SOUTH 
 
 OF THE 
 
 LINE
 
 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 UNIV. OF CALIF. LIBRARY- LOS
 
 EX-LIBRIS 
 
 R'S. 
 
 BOOKS BY RALPH STOCK 
 
 Fiction 
 
 THE RECIPE FOR RUBBER 
 
 THE PYJAMA MAN 
 
 MARAMA: A TALE OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC 
 
 BEACHCOMBINGS 
 
 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 Travel 
 
 THE CONFESSIONS OF A TENDERFOOT 
 
 THE CHEQUERED CRUISE 
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE DREAM SHIP
 
 South of the Line 
 
 By 
 Ralph Stock 
 
 Garden City New York 
 
 Doubleday, Page & Company 
 
 1922
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1922, BT 
 
 RALPH STOCK 
 
 Af.T. RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION 
 INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY THE CUBTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 IN THE UNITED STATES AND GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1919, 1921, BY P. F. COLLIER & SON COMPANY 
 COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE CO. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY THE FRANK A. MUNSEY COMPANY 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 AT 
 THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 
 
 First Edition
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SlRjOHNNIE OF THE GREEN HOUSES 1 
 
 THE RULES OF THE GAME 25 
 
 THE PRETENDERS 46 
 
 THE COMPLETE BEACHCOMBER 69 
 
 THE PEEP SHOW 92 
 
 THE LONELY LADY . 106 
 
 MALUA 123 
 
 THEIR TROUBLES 141 
 
 MOTHER-OF-PEARL 151 
 
 HIT OR Miss 167 
 
 Roo OF THE ATOLLS 183 
 
 WE OF MALITA 194 
 
 THE PREPOSTEROUS PARTNER 217 
 
 " How THE OTHER HALF LIVES" 230 
 
 THE MASCOT 240 
 
 THE HABIT OF THE SEA 254 
 
 BARTER 271 
 
 THE LAUGH. . *. . . . . . 28 ^ 
 
 THE INEVITABLE INGRAM 306 
 
 THE SPELL 320 
 
 2132823
 
 SOUTH OF THE LINE

 
 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 SlRJOHNNIE OF THE GREEN HOUSES 
 
 THE launch swung gracefully into the cove, and, 
 churning the indigo water into a white lather 
 with its reversed propeller, came to rest like a 
 great hurricane bird poised on the gently heaving 
 bosom of the Pacific. 
 
 Out of the world it had come, the great world of 
 Levuka, and perhaps beyond, into this little coral beach 
 of Luana, for what purpose only the Great Spirit knew. 
 Felisi squatted at the edge of the family taro 
 patch, the handle of the heavy hoeing knife 
 resting in her listless hand, watching wide- 
 eyed. 
 
 "This is it," came a voice, clear as a bell, 
 over the water. "Yes, I'm sure this is it; 
 I marked it by the forked palm yonder." 
 
 Now, Felisi understood this, or, at any rate, the drift 
 of it. Had she not sold imitation pink coral on the 
 wharf at Levuka? And was not Levuka the centre of 
 the world, where, when the steamer came in, people 
 were so many that the wharf, the street, and the giant 
 houses swarmed with them like fish in the rock pools 
 at low tide? Strange people they were, especially the 
 
 i
 
 2 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 women, covered with unnecessary clothes and trailing 
 brightly hued veils in their wake. They spoke in 
 harsh, high-pitched voices, too, and seemed for ever 
 restless; but their money ah, their money flowed from 
 them like a stream of quicksilver, that only needed 
 diverting into the right channels, by means of pink coral 
 or necklaces of seed, to make one wealthy beyond be- 
 lief. 
 
 "What a darling!" one of these women had said on 
 the wharf, catching sight of Felisi in her modest blue 
 wrapper. "My dear, look at the child's hair! And such 
 eyes!" Felisi had suffered the mauling that followed 
 the stroking of her hair and velvety skin with becom- 
 ing modesty, but she had learnt that she was a "dar- 
 ling," that she possessed hair and eyes, and that they 
 and a reed basket of worthless coral netted her mati- 
 quali (tribe) five shillings. Oh, it was wonderful what 
 could be learnt in Levuka! After it, Luana was a tomb. 
 
 People had begun to move under the wide awning of 
 the launch, and presently a native dived cleanly from 
 the bows. The water was up to his neck, and he slowly 
 dragged the launch nearer shore. "When he had waded 
 waist deep, he backed against the gunwale, and a man 
 in white ducks, with his trousers rolled to the knee, 
 climbed on his shoulders and was carried ashore. An- 
 other white man followed in like manner, and they both 
 stood on the wet sand, directing the natives as they 
 landed bundles of all shapes and sizes neatly sewn in 
 green rot -proof canvas. It seemed to Felisi that the 
 entire merchandise of Levuka had been shipped to 
 Luana for some inscrutable reason.
 
 SIRJOHNNIE OF THE GREEN HOUSES 3 
 
 "I think that's the lot," said the taller of the two 
 visitors, a gaunt man with remarkably thin legs and 
 large feet, and a kind though careworn face. 
 
 "Yes, Sir John, that is all," replied the other. He 
 was short and pink, and perspiring freely. 
 
 "Then you may as well get on with it." 
 
 The tall man turned and strolled along the beach, 
 stopping now and then to burrow into the wet sand with 
 his toes, and unearth the queer live things that lived 
 there. Every now and then, too, he would fling his 
 arms wide above his head, and let them fall to his sides 
 with a sigh of deep satisfaction. It was as though he 
 had been cramped, and was now rejoicing in his freedom. 
 He was doing just what Felisi had seen her brother do 
 the one who stole the canoe when he came out of 
 Levuka gaol into the sunlight. Her heart went out to 
 the tall man with thin legs and big feet. 
 
 And the other? Undoubtedly he was mad. He 
 trotted this way and that in the hot sand, until his pink 
 face turned to red and then to purple. He was trying 
 to make the natives hurry, which, of course, was not 
 only impossible, but ridiculous. Were there not three 
 hundred and sixty-five days in the year, each one of 
 which was equally suitable for unpacking green bundles? 
 Nevertheless, he continued to hurry himself, and to 
 such purpose that, before the sun had sunk into the sea, 
 a green village had sprung into being on the edge of the 
 beach under the palms nothing less. It appeared 
 that each bundle contained a house, or something ap- 
 pertaining to a house, and now it was all in place. 
 
 The miracle-worker, mopping his solar topee as he
 
 4 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 went, crossed the beach to his companion, who was 
 sitting dabbling his large feet in a rock pool. 
 
 "All is now ready, Sir John," he said. 
 
 "Ah, good!" answered the tall man, leaning forward 
 and picking up a soldier crab between finger and thumb. 
 
 "I think you will find everything in order, Sir John," 
 the other continued, standing in the sand with his fat 
 calves pressed together, so that one bulged over the 
 other. "The sparklets are 
 
 "You have shown Mandri where everything is?" in- 
 terrupted the other, watching the soldier crab's in- 
 effectual little pincer waving in the air. 
 
 "He has arranged his own necessities himself, Sir 
 John. The rest is as you ordered." 
 
 "Then that will do, thank you, Saunders." 
 
 "Next Wednesday, I think you said, Sir John?" 
 
 "Yes, yes." The tall man seemed irritable. He 
 was obviously more interested in the soldier crab than 
 his companion of the bulging calves. " Once a week will 
 be enough. What's to-day?" 
 
 "Tuesday, the eighteenth of February, Sir John," the 
 other answered, with extraordinary promptitude. 
 
 "Then Wednesday. Yes, each Wednesday will do 
 admirably. And don't forget the spirits." 
 
 The tall man carefully replaced the soldier crab in 
 the rock pool and stood up. The other backed away 
 slightly. 
 
 "I thought I might mention, Sir John, that there will 
 be green vegetables. I see a native girl in a small 
 garden on the edge of the beach behind us. No 
 doubt "
 
 SIRJOHNNIE OF THE GREEN HOUSES 5 
 
 "Ah, to be sure, to be sure," muttered the tall man, 
 strolling across the beach toward the launch, with the 
 other following. "Mandri will see to all that. Good 
 afternoon, Saunders ! " 
 
 In a dignified but forceful way he herded the pink 
 man and the natives into the launch, which was soon a 
 glittering speck against the blue. For a while he stood 
 with his thin legs apart and his hands behind his back, 
 watching it go. Then he, too, went mad, or so it 
 seemed to Felisi. He raised both skinny arms to the 
 sunset, as though in worship, dropped them suddenly, 
 and, turning, dashed along the beach through the ripple 
 of a wave, sending the water flying in all directions, 
 including over himself. Then he rolled in the sand 
 like a dog, and rose, plastered and breathless and 
 laughing. 
 
 "That's better," he bellowed, "much better! Ma- 
 a-ndri!" 
 
 A gray-haired Tongan appeared in the doorway of 
 the smallest green house. 
 
 "I want grilled saqa for dinner," shouted the tall 
 man, "and grated cocoanut and pineapple-fool!" 
 
 The Tongan made a tama (obeisance) and withdrew. 
 
 Presently he came out and crossed the beach to Felisi. 
 
 "The Turaga (gentleman) wishes for saqa," he said. 
 "Where are the fish-traps?" 
 
 Felisi rose from her heels as though propelled by some 
 evenly working mechanism and led the way round 
 the rocks at the end of the beach. 
 
 "Hi! Where are you going?" bawled the tall man. 
 
 "To get the saqa, saka (sir)."
 
 6 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "Good! I'm coming." The tall man walked be- 
 hind, whistling. 
 
 Felisi, in her trim white sulu (kilt), swung on in 
 front, with her natural grace of movement slightly 
 enhanced by the knowledge that she was being noticed. 
 At the fish-trap a simple affair of volcanic rock boul- 
 ders built in a square, so that, when the tide receded, 
 fish were left behind she picked up a spear from the 
 rocks and waded waist-deep, holding it aloft. The tall 
 man watched her, entranced, and Felisi knew it, and 
 took care that the poise of her arms and head and shoul- 
 ders were all that could be desired. Had she not the 
 reputation of "a darling" to live up to? 
 
 Suddenly the spear flashed from her hand, there was 
 a splash, a swirling of waters, and the long bamboo 
 shaft sped round and round the trap, with Felisi splash- 
 ing after it. She caught it and raised it aloft, with a 
 two-foot saqa on its barbs flashing green in the waning 
 light. 
 
 "Splendid!" roared the tall man. "I say " 
 
 The rest of whatever he was going to say was drowned 
 by the splash that he made as he jumped down into 
 the trap and waded over to Felisi. 
 
 "I must have a try," he mumbled excitedly, taking 
 the spear from Felisi. "Vinaka (thank you), little 
 girl." And he was off, stalking round the trap as 
 though walking barefoot on broken glass. What fol- 
 lowed caused Felisi to put her hand to her mouth and 
 snatch it away whenever the tall man turned her way. 
 One is not supposed to laugh at a white chief but, oh, 
 it was funny ! He kept jabbing at the water as though
 
 SIRJOHNNIE OF THE GREEN HOUSES 7 
 
 prodding a snake. Or he would throw the spear with 
 tremendous force, so that it would stick into the sand. 
 Then he would flounder after it and hold it up, with a 
 piece of seaweed on the end and a look of pained sur- 
 prise on his gaunt face that sent Felisi into silent hys- 
 terics. But best of all was when he caught his toe on a 
 rock. Then he dropped the spear and sank into the 
 water, hugging his foot and saying things that Felisi did 
 not quite understand, but which she seemed to remem- 
 ber having heard in Levuka. 
 
 She went to him, but he brushed her aside and con- 
 tinued his stalking. "I'm going to do it. I'm going to 
 do it," he kept muttering, as he wallowed round the trap. 
 The determination of the man! "It's the reflection," 
 he told himself aloud, "of course, it's the reflection. 
 
 When you think a fish is there, it isn't. It's Let me 
 
 see, where's the light! Ah, yes, to the left no, the 
 right er or " 
 
 The spear left his hand. The shaft was racing round 
 the trap. The tall man stood staring after it, spell- 
 bound. But only for a moment; the next he was after 
 it, yelping like a dog after a rat. 
 
 Felisi could contain herself no longer she was after 
 it, too. The white chief's first saqa! It must be caught 
 and, unless he knew the way, he might flounder round 
 the trap until he dropped. 
 
 "Go away vamose! Savvy?" he bellowed savagely 
 as she came near him. He floundered on like a gram- 
 pus, but always the shaft of the spear avoided his 
 snatching fingers. Then Felisi dived. She held the 
 saqa just long enough under water for the tall man to
 
 8 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 catch the spear shaft on the surface, then she stood be- 
 fore him, dripping and triumphant as he. 
 
 "You catch him, Sir Johnnie!" she panted, in an ac- 
 cess of enthusiasm. 
 
 The tall man took an abrupt seat in the water, and re- 
 mained there gasping. His head was just clear of the 
 surface, and his mouth opened and shut precisely like 
 the saga's. 
 
 "Good heavens!" he panted at last. Then: "What 
 did you say?" 
 
 "I say you catch him," repeated Felisi diffidently. 
 
 The tall man seemed to have thoroughly noticed her 
 for the first time. 
 
 "But what else? You said something else." 
 
 "I say Sir Johnnie," said Felisi, giggling. 
 
 The tall man flung back his head, so that it was half 
 submerged, and laughed. By the Great Spirit, what a 
 laugh he had ! 
 
 "Oh, that's great!" he roared, then looked at Felisi 
 again. He had the kindest gray eyes imaginable. 
 "But how did you come to know my name?" 
 
 "I hear 'em talk him ongo (over there)," Felisi ex- 
 plained, pointing toward the beach . 
 
 " Sirjohnnie ! " repeated the tall man, and burst into 
 another hurricane of laughter. 
 
 "Who are you?" he asked, when it had subsided 
 into occasional chuckles. 
 
 "Felisi," answered that individual, leaning grace- 
 fully on the spear. 
 
 "And you talk English?" 
 
 "Some." Felisi had learnt this remarkably useful
 
 SIRJOHNNIE OF THE GREEN HOUSES 9 
 
 word from a woman who she had afterward heard 
 came from Americania, wherever that might be. 
 
 Sirjohnnie laughed again and scrambled to his feet. 
 
 "Some, eh?" he repeated, as though it were a great 
 joke. "Well, Felisi, you've given me the best after- 
 noon's sport I've had in years." He felt in his soaking 
 duck trousers pocket and brought out a handful of 
 silver. "What's your saqa worth?" 
 
 Felisi shook her head. 
 
 " You catch him, Sirjohnnie," she insisted. 
 
 Sirjohnnie regarded her quizzically for a moment, 
 then smiled and returned the money to his pocket. 
 
 "Very well," he said, "you must come and help me 
 eat it, that's all." 
 
 Nothing could have pleased Felisi more. She was 
 longing, with a child's curiosity, to see the interior of the 
 green houses. Moreover, she felt toward Sirjohnnie as 
 she had never felt toward a Turaga in her life. What 
 was he but a great child? She, Felisi, had taught him 
 how to spear saqa. She could teach him many things. 
 Principally owing to Sir Johnnie's ludicrous performance 
 of the afternoon, Felisi took a motherly as well as a 
 childlike interest in him. They are not incompatible. 
 
 They waded ashore together,- the saqa suspended by 
 the gills from the spear held between them. The 
 Tongan squatted on the rocks, smoking a saluka, as he 
 had squatted and smoked since the beginning of the 
 performance. If a Turaga chose to catch his own din- 
 ner in the presence of his servant and a native girl, who 
 was he, Mandri, to interfere? There was never any 
 telling what they might do.
 
 10 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 At the door of the largest of the green houses the 
 party broke up. Sirjohnnie, who seemed to have gone 
 into a trance he had a knack of doing this, Felisi 
 noticed turned aside and disappeared into the dim 
 interior. Felisi followed Mandri to the kitchen, and 
 squatted outside, as a woman should. The Tongan 
 naturally treated her as non-existent. Nevertheless, a 
 scullery maid has her uses, and he allowed Felisi to cook 
 the saqa, wrapped in banana leaf, Island fashion. For 
 one thing, he knew that it would be cooked better that 
 way than in the Turaga's elaborate stove, and, for 
 another, that it gave him the opportunity of sitting in 
 the doorway and smoking one of Sirjohnnie's superla- 
 tive cigars. The only fly in the ointment was that the 
 pest spoke English with uncanny glibness. 
 
 "Mandri," said Sirjohnnie, an hour later he had 
 begun dinner with a book propped against the lamp, but 
 in the end the dinner claimed most of his attention 
 "I must congratulate you on the saqa. Perhaps it's 
 because I caught it myself, but it certainly tastes re- 
 markably good." 
 
 "Eo, saka," grunted Mandri, with a self-satisfied 
 smile. 
 
 "The new stove is a success, then?" 
 
 "The new stove is a success, saka." Mandri shuf- 
 fled his horny feet on the matting of the floor. 
 
 "By the way" Sirjohnnie was leaning back, smok- 
 ing one of the excellent cigars "where is that little 
 native girl Felisi, that's it?" He actually remem- 
 bered the name, Mandri noticed. 
 
 "She is outside, saka."
 
 SIR JOHNNIE OF THE GREEN HOUSES 11 
 
 "Outside? Then send her in, will you?" 
 
 "The Turaga wishes to see you," Mandri told Felisi, 
 and gave her a warning scowl as she slipped past him 
 into the living room. 
 
 She sank on to the mats inside the doorway. From 
 somewhere she had secured a red hibiscus blossom, and 
 it now flamed against her blue-black hair. 
 
