Adventure, February 1917 — page 86: what you’re looking at

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

84 caught a glimpse of his face, and she laid down her head none the more peacefully for that sight. _ In the glass she had seen the face of a strange man. Eyes fire under fur, mouth clinched to a steel line. That was not Ben. No use telling her after that, when the light was out, that luck always changed with the moon, and that there was quite a . big block of good fortune due, after so much bad; and that the moon changed on Wed- nesday. — The little scraps of nonsense sounded light enough. But she had seen. ] NEXT day, it was as if no one had ever mentioned Godfrey Campbell, or the Aguria, or anything con- nected with what newspapers were pleased to call the ‘Park Lane Tragedy.” Slade was carried, and Edith, Campbell and Murua, walked all day down to the coast, and no one spoke of anything but the rivers they had to cross, and the possibility of alligators in the swamps, and the best way to keep leeches from getting through the laces of your boots. And behold! When they got down to the . beach late in the afternoon, there was quite a fleet of ships awaiting them in lonely La- lang Bay. The Black Snake was there, and the Tagula was anchored out where they had ordered her to stay, and there was the Diamond, too, with Jennifer’s incredibly huge form looming under her shade-deck. “Ffooroo!” bellowed the magistrate, who was in a pseudo-Irish mood. “Oh, Pups! Oh, Pups!” cried Murua, flying down to the beach on khaki legs that fairly twinkled. She was into a dingey and sculling out to the Government launch before any one else had got to the water’s edge, and once over the rail of the Diamond she cast her- self upon Jennifer’s mattress-like chest as if she were diving into a pool. Jennifer re- ceived her without apparently feeling the _ shock. ‘“‘How’s my little patrol officer?”’ he shout- ed, lifting her off her feet and kissing her | with loud smacks. “Have you had a good time, and are you all right?” + “Oh yes, I have, and I am, and every- thing’s all right,” said Murua. Then suddenly she put her head with its weight of heavy hair, down on Jennifer’s shirt pocket, and said— ~ Adventure “Pups, Pups, take me away!” “Five, grains of quinine is what you want,” said Jennifer, swinging her appar- ently with three fingers on to the saloon bench, and taking down a bottle. the shivers, boysie?”’ “No, Pups, ’m quite, quite well, but I wish you could run off in the Diamond with me, and let’s go on patrol again somewhere, quick—just you and me, Pups, and no one else. I’m tired—of people.” “Tea!” bellowed the magistrate to the cooky-boy who was squatting beside the -_ chicken-coop of bent iron called a galley. “Tf you don’t want quinine, Mur, it must be tea. And what’s the news, and who have you got with the party? Sure I don’t seem to know his face, at all.” He restrained a visible tendency to double the words. “It is Captain Campbell, Royal Navy,” answered Murua, lying back on the cush- ions, her small keen face very pale under its tan. “And what’s he doing here?” “He came—I don’t know why, Pups. It seemed to be an unpremeditated jaunt on his part. But he heard about Mr. Slade getting lost, and Mrs. Slade going after him, and it was the work of a moment with him to order out the launch and go to the aid of beauty in distress.’ “And why did Slade go junketing off into the bush anyway? He isn’t a slave of a Government officer who can’t have a day at home.” Murua told him the story of the trip. *‘So you see, Pups, that’ll mean another inland journey for you,” she ended. “You'll have to go up to that village, I suppose, and explain the wishes of the Government to the sons of Belial, flown with insolence and yam.” “Til explain all right,” promised Jenni- fer. “That’ll be a nice trip for you, Murua, and not too risky. I’ll say this for Slade, that he’s liable to leave a peaceful disposi- tion behind him, whatever. he may have found. This’ll keep the Diamond here. Well, sonny-girl, you won’t have to get off her again, except to shift your things from the other boat.’ Murua colored and looked back at the beach where the rest of the party were now embarking. ae f think, ”” she said slowly, “I think Mrs. Slade wants me pretty badly just now.’ A) (E “Got. (C©) (E(0) JOOK