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THE TERRIBLE ISLAND 
 
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* 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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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UBRARY