 "Well, Felisi," said Sirjohnnie, tilting back his camp 
 chair, "the saqa was a huge success." 
 
 "Sucthess," lisped Felisi. 
 
 "Yes. "What do you think of our new stove?" 
 
 Much clearing of the throat and clashing of pans 
 proceeded from the kitchen. 
 
 Felisi allowed an agonized pause to ensue. Mandri 
 needed a lesson. 
 
 "Stove him all right," she conceded at last. "By 
 an' by plenty more saqa ? " 
 
 Sirjohnnie shook his head. "Not for me, I'm afraid. 
 By an' by plenty work." 
 - "Work?" 
 
 " Yes. I've got so much work to do, and so little time 
 to do it in, that it almost frightens me." 
 
 Felisi found herself on the verge of solving a problem 
 that had always puzzled her. 
 
 "Plenty work, plenty time?" she suggested. 
 
 "Yes, for you lucky people," sighed Sirjohnnie. 
 
 "Why no plenty time for-you -lucky-people?" mim- 
 icked Felisi. 
 
 "We have other things that must be done. We're 
 not lucky. We can't do what we want to do always, 
 you know."
 
 12 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 Sirjohnnie chuckled, then frowned. 
 
 "Oh, just because." 
 
 "Jus' becos." 
 
 "Yes. I admit it's not much of a reason, Felisi, 
 
 but " He smiled whimsically and crossed one thin 
 
 leg over the other. "We've gone past ourselves 'over 
 there' that's about the truth of the matter." He was 
 speaking more to himself than Felisi. "We want to 
 progress." 
 
 "Pro-gress," repeated Felisi solemnly. 
 
 "Yes, go ahead improve, know more and live 
 more comfortably." Suddenly Sirjohnnie laughed. 
 "Anyway, we call it progress. So we make law, 
 plenty law law written down for us by other people, 
 and law we make for ourselves and sometimes we 
 obey it, because we think that is the way to progress, 
 and sometimes we disobey it so that we can get ahead 
 of the other fellah. That's our life. Funny, Felisi, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 Felisi admitted that it was. 
 
 "Law," she echoed. "Law make no plenty by an* 
 by?" 
 
 Sirjohnnie changed the position of his legs. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "it does rather limit one's time. It 
 is made to make us do things that we don't want to. 
 And even you have your law, Felisi," he added quickly. 
 "You know that you mustn't steal " 
 
 "A canoe," supplied Felisi. 
 
 "Yes, a canoe or anything. That you must work 
 in the taro patch, and marry some day."
 
 SIRJOHNNIE OF THE GREEN HOUSES 13 
 
 He did not add that these were natural laws, although 
 it occurred to him that they were. 
 
 "Law for no plenty by an' by, no good," pronounced 
 Felisi firmly. 
 
 Sir Johnnie laughed. 
 
 "Perhaps you're right," he said, and fell idly to 
 turning the pages of the book that had been propped 
 against the lamp during dinner. 
 
 "Look here, you're something of an ichthyologist, 
 Felisi," he said suddenly. "Do you recognize any of 
 these fellahs?" 
 
 She was at his side in an instant, clucking with won- 
 der at the brightly coloured picture of fish fish of all 
 shapes and sizes and colours. They hung there on the 
 white paper as though in some clear pool. 
 
 Suddenly a brown finger descended on the page. 
 
 "jEo," she cried excitedly, "him, an' him, an' him!" 
 
 "A compliment for the lithographer," muttered 
 Sirjohnnie, smiling. Wilkinson and Pratt are good 
 people." 
 
 "An* him, an' him," continued Felisi. "Him no 
 good," she added with a pout, indicating a rather washy 
 representation of sea and coral at the foot of the page. 
 
 Sirjohnnie laughed. 
 
 "You're right," he said; "that part of it is very, very 
 poor. But, you see, the people who made these pic- 
 tures have never been here. They don't know, poor 
 devils." 
 
 "Poor devils," repeated Felisi, with faithful intona- 
 tion. 
 
 At this point Mandri entered with the coffee. Ap-
 
 14 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 parently he saw nothing, and placed the cup on the 
 camp-table and withdrew. But he carried into the kit- 
 chen a mental picture of Sir John Truscott, R. Z. S., 
 leaning over a lamp-lit table, his grizzled head close 
 to a cascade of blue-black hair relieved by a flaming 
 hibiscus blossom. 
 
 He clucked loudly twice and helped himself from the 
 whisky tantalus. 
 
 But the next day Sir Johnnie was a changed man. He 
 wore nothing but a sulu, a shirt, and pith helmet. He 
 carried an extremely fine-meshed shrimp net and a tin 
 creel of water, and wandered from rock pool to rock 
 pool in a trance that effectually excluded Felisi. She 
 spoke to him twice, but he took not the faintest notice. 
 
 He would kneel over a pool by the hour, with his 
 shrimp net lying on the bottom, while the fish some of 
 them not more than half an inch long, but striped or 
 mottled with every imaginable colour and shade of 
 colour hovered in the crystal-clear water like butter- 
 flies suspended on invisible wire, or darted in and out 
 of their homes in the coral. 
 
 Each pool was a marine garden, great or small, but 
 complete with swaying trees of tinted weed, coral 
 bridges, and paths of sand, and Sirjohnnie's soul lived 
 in them, that was plain. Then would come an upward 
 jerk of the net, a hasty examination of its contents, 
 and a slip-slop as the fish were dropped into the creel 
 of water. 
 
 This went on all day, and Felisi found it boring. She 
 had ideas of her own on the subject, and presently 
 proceeded to put them into execution. Some time in
 
 SIRJOHNNIE OF THE GREEN HOUSES 15 
 
 the afternoon Sirjohnnie had had no lunch, in spite of 
 Mandri's importunities she went to the bush and 
 returned to one of the pools with an armful of green 
 vine. This she tossed into the water and squatted 
 back on the sand. Presently a fish appeared, then 
 another and another, until the pool was alive with 
 scintillating colour; but there was no movement 
 every fish in that pool, from the remotest cranny of 
 coral, floated inert close to the surface. 
 
 Sirjohnnie, when at last Felisi succeeded in enticing 
 him away from the net for an inspection, was overcome. 
 He uttered little yelps of excitement as he pounced on 
 fish that he knew to be rare specimens, and some that he 
 had never seen before. 
 
 "But this is wonderful!" he cried. "Some more of 
 that vine, Felisi, quick!" 
 
 Felisi obeyed instructions in every respect except 
 speed. Sirjohnnie was capering round the pool like a 
 madman when she returned. 
 
 "This is nothing short of a discovery," he told her,, 
 in a shaking voice. "What is it, Felisi? But of course, 
 you don't know." He clucked impatiently. 
 
 And that was where he was wrong, Felisi told herself, 
 squatting in the sand, triumphant. She knew the 
 whole of Luana knew that it was a vine that grew in 
 the bush, and when flung into a pool, stupefied fish. 
 What more did any one want to know? The ignorance 
 of these white chiefs was beyond belief. 
 
 Sirjohnnje was breaking the vine into lengths 
 now, and carefully wrapping them in a square of oiled 
 silk.
 
 16 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "Crothers must see this," he muttered aloud, even 
 as he had muttered in the fish- trap. 
 
 The evening was undoubtedly the most pleasant 
 time for Felisi. Mandri had come to regard her as a 
 harmless, and occasionally useful, adjunct to the green 
 houses; and Sirjohnnie, when he was not in a trance, 
 seemed to derive considerable amusement from talking 
 with, or rather at, her on a variety of subjects, ranging 
 from ichthyology to theosophy. Also, and what was 
 far more important, he had discovered that the girl had 
 extraordinarily nimble fingers. As she had threaded 
 seeds for sale on Levuka wharf, so she mounted and 
 varnished the minutest fish. Some were delicately 
 stuffed with preservative cotton-wool and packed care- 
 fully in labelled departments of tin-lined chests. Others 
 were preserved in jars of spirit. But whatever was done 
 with them, Sirjohnnie knew that he was on the way to 
 making the finest collection of tropical fish in existence. 
 
 Why the girl did all this, he never stopped to ask him- 
 self. He was too busy. He had come to accept her as 
 part of the furniture of the green houses a very es- 
 sential part. If he had ever guessed the true reason, he 
 would have received the shock of his life. 
 
 On one Wednesday visitation of the launch, the pink 
 man brought Sirjohnnie a letter. It lay on the table 
 until evening, unopened, and when at last he had read 
 it, he sat staring straight before him for so long that 
 Felisi thought the trance had taken hold of him for 
 good. But there was trouble in his eyes, and there was 
 never that when he was in a trance. Felisi knew the 
 cause by instinct.
 
 SIRJOHNNIE OF THE GREEN HOUSES 17 
 
 *' You go ango" (over there) she said, nodding her head 
 seaward. 
 
 Sirjohnnie looked down at her with unseeing eyes. 
 Then suddenly he laughed. 
 
 "How the mischief did you know that?" he said. 
 
 Felisi wagged her head sagely. 
 
 "Law?" she suggested presently. 
 
 Again Sirjohnnie laughed, a short laugh this time, and 
 looked at her with his whimsical smile puckering the 
 corners of his eyes. 
 
 "I believe you know a lot more than you pretend, 
 Felisi," he said. " You're right. It's a law that takes 
 me away from Luana. One of our self-imposed laws, 
 but an uncommonly strict one." He sighed. "What 
 a time I've had!" And again, presently: "Was there 
 ever such a time?" 
 
 There was no need for him to say any more. "Laws 
 are made to make us do things that we don't want to." 
 Felisi had been at some pains to understand those 
 words, but their meaning was quite clear to her now. 
 Sirjohnnie did not want to leave Luana! She hugged 
 her feet closer under her small body, and rearranged 
 the hibiscus blossom in her hair. _ 
 
 That evening, when work was done, she danced a 
 meke for him. It was the history of a great war with 
 Tonga, done in pose and gesture to a droned accompani- 
 ment, and Sirjohnnie smoked and watched with evident 
 pleasure. 
 
 '* Vinaka (very good) !" he cried, when she had done. 
 "I wonder how you would take at at the Hippodrome, 
 Felisi?" he suggested, and fell silent again, with the
 
 18 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 same troubled look in his eyes. So Felisi danced him 
 the love-story of the two wood-pigeons. 
 
 Then came the evening of the Emerald Drop. Felisi 
 half suspected it from the utter stillness and stifling heat. 
 The glow on the western horizon a green glow with 
 angry slashes of black cloud across it increased her 
 suspicions. And as the sun sank, blood red, into the 
 sea just as its upper edge came level with the horizon 
 an emerald green ball of light shone for a moment and 
 was gone. 
 
 Sirjohnnie was away up the coast, fishing by torch- 
 light. Mandri was in the kitchen, quietly drunk and 
 smoking one of Sirjohnnie's cigars. Felisi pondered 
 what she should do. There might be time, and 
 there might be none. It might strike the beach of the 
 green houses, and it might not. She rose without 
 haste. 
 
 The task that she had set herself took, perhaps, an 
 hour. Then she squatted on the edge of the cliff over- 
 looking the beach and waited as only an Islander can 
 wait. 
 
 Darkness closed down, and such darkness ! One half 
 of the sky was star-pricked, the other black and sub- 
 stantial as a pall. And the pall slowly encroached on 
 the stars. Nearer and nearer it crept. There was a 
 puff of wind, hot as the night, then another. Felisi 
 held her breath. 
 
 Somewhere in the distance there was a mighty roar- 
 ing; the whole world seemed full of it, trembling with 
 it. The boom of the surf on the reef, changing to 
 thunder, joined the demoniac chorus. Then the hur-
 
 SIRJOHNNIE OF THE GREEN HOUSES 19 
 
 ricane burst on Luana with the force of a giant sledge- 
 hammer. 
 
 Something flew at Felisi out of the turmoil and wrap- 
 ped itself about her as she clung to a rock. It was one 
 of the green houses from the beach a hundred feet below. 
 She tore it from her, and it whirled off into the night. 
 Palms were snapping like muffled pistol-shots, and 
 crashing to ground with the dull thud of a falling body. 
 The very turf was ripped from the earth and rolled into 
 balls. 
 
 Yet it was not a really bad hurricane. It lasted half 
 an hour at most, and cut a half-mile swathe through 
 Luana as cleanly as a mower cuts wheat. Felisi lis- 
 tened to it charging madly into the distance, then leapt 
 to her feet and ran along the edge of the cliff. 
 
 The pall had passed on, and the stars shone again. 
 The night was cooler now, and the wind came only in 
 gusts. Felisi ran. It was the first time she had hurried 
 in her life. She called, and kept calling: "Sirjohnnie! 
 Sirjohnnie ! " And presently there was an answer. Sir- 
 Johnnie was snugly ensconced with his back to a rock, 
 the tin creel carefully guarded in his lap. 
 
 Felisi flung herself on the ground beside him and 
 buried her face in her arms. 
 
 "Poor little girl!" murmured Sirjohnnie, putting his 
 hand on her hair. "Frightened, eh? " 
 
 Felisi had been frightened, but not in the way Sir- 
 johjuue thought. 
 
 "Never mind; it's all over now," he went on cheer- 
 fully. "Whew! Come along let's go back." 
 
 It was Sirjohnnie's first hurricane, that was clear.
 
 20 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 Go back! To what? Felisi led the way along the edge 
 of the cliff. 
 
 "Gad!" said Sirjohnnie, looking over at the starlit 
 water thrashing the foot of the cliff. "It's driven the 
 sea clean over the beach. I wonder " 
 
 His voice trailed away, and he hurried on in silence. 
 
 At the edge of the cove they stopped and stood side 
 by side, looking down on where the beach had been. 
 There was none. The green village had been wiped 
 from the face of Luana as cleanly as a drawing 
 from a slate. The beach was now a bay of foaming 
 water. 
 
 Sirjohnnie sat down on the edge of the cliff, still with 
 the tin creel clasped in his hands, and stared stonily 
 before him. 
 
 "Village, him go pouf !" Felisi explained, squatting 
 at his side. t 
 
 "Village? What do I care about a village?" he 
 muttered, after a pause. 
 
 "Fish, him all right," said Felisi, looking anxiously 
 into his face. She hated to see that troubled look in 
 his eyes. 
 
 Sirjohnnie did not hear. He still sat staring before 
 him. 
 
 "And only a week more!" came from him in a sort of 
 groan. 
 
 "Fish, him all right," repeated Felisi eagerly, search- 
 ing for an answering light in his face. 
 
 Sirjohnnie turned his head and laughed in her face, 
 a bitter, mirthless laugh. 
 
 "Tish, him all right," he mimicked, with ironic cheer-
 
 SIRJOHNNIE OF THE GREEN HOUSES 21 
 
 fulness. "They're back where they belong now, aren't 
 they, Felisi?" 
 
 It was some time before Sirjohnnie suffered himself to 
 be led farther along the cliff. Never had Felisi found 
 him so hard of understanding. Presently, however, he 
 stood looking down on a hole in the volcanic rock, where 
 were neatly packed the tin-lined cases and the glass 
 jars every one of them and unscathed. 
 
 He stared at them in dumb wonderment for a mo- 
 ment, then turned to Felisi, who stood looking up into 
 his face with anxious inquiry. 
 
 "Felisi," he said gravely, "you're a wonder, child!" 
 He lifted her off her feet and hugged her. 
 
 The next day the beach of Luana reappeared. Save 
 for the fallen palms, torn earth, and battered reed 
 brakes, it was as it had been before the advent of the 
 green houses. 
 
 "It just didn't like me, that's all," Sirjohnnie told 
 Felisi, with one of his old-time laughs. "But I'm still 
 here." He shook his fist at the Pacific. 
 
 About noon the launch arrived, and there was unusual 
 commotion in the landing. The pink man seemed 
 exercised, and the cause of it all was soon apparent when 
 a stalwart native waded ashore, bearing very gingerly 
 the slight form of a woman. She wore the same stream- 
 ing coloured veil and carried the same kind of sunshade 
 as those on the wharf at Levuka. 
 
 "Great Scott!" cried Sirjohnnie, and hurried across 
 the beach. He was hatless, unshaven, and his 
 ducks were bespattered with the good red earth of 
 Luana.
 
 22 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "My dear John," wailed the woman, when she had 
 been set on her feet, "what are you doing? " 
 
 Sirjohnnie proceeded to explain, with many gestures 
 and pointings in the direction of where the green houses 
 had stood. 
 
 Presently another white man joined them. 
 
 "Crothers," bellowed Sirjohnnie, "I've got some- 
 thing for you ! " 
 
 "We arrived last Tuesday," the woman continued 
 wearily. "Another week of Levuka is simply impos- 
 sible." 
 
 "But you gave me until the twentieth," protested 
 Sirjohnnie. "This place is a perfect Mecca. I've got 
 every species 
 
 "And this is the twenty-fifth," sighed the woman. 
 
 " Good gracious, no, is it? Half a minute, Crothers ! " 
 Sirjohnnie was looking from one to the other of his 
 visitors in the same nervous way that he had speared 
 fish in the trap. 
 
 "Look here, my dear : 
 
 "What I came to find out definitely," proceeded the 
 inexorable woman, "was if you are coming home on the 
 Moultan in time for the season, or if you intend to stay 
 here for the rest of your life." 
 
 Felisi, lying prone in the sand, buried her face in her 
 hair. Through it she heard Sirjohnnie's answer. 
 
 "Why, of course, yes that is yes. Just one mo- 
 ment, my dear. Crothers!" 
 
