll explain the mistake
and send back at once. I reckon there's enough
scandal started by now to do the trick. Especially as
Lad} Mary is as nervous as a kitten and would go mad
or die if Flower went camping alone on top of the island."
" But, Jim — you don't suppose for an instant "
" 1 don't, not being a born fool. But I won't answer
for V hat the tongues of New Guinea will suppose. If
Flow?r and Lady Mary don't hitch it up now, as soon
as they get a chance — why, there'll be the devil to pay
all o^ er the South Pacific. He's mighty keen on a point
of hcnour, by all that you told me. Well, there's one
for him."
286 The Terrible Island
" Jim," I said gravely, " do you mean to say that jou
wouldn't have done just as he did, under the same
circumstances ? "
" Oh, probably," he agreed, " being much the same
sort of an ass in some things. But — if anyone had dc)ne
for me what I've just done for him — why, I wouldn't
exactly call him out for it, supposing we lived in duelling
times, or in France."
The whole thing left me speechless ; I sat down on a
deck seat, and stared at Jim, till I think he felt my gaze
even through his blindness.
" No one on earth but you would have dared " I
began.
" If you won't get on shore pretty soon," he inter-
rupted, " and up to the Lands Office, before anyone gets
ahead of you, I wouldn't give much for our chance of
Ku-Ku's Island. There's been talk on this ship."
I got ashore. But the business that ensued, though
passionately interesting to ourselves, and of the hist
importance, as concerning Jim's own future, Sapphira's,
Lady Mary's, Percival Flower's and mine, could have
small interest to anyone who may read this tale. We
secured the island, and knew that fortune was ours.
I think I will let a letter of Jim's, which I received some
few weeks later, tell the rest of the tale.
" Brisbane.
" Dear Ireland,
" You will notice that I am writing this in my
own hand, so it won't be necessary to tell you that the
doctors have fixed me up. I don't see so well with one
eye as I should Uke, but the other is all right, and perha ps
it's as well for a married man to have a blind side.
"They tell me I am mighty lucky. A year or Vvo
ago no cure for this trouble was known. It has occurr.d /
Wedding Rings 2^7
in Queensland, but the cause wasn't run down till quite
lately. Seems it is the * finger cherry ' of North Queens-
land that is the villain of the piece. To eat it is to go
blind. There's a whole family of children in this
hospital undergoing treatment for the same thing, and
I'm sorry to say some of the poor Uttle beggars do not
seen I to be recovering. The Government of Queensland
has classed it as a noxious weed, and is doing everything
possible to stamp it out, but I daresay it will continue
to exist and do miscliief in out-of-the-way places for many
a ytar to come.
•' Old Ku-Ku was blackbirded, as Sapphira told you,
and carried off to work in the North Queensland sugar
couhtry when he was young. Knowing, as we all do,
how keen the New Guinea native is on poisons of every
kinc:, the rest of the story is plain.
" I have been hearing things down here that seem to
poii t to a sort of bust-up in German New Guinea, one
of these days. That place will take watching. Carl
kno v's more than he cares to talk about, I think;
peo])le have a way of calUng you a fool if you see further
thai they do. That was a man-of-war the Sea-Lady
travelled on — disguised. Why ? and what up to ? Some
day we shall know. I'm glad you handed the shell and
sheU-money to Carl. It will get him another Tagula.
" Thanks for forwarding the cake. I never ate a bit
of V edding-cake with a better appetite ; and I reckon
she' 1 very soon stop pretending to be angry with me.
Flo^vc^ is in the right of it to talk of setting up a yacht ;
it V ill suit the Sea-Lady. I say, Ireland, don't you
supix)se Lord Mustard-and-Cress might have another
chance, if he'd wait twenty years more ? He seems to
hav » a fancy for that family line, and he'd only be about
sixty-two— a mere youth.
288 The Terrible Island
" Sapphira sends her love. I don't think that
' murder ' is going to worry her much more ; it seems
Ukely to be expiated. About mid-winter, I should say.
" You have got to ask me to your naturaUst's palace
on Croker Island when you get it. Yes, get thj
E s to help you to collect for it. They are Roths-
child's men, and they can find you any bug in New
Guinea.
" Sapphira and I are buying Marwood Downs ; it has
thirty-five thousand head of cattle, and a good house.
I shall feel at home there. I'm full up with mining.
" Talking of cattle — she never did again.
" Jim."
. • • • •
The years have passed.
I have my naturaUst's palace, my science — a little
fame, too, nowadays— and my dreams. Life is, at best,
" a dream within a dream." . . .
For Lord Cedric, who lost the Sea-Lady, I, who Ibst
her too, had a sympathy that Jim could not have
known. ... In the red days of the war I travelled
home to England — not to fight, as Flower was doing, but
to offer what Httle service in other ways a crippled man
could give. I went to the country town near which the
castle of the Annan family stands. I saw a white
marble monument, raised to the memory of a man who
lost most nobly the Ufe that I think he cannot have;
longed over-much to Uve out to its end. Above the green
cricket ground of the village Lord Cedric stands, white,
in his soldier's dress ; a cricket bat and ball Ue at his feet.
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Map
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YB 32847
V
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UBRARY
