Adventure, February 1917 — page 65: what you’re looking at

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

Nobody’s Island betel-nut and spitting scarlet foam between the rails, his monkey-like face showing inde- cision and alarm. The sun was creeping down the side of Lalang; crimson and emerald parrots were wide awake and flying from palm to palm; white cockatoos, far off, wheeled and screamed against the hanging green of the — forests. And still not a sign of life on the long white beaches; not the ripple of a canoe on the golden glass of the bay. Jamieson Is- land might have been Deika-Deika, the is- land of the dead, inhabited only by ghosts, for all signs of life it gave. Edith, knowing that the place had a fairly large population, read hostility into the unnatural quiet of the place. It was time tomakea move. As for Pumpkin—when one must, one must. _ Edith, daughter of castles, and descend- ant of crusaders who may or may not have been scrupulous in their dealings with in- ferior races, bent down over Pumpkin and pricked him shrewdly with her knife, Pumpkin sprang into the air, yelling. “Suppose one boy not doing what T tell him,” said the terrible simuabada, “first time I cut him up altogether alonga this- fellow knife, behind—afterward—I shoot him along gun, behind siogether I kai-kai —eat—him.” “T going, I going!” ced Pumpkin, trem- bling for his life. The crew who had been watching as they munched their betel-nut, gave vent to a savage clang of laughter. If they had seen Pumpkin tortured before their eyes, and then roasted alive over a slow fire, they would have laughed still longer and still more. Many of them had assisted at such scenes before they were old enough to wear = armlet of manhood or carry the warrior’s ow. The laughter, however, was mingled with something that told Edith she held the men. ~ in her hand, bar treachery—the exception that must always be made with the New Guinea savage. Openly, not one of them would defy her. “‘Lower the boat and land the stores,” she ordered, standing guard at the rail with her rifle while they did it. There was no knowing whether the silence of the forest might not break up and pro- duce a howling war-party, ready to loot any- thing that was left on the beach between trips. 63 The stores were landed, the carriers drawn up beside them. Edith followed in the last trip of the boat, leaving instruc- ‘tions behind her. The crew were to anchor well away from land and keep a good look- out till her return. No natives were on any pretext to be allowed on board, and a watch was to be kept at night. As for running away with the schooner, if anything of that kind were attempted, the sinuabada would send “‘spilits” of the very worst kind out of the bush, with instruc- tions to wreck the boat and drown every one on her. Also the Government would be “wild” exceedingly, and send the crew to Daru, which is the penal servitude of Papua. The crew, unobservant of the two mu- tually destructive propositions thus pre- sented, shivered and promised to ebey. And Edith, dropping into the boat, pre- pared to make a start. Lalang Mountain, a wave of hanging forests tossed from sea to crown of sky, looked at her threateningly. “Who are you, to challenge my secrets?” it seemed to ask. The feeling of the dream was strong again, as Edith, in the rear of her carriers, turned her face to the mountains and entered the dark, narrow track leading upward from the palm-trees and the sea. =) UNDER her tent-fly, in the dark, Ht ‘Edith lay and thought, through the == roaring of the mountain rain. How it stamped upon the thin duck of the fly! How the ground outside seemed actually to vibrate with the shock of the beating tor- rents! There was a river not far away; its voice was only heard as a low grumbling through the heavy boom of the rain. On such a night as this a hundred men could creep up to your very pillow, and you would never know that one was there until you felt the a barbed spear strike through your ody. . Was that a shadow on the shadow, there in the inverted V of the tent opening—just where one could see the faintest difference between the dark that was inside and the dark that was out? No, she had seen it: before; it was the big tree-trunk that stood in front of the camping ground. She must not be nervous. For the sake of the man she loved, she must not be nervous. a> All day the feeling of the dream had Gomicbooks (GE)