 Still through her hair Felisi saw him lead the white 
 man to a tiny pool, unwrap the square of oiled silk, and 
 toss in a piece of vine. She heard the distant murmur
 
 SIRJOHNNIE OF THE GREEN HOUSES 23 
 
 of Sirjohnnie's voice discoursing gleefully on the result, 
 and saw the white man examining the vine through a 
 glass. The natives and the pink man were already 
 carrying the tin-lined cases and the jars down from the 
 cliff to the launch. Then she became aware that the 
 woman had taken a seat on a rock, and was beckoning 
 to her. 
 
 Felisi went and squatted in the sand before her. She 
 very much wanted to see the woman at close quarters. 
 
 "Well, my dear," she said pleasantly, "do you speak 
 any English?" 
 
 Felisi shook her head. 
 
 The woman was extraordinarily beautiful. Her skin 
 was like milk, and her hair was the colour of gold. Could 
 anything be more alluring? Yet Sir Johnnie did not 
 want to leave Luana! Felisi knew it as surely as that 
 the sun shone, and Lady Truscott wondered what made 
 the child smile. 
 
 To Felisi this woman represented "law" "the law 
 that makes people do what they don't want to." Look- 
 ing into the woman's face, she recalled to mind a fish 
 a fish which may be handled in a certain way, but which, 
 if applied roughly to human flesh, caused the victim to 
 die in agony within an hour. What if she flung such a 
 fish in the face of this "law" and freed Sirjohnnie for 
 ever? 
 
 This was what Felisi was thinking as she squatted 
 in the sand before Lady Truscott. So perhaps it was 
 as well that at that moment Sirjohnnie returned to 
 escort her to the launch, thus sparing to Society a 
 charming hostess and the much-tried wife of a truly
 
 24 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 exasperating man. Sir Johnnie obeyed his "law" with 
 commendable fortitude. He forgot to say good-bye to 
 Felisi, and was borne out to the launch, expostulating 
 wildly with a native who had inadvertently stepped on 
 one of the tin-lined cases. But Felisi has never forgot- 
 ten him.
 
 THE RULES OF THE GAME 
 
 FELISI was hoeing in the family taro patch, when 
 the white man crawled out of the green cavern of 
 the bush on to the beach at Luana. 
 There was blood on his face, his ducks were tattered 
 and besmeared, and his left hand trailed lifelessly in the 
 sand at his side. For a moment he stared along the 
 stretch of glistening beach, then quite suddenly he col- 
 lapsed in a little heap and lay still. 
 
 Now, the way of the white man is beyond belief. 
 Felisi, who for many months had lived among him and 
 his women, while selling imitation pink coral on the 
 wharf at Levuka, had learned this great truth from the 
 bitter-sweet experience that goes to make up life even 
 the life of a South Sea -Islander. She had studied the 
 white man in his love and in his hate, in prosperity and 
 poverty, peace and war, and at the end of an eventful 
 fourteen years, found herself no nearer discovering the 
 cause of his ineffable conceit, colossal ignorance, monu- 
 mental selfishness, and undoubted greatness, than she 
 had been as a tiny bronze infant, playing under the 
 breadfruit trees of her native village. 
 
 Wherefore the genus white man claimed a good deal 
 of Felisi 's attention. His antics interested her in the 
 same way that her own life and habits interested some 
 white men, though, of course, it never occurred to the 
 
 25
 
 26 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 latter that while they were studying "the quaint cus- 
 toms of a quaint people," they themselves were being 
 studied. 
 
 For instance, when the dear old gentleman on the 
 wharf at Levuka had patted Felisi's head and bought 
 a shilling's worth of spurious coral for the sake of 
 studying the texture of her hair, he had not the faintest 
 idea that the soft brown eyes that wandered langour- 
 ously over his superannuated person had noted that 
 tufts of hair grew out of his ears in a most comical 
 manner, that his false teeth moved when he talked, and 
 that, save for his red skin, he was the living image of a 
 doddering lunatic that Felisi knew of in a certain village 
 up the coast. 
 
 But there it was. 
 
 And here was another case a white man lying in a 
 limp heap on the beach at Luana. He was quite young, 
 as white men went, and when Felisi had climbed a palm 
 and given him a drink from a green cocoanut, he sat up 
 with startling abruptness. 
 
 "Where am I?" he demanded. 
 
 "Luana," Felisi answered, squatting in the sand and 
 watching with interest the contortions of his pink face 
 as he tried to lift his arm. 
 
 "Luana! Ouch! Yes, I seem to have been on 
 Luana for the last twenty years. But what part? 
 Ouch!" 
 
 "Senai Keba," said Felisi. 
 
 The white man whistled. 
 
 "Great Scott!" he muttered. "The north end! 
 I must have "
 
 THE RULES OF THE GAME 27 
 
 But Felisi was thinking of this gentleman Scott. He 
 was so universal, and always so great. Who was he? 
 She determined to find out at the first opportunity. At 
 the moment she became aware that the white man was 
 staring at her with suddenly awakened interest. 
 
 "You speak English?" he exclaimed, as though this 
 accomplishment of Felisi's had just reached his notice. 
 
 "Some," she answered glibly, using the word she had 
 learned on the wharf at Levuka, and always found so 
 useful. 
 
 "Thank heaven!" muttered the white man. "Have 
 you seen any one a white man, I mean, a large white 
 man who limps when he walks and carries a rifle under 
 his arm?" He was looking over his shoulder now, and 
 when he turned, there was a furtive look in his eyes. 
 
 Felisi shook her head. 
 
 "Then you soon will," snapped the white man. "Get 
 me out of here, kid, somewhere safe, and and you shall 
 have all I've got. He's after me they're all after me. 
 I haven't slept for three nights the bush I can't 
 stand it any more!" He moaned and pitched face for- 
 ward into the sand. 
 
 It was an interesting phenomenon that, when the 
 white man is strong and well, he is a god in his own 
 estimation, infinitely removed above the Polynesian 
 race; but when he is sick or frightened, he is as humble 
 as a child. It was as a child that Felisi saw this white 
 man. She knew of a place, a perfectly safe place, and 
 when she had brought him round for the second time, 
 she guided him to it. The Bull of Senai Keba had built 
 a new look-out on the edge of the beach, but the old one
 
 28 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 still remained up amongst the branches of a giant dilo 
 tree. It was a big business getting the white man up 
 the broken ladder of liana, and he had no sooner 
 crawled on to the platform of woven branches than he 
 collapsed again. 
 
 He was very humble. 
 
 Felisi brought him green cocoanuts and cooked taro 
 root, and while he ate, in great hungry mouthfuls, she 
 examined his arm. There was a clean hole on one side, 
 just above the elbow, and a rather larger one on the 
 other. 
 
 "So long as it hasn't got the bone it's nothing," 
 mumbled the white man, with his mouth full; "but I 
 rather fancy it has ouch!" He leant back against 
 the dilo trunk while Felisi bound the wound with a strip 
 torn from her sulu. " It was a good shot," he continued 
 to mumble reminiscently, between munches at the taro 
 root "five hundred yards, if it was an inch. I was 
 crawling up the other side of the valley, the only bit 
 of open country we'd seen for how long was it? four 
 five days. . . ." His voice trailed off into silence. 
 He was asleep) asleep with the half -eaten taro root in a 
 hand lying limply palm upward on the platform. 
 
 He slept for a day and a night and nearly half a day, 
 and when he awoke he ate until Felisi thought he would 
 burst. He seemed to swell with the food, just like a 
 Buli at a feast; his eyes grew brighter, and he was not 
 so humble. He laughed. 
 
 "We've didled 'em, kid," he said, yawning and 
 stretching luxuriously. "This is great!" 
 
 Felisi squatted on the platform and watched him in
 
 THE RULES OF THE GAME 29 
 
 silence. Suddenly his hand went to his hip pocket, and 
 he drew out a joint of bamboo corked at one end. He 
 extracted the cork with his teeth and poured out on to 
 the platform a stream of pearls. He hummed a little 
 air as he sat looking at them. 
 
 "Worth a bit of trouble, aren't they?" he suggested. 
 
 Felisi nodded, though personally she preferred imita- 
 tion pink coral. It was easier to come by, and more 
 colourful. 
 
 "And there was trouble," he added reminiscently. 
 "Crane didn't play the game by me. Partnerships 
 again! Never did believe in partnerships, but what's 
 a fellow to do when he's got the will, and the knowledge, 
 and the muscle, and no dibs to back 'em up?" 
 
 Felisi shook her head and looked sympathetic. 
 Amongst her many other accomplishments she was 
 probably the best listener in the world. Her attitude 
 appeared to encourage the white man. 
 
 " Such a time ! " he breathed . * ' First chance I've had 
 of thinking about it or having a look at them," he added, 
 rolling the pearls to and fro under his lean brown fingers. 
 "First of all in the cutter. You get to hate the 
 way a man hangs up his hat if you're alone with him 
 long enough. Heavens, how I came to hate that man! 
 He was mean dirty mean in thought and action and 
 he was one of your oily sort until something went wrong, 
 then he was peevish as a sick child, and with as much 
 to back it up. You couldn't hit him. You felt you 
 were up against a man- woman, or a woman-man, which- 
 ever way you like to put it worst of both, you know, 
 like a half-caste."
 
 30 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "Me know 'um," Felisi thought fit to interpolate. 
 "It was after we got to the lagoon," the white man 
 went on "after the third pearl, to be exact. The 
 whole lot weren't worth fifty pounds, but we were 
 gloating over them on the cabin table. Crane would 
 pick 'em up, then I would. We were talking some bosh 
 about the biggest being worth a 
 possible fifty pounds. Fifty 
 pounds, when it was as deformed as 
 a hunchback ! But we liked to talk 
 big. It kept our pecker up. I 
 looked at Crane suddenly, and I 
 saw his eyes by lamp-light. They were fastened on 
 me, and they hated me. They hated me as much as 
 I hated him, but for a different reason. The pearls were 
 the reason for his case. I laughed I couldn't help it. 
 It struck me as so darned funny, us two sitting in a 
 cabin twelve feet by ten, hating one another." 
 Felisi laughed, too. It was a white man's joke. 
 "I think Crane must have mistaken my laugh. Any- 
 way, we both knew what we thought of each other as 
 surely as though we had spoken. It got worse. We 
 did quite well, and Crane's hate increased with the 
 quantity and size of the pearls. Mine couldn't get any 
 worse than it had been at the beginning, so I was out of 
 the running. But do you suppose we said nasty things 
 to one another? Not a bit of it. For sheer politeness 
 you couldn't have equalled us south of the Line. It 
 was 'An uncommonly good day, Jim,' from Crane, and 
 'Good enough,' and 'Right-oh,' from me. 'If we go on 
 like this ' from Crane, and 'Touch wood!' from me.
 
 THE RULES OF THE GAME 31 
 
 It came to being polite at meals in the end, and I didn't 
 laugh. I must have lost my sense of humour those 
 days." 
 
 Felisi nodded her head understandingly. The white 
 man might have been talking to the lady with the gold 
 hair behind the bar in Levuka for all the difference he 
 seemed to find in his audience. Felisi took it as an 
 unconscious compliment, which indeed it was. 
 
 "Then came what I'd been expecting. But I'd hid- 
 den the dinghy oars, and hadn't given him credit for 
 the pluck of swimming a hundred yards through sharks. 
 He did it. It's wonderful what fifty first-grade pearls 
 will do with a man-woman. Luckily it was a mangrove 
 country we were anchored off, and there were three 
 miles of it before you could get to real solid earth. I 
 tracked him as easily as you would an elephant, and just 
 before nightfall something white moved on the other 
 side of a gully. I fired, and went over. It was Crane, 
 lying on his face, with his fat legs sprawled, dead as 
 meat; and the pearls were in the corner of his beastly 
 bandana handkerchief, that hadn't been washed for 
 months." 
 
 The white man sat propped against the dilo trunk, 
 staring out to sea with a disgusted expression still lin- 
 gering on his face, presumably at the thought of the 
 bandana handkerchief. 
 
 Felisi neither moved nor spoke. She knew by in- 
 stinct when to do either, and presently the white man 
 went on, though more slowly : 
 
 "It's the first man I've killed. I'm not used to shoot- 
 ing at men, much less killing them. But I wasn't sorry.
 
 32 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 It rather surprised me how I took it when I found him 
 dead. Somehow it never struck me that I couldn't go 
 out into the world and get on with life as I had before. 
 It seemed to me that I had rid the world of something 
 dirty mean, and that was all there was to it. The other 
 came later in the bush, and especially at night, when 
 the mist rises and the tree fungus glows through it like 
 a lamp in a London fog. I came to know what it is to 
 have killed a man even a man-woman and what it is 
 to be the pet of a man-hunt. Heavens" he glanced 
 over his shoulder, then laughed nervously "it's worse 
 than playing spooks with the lights out! They haunt 
 you all right. You think you're done with them 
 thrown them off but you haven't; they bob up again 
 and come creeping on through the bush. I don't know, 
 but I think it must be Hanson that's got my track. 
 He's a good shot that was a classy shot, five hundred 
 yards, and I was moving the only man of them worth 
 thinking about, middling tall and chunky, with a 
 toothbrush moustache. You're sure you haven't seen 
 him?" 
 
 "Sure," mimicked Felisi. 
 
 "I got him, though, through the leg waited behind 
 a lantana bush until he was on top of me, and then 
 hadn't the pluck to shoot him anywhere but in the leg. 
 I'm glad I didn't, too; he's all right, and he's got to 
 do his work. It's queer, but you positively get to like 
 a man that sticks to you the way he's stuck to me. It 
 becomes a sort of ghastly game, with unwritten rules to 
 it through mangrove swamps and mazes of under- 
 brush, up over volcanic rocks and across rivers with the
 
 THE RULES OF THE GAME 33 
 
 worst sort of shark in them. I was lost, properly lost, 
 and I know he was, but we kept on. He never left me 
 day and night he never left me ! " 
 
 The white man's eyes were suddenly alert and staring 
 fixedly at the reed brake on the far side of the beach. 
 His voice had dropped, then ceased altogether. His 
 jaw hung down. Out of the reed brake on to the beach 
 limped a man with a rifle under his arm. 
 
 He was a hundred yards away, and looking out to 
 sea, but the man up on the look-out seemed to shrivel 
 into himself on the far side of the dilo trunk. Felisi 
 was wearing a red hibiscus blossom, but the white man 
 snatched it out of her hair. 
 
 " S-sh ! Lie down ! " he breathed. 
 
 "You all right," whispered Felisi reassuringly. 
 
 The white man seized her roughly by the wrist and 
 jerked her down beside him. 
 
 "Lie there!" he hissed. "It is Hanson! How's the 
 beach?" 
 
 "Beach, him all right," quavered Felisi, looking out 
 through the branches. The white man forced her down 
 to the platform. 
 
 "You little fool! I mean, is it dry where we came 
 over it powdery? Will it show the difference dif- 
 ference, savvy? between a naked foot your foot and 
 mine? " The white man indicated his long-legged boots 
 with a slight movement. 
 
 "Beach, him all right," pouted Felisi with the air of 
 one defending her personal property against unfair as- 
 persion. "Him no show diff'rence." 
 
 "What's he doing now?"
 
 34 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 Felisi could feel the white man's body trembling 
 against her own. She peeped out and saw the man on 
 the beach bending over the disturbance in the sand 
 where the white man had fallen. Felisi was at a loss. 
 The very humble child lying beside her needed soothing. 
 
 "What's he doing?" it repeated peevishly. 
 
 "Him go so," said Felisi, dropping her head with 
 the pantomimic art of the meke dancer. "Him very 
 tired." 
 
 "Ah!" muttered the white man, and smiled grimly. 
 
 Felisi knew that she was committed beyond recall. 
 She had taken sides, and she did not regret her choice. 
 The heart of a woman instinctively goes out to the 
 fugitive he is the weaker and when once the Polyne- 
 sian has taken sides, there is no turning back. 
 
 Presently she had to tell him 
 
 "Him come close up." 
 
 The man on the beach was limping along its edge, 
 peering into the reed brake. He would come directly 
 under the dilo tree. 
 
 The white man at Felisi's side lay as still as stone. 
 His jaw was set, his muscles tense. Felisi's hand went 
 out as stealthily as a snake, drew the revolver from its 
 holster, and placed it in his hand. The white man 
 seemed not to notice it, and still lay motionless, staring 
 into the twisted branches of the dilo tree, but listening 
 listening with every nerve to the soft crunch of ap- 
 proaching footsteps in sand. They ceased directly 
 under the platform. Felisi could hear the beating of 
 her own heart. A minah bird squawked shrilly in the 
 branches overhead, and she felt her wrist crushed in a
 
 THE RULES OF THE GAME 35 
 
 vise-like grip. There was the click of an opening lid. 
 A match was struck. The pleasant smell of good 
 tobacco smoke floated up to them on the still air; then 
 the footsteps passed on. 
 
 "Wonder he didn't smell me," grinned the white man. 
 "It's Hanson all right; he smokes Heraldic Heraldic 
 in a good airtight box, and a woody briar." He smacked 
 his lips. 
 
 "Why you no shoot?" demanded Felisi. "Pouf, 
 bang him finish !" 
 
 "Not till I'm cornered," answered the white man. 
 "I don't want to kill Hanson. He's a good fellow. 
 I've got nothing against him." 
 
 Felisi scrambled into a squatting position to think this 
 out. Her small bronze face was puckered with be- 
 wilderment. Here was one man chasing another man 
 to catch him and have him killed, yet the pursued 
 "had nothing against" the pursuer! Was there ever 
 such an amazing state of affairs? "A sort of ghastly 
 game with unwritten rules in it." Then there was no 
 need to make the suggestion that had been in her mind 
 namely, that she should dispatch the man on the 
 beach herself in one of the many ways that she had at 
 her command. 
 
