Adventure, February 1917 — page 100: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

‘98 r “T can tow the Tagula. will not try.” This was a little nasty. The literal repe- tition suggested want of quality in Camp- bell’s cigars, delicately, but distinctly. “Ah,” was all that Campbell found to say. He waited for Slade to ask him what he wanted in Samarai; why he was taking the Tagula; what business of his the whole af- fair might be. It was, on the surface, not very much his business; but Campbell some- how never quite realized, in foreign parts, Thank you, I that he was off the active list—and there is hardly anything on earth or sea that a cap- tain of His Majesty’s ships may not med- die in, at the far ends of the world. 7 Slade, his hard brown face looking more than ever like the face of a Pharaoh cut in stone, said exactly nothing. - Campbell was obliged to go on: “You see, Page isn’t going to get better. I’ve seen a lot of that sort of thing.” Pause. It was now up to Slade to drop an “Indeed!” a “Really?” a “Sorry to hear it,” into the ae ee "He dropped nothin Campbell began = feel nettled. The man was not rude, but—. “‘I’d give a year’s income to go outside with him and punch his head,” he thought. “And that’s her fancy, is it?” “Of course some one has to see to his being sent to Australia and taken care of.” He dodged another pause, seeing silence in Slade’s hard topaz eye. Hurriedly he ‘went on— “T suppose the ship will be sold, so you will get your fee for towage.”’ “My what?” “Fee. Pay. Expenses.” Slade let the definition drop to the ground with a thud. In the gap that followed, one of the well-trained house-boys came in with spirit decanters and glasses. “him! He must talk now,” thought Campbell. And Slade, with the trick of divination that men of the wilderness often Possess coolly replied to his thought. “So I must. -Will you have a drink?” The sailor was too much taken aback for a moment to answer. He stared at Slade. The latter poured a very stiff glass, handed © it to Campbell, poured a still stiffer one for himself, and took it down ata draught. He scarcely ever touched spirits, but some freak — a Adventure of heredity had made him almost proof against their effects. Campbell sipped at his glass. He had not the best of heads;.the whisky was old and good and did not taste as potent as it undoubtedly was. In spite of his care, his brain began to feel the effect. It seemed to him that he must have imagined Slade’s piece of thought-reading. “The fellow is really stupid,” he said to himself. ‘Just a decent-looking head and fairly good figure; that’s what got her. He’ll never know what I’m really going down to Samarai about.” “Yes,” he said, as if continuing the con- versation which had never begun. “I’ve got to get away as quick as possible; so if tomorrow morning will suit you and Mrs. SW she’ll come down with us.” There i is no word in the English inppiage that can be used with more devastating ef- fect than a carefully aimed and fired “Why?” “‘Well—we can’t leave the women here alone,” a Campbell rather weakly. There was no why, and he knew it; in Papua, white women often live in lonely places about the bush, with their men away, for weeks at a time. He was all but goaded into replying— “Because I don’t choose.” Campbell was a cautious man, but the whisky had certainly been a little stronger than he thought. And other influences, stronger and headier yet, were afloat in that little room. The sailor was a man who had shed blood in war-time; who had seen all the brutalities of war. At that moment, civilization lay very loose upon him. He _could understand the feelings of the victor who slew.a husband and carried off a wife, perhaps to give her also over to a speedy death, in time. With an effort he restrained himself. He might as well have let himself go altogether, as far as those keen gem-eyes opposite were concerned. Slade had read what he had read. “T think,” said Campbell with strained politeness, “that you would find it un- : doubtedly better to bring Mrs. Slade with you.’ The gage was thrown down now. - Slade nodded his head, as one who attends and assents, and rose to his feet. & [KOO) <S =) (E@)