Adventure, February 1917 — page 107: what you’re looking at

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

was awake in him tonight. The perilous wastes of the Coral Sea, scarce charted, full of reefs; the Gulf of Papua, with its restless waters yellowed, miles out of sight of land, by the flow of the great Western rivers; the run through Torres Straits, among the bright green islands of Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, the long, burning Gulf of Carpentaria; the far, unin- habited coasts of Northern Australia, reel- ing past and past his boat; Arnheim Land; the strange Sea of Arafura; Timor, blue and high, looking out of the trade-wind clouds —all the journey ran before his eyes like a film in a cinematograph. He thought of Bligh and the Bounty mu- tineers, and the voyage right from Pitcairn to Timor, many thousands of miles further than his projected journey, with scant pro- visions, too, and in an open boat. Why, this was child’s play, and a royal adventure into the bargain. He had felt the wrench when leaving Scratchley Island, bitterly enough. But it was not to him what it was.to Edith. He had not been averse to leaving in the day- light; indeed, it was only his love for her that made him understand why shehad begged to be taken away in the dark—not to leave the dear island in the light of broad, cruel day. It had been home to her. To no man on earth does that word mean what it means to woman, the home-maker, the nest-builder. | So Slade, the adventurer, sat and smoked, and whistled in his launch, waiting for the dusk and the hour, and well enough pleased, now that the necessity had come, with the - thought of a new adventure. The evening tide began to run in and rock the launch as she lay. It was a four- knot current; the Black Snake felt its pull and strained a little at her moorings. “She wants to be off, the beauty!” said Slade. “She smells blue water. My lass, you'll walk tonight.” A smart, light step came down the wharf. “Now I wonder,” thought Slade, looking out through the windows, “‘if by any devil- ish chance——” He had scarcely time to form the words before Campbell was aboard. Ry ONE flame of fury, Slade knotted a'¢ his fists and made a step forward. 4 He was quite clear what he was go- ing to do; his mind worked like a dynamo. > Nobody’ s Island 105 He would knock Campbell daw He would tie up his mouth. He would take him off in the launch with Edith and himself, and would maroon him; marooning was a good old custom for which there was still much to be said, in these lonely, untrafiicked seas, and there were any number of isolated is- lands on the course. He’d trouble Camp- bell to send off radios from Bramble Cay, or some unnamed atoll further out toward Dutch New Guinea. Of course he would be found and taken off—but a thousand to one it would not be soon enough to spoil the game for Slade. 5 If service in the British Navy teaches Z anything, it teaches quickness of thought and act. Campbell saw, before he was fair- ly inside the cabin, that Slade meant mis- chief; and in the same instant, guessed why. _ The man was going to bolt with her! An hour—half-an-hour—earlier, the sail- — or would have closed promptly with Slade and given him as good as he could, But now nothing was further from his thoughts or desires. He stopped the rush that he saw coming by one prompt statement— ‘Page has poisoned himself!” Slade stood still and looked at him with : the hard, unwinking eye of ahawk. Was this a trap? “Mr. Slade,” went on Captain Campbell, holding out his hand. “I have to apolo- gize, in the humblest possible manner, to — yourself and to Mrs. Slade. are man enough to forgive.” Slade answered not a word for some mo- ments; his face grew white as the coral road beyond the wharf, and his heart began to beat as if it would beat its way out of his chest. For once, the man was shaken. God! Was it possible that the rope was loosening at last? He spoke, withholding his hand. I think you “T can forgive, when I have proof that 1 should do so,” he said. “Not before.” ““May I sit down?” asked Campbell. They both seated themselves. The launch rocked gently on the tide that ran in through China Straits. “No one but would have thought—”” be- gan Campbell, and broke off. “I’m not here to excuse myself,” he said. “Tt would be difficult,” said the cold voice beside him. “T can take my medicine, and I see you're going to make me,” said Campbell. “Well _ —you know what I came out to Papua for.” S Ehboo com (E@)