 "Besides," the white man went on, with a hint of 
 apology in his tone, "it wouldn't make any difference. 
 Have you ever heard of the law? " 
 
 Felisi nodded vigorously. She happened to know 
 something about this thing called "law." 
 
 "Well, there it is. It never stops. The law says 
 that I shall be strung up by the neck until I'm dead,
 
 36 
 
 and Hanson is the law. If I kill him, another man 
 takes his place, and so on for ever. The law never 
 stops." 
 
 "Him big fellah, law," mused Felisi. 
 
 "I should just say he is," muttered the white man, 
 leaning limply against the dilo trunk and looking out to 
 sea with melancholy eyes. "He's a bad fellah to bunt 
 up against, too, but sometimes sometimes he can be 
 given the slip. Look here," he added, with sudden 
 eagerness, "Hanson may have gone on, and he may not; 
 I wouldn't trust him a yard. There's only one way 
 out of this thing. You be fishing in a canoe a canoe 
 with a sail in it, mind you off the beach to-night. I'll 
 swim out ... all I've got," he ended abruptly. 
 
 Felisi nodded. 
 
 "Bless you, kid!" said the white man, and fell to coll- 
 ecting the scattered pearls. 
 
 On her way to the village she met "the law." He 
 was sitting on a fallen palm beside the track that com- 
 manded a view of the beach and the village. 
 
 "Sayadra," was his cheerful greeting, though his 
 brown face was haggard with exhaustion. 
 
 Felisi giggled and squirmed in the approved fashion 
 of Island girls who have never had the opportunity of 
 studying white human nature in Levuka. 
 
 But "the law" did not smile. His steady gray eyes 
 seemed to burn holes in Felisi's face, and he spoke 
 sharply, with the air of a man who is used to receiving 
 prompt answers. 
 
 "Have you seen a white man about here?" he de- 
 manded, in her own tongue.
 
 THE RULES OF THE GAME 37 
 
 Felisi continued to giggle and shuffle her feet in the 
 red earth of the track. 
 
 "Answer me!" snapped "the law." 
 
 "No, sir," faltered Felisi. 
 
 "Where have you just come from?" 
 
 The question came so quickly that the answer was out 
 of Felisi's mouth before she could properly form it. 
 
 "The beach, sir." 
 
 " Then why didn't I see you on the beach just now? " 
 
 But Felisi's mind was nimble enough when it was 
 alert. She giggled, though it was an effort, with the 
 awful eyes of "the law" upon her. 
 
 "Answer me," he barked. 
 
 "I was bathing, sir," she simpered, with long, blue- 
 black lashes sweeping her cheeks. 
 
 "Well, what of that?" 
 
 "I hid myself, sir." 
 
 "The law" laughed he actually laughed, though it 
 was a mirthless sort of sound. 
 
 "There, run along to the village, my girl, and tell the 
 Bull that Beritania Levu (Great Britain) wants him here 
 at once. And tell him to send down something to eat 
 and drink in the meantime." 
 
 "The village is quite close," suggested Felisi diffi- 
 dently, "and the guest-house is cool." A wild scheme 
 flitted through her mind of launching the canoe while 
 "the law" was in the village. 
 
 "Thank you," he answered, and his eyes resumed the 
 burning process, "but I shall stay here." 
 
 As Felisi turned to go, these same eyes were sweeping 
 the beach. They seemed to see all things,
 
 38 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 She felt them at her back as she swung on toward the 
 village. "The law" was certainly a "big fellah." 
 
 Not long before sunset Felisi was fishing in the canoe 
 perhaps fifty yards out from the beach of Luana. It 
 was very simple, very unexhilarating. If you dropped 
 an old boot on the end of a string over the side, you 
 would catch something off the beach of Luana; but 
 Felisi's hand trembled as she continued to land fish after 
 fish. The sun kissed the sea and went to bed, and 
 Felisi continued to fish, with her eyes on the shore. 
 There was no moon, and there were few stars, but there 
 was the vague half-light that never deserts a tropical 
 night, and presently a shadow flitted across the beach 
 and dissolved into the sea, but not entirely. A still 
 smaller shadow, and round, was gliding on the surface 
 of the water. Nearer and nearer it came, until it was 
 possible to see the spreading fan of ripples in its wake 
 and something on its summit that gleamed even in the 
 half-light. 
 
 Then the silence of the night was split asunder by the 
 crack of a rifle, and a bullet splashed into the water a 
 foot from the moving shadow. It vanished, and silence 
 closed down, but only for a moment. It was clear that 
 the eyes of "the law" saw all things. The next bullet 
 was nearer, and each time the shadow vanished it was 
 for a shorter time, and there was a shorter silence. 
 Felisi strained her eyes into the darkness, and at last 
 there was a long silence a very long silence. Her 
 clasped hands were pressed down over her heart. And 
 still the silence continued. She paddled swiftly in its 
 direction, and as the canoe slid gently on to the sand,
 
 THE RULES OF THE GAME 39 
 
 shots came muffled from the bush. The shadow had 
 missed the canoe, then, and returned to the shore. 
 
 They were fighting in a palm grove now the shadow 
 and "the law" still fighting. Would it ever cease? 
 Felisi wondered, as she followed up the sounds of con- 
 flict. Truly "the law" never stops. From palm trunk 
 to lantana bush they flitted, the shadow always re- 
 treating, "the law" always advancing. A tongue of 
 flame would be answered with a tongue of flame, report 
 with report. It was an argument in flame and lead. 
 Then quite suddenly there fell a silence a silence that 
 lasted an unconscionable time, and out of it came a 
 voice in breathless jerks 
 
 "What's the use Lucas?" 
 
 And an answering voice replied 
 
 "That's my business. You'd have shot him 
 yourself Hanson . ' ' 
 
 "I dare say; but I must warn you that anything 
 you may say will " 
 
 A breathless laugh came from somewhere. 
 
 "You can get all that off your chest when you've 
 got me." 
 
 "You're out of ammunition." 
 
 "Don't be too sure. You are. I know the Govern- 
 ment ration, and I've counted." 
 
 There was a short silence, then 
 
 "Wliat's more, I'll prove it." 
 
 The shadow emerged from behind a lantana bush, 
 resolving into the form of the white man. He stood 
 quite still out there in the open, his white ducks loom-
 
 40 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 ing clear against the inky background of the underbrush. 
 The revolver was levelled from his hip in his right hand. 
 The other hung inert by his side. 
 
 "Now," he said, "will you let me go without killing 
 you, Hanson? I don't want to." 
 
 "Let you go!" snapped the voice of "the law," and 
 a glint of white showed behind a palm trunk not forty 
 paces distant. 
 
 "Don't come out!" cried the white man, as though 
 afraid. "Don't come out without your hands up, 
 Hanson!" 
 
 For answer, "the law" came out from behind the 
 palm trunk. He carried his rifle clubbed, and, though 
 he limped painfully, he came straight on. 
 
 "You're out of ammunition, Lucas," he said, as he 
 advanced, and he said it as though trying to convince 
 himself that it was true. You know you're out of 
 ammunition." The revolver was pointing directly at 
 his chest, and still he came on. "It'll save no end of 
 trouble, both for you and me " 
 
 He was not more than five paces distant now, and he 
 was staring at the muzzle of the revolver as though 
 fascinated. Just so had Felisi seen fish come up out of 
 the depths of the rock pools to see the light of the torch 
 and be speared. The white man stood quite still as 
 though thinking what he would do. Then, in a flash, 
 he raised the revolver to fling it in the face of "the law," 
 and the butt of the clubbed rifle fell. Both missed 
 their mark. 
 
 "Didn't I say " grunted "the law," and the rest 
 
 was lost in the impact of their bodies. The white man
 
 THE RULES OF THE GAME 41 
 
 had but one arm, the other could scarce stand for lame- 
 ness, yet they rocked in one another's embrace for what 
 seemed minutes to Felisi, before crashing to earth in a 
 writhing heap. They were on the bank of a stream that 
 ran through the grove, and Felisi caught her breath as 
 they rolled nearer and nearer the edge. It was a four- 
 foot drop at most, and the water was shallow, trickling 
 slowly over the bed of powdered coral sand. But 
 Felisi knew that stream. There were many like it on 
 Luana. 
 
 Here, on the ground, "the law" had the upper hand, 
 for he had the use of both arms, and his lame leg was 
 not such a handicap. He was strong, too stronger 
 than the white man, though both were pitifully weak 
 from their exertions. Would it never end? They 
 jerked and strained. 
 
 Suddenly the white man lay still staring up into the 
 roof of palm leaves with agony written on every line of 
 his haggard face. It was as though he had been seized 
 with sudden paralysis. It was paralysis, for "the law" 
 had a hold on his arm a certain hold. Surely this was 
 the end. But Felisi had taken sides, and the Polyne- 
 sian never turns back. "The law" uttered a stifled cry 
 as her teeth sank into the back of his hand. The hold 
 was lost, the arm free. The white man kicked out 
 with all his strength, and "the law" tottered for a 
 moment before rolling down the bank into the stream. 
 
 The water was not two inches in depth, yet when he 
 struggled to rise he sank knee-deep. Another supreme 
 effort, and the glistening white sand was about his waist. 
 After that he sank by inches, his stern gray eyes turned
 
 42 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 toward firm ground, not three yards distant, but utter- 
 ing no sound. 
 
 The white man had fainted, and when his eyes opened 
 Felisi was bending over him. 
 
 "Come quick!" she said. "You all right. Come 
 quick ! Canoe, him ' ' 
 
 "Where's Hanson?" muttered the white man. 
 
 Felisi pointed toward the river bank. 
 
 The white man's eyes opened wide. 
 
 "In the river drowned?" 
 
 Felisi shook her head. 
 
 "Him go long road, all the same, pretty quick," she 
 told him reassuringly. But for some strange reason it 
 failed to reassure. The white man crawled to the edge 
 of the bank and lay there in the grass. Felisi could hear 
 his voice. 
 
 "What about it, Hanson?" 
 
 There was no answer. 
 
 "It'll get you in less than an hour. Don't be a fool." 
 
 Still no answer, and a long pause, during which the 
 white man could have reached the canoe. Felisi could 
 have shaken him. 
 
 "I must get out of here, Hanson. I shall get clean 
 away. The girl has a canoe. Whatever difference will 
 it make?" 
 
 Another pause. 
 
 "What about it, Hanson?" 
 
 There was actually a pleading note in the voice. 
 
 Was this one of the rules of the game? Felisi gave 
 it up. Her white teeth snapped together in sheer ex- 
 asperation.
 
 THE RULES OF THE GAME 43 
 
 "Good-bye, Hanson!" 
 
 The white man staggered to his feet and stood up- 
 right, swaying for a moment, then lurched off toward 
 the beach, leaning on Felisi's shoulder. 
 
 Twice he stopped dead in his tracks and listened in- 
 tently, but no sound came to them except the soft 
 breath of the wind amongst the palm leaves. 
 
 They launched the canoe in silence. Felisi hoisted 
 the sail, and presently the ripple of water past the 
 canoe's side told them they were under way. The dark 
 line of the shore grew slowly fainter. The white man 
 sat in the stern, steering with the paddle, and staring 
 straight before him. He was heading for the open sea 
 and freedom, yet his face was a grim mask, and there 
 was no joy in his eyes. 
 
 Felisi did not speak; she sat watching him from the 
 main thwart and noticing many things. A frown had 
 come to his forehead and his eyes were restless, casting 
 this way and that at nothing save the dark waters slip- 
 ping past the canoe. Sometimes, too, he would hold 
 the paddle under his arm and pass his hand over his 
 eyes as though trying to brush aside some vision that 
 haunted them. But slowly she saw a change steal over 
 him. Set purpose came into his eyes, the grim mask 
 of his face gave way to animation eagerness. He 
 muttered a curse at the failing wind, and Felisi became 
 aware that their course had changed, with his mind. 
 The canoe no longer headed for the open sea, and a little 
 later she saw the well-known coastline of Luana loom- 
 ing over the bows. He had put back. 
 
 The canoe had no sooner grounded than the white
 
 44 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 man leapt ashore and ran up the beach. Felisi found 
 him at the bank of the stream the sand had risen to 
 the chin of "the law" tugging and straining with 
 his one hand. 
 
 It took them fully half an hour of such work to ex- 
 tricate "the law," and at the end of it the two men lay 
 side by side on the river bank, too exhausted to move 
 or speak. 
 
 Then at last the silence was broken, it was " the law" 
 who spoke. 
 
 "Edward Lucas," he said, rolling on to his side, "1 
 arrest you, in the name of the King, for the murder of 
 Walter Crane." 
 
 The white man lay on his back with closed eyes. 
 
 "Give me a fill of your Heraldic, Hanson," he said. 
 
 Even this was not all. Felisi was despatched to the 
 village by "the law," but before going she waited for 
 confirmation of the order. The white man gave it by 
 opening his eyes and nodding wearily. The two men 
 were carried to the guest-house on litters, and a guard 
 of native police very smart in their blue tunics and 
 fluted sulus stationed itself outside the door. 
 
 It was two days before the white man could walk. 
 And when he crossed the room, trailing Heraldic to- 
 bacco smoke in his wake, he caught sight of the guard 
 and turned back. 
 
 "Hanson," he said, "won't you get rid of this pan- 
 tomime?" 
 
 The guard was dismissed very smartly. 
 
 "The law" was undoubtedly the stronger man. In 
 one night his vitality returned, and, when the white
 
 THE RULES OF THE GAME 45 
 
 man was up and about, he sat talking with him in the 
 guest-house. Felisi heard the white man tell the story 
 of the cutter and the pearls and the hate. And when 
 it was done, "the law" nodded slowly and said: "Yes, 
 I knew Crane." 
 
 That was all. 
 
 Later that evening he went to the door and stood 
 looking out over the green hills that tumbled to the sea. 
 
 "It's going to be a dark night," he said absently. 
 
 The white man was lying on a pile of mats, and did 
 not answer. 
 
 "A deuced dark night," repeated "the law" "one 
 of those nights when things happen." 
 
 The white man lifted himself on to his elbow, but still 
 remained silent. 
 
 "And there's a fair northerly breeze," added the 
 other irrelevantly. 
 
 The white man was staring fixedly at the broad back 
 of "the law," silhouetted in the doorway. An eager 
 light flashed into his eyes and was gone. 
 
 "Yes," he said slowly, and lay back on the mats. 
 
 In the morning he was gone. 
 
 So was Felisi's canoe. But "the law" made that 
 good, even as he scowled his displeasure at the escape. 
 
 In the taro patch Felisi often puckers her brow over 
 the problems of an eventful life, but in this particular 
 case she can get no further in her deductions than that 
 "the law" is a "big fellah," and the way of the white 
 man beyond belief.
 
 THE PRETENDERS 
 
 FELISI squatted on the beach of Luana, the cen- 
 tre of a group of chattering female relatives 
 watching the men launch the big canoe with 
 many cries and much unnecessary puffing and strain- 
 ing. 
 
 They were showing off in front of their women folk, 
 a weakness not uncommon in other places than the 
 beach of Luana, as Felisi knew; and, while the female 
 relatives clucked their admiration, her own wise eyes 
 took in the scene with no other emotion than pleasur- 
 able excitement at the prospect of leaving the taro 
 patch and the fish-trap for the mysterious lures of the 
 outside world that she had glimpsed while selling imita- 
 tion pink coral on the wharf at Levuka. 
 
 Felisi was going away. She was dressed in her most 
 modest blue wrapper, and beside her on the sand re- 
 posed her simple but effective trunk, a kerosene tin cut 
 neatly in half and lashed together with sinnet. 
 
 The whole family was going away; it was an upheaval, 
 a cataclysm, and the cause of it all was ambition, noth- 
 ing less. Amongst other fatal maladies that the ubi- 
 quitous white man in his wisdom had seen fit to inflict 
 on the inhabitants of "The Islands of the Blest," this 
 thing ambition had seized on Felisi's family like a 
 plague. Money had come to Luana copper and silver 
 
 46
 
 THE PRETENDERS 47 
 
 and gold and it was discovered that these unlovely 
 discs of metal were not without their uses. For in- 
 stance, in sufficient quantities they could be exchanged 
 for articles that it was beyond the power of Luana to 
 produce. Had not Felisi brought back from her his- 
 toric pilgrimage to Levuka a sewing-machine from 
 Americania, and a mouth-organ? 
 
 And now it was a boat. Nothing would satisfy 
 Felisi's father but a boat that he had seen in Levuka. 
 Apparently it could do anything but talk, and he was 
 not altogether certain it was not capable of that. It 
 would carry five times as much produce to market as the 
 big canoe, and in half the time. It but Felisi had for- 
 gotten the category of its virtues. The fact remained 
 that it was necessary to collect sufficient gold discs to 
 buy the boat fifty in all and, as usual, the women- 
 folk were called upon to do the collecting. Felisi's 
 mother was going to be scullery maid in a boarding- 
 house where she happened to know the cook, her aunt 
 was to lend local colour to a native curio dealer's shop 
 on the parade, and various female cousins were going 
 to help in a Samoan laundry. Even a male cousin had 
 condescended to become a wharf porter for a month or 
 two. The remainder of the male element was going 
 to be busily engaged in "keeping the home fires burn- 
 ing," or its equivalent, and the result of their combined 
 efforts was to be the boat. 
 
 It had occurred to one of Felisi's aunts a woman 
 with far too much to say, as her husband had often re- 
 marked to ask why it was necessary to carry five times 
 as much produce to market in half the time, and the
 
 48 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 answer accorded her by Felisi's father was unusually 
 tolerant "To make still more gold discs, of course." 
 
 She then actually had the temerity to inquire why it 
 was necessary to make more gold discs, when for count- 
 less generations they had succeeded in living quite com- 
 fortably without any discs at all. But this was too 
 much. Felisi's father had snorted violently and 
 changed the subject. 
 
 And Felisi, silent, wise-eyed? As well as a sewing- 
 machine from Americania and a mouth organ, she had 
 brought back from Levuka an unrivalled knowledge of 
 the white man and his tongue. Everyone prophesied 
 a great future for Felisi of Luana. 
 
 Meanwhile, and not so very far away, a certain Mrs. 
 Caton leant over a certain breakfast table on the Rena 
 River and said: "Jack!" 
 
 Tt was the second time she had addressed her husband 
 without being noticed, but she was used to it. 
 
 "Wake up, old boy," she added, without resentment. 
 "I have something really startling to say." 
 
 Mr. Caton an old-young man, with sparse sandy 
 hair and a preoccupied air lifted his red-ochre face 
 from a plate of toast and honey, and blinked. Also he 
 smiled, the kindliest possible smile. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, my dear. Say on." 
 
 "I don't like house-boys," announced Mrs. Caton. 
 
 "You don't like house-boys," repeated her husband 
 dazedly. Then, after wiping his mouth and drawing 
 his coffee-cup a trifle nearer: "What do you intend to 
 do about it? " 
 
 "They're all right for waiting, and that sort of thing,"
 
 THE PRETENDERS 49 
 
 continued Mrs. Caton, "but as personal servants 
 they're ugh! too creepy, crawly. They remind me 
 of a snake. Besides, I want some sort of female com- 
 panionship in the house, something in the nature of a 
 lady's maid." 
 
 "Something in the nature of a lady's maid," mur- 
 mured Mr. Caton. If his wife had said she wanted a 
 rhinoceros and two antimacassars in the house, he 
 would have repeated the suggestion in exactly the same 
 way. Mrs. Caton knew this husband of hers, and 
 she still loved him, which is, of course, part of the 
 miracle. 
 
 "My dear Jack," she cried, "do please try and show 
 some interest, just for a minute, in something besides 
 the Corona Catoni! I know it's going to be the most 
 wonderful thing that ever happened, but I'm afraid 
 you've got me at present." 
 
 For answer, Mr. Caton rose, leaving a slice of thickly 
 buttered toast to be inundated by the slowly encroach- 
 ing honey on his plate,' and, deliberately placing his 
 chair beside his wife's, sat down. Her hand white as 
 the tablecloth was resting beside the sugar basin, and 
 her husband's strong brown one closed over it. 
 
 "Joan," he said gently, "please don't say things 
 like that. They hurt, and you know they're not true." 
 
 "Yes, I know," Mrs. Caton laughed softly, "but you 
 take such a lot of rousing, Jack. I have to start like a 
 penny dreadful, 'The duchess lay on the divan, stabbed 
 to the heart,' or something like that, before you take 
 any interest." 
 
 "My dear child, I am interested," protested Mr. Ca-
 
 50 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 ton earnestly, "and here I am to prove it. Let me see, 
 what was it you wanted?" 
 
 His wife's laughter rang out, and she withdrew her 
 hand and placed it on his. 
 
 "You funny old thing! I said I didn't like a house- 
 boy as a personal servant, and I want something in the 
 nature of a lady's maid something feminine about 
 the house, you know." 
 
 "Ah, to be sure!" Mr. Caton thought deeply. 
 "How about Mrs. Herbert? She might " 
 
 "My dear, I said a lady's maid. Mrs. Herbert would 
 like to hear you say that." 
 
 "Then it will have to be a native of some sort. How 
 about an Indian woman?" 
 
 "Too much like a house-boy. No, I think I should 
 like an Islander a country girl, for preference. I 
 don't like those town-bred natives they're sly." 
 
 "But she won't be able to speak English." 
 
 Mrs. Caton toyed with the sugar-tongs. "No, 
 there is that." Then she looked up. "Never mind," 
 she added brightly, "I'll teach her; it will be something 
 to do." 
 
 Mr. Caton leant forward in his chair. He was aware, 
 and not for the first time, that his wife was not looking 
 as she had looked during the early days on the Rena 
 River, a short three years ago. It troubled him vaguely. 
 
 "Joan," he said, his kind gray eyes searching her pale 
 face, "you're not looking well." 
 
 Mrs. Caton rose slowly and went over to the ve- 
 randa doorway, looking out on the vivid green banks 
 of the Rena River.
 
 THE PRETENDERS 51 
 
 "No?" she queried lightly. 
 
 "No," repeated her husband. "How about a run 
 home?" 
 
 Mrs. Caton turned with an eager light in her eyes. 
 
 "Let's see, how long is it 
 
 "Three years," she supplied. 
 
 "Three years!" Her husband looked positively 
 alarmed. "Good gracious, I had no idea!" 
 
 "Hadn't you?" said Mrs. Caton. 
 
 "Not the faintest. You must go, Joan that's all 
 there is to it you must go. And you know how you'll 
 enjoy it." 
 
 The light had faded from Mrs. Caton's eyes. She 
 leant listlessly against the door jamb. 
 
 "How about you, Jack?" she suggested lightly. 
 
 "I?" Her husband laughed his deep-toned laugh. 
 "Oh, I'm as strong as a horse, and there's still some- 
 thing that must be done." 
 
 "Still something?" 
 
 "Yes, I'll tell you all about it some time, if it doesn't 
 bore you, but I must stay a bit longer everything 
 hangs on it then we'll go home for good." 
 
 Mrs. Caton had turned again to the river, to hide her 
 longing. 
 
 "Roll on the day," she said briskly. 
 
 "You're not unhappy here, Joan?" 
 
 She came over and put one white hand on her hus- 
 band's shoulder. 
 
 "Unhappy!" she repeated, and laughed. It was a 
 splendid laugh a laugh for an actress to be proud of. 
 
 "You know what they said, Joan."
 
 52 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "Yes, I know what they said. And they were wrong. 
 Hasn't three years proved it?" 
 
 Her husband pushed back his chair and got up. He 
 took her two hands in his and kissed her. 
 
 "And you'll go?" he pleaded, holding her from him. 
 
 "No," answered Mrs. Caton, "I don't want to go 
 
 yet." 
 
 "It's foolish of you," he told her, and turned toward 
 the door. 
 
 "I shall have my 'lady's maid' to play with," laughed 
 Mrs. Caton. 
 
 "I'll see about it this afternoon, when I go to town,'* 
 her husband called back to her from the veranda. 
 
 He stepped out into the blinding sunlight and passed 
 up the pathway toward the bush-house. Mrs. Caton 
 noticed a piece of bass hanging out of his duck jacket 
 pocket. He was going to "tinker with the orchids." 
 She sighed and turned back into the living room. 
 
 And that was why, three days later, Felisi of Luana 
 came to the bungalow on the banks of the Rena River. 
 
 "Something in the nature of a lady's-maid" appeared 
 in a neat blue wrapper, and accompanied by a kerosene 
 tin trunk lashed with sinnet. Mrs. Caton fell in love 
 with her on the instant, and though Felisi's regard for 
 Missus Catoni was less emotional, it was none the less 
 sincere. She thought this white woman the most 
 beautiful thing she had ever seen, with her coral-white 
 skin, dark eyes, and hair of an indescribable colour. 
 As a matter of fact, it was auburn, and it was Felisi's 
 chief delight to comb it morning and evening. She 
 found her duties extraordinarily light. Missus Catoni
 
 THE PRETENDERS 53 
 
 treated her as a companion rather than a servant, and 
 Felisi was earning five shillings a week two large silver 
 discs toward the fifty gold ones needed for the wonder- 
 ful boat. 
 
 "Felisi," said her mistress one evening, during the 
 hair-combing rites, "do you know you have beautiful 
 hair, and still more beautiful eyes, perfect teeth, and 
 an almost perfect figure?" 
 
 "Yes," Felisi answered with refreshing candour. 
 
 Missus Catoni laughed. 
 
 "Then that's all right," she said. "I thought per- 
 haps you didn't." She looked into the reflection of 
 Felisi's soft brown eyes in the glass. "I believe you 
 know a good deal more than you pretend," she added 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 "Me know some," admitted Felisi modestly. 
 
 "And do you have to pretend much, Felisi?" 
 
 "Sometimes." 
 
 " Why? " Missus Catoni was never tired of plumbing 
 the depths or as near the depths as she could get 
 of this quaint child-woman. It was like fishing in deep 
 water one never knew what strange thing would be 
 brought to light. But, like all white folk, she had not 
 the faintest idea that in the process she herself was 
 being plumbed, and to greater depths. 
 
 The indescribable hair was finished, and Felisi 
 squatted on the matting of the floor to await further 
 instructions. But Missus Catoni was in a communica- 
 tive mood. 
 
 "Why?" she repeated with quiet insistence. 
 
 Felisi shrugged her shoulders, a trick she had learnt
 
 54 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 from watching a French lady on the wharf at Levuka, 
 and one she had found effective. 
 
 "Pretend, him all right," she pronounced sagely. 
 "Pretend him pink coral, no white coral, plenty more 
 money. Pretend me very, very poor, an' tired, an' 
 know nothing, plenty heap more money." 
 
 Each one of these distressful symptoms was illus- 
 trated in tone and gesture with the instinctive faith- 
 fulness of a meke dancer. Missus Catoni was deeply 
 interested. 
 
 "Yes, we all have to pretend sometimes, don't we?" 
 she mused. "Most of us are actors. We have to be. 
 Some are better at it than others, but most of us act." 
 
 "Act," repeated Felisi, with faithful intonation. It 
 was a new word. She was learning many new words 
 on the Rena River. 
 
 "Yes, pretend. I used to pretend a lot at one time, 
 Felisi. It was my living." Missus Catoni lit one of 
 her toy cigarettes and leant back in the chair. She 
 was altogether beautiful, Felisi thought, with her white 
 hands clasped behind her head, the folds of a softly 
 tinted kimono falling about her, and the toy cigarette 
 moving up and down between her lips as she talked. 
 She was like white coral draped with tinted weed, deep 
 down in a rock pool. 
 
 "I've pretended such a lot," she went on presently, 
 more to herself than to the girl squatting at her feet, 
 "that I'm positively frightened when I have to do some- 
 thing real." 
 
 She turned in her chair and seemed to see Felisi for 
 the first time.
 
 THE PRETENDERS 55 
 
 "Do you know," she said slowly, with a reminiscent 
 light in her dark eyes, "I once had to pretend to be 
 somebody else every evening for two whole years. It 
 was a wonderful run, Felisi, and all because I pretended 
 so well." 
 
 Missus Catoni smiled, as though at some pleasant 
 memory, while Felisi remained silent and still. She 
 knew how to listen. And presently the other went 
 on 
 
 "Every evening it was the same. All sorts of car- 
 riages drove up to a very big house that was covered 
 with coloured lights, and people went inside hundreds 
 of them. They had to sit for a little time listening to 
 music or talking most of them talked in front of a 
 big curtain. Then the curtain went up, and there was 
 I on the stage, dressed up like somebody else. All the 
 time they had been coming into the house and sitting 
 listening to the music, I had been in a little room down- 
 stairs, putting on clothes, and painting myself to look 
 like somebody else, and now, there I was." 
 
 It was as though the footlights shone again on Missus 
 Catoni. There was a light in her eyes that Felisi had 
 never seen before. 
 
 "All alone?" prompted the audience. 
 
 "No, there were others there, all pretending. We 
 pretended that we were afraid, and that we were brave, 
 that we were poor and rich, that we hated, and we 
 loved, and we pretended so well that the people sitting 
 in front laughed with us and cried with us, sometimes 
 forgot that they were sitting in a big house covered 
 with lights, and that we were only pretending. There
 
 56 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 would be quite a long silence after the curtain came 
 down, and then the big house would ring with the clap- 
 ping of hands, and we knew that we had pretended 
 well." 
 
 Missus Catoni leant back in the chair and sent thin 
 ribbons of smoke to hover on the still air above her 
 head. She was looking through and beyond the rib- 
 bons of smoke. 
 
 "It is the most wonderful thing in the world, Felisi," 
 she said slowly, and added a moment later, "except 
 one." 
 
 "An* him?" Felisi inquired. 
 
 Missus Catoni looked down at her and smiled. 
 
 "You don't miss much, do you, child?" she said in a 
 changed voice. "I can't tell you about 'him' easily, 
 and, besides, you'll know all about him one day, I ex- 
 pect." 
 
 But Felisi was not appeased. Something was trou- 
 bling her, as Missus Catoni saw by her puckered fore- 
 head, and at last it found utterance. 
 
 "Why you no go on plenty more big house, plenty 
 more pretend?" 
 
 "I met Mr. Caton," said his wife, a whimsical smile 
 hovering about her mouth and eyes as she looked down 
 on Felisi. 
 
 "An' Missi Catoni, him no like pretend?" 
 
 Missus Catoni laughed outright. 
 
 "If you're not the quaintest thing, Felisi!" she said. 
 "And you've hit the nail right on the very head. 'Missi 
 Catoni, him no like pretend'!" She laughed again. 
 "You see," she explained, "people who can't pretend
 
 THE PRETENDERS 57 
 
 themselves, and don't understand it, are often very nice 
 the nicest sort of people sometimes, I think but 
 they don't like others who can pretend especially their 
 wives to do it for a living. It oh, dear, oh, dear, 
 what am I talking to you about, Felisi? That will do 
 now; you may go." 
 
 Felisi went, but still with a puckered brow. At the 
 door she turned back. 
 
 "You no scotty?" 1 she said, with drooping head. 
 
 Missus Catoni was lying on the bed. "Good gra- 
 cious, no, child ! What ever makes you think that? It's 
 only that I find myself telling you things that I don't 
 always tell myself. It's your eyes, I think. 
 
 "Me pretend!" she announced eagerly, and com- 
 menced to sway and gesture and drone the meke of the 
 two wood-pigeons, while Missus Catoni watched and 
 applauded from the bed. 
 
 They had much in common, these two. 
 
 A few days later Missus Catoni opened a letter at the 
 breakfast table, and when she had read, the colour 
 surged to her face. She waited until it had subsided, 
 then spoke in her usual subdued tone of voice. 
 
 "Jack, Tony Redgrave is in Suva." 
 
 Missi Catoni looked up and blinked as usual. 
 
 "Tony Redgrave?" he repeated dully. 
 
 "Yes, you remember he was leading man with me 
 at the Olympic." 
 
 Missi Catoni winced, then smiled his kindly smile. 
 
 "Really?" he said. "What on earth is he doing in 
 this part of the world?" 
 
 Native parlance for angry.
 
 58 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "He's just finished his Australian tour, and stopped 
 off at Suva on his way to San Francisco." 
 
 "Jove!" exclaimed Missi Catoni, with the first show 
 of enthusiasm Felisi had seen him display. "That'll 
 brighten things up for you a bit, Joan. I'll fetch him 
 out this afternoon." 
 
 "To stay?" 
 
 Missus Catoni was playing with the sugar-tongs. 
 
 "That's as you like, dear. How long is he stopping 
 over for?" 
 
 "Until the next boat about two weeks." 
 
 "Then he must stop here," said Missi Catoni with 
 finality. 
 
 A room was prepared at once. A new mosquito 
 bar was hung, and the most beautiful sheets spread on 
 the bed. Missus Catoni flitted about the place like a 
 white butterfly, giving a touch here and there. A 
 what-not with ten shelves was placed in a corner, and 
 Felisi longed to ask what it was for, until Missus Catoni 
 told her without asking. 
 
 "He is very fond of nice boots," she told Felisi; 
 "you will see the most beautiful boots in the world 
 presently." 
 
 "Missi Redgravie, him big fellah?" Felisi inquired, 
 and Missus Catoni went off into peals of laughter. 
 
 "Oh, I must tell him that!" she cried. "Felisi, 
 you're a gem! Yes, Missi Redgravie is a big fellah in 
 his own way." 
 
 And that was all Felisi heard about him until he ap- 
 peared or, rather, made his entry at three o'clock 
 that afternoon. He was tall and slim, and wore a more
 
 THE PRETENDERS 59 
 
 i 
 beautiful white flannel suit and white felt hat than 
 
 Felisi had ever seen, even on the wharf at Levuka. His 
 hair shone like a calm sea at night. There was a knife- 
 like crease down his trousers, which terminated in the 
 wonderful boots. These were long and square-toed, and 
 the rich brown colour of the sitting-room table. 
 
 Felisi saw him coming down the path from the launch, 
 followed by Missi Catoni's ungainly figure and a couple 
 of house-boys carrying suitcases that were the same 
 colour as his boots. She saw him between the window 
 curtains of Missus Catoni's bedroom, and when she 
 turned from the enchanting vision, her mistress was 
 standing at the dressing table, with the little top left- 
 hand drawer open, and her hand hovering over it. In 
 that drawer Felisi had once seen a pot of red stuff, and 
 wondered what it was for, as Missus Catoni had never 
 used it. Was the mystery to be solved? Evidently 
 not, for she laughed a little nervous laugh and shut 
 the drawer with a snap. 
 
 A moment later she was on the veranda. 
 
 "Joan," said a well-modulated voice, "this is most 
 awfully good of you!" ( 
 
 After that the voices mingled, and Felisi busied her- 
 self with other matters. 
 
 They had tea on the veranda a very pleasant tea, 
 by the sounds that floated in through the open windows. 
 Even Missi Catoni laughed as Felisi had never heard 
 him laugh, and the well-modulated voice droned on. 
 "Between the laughs came scraps of conversation that 
 fascinated Felisi. It was like a puzzle that needed 
 fitting together.
 
 60 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "You may as well know your nom de Rena River, 
 Tony; it's Redgravie, nothing less you see, their own 
 words all end with a vowel. I am Missus Catoni, so 
 you mustn't mind. . . . The quaintest thing; I'll 
 show you her later on." 
 
 "I hope you won't spoil her, Joan" this from Missi 
 Catoni. 
 
 "Spoil her, my dear! She knows more than you or 
 I, or Tony, here, will ever learn. Sometimes her wis- 
 dom almost frightens me." 
 
 A little later Missi Catoni went away. Felisi con- 
 jured a mental picture of his ungainly figure going up 
 the path to the bush-house, with a piece of bass hanging 
 out of one pocket. 
 
 "Oh, yes," Missus Catoni laughed softly. "There's 
 going to be a Corona Catoni before long." 
 
 "And you? I hope you don't mind my saying it, 
 Joan, but you're looking most awfully ill." 
 
 "Sorry I don't suit." 
 
 "No, but honestly, how long is it?" 
 
 "Three years." 
 
 "Three years here?" 
 
 "Yes. We're going home for good soon." 
 
 "But well, the sooner the better. Do you know, I 
 hardly recognized you this afternoon; it was the shock 
 of my life." 
 
 "You've had so many shocks, haven't you, Tony? 
 You hid your emotions very well." 
 
 "But you at the Olympic, and you here good heav- 
 ens!" 
 
 "You needn't be tragic, Tony; I assure you there's
 
 THE PRETENDERS 61 
 
 no need. Besides, you hardly ever saw me out of my 
 make-up." 
 
 "It was a great time." The well-modulated voice 
 became reminiscent. "There's never been anything 
 like it since." 
 
 "How did Nina Trueman turn out?" 
 
 A cane chair scraped on the floor. 
 
 "Frost! Hard and nipping. Fell to pieces . . . 
 petered out after you left." 
 
 "And I can't help feeling glad, even here. Isn't it 
 horrid?" 
 
 "Not a bit. Oh, lor, Joan!" 
 
 "Tell me about yourself. How did you find Aus- 
 tralia?" 
 
 "Top-hole. Big houses everywhere, but they're 
 mighty hard to please. I rather like it; it means when 
 you have got them, you've done something. Nothing 
 will induce them to book in advance, though. Empty 
 house one minute and crammed to the ceiling the next. 
 It's rather wearing . . . 'Richard Wentworth* 
 fetched 'em, though, and Fred Walton in 'The Permit.' 
 Never worked so hard in my life." 
 
 "This will rest you . . . Boy, whisky and 
 sparklet." 
 
 "Yes, this will rest me, if nothing would. By the 
 way, Caton doesn't approve, does he?" 
 
 "Not for me. Otherwise he simply takes no interest, 
 that's all." 
 
 "Funny," mused the well-modulated voice. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know. Why should he?" 
 
 "Well "
 
 62 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "We do rather insist on it I mean our profession 
 don't we?" 
 
 "Ha, ha! So you're going over?" 
 
 "Not a bit. I love it as much as ever; it's part of 
 me." 
 
 "The bigger part?" 
 
 "No, not the bigger part. I'm sorry. Let's go for a 
 stroll. You haven't seen the orchids." 
 
 "Orchids!" The well-modulated voice grew fainter 
 as it moved down the veranda steps and out on to the 
 pathway. "Tell me a few, for Heaven's sake the 
 Corello Mysterioso or Glorioso, or something. I must 
 appear intelligent." 
 
 Missus Catoni laughed. 
 , "There's no need whatever " 
 
 Then their voices passed out of range, and Felisi was 
 left to fit her puzzle together. 
 
 For the next week she had little to do. Missus Ca- 
 toni spent nearly all her time with Missi Redgravie. 
 Occasionally Felisi used to go into the guest's bedroom 
 and stand enthralled before the what-not of boots. 
 There were ten pairs of them, each perfect in its own 
 way. 
 
 One evening Missus Catoni had been playing the 
 piano under the subdued pink light of the standard 
 lamp, and Missi Redgravie was standing in the open 
 doorway, looking out on the moonlit river he turned 
 and looked at her for a long time with a frown on his 
 forehead. Suddenly an eager light came into his eyes, 
 and he strode into the middle of the room. 
 
 "Drawing-room scene second act," he said. "I
 
 THE PRETENDERS 63 
 
 come down O. P." He strolled toward the piano, 
 and a pleading note came into his well-modulated voice. 
 "Won't you sing, Di?" 
 
 And although Missus Catoni's name was not "Di," 
 she looked up as she played, and said very softly, 
 "For you, or the others?" 
 
 "For me." 
 
 She sang, but in the middle of it Missi Redgravie held 
 up his hand. The music ceased, and they stood side by 
 side, a look of terrible fear on their faces, and their eyes 
 turned toward the door. So great was their fear that 
 Felisi, who had been squatting on the veranda, sew- 
 ing, looked about her into the moonlit night to see who 
 was there. 
 
 "He's coming ! " said Missi Redgravie, in an awestruck 
 voice. 
 
 " Who Paul ? " whispered Missus Catoni. Her hand 
 was on his sleeve. 
 
 "No, Desmond. I can hear him limping limping!" 
 
 "You're dreaming." She had clutched his arm now, 
 and her face was piteously upturned to his. Felisi 
 longed to go and comfort her. " You must be dreaming. 
 He- 
 
 "No, I am not dreaming." Missi Redgravie pro- 
 nounced this in a firm voice. He seemed to have 
 pulled himself together for a supreme effort. He looked 
 brave, wonderfully brave. "I shall go and meet him." 
 
 "No, no!" Missus Catoni held him fast. "You can- 
 not go, Tom!" 
 
 Now, Felisi knew that Missi Redgravie's name was 
 not Tom, and for her the spell was broken. They were
 
 64 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 pretending, even as Missus Catoni had said. But what 
 pretending! This, then, was what they did in the big 
 house covered with lights. As a matter of fact, Felisi 
 was seeing what the world would have given a fortune 
 to see Joan Trevor acting. 
 
 And they went on to the very end, to where the man 
 called Tom took her in his arms. Then Missus Catoni 
 flung away from him with a happy little laugh and sub- 
 sided on to the sofa. 
 
 "Isn't it extraordinary how it all comes back?" she 
 said, in a changed voice. 
 
 " Comes back ! " Missi Redgravie stood looking down 
 on her. "It's never left you," he said gravely. 
 
 "But every word, like that. I never fluffed once. 
 It must be part of one. Oh, it's queer!" She passed 
 her hand over her eyes with a weary little gesture. 
 
 "Yes," said the man, "the bigger part." 
 
 She smiled wistfully, and shook her head slowly but 
 firmly. 
 
 It was on just such an evening as this, with the trop- 
 ical moonlight flooding the Rena River, that they pre- 
 tended again. 
 
 Missi Catoni had gone on an orchid-hunting expedi- 
 tion into the interior the day before, and Felisi was 
 squatting on the veranda mats, sewing. They were 
 just as they had been Missus Catoni playing the piano, 
 and Missi Redgravie looking out at the moonlit river. 
 The stage was set. Felisi longed for them to pretend, 
 and they did, but it was all much more subdued than 
 it had been before, and somehow it made it all the more 
 natural.
 
 THE PRETENDERS 65 
 
 Presently Missi Redgravie crossed the room and stood 
 beside Missus Catoni as she played. They talked so 
 quietly that Felisi could not hear them for a time. Then 
 the music trailed away and left a voice, a well-modu- 
 lated voice, talking quite clearly. 
 
 "... This can't go on, Joan!" They called 
 each other by their proper names this time. 
 
 "It's my life, Tony," Missus Catoni answered him 
 quietly. 
 
 "But you can't tell me that it is going on." 
 
 She turned on the piano stool and looked at him, and 
 kept looking. 
 
 "It's the life I chose," she said. 
 
 "It's death," he told her; "you're dying on your feet, 
 Joan. This is no country for a white woman. You 
 know it. He knows it," he added bitterly. "Why, 
 people don't bring their dogs here, for fear of losing 
 them! I I can't stand by and see it!" 
 
 "You needn't. I made my choice. I don't regret 
 it." 
 
 "You can't tell me that you're happy here?" 
 
 "I can." 
 
 "You're making yourself say that. You don't be- 
 lieve it. Of all the ingrained, blind selfishness 
 
 "Hush!" 
 
 "No, I mean it." 
 
 "I know you mean it, but you don't understand." 
 
 "Understand! The pity of it the waste of it! Oh, 
 Joan, Joan!" His hands had seized hers. She sat 
 quite still, looking at him with her dark eyes. It was 
 wonderful.
 
 66 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "And you left in the middle of it all! There's the 
 other half the better half waiting for you, if you will 
 only come back." 
 
 Missus Catoni's hands were suddenly snatched from 
 his, and she stood up. Her breath was coming fast. 
 The man stood before her. 
 
 "It can all be arranged. This is madness pure 
 madness ! No one would ask it of you ! " 
 
 She stared at him as though fascinated. 
 
 "You don't understand," she said, like one in a 
 trance; "you could never understand." 
 
 "There's only one thing I understand," he answered. 
 
 They stood quite still for a moment; then Missus 
 Catoni, who faced the veranda door, gave a low cry. 
 Missi Catoni stood on the threshold, looking in, but he 
 saw nothing. A native boy led him by the hand. They 
 had come so quietly that Felisi, engrossed in the pre- 
 tending, had not heard them. The native boy led him 
 forward into the room, and his disengaged hand swept 
 the air until it met the back of a chair, and he sank into 
 it. 
 
 "Joan," he called, "Joan," and laughed his deep 
 laugh. 
 
 Missus Catoni crossed the room and sank on her 
 knees, looking up into his face. 
 
 "Jack," she said, in a strange voice, "Jack, what has 
 happened? Tell me!" 
 
 Again he laughed, and his hand caressed her hair. 
 
 "Bit of moon blindness, my dear,'* he said in his 
 slow, cheerful voice. "Don't you worry. I shall be 
 all right in a few days a week at most. Often hap-
 
 THE PRETENDERS 67 
 
 pens here, you know, but only to fools. I slept last 
 night in the bush, without cover, and it must have 
 worked round until it fell on me. In the shade when I 
 fell asleep. Those confounded boys never woke me, 
 and and here I am. Most extraordinary sensation. 
 Just hand me a cigar, will you? . . . Thanks, my 
 dear. Where's Redgrave?" 
 
 Missi Redgravie came round in front of the chair. 
 
 "Here I am," he said. 
 
 "Ah, good! Here's a pretty pickle, Redgrave. Nice 
 sort of host, eh? Leaves his guest for two days and 
 comes back blind! Ha, ha!" 
 
 "Whisky and sparklet?" suggested Missi Redgravie. 
 
 "Ah, thanks. But I've got it, Joan!" He leant 
 forward, and his sightless eyes gleamed. "I've got it!" 
 
 "The Corona Catoni?" Missus Catoni's face lit up 
 on the instant. 
 
 "Nothing less, my dear. And it's it's But I 
 
 won't bore you about that. What will interest you 
 most is that we're going home. Yes, I've been think- 
 ing things over while while I've been like this, and this 
 is an infernal country; there's no doubt about it. How 
 you've stood it, I don't know. Do you, Redgrave?" 
 
 "No," said Missi Redgravie. 
 
 "Besides, there's the Corona Catoni." Missi Catoni's 
 tongue lingered over the words as though he loved them. 
 "So we're going home for good. Hope you'll come 
 and see us, Redgrave." 
 
 "Thanks," said Missi Redgravie, "I should be 
 charmed." 
 
 "And now I've got to get to bed somehow." Missus
 
 68 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 Catoni led him toward his bedroom door. "Steady, 
 old girl that's better! Good-night, Redgrave! Hope 
 you'll excuse me." 
 
 "Certainly! Good-night!" said Missi Redgravie. 
 
 He left that evening. 
 
 There would be no more pretending. Felisi was 
 sorry. It had been so wonderful that it was almost im- 
 possible to tell where the pretending ended and the 
 reality began. 
 
 Felisi often puckers her brow over it.
 
 THE COMPLETE BEACHCOMBER 
 
 THE imitation pink coral factory was situated 
 high up on a cliff about a mile along the coast 
 from Levuka. 
 
 Those who associate the word "factory" with a men- 
 tal picture of towering chimneys belching black smoke, 
 the hum of machinery, and streams of pale-faced men 
 and women hurrying to work with papier mdchS dis- 
 patch cases of lunch in their hands, will be grievously 
 disappointed, because in this particular instance the 
 factory belonged to Felisi of Luana, and, like its inven- 
 tor, the process of production was as simple as it was 
 effective. 
 
 You merely go out to the reef at low tide, collect as 
 many of the myriad white coral fronds from the rock 
 pools as you can comfortably carry in a reed basket, 
 and take it on your head up to the factory. There you 
 will find a miniature waterfall gushing down the rocks 
 behind Jimmie's house, and after placing the coral 
 fronds under the fresh water which, of course, kills the 
 poor little coral polyp and turns his limy, grayish-green 
 house into a snow-white thing of beauty you squat in 
 the sun, smoking and listening to Jimmie's latest ef- 
 fusion, declaimed in rolling accents to the four winds of 
 the Pacific Ocean before he trades it at the nearest store 
 for a tin of kerosene or bottle of whisky.
 
 70 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 This may take an hour, and it may take longer, but at 
 the end of it you mix a packet of a popular dye in a 
 bucket of water and allow the snow-white coral to soak 
 in it. This turns it pink pink all through, because 
 coral is absorbent and you sell it to tourists on Levuka 
 wharf in very small quantities and for fabulous sums, 
 because pink coral is scarce. 
 
 Yes, Felisi had returned to coral selling on the wharf. 
 The white people on the Rena River, where she had 
 been "something in the nature of a lady's maid," had 
 gone "home," and there was still a goodly number of 
 gold discs to be collected by Felisi and her female rela- 
 tions before a certain wonderful boat became her 
 father's property. 
 
 Felisi was far from pleased at the change of employ- 
 ment. For an ardent student of the white man and his 
 ways, the tourists on the wharf, not to mention a nag- 
 ging aunt at home, offered a poor substitute for the 
 freedom of movement and observation in a white house- 
 hold. To be sure, there was Jimmie. But then there 
 was always Jimmie; he was as much a part of Levuka 
 as the beach itself, and he offered no new problem to 
 puzzle and enthral. 
 
 To Felisi, as to all natives of "The Islands of the 
 Blessed," there are only two kinds of white men those 
 who belong and those who do not belong. The former 
 variety wears soiled ducks and a battered pith helmet, 
 drinks rather more than the climate allows, understands 
 the natives, and seems as happy and contented as the 
 day is long, provided he has tobacco, whisky, bed, and 
 friends. The other wears clean starched ducks with a
 
 THE COMPLETE BEACHCOMBER 71 
 
 knife-like crease down the front of the trousers which, 
 by the way, are always turned up at the bottom a 
 magnificent solar topee, and an art-coloured tie. He 
 knows nothing of the native, and cares less, and he 
 carries his troubles with him out of the world into the 
 Islands, which results in his having a careworn ap- 
 pearance and always being in a hurry. 
 
 Then there is the super white man he of speck- 
 less white flannel and white felt hat but Felisi knew 
 little of him, except that on the wharf he and his 
 women folk were the easiest prey to imitation pink 
 coral. 
 
 Jimmie belonged to the first of this category, and for 
 this reason Felisi understood and loved the old man, as 
 she understood and loved the rainbow-tinted fish in a 
 rock pool. Moreover, his tin bucket and miniature 
 waterfall were exceedingly useful. 
 
 The dyeing process was in full swing when he caught 
 sight of her this morning, on her return from the Rena 
 River, and he welcomed her as though she had never 
 been absent. 
 
 "Hi, Felisi!" he bellowed, advancing on her with a 
 sheet of crumpled paper fluttering from his hand, and 
 the light of inspiration flashing in his eye. "If this 
 doesn't get 'em, nothing will. It's a peach, a rip- 
 snorter, a - Listen to this!" 
 
 Jimmie had been a large man. His frame was still 
 large, especially the feet, but he had lost flesh. He 
 occasionally ate, but what he really lived on was tobacco 
 and whisky, and perhaps this had something to do with 
 his woeful skinniness. He still had a well-shaped head
 
 72 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 and remarkable hands. Felisi had often watched these 
 hands of Jimmie's and marvelled at their shapeliness. 
 Apart from them and his head, he was a scarecrow. His 
 hair and beard were like gray birds' nests, and his 
 clothes scanty enough, in all conscience seemed to 
 touch him nowhere but at the shoulders. 
 
 He was sitting now on the edge of the cliff his 
 favourite seat with his enormous feet dangling over 
 the edge, and one shapely hand upraised as though in 
 exhortation, as he gave a gentle southeast Trade the 
 benefit of the following in a rolling baritone 
 
 "Oh, wondrous Isle of Ovalau, 
 
 How oft I ponder on thy charms ! 
 Naught can compare with thee, I vow, 
 
 Thy green, green hills and nodding palms! 
 
 Beautiful, you know," he added, with an air of pardon- 
 able pride, "really, beautiful that. You notice, it 
 rolls literally rolls off the tongue, and the sentiment's 
 sound perfectly sound." 
 
 He was not addressing Felisi, but the proprietress of 
 the imitation pink coral factory knew this perfectly well, 
 and did not resent it in the least. It was a way of 
 Jimmie's. She represented a figure-head at which 
 he could hurl his rhetoric without fear of criticism 
 a useful article for a poet to have on occasions. But 
 this morning he was not aware that Felisi had 
 only just relinquished a position in a white household, 
 where her English vocabulary had been greatly aug- 
 mented. 
 
 "Why you say 'green, green'?" she demanded, lifting
 
 THE COMPLETE BEACHCOMBER 73 
 
 a frond of coral out of the dye and placing it in the sun 
 to dry. 
 
 Jimmie started visibly, then remembered he was on 
 the cliff, and swung himself into safety. The figure-head 
 had spoken! 
 
 "Aha," he warned, when he had recovered from the 
 sjx>ck, and wagging an attenuated finger at Felisi, *'the 
 little knowledge that is a dangerous thing! And not so 
 slow, either," he added reflectively "I'm not sure 
 that I like 'green, green' myself. Permissible, entirely 
 permissible, but cheap." He looked up with distress 
 written plainly on the yellow parchment of his face. 
 "You have put your finger on the weak spot, my dear." 
 
 He looked so unlike his usual cheerful self at that 
 moment that, although Felisi appreciated the compli- 
 ment, she was sorry she had spoken. 
 
 "There have to be two words there," he mused; 
 "one feels that metre, but suitable adjectives were 
 always my weak point. Vivid! No, two syllables. 
 Pale! No, that would not be painting a true picture. 
 Pure! Rotten!" Jimmie squirmed in the grass and 
 cast appealing eyes to heaven. 
 
 "Big," suggested Felisi. 
 
 Jimmy became suddenly still, and frowned, then 
 smiled. 
 
 "Tall," he said, lingering over the word as if it 
 pleased him. 
 
 "Thy tall green hills and nodding palms." 
 
 "You did that, Felisi," he told her, as though ac- 
 quainting her of a self-accomplished miracle. "And 
 now we come to the point a fall from Pegasus, I
 
 74 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 admit, but a necessary fall." The hand was again up- 
 raised. 
 
 "Yet stop 
 
 (And here is where the attention is at once arrested. 
 Parsons can't help seeing that) 
 
 "Yet stop! There is one other feast 
 
 Afforded by this isle afar, 
 And that is Boulton's store down East, 
 Where dwells the only real cigar. 
 
 So mild it is, so succulent 
 It wafts " 
 
 Entirely by accident Felisi dropped a frond of coral 
 into the dye. It made a sickening splash, and Jimmie 
 stopped like a clock with a broken mainspring. He 
 said nothing what was there to say? but his pained 
 look went to Felisi's heart. 
 
 "Me sorry, Jimmie," she pleaded, squatting in the 
 grass before him; "you no stop, please." 
 
 "If you're ready," said Jimmie, with dignity, "we'll 
 go down and sell our produce." 
 
 They descended the red earth track together, Felisi 
 with a light step and a basket of coral on her head, 
 Jimmie with his loose-jointed shuffle and a scrap of 
 paper neatly folded in his pocket. This scrap of paper 
 was the only thing in life that Jimmie was neat about. 
 
 He chuckled as they crossed the bridge and turned 
 on to the beach. 
 
 "We're a couple of impostors, Felisi," he told her, hi 
 a confidential undertone.
 
 THE COMPLETE BEACHCOMBER 75 
 
 "Impostors," mimicked Felisi. 
 
 "Yes, pretenders. Your coral isn't real. My poem 
 isn't real." 
 
 "Poem no real?" she queried, in genuine surprise. 
 
 "No, it can't be. It's too easy. You just put down 
 a word coral, anything then think of a word that 
 rhymes with it moral, anything and fill in the rest how 
 you like. It's too easy; but I mustn't let 'em know it," 
 he chuckled. "Oh, dear, no any more than you must 
 let 'em know how you make pink coral." 
 
 They laughed together in the sunlight, a laugh of 
 mutual understanding. 
 
 Felisi felt a certain sense of proprietorship in Jimmie's 
 poem. Had she not helped to supply a word a very 
 vital word? She determined to see it sold. The basket 
 of coral was left with the nagging aunt, and Felisi fol- 
 lowed Jimmie into Parsons 's store. She wondered, 
 as she threaded her way through the stacks of kerosene, 
 tins, rope, leaf tobacco, and coloured shirts, why he had 
 come to Parsons's when the poem distinctly said 
 "Boulton's," but it was soon made apparent. 
 
 "Good morning, Mr. Parsons," was Jimmie's greet- 
 ing, and he said it as though he meant it, as though it 
 were an entirely original remark. 
 
 "Morning, Jim." 
 
 Missi Parsonic was a busy man. At eighty degrees 
 in the shade, without a customer in sight, and as much 
 chance of doing business as a derelict whaler, he was 
 always busy. He had learnt his methods in America, 
 and they had answered, if the prosperity of his store 
 went for anything. With garters on his sleeves, and an
 
 76 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 intent expression on his hatchet face, he was sorting 
 shirts at the moment; but there was an open tin of mixed 
 biscuits on the counter, and from this Jimmie daintily 
 extracted samples from time to time, and ate them with 
 the air of a connoisseur. 
 
 "An uncommonly fine morning, for the hurricane 
 season," remarked Jimmie. "This is a much-maligned 
 country, Mr. Parsons. Hurricane season, indeed!" 
 His indignation had the effect of accelerating the con- 
 sumption of biscuits. "They should go to the Malay 
 States if they want to see hurricanes. Ours are a 
 mere zephyr zephyr, sir, in comparison." At the 
 end of the counter were stacked packets of safety 
 matches and tins of tobacco. Jimmie sidled along the 
 counter, talking as he went, and appropriated one 
 of each with the utmost delicacy and frankness. Missi 
 Parsonic had disapproved, but slowly he had given 
 way, finding it better to conform to old-established 
 institutions than to get himself disliked even by 
 Jimmie. 
 
 His "shopping" completed, and the two pockets 
 of his disreputable jacket bulging generously, Jimmie 
 took a half seat by the side of the counter, and 
 produced the neatly folded paper. He cleared his 
 throat. 
 
 "I have here," he said impressively, tapping the paper 
 with his attenuated forefinger, "I have here something 
 that will interest you, Mr. Parsons" Missi Parsonic 
 regarded Jimmie without emotion "a little thing that 
 I must confess gave me considerable trouble. But I 
 think it's worth it. It will look well in the Herald in
 
 THE COMPLETE BEACHCOMBER 77 
 
 block type, you know, with good spacing well, like 
 Boulton's of last week." 
 
 "Boulton's?" queried Missi Parsonic, with a faint 
 frown. 
 
 "Yes, I think he'll like this one, don't you as a man 
 of judgment Mr. Parsons?" 
 
 He read the poem from beginning to end, still in the 
 rolling baritone, still with the shapely hand upraised. 
 But Missi Parsonic seemed quite unimpressed. As a 
 matter of fact, this thing was beginning to annoy him. 
 Each week for a month, now his rival Boulton had 
 actually bought this trash from Jim and printed it over 
 the signature of "James" in the Herald. And it was 
 catching on that was the absurdity and the exaspera- 
 tion of it. Everyone even up country knew Jim, 
 and they had come to look for his weekly effusion. 
 
 "That's all right, Jim, I guess," he admitted, 
 "though I'm not much of a judge of that sort of thing. 
 Boulton ought to like it. He handles cigars; we don't." 
 
 "And what is your specialty, Mr. Parsons?" 
 
 "Well, just at present we're handling a line of zephyr 
 vest that's going to show folks how to dress in the 
 tropics." 
 
 "Vests!" cried Jimmie, with sudden animation. 
 "Vest, you said. I like it better positively, I like it 
 better! More opportunities with *vest.' How's this? 
 The first verse can stand, then 
 
 "Yet stop! There is one other feast 
 
 Upon this Island of the Blest, 
 And that is Parsons's store down East, 
 Where dwells the only zephyr vest.
 
 78 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "So cool it is, so feather-light, 
 
 It sits with such an easy grace, 
 That you may walk with all your might 
 And not a bead will beck your face." 
 
 Jimmie stopped, expectant. Missi Parsonic had re- 
 sumed his task of sorting shirts. 
 
 "Y-e-s," he said, "something like that, and I'll take 
 it. I want five verses, each bringing in Tarsons's 
 Zephyr Vest,' just like that. I shan't want the first 
 verse. What do you charge?" 
 
 Jimmie leant over the counter and whispered into 
 Missi Parsonie's ear. The latter looked up doubt- 
 fully, then nodded. 
 
 "And in advance," added Jimmie, with unlooked-for 
 firmness. "It takes a lot out of one, though you might 
 not think it, Mr. Parsons. It is doubtful if I shall sleep 
 to-night. You shall have it first thing in the morning." 
 
 Missi Parsonic hesitated. 
 
 "Mr. Boulton always pays in advance. One must 
 live, you know," added Jimmie, with quiet dignity. 
 
 Missi Parsonic disappeared behind a stack of kerosene 
 cases, and to Felisi it was a curious thing that, while he 
 was gone, Jimmie helped himself to nothing, not even a 
 biscuit. 
 
 A few minutes later he shuffled out on to the beach, 
 carrying a parcel packed to look like anything but what 
 it was, and failing utterly. 
 
 There were discreet sounds of revelry issuing from 
 Jimmie's house when Felisi visited the factory that 
 evening. She knew there would be, and she entered 
 without knocking.
 
 THE COMPLETE BEACHCOMBER 79 
 
 The old man was sitting at the packing case which 
 did service for a table, with a litter of paper at his 
 elbows, talking quietly to himself. He took no 
 notice of her entrance, and she sat and listened. 
 These self-communings of Jimmie's always interested 
 her. 
 
 "Parsons's zephyr vest," he said, three times and 
 very distinctly. "Vest west best blest test 
 messed jest. . . ." His voice trailed away as rain 
 commenced to patter on the corrugated iron roof. A 
 wistful look came into Jimmie's eyes; then he seemed 
 to notice Felisi for the first time. He looked at her, and 
 commenced to speak. 
 
 "Rain! I never hear ram, never see it sloping down 
 rain, rain, rain without thinking of Watlington, 
 and then it all comes back all of it ugh!" He shud- 
 dered convulsively. "Fancy thinking of Watlington, 
 after all I've seen Watlington!" 
 
 He laughed quietly, and Felisi joined in. She was a 
 born listener. 
 
 "Queer, isn't it? But there it is. Most impression- 
 able age, I suppose eighteen to twenty-two Wat- 
 lington! Rows and rows of little gray houses, all 
 the same, and all full of the same sort of people." 
 Again Jimmie shuddered. "Suburbans, that's what 
 they call 'em and the rain a cold, dreary rain. It 
 makes no difference. Every morning, alarm clock six- 
 thirty breakfast seven o'clock, porridge, egg, marma- 
 lade. Train eight o'clock with a black bag. Under- 
 ground crowded have to stand. Nine o'clock sign 
 book and climb on to a stool "
 
 80 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 Jimmie was still looking at Felisi, but he did not see 
 her. He was listening to the rain, and his voice had 
 become a dreary monotone. 
 
 Felisi was thoroughly enjoying it. It was another 
 puzzle that only needed to be put together, and she was 
 becoming an expert at the game. 
 
 " Stay on stool adding up figures . . . One o'clock 
 lunch one shilling stool, stool, stool six o'clock train 
 underground crowded have to stand Watlington 
 Rain dinner read, talk, drivel listen to someone 
 torturing the piano every day all day, for days, and 
 weeks, and months, and years!" Jimmie's voice rose 
 in a harsh crescendo. "Are they mad? Or am I?" 
 His eyes came to rest on Felisi in a challenging glare, 
 and she knew that he saw her now. 
 
 "Queer, isn't it?" he said, with sudden quietness. 
 "People are doing that now over there. And they 
 think it so fine that they want everybody to do it. They 
 wanted me to do it. I did it for four years. Then I 
 came home to Watlington one night and told them I 
 wasn't going to do it any more. They said I was mad. 
 Perhaps I was, but I didn't do it any more. I did 
 something else, and I'm still doing something else. Lis- 
 ten to the rain! Watlington!" Jimmie's head sank 
 down on to his arms. " Parsons' s zephyr vests!" 
 
 he muttered drowsily. " Cool pool rule " He was 
 
 asleep. 
 
 He was really still asleep when Felisi led him to his 
 bed in the corner and left him with the mosquito curtain 
 well tucked in under the mats. She fitted together the 
 puzzle as she went down the red earth track leading to
 
 THE COMPLETE BEACHCOMBER 81 
 
 her aunt's grass house on the outskirts of Levuka, and 
 she found it entertaining. The way of the white man 
 had always interested her. 
 
 The next day a steamer came in, and she was busy. 
 It was not until the following morning that she visi- 
 ted the factory, and was met by Jimmie in rather low 
 spirits. 
 
 "What d'you think?" he demanded indignantly, 
 while Felisi was setting fronds under the waterfall. 
 "That little rat Parsons won't buy my work unless it's 
 exclusive." 
 
 "Exclusive," mimicked Felisi. 
 
 "Yes, you know unless he is the only man to have 
 it. Swears that I promised that. Did I?" 
 
 "No," said Felisi. 
 
 "I should think not. It means I couldn't do any- 
 thing for Boulton, and he was the first to publish me. 
 I shall give up Parsons." 
 
 The ultimatum was delivered in all gravity. It 
 meant that Jimmy would never again patronize Parsons 
 for biscuits or matches or tobacco. Felisi felt quite 
 sorry for the erring tradesman. 
 
 "Him pay you already," she suggested. 
 
 Jimmie hung his head. 
 
 "I know," he said, "and it's all gone. Most awk- 
 ward. But perhaps Boulton will settle the matter. 
 I have the very thing for next week 
 
 "Why do we all return in time, 
 
 As though by magnet swiftly drawn, 
 To Ovalau's voluptuous clime, 
 Where "
 
 82 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 But Felisi heard no more. She was gazing spell- 
 bound past the upraised shapely hand to where the 
 track breasted the hill. Her quick eyes had detected 
 two white objects appearing over the crest. They 
 were solar topees that rapidly evolved themselves 
 into men white men. One was short and plump 
 and pink, the other tall and dark. Felisi had seen 
 them both before, and knew one to be a well-known 
 Levuka solicitor. The other she had seen coming 
 down the gangway of the steamer the previous day. 
 She remembered him partly because of his vague 
 resemblance to Jimmie, and partly because he had 
 brushed her aside when she offered the imitation pink 
 coral. 
 
 They stood in full view now, pausing for breath, 
 then the pink man turned and disappeared down the 
 track, and the other came striding toward them. 
 
 The first thing that caused Jimmie to pause in the 
 midst of a particularly flowing stanza was the expres- 
 sion of Felisi's face. He wheeled, quicker than Felisi 
 could have dreamed it possible, and stood stone still, 
 staring into the other's face, and not seeming to notice 
 his outstretched hand. 
 
 "Jim," said the stranger, "don't you know me? 
 Your brother, Charles." 
 
 Jimmie spoke, but it was like a mechanical figure 
 speaking out of waxen lips : 
 
 "There's some mistake, I'm afraid." 
 
 "No, there's no mistake. You must know me, Jim. 
 Why, man, I " 
 
 Jimmie was swaying gently where he stood. His
 
 THE COMPLETE BEACHCOMBER 83 
 
 yellow face had turned a waxen gray. Then he crum- 
 pled forward into the stranger's arms. 
 
 There were strange happenings on the cliff for the next 
 few hours. Felisi watched them, enthralled, whilst 
 Jimmie lay in the grass, staring stonily up into the 
 branches of a breadfruit tree, with a rapidly rising 
 temperature. 
 
 The stranger performed miracles quietly and rapidly. 
 The murmur of native voices came over the crest of the 
 hill, but no one appeared. Every now and then the 
 stranger vanished, too, to reappear dragging or carrying 
 some bulky, queer-shaped bundle. A speckless white 
 tent sprang into being, beds, a table, and chairs unfolded 
 themselves from green parcels of miraculously small 
 proportions, and by noon the transformation scene was 
 complete. Jimmie, in a suit of striped pink-and- white 
 pyjamas, lay on a camp-bed in the tent, tossing and 
 muttering with fever. The stranger sat at the bedside, 
 alternately watching him with his stern eyes, and dosing 
 him with quinine. 
 
 Presently, when Jimmie had fallen into a doze, the 
 stranger came outside and looked about him. His 
 glance went like an arrow to the tumbledown house of 
 weather boards and corrugated iron that had been 
 Jimmie's home for so long. His hand went to his 
 pocket and drew out a box of matches. His long legs 
 carried him to the building in ten strides, and a moment 
 later it was a crackling yellow flame. It burnt merrily 
 until there was nothing left but glowing embers and a 
 few blackened sheets of corrugated iron. These the 
 stranger pried into a neat pile with the aid of a stick,
 
 84 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 and stood back to view, with every appearance of satis- 
 faction, the damage he had wrought. 
 
 Then his glance fell on Felisi, squatting motionless in 
 the factory. She shrank from him as he approached. 
 
 "Don't run aw^ay," he pleaded, in a wheedling voice. 
 "Do you speak English, little girl?" 
 
 Felisi nodded sullenly. 
 
 *' You do? Then let me make it quite clear. I have 
 bought this piece of land. Do you understand?" 
 
 Again Felisi nodded. 
 
 "So now it belongs to me, and you mustn't come 
 here." 
 
 "Jimmie belong you?" demanded Felisi, with a hint 
 of truculence. 
 
 The stranger laughed softly. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "Jimmie belongs to me. He is 
 my brother. He is very ill, and when he gets better 
 I don't want anything to remind him of what he 
 was." 
 
 " You make him ill!" flashed Felisi. "Him all right 
 before." 
 
 "Yes," said the stranger, "Jimmie has to be ill before 
 he will be well. Now run along, there's a good girl. 
 What is this?" he added, pointing to the factory. 
 
 "Pink coral," said Felisi glibly. " You no want." 
 
 "No, I don't want any. But here" the stranger 
 produced a silver coin and held it out "then you can 
 run along." 
 
 Felisi rose slowly to her feet and turned toward the 
 track. But she did not run, and she left the silver coin 
 in the still outstretched hand of the astonished donor.
 
 THE COMPLETE BEACHCOMBER 85 
 
 She heard his short laugh as she went down the track, 
 and her white teeth closed with a snap like an ivory trap. 
 
 There was now plenty of puzzle to put together, and 
 Felisi entered into the game with a new zest. That 
 evening she hid in a lantana bush a few yards from the 
 tent, and, as well as witnessing a most interesting shadow- 
 graph on the white canvas wall, heard the following: 
 
 "Jim, are you better?" 
 
 "Who the devil are you?" 
 
 "Your brother Charles. You must remember me. 
 Have you forgotten Watlington the old days?" 
 
 A short pause. 
 
 "Never heard of it. What do you want, anyway?" 
 
 "I want you, Jim." 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 "Because you're my brother." 
 
 "Haven't got a brother. Some mistake. Got a 
 drink there?" 
 
 There was the shadowgraph of a hand going out and 
 filling a glass very carefully from a bottle and a syphon. 
 
 "Call that a drink?" 
 
 "We're going to fight it out, Jim, up here alone. A 
 little less each time; you won't notice it." 
 
 "What's all this?" 
 
 "Pyjamas. Don't they feel nice and cool and and 
 clean? Lie still, Jim; you're not strong yet, you know." 
 
 "If I didn't know it, I'd choke you, you you super- 
 cilious, domineering 
 
 "Ah, the same old Jim!" 
 
 " Get out of here ! Who gave you permission to come 
 on to my my property, and
 
 86 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "It was never your property, Jim. They let you live 
 here, but it's not yours. It's mine now I've bought it." 
 
 A long silence, then 
 
 "It's no good, Jim. Be reasonable. I don't want 
 much only that you'll come back with me and live 
 like a civilized human being. You owe it to us." 
 
 "I owe nothing to any one except Parsons." 
 
 "You owe it to us. I came fifteen thousand miles to 
 find you, to bring you back. I left my wife and two 
 children for that, and I shall not return until you come 
 with me. Why, just now, in your fever, you mentioned 
 Watlington over and over again. When you first came 
 to Levuka, you signed your name in the hotel register; 
 there it is, in your own handwriting J. Crothers. 
 There aren't many Crotherses, you know, Jim. What's 
 the use of pretending? It isn't as if you left anything 
 to be ashamed of in Watlington. You just went and 
 never came back, that's all. It was a tremendous busi- 
 ness to trace you, but I did it. The world's very small, 
 really. Won't you even admit 
 
 "Never heard of you. Get out!" 
 
 " Very well. You know me, and I know you. I shall 
 stay with you until you do come back. My wife and 
 children can wait." 
 
 There was the shadowgraph, slightly marred by the 
 billowing tent wall, of an attenuated figure rearing it- 
 self up and falling upon something out of the range of 
 vision. There were the sounds of a brief struggle, the 
 indefinite picture of something being gently laid down, 
 and silence. 
 
 "You always hated me, didn't you, Jim?" a voice
 
 THE COMPLETE BEACHCOMBER 87 
 
 droned on presently. "I think you hated all of us; I 
 could never make out why." 
 
 "For Heaven's sake, go away and leave me in peace!'* 
 It was the cry of a tortured soul. "What harm have I 
 done any one any one to be interfered with like this? " 
 
 "You have only harmed yourself, Jim." 
 
 "Then what business is it of yours to to " 
 
 "It is the business of every brother 
 
 "But I tell you it's a mistake! I have no brother. 
 Do you want to drive me mad?" 
 
 "No; but I must finish, now that I have begun. You 
 want to know why I came all this way, now, to find you 
 and bring you back?" 
 
 "I don't! I never said I did. I " 
 
 "Well, Uncle Fred died five years ago." The dron- 
 ing voice became more hesitant. "He left some money 
 to be equally divided between us. I spent it all for the 
 children's sake." The voice stopped. It had evidently 
 been a tremendous effort to say as much. But there 
 was no answer, and it went on: "Then I began to think 
 about you, Jim. You became a short of ghost to haunt 
 me. I just had to tell you what I'd done. I'm built 
 like that, as you know. I just had to find out where 
 you were what you were doing. You might have been 
 out in the world starving, and there was I in Watlington. 
 I had wife and children, but your ghost rose up between 
 them and me. I left them, and swore I would not come 
 back until I brought you with me. You might have 
 been ill wanted help for years. I hunted for you and 
 found you like this. We'll fight it out together, Jim, 
 up here alone."
 
 88 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 There were indistinct mumblings. 
 
 Felisi listened intently, but all she could catch was 
 something that sounded like "vest blest west " 
 
 Jimmie was in the grip of fever again. 
 
 For three days this went on, and when Felisi saw him 
 one day sitting outside the tent, he had changed from a 
 happy child into a miserable old man. 
 
 It took Felisi some time to come to a decision, but 
 when once it had been arrived at, the result was usually 
 pretty thorough. 
 
 Shortly after midnight she crawled out from the 
 lantana bush and pushed the tent wall so that it also 
 pushed Jimmie, at the same time making a queer little 
 noise of her own. There was an agonizing pause, 
 then an elongated form crawled from the tent, seized 
 her by the hand, and stumbled after her into the bush. 
 
 They progressed in this fashion Jimmie called it 
 running for perhaps an hour, before he was allowed to 
 sink on to the musty mats of a disused hut deep in the 
 recesses of the bush. He lay as one dead, until Felisi 
 produced from somewhere with the air of a conjurer 
 producing rabbits from a hat a bottle of amber liquid. 
 Then Jimmie sat up. 
 
 "Felisi, you're a gem," he said, with something of his 
 old-time spirit. 
 
 "You all right," chirped the conjurer. "Him go 
 away plenty quick." 
 
 But Jimmie shook his head. 
 
 "You don't know my brother Charles," he said. 
 " Watlington ! " And he buried his face in his hands and 
 sobbed like the child he was.
 
 THE COMPLETE BEACHCOMBER 89 
 
 "You all right, you all right," soothed Felisi, but it 
 was of no avail. Jimmie was very weak, and the amber 
 liquid had gone to his head. 
 
 "He's right I always did hate him!" he said. "We 
 were so different, somehow, and he always dominated 
 me. He can dominate me now, after all these years. 
 It's queer, but there it is. I feel all crumpled up when 
 he's about. But I won't go back. He's too late. Any 
 one would be too late now. I was happy. I wasn't 
 doing anybody any harm. And I won't go back! I'd 
 kill myself first!" 
 
 Felisi crept close. 
 
 "Why you no kill him?" she said. 
 
 Jimmie regarded her with horror-struck eyes. 
 
 " Me kill him," she added very quietly. 
 
 "No, you mustn't do that. You shan't do that. I 
 won't let you do that." Jimmie had seized her hand as 
 though it held a dagger upraised. "No!" Jimmie 
 suddenly became dignified. "I will speak to him as a 
 man, not as as the worm he thinks me. After all, I 
 have the law. But the law is queer; it does strange 
 things it might uphold him. No, I shall say: 'Pardon 
 me, I haven't the pleasure of your acquaintance." 
 Jimmie's manner was that of Parsons's store when he 
 
 took a biscuit. "I shall say But then there are his 
 
 wife and children. He has said that he won't go back 
 without me, and he means it. Charles always meant 
 what he said. Different to me poles apart. Never- 
 theless, my life is my own, and I shall say to him 'Go !' 
 like that, I shall 
 
 When, however, about ten minutes later, there was
 
 90 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 the sound of running feet, followed by the appearance of 
 the panting stranger, Jimmie said nothing of the sort. 
 In a surprisingly short space of time he was back in the 
 tent and in bed, with a string tied securely round his 
 waist at one end, and round the stranger's wrist at the 
 other. 
 
 The puzzle became more and more involved, but 
 Felisi struggled with it manfully. 
 
 Jimmie became very docile after that ignominious 
 night of freedom, but the string was still in use, and a 
 few nights later the stranger woke with a start. He 
 pulled on the string gently, and it came toward him 
 over the ground. He got up and examined Jimmie's 
 bed. It was empty. He went outside and watched 
 the sun climb out of the sea. 
 
 What a nuisance that fellow was! No, it was that 
 infernal native girl. It would be necessary, after all, 
 then, to have recourse to the police. 
 
 The stranger turned wearily from the sea, and was 
 entering the tent, when his glance happened on a hud- 
 dled heap of cheap patterned calico close to the water- 
 fall. It was the "infernal native girl." She took no 
 heed of his approach, and when he raised her head, 
 silent tears were streaming down her face. 
 
 "Where is he?" demanded the stranger peremp- 
 torily. 
 
 Felisi did not answer. She merely rocked gently from 
 side to side, kneeling in the grass. 
 
 "Where is he?" repeated the stranger, with quiet in- 
 sistence but with an anxious look in his eyes. 
 
 Felisi pointed to the cliff.
 
 THE COMPLETE BEACHCOMBER 91 
 
 '* You kill him," she said. 
 
 The stranger strode to the edge and looked over. 
 Below, the blue waters of the Pacific lashed themselves 
 into white fury against the needles of volcanic rock at 
 the foot of the cliff. Half- 
 way down, where it was im- 
 possible for a goat to have 
 found foothold, there was a 
 little bush, and fluttering from 
 it a tattered strip of pink-and- 
 white flannel. 
 
 There was no mistaking it for anything but a shred of 
 Jimmie's wonderful pyjamas. 
 
 The stranger looked out over the sea. The white 
 wings of a hurricane bird fanned his face, and he moved. 
 He took Felisi by the shoulders and shook her. 
 
 "You lie!" he said fiercely. "Where is he?" 
 
 " You kill him!" sobbed Felisi, and he could get noth- 
 ing else out of her. 
 
 The very best of search parties scoured the little 
 island of Ovalau for a fortnight. Then the stranger 
 went home in a big steamer. 
 
 Felisi and Jimmie watched it, from the cliff, slowly 
 dissolving into the heat haze. Then the work of the 
 factory was resumed, and Jimmie sat in his favourite 
 seat, declaiming to the sunshine 
 
 "Thrice blessed Isle of Ovalau, 
 Thou art my mother, father, friend 
 
 . . . trow, plow, cow, now, how . . .
 
 THE PEEP SHOW 
 
 fTT^MIE two men broke from the bush and stood 
 blinking in the sudden glare of beach, and sea, 
 -- and sky, like owls strayed from their cranny in 
 the light of day. 
 
 One was tall and very thin, the other short and thin 
 also. Both were ragged, unspeakably begrimed, and so 
 weary that they could scarce stand. 
 
 "Gaw!" said the shorter man, and, as though this 
 strange utterance were some 
 sort of signal, collapsed on the 
 spot. 
 
 The other said nothing, but 
 carefully lowered a round, com- 
 pact bundle from his shoulder 
 to the ground, and sat upon it. 
 
 At this juncture Felisi, who 
 
 had watched their advent from 
 
 the doorway of her father's house, saw fit to make 
 her presence known; and a very engaging presence it 
 was, consisting of five feet two inches and fifteen years 
 of bronze femininity, lithe and upstanding like a boy, 
 clad in her best sulu, a red hibiscus blossom, and a 
 dazzling smile. But what would you? It is not for 
 nothing that one is the eldest daughter of the chief of a 
 
 92
 
 THE PEEP SHOW 93 
 
 village like Luana. The position has its responsibili- 
 ties, and Felisi was duly aware of them. 
 
 "You want 'im guest house?" she suggested amiably. 
 
 The tall man surveyed her for a moment with in- 
 finitely tired gray eyes before a flicker of light came 
 into them and a smile puckered the corners of his month. 
 
 "Are you a Kanaka kid or an angel out of heaven?" 
 he demanded irrelevantly. 
 
 " Me Kanaka kid," replied Felisi, whereat the tall man 
 chuckled weakly. 
 
 "Guest house?" he echoed. "I should just say we 
 do want a guest house. Lead on, Macduff !" 
 
 "Me Felisi, no Macduff," corrected the "presence." 
 "All along this way, please." 
 
 The tall man plucked his prone companion by the arm. 
 "Morgan!" he shouted. "Hi, Morgan! We're being 
 offered a guest house by the head of the department." 
 
 "Go t' 'ell!" muttered Morgan. 
 
 With an alacrity evidently born of habit, the tall man 
 jerked the other to his feet and half carried, half dragged 
 him along the grass-grown village path. The bundle he 
 treated with infinitely more respect, and when Felisi 
 offered to relieve him of it, merely smiled and shook his 
 head. 
 
 The cool, dim spaciousness of the guest house had 
 no sooner received its visitors than Felisi withdrew, to 
 continue her observations from outside through a hole of 
 her own making in the reed wall. It was not precisely 
 the thing to do, but Felisi had no notion of that. All 
 she did know was that the advent of these two dilapi- 
 dated white men was the first occurrence of interest
 
 94 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 that had taken place in Luana for three months, and 
 she intended to make the most of it. They came from 
 the world that she knew and loved so well, throbbing 
 centre of civilization such as Levuka and Suva, where 
 governors and their ladies drove in glittering carriages, 
 where immense ships unloaded impossible freights of 
 passengers and cargo on to the groaning wharves, and 
 where, incidentally, it was possible to amass a fortune 
 by merely looking as charming as one happened to be, 
 and selling imitation pink coral to credulous tourists. 
 Already by this means she (Felisi) had been instru- 
 mental in securing to her family a sewing-machine, a 
 boat, and a typewriter, and she had no doubt, when 
 the novelty of this last acquisition had worn off, she 
 would be hurled again into the vortex. She only prayed 
 that it might be soon. 
 
 With this boundless experience of the white man and 
 his ways at her finger tips, Felisi was in no way surpris- 
 ed at what she saw through the hole in the guest house 
 wall. Morgan lay as he had fallen on the mats, a sprawl- 
 ing, heavily breathing heap of unclean humanity. The 
 other looked about him, found a bamboo of water, and 
 washed, took off his boots and, squatting on the floor, 
 drew from his bundle a pair of faded pyjamas and a 
 toothbrush. 
 
 The rites that followed interested Felisi not at all; 
 her attention was for the moment centred on the bun- 
 dle. Other things came out of it, yet its dimensions 
 remained miraculously the same. It was still heavy, 
 and round, and about the size of a ripe mummy apple. 
 It
 
 THE PEEP SHOW 95 
 
 The tall man placed it under his head, and on the 
 instant, so it seemed, fell into a trance-like sleep. The 
 curtain was rung down on the first act of Felisi's peep 
 show. But there was still the bundle. 
 
 Within five minutes she knew what it contained, and 
 like a dutiful daughter, made a report to her father. 
 
 "They have come far and are very tired," she told 
 him, squatting in her proper place at the doorway. 
 
 The Chief of Luana looked up from a litter of mean- 
 ingless papers, and fixed Felisi with his official frown. 
 He was a quaint little man, who, under pretence of be- 
 ing eternally busy, did nothing whatever. As a newly 
 elected member of the local native district council, he 
 had been inordinately impressed at the first assembly 
 by the importance of anything in the nature of a printed 
 form. Whatever its shape or colour or size, it was ap- 
 parent to him that all things had their inception, their 
 proper conduct, and ultimate fruition in "forms," so he 
 had brought away a kerosene tin full of them for his 
 own use. The typewriter followed as a second and 
 culminating stroke of originality. He would send in 
 the returns of Luana's health, population, and trade 
 as they should be sent in. He intended to get on. Care- 
 fully selecting a faded blue document issued for the re- 
 turns of cattle diseases in the year 1891, he slipped it 
 into the machine and proceeded with two gnarled fingers 
 to pound it with purple hieroglyphics. 
 
 "Are they turagas (gentlemen)?" he snapped during 
 a pause in proceedings, and precisely in the manner 
 of the local J. P. 
 
 "One of them is a turaga" replied his daughter, who
 
 96 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 was the only member of his household he seemed un- 
 able to impress. 
 
 "And what is their business?" 
 
 " I do not know yet. They have not spoken. They 
 are asleep." 
 
 "Have they many cigars and much wisiky?" 
 
 "They have nothing," said Felisi, "except " 
 
 The Chief of Luana had intended to smite the wicker 
 table after the fashion of the Native Commissioner when 
 exasperated, but, instead, his wrist caught the type- 
 writer keys, causing several bars to rear on end and 
 unite in a tangled mass. 
 
 "One is a turaga" he scoffed, "yet they have noth- 
 ing!" 
 
 "That is so," returned his imperturbable daughter. 
 "It is often so with turagas. This one has nothing but 
 a lump of ambergris the size of my head, which he keeps 
 ever by him." 
 
 Her father's eyes goggled at her over the typewriter. 
 
 "Ambergris!" he repeated in an awed undertone. 
 
 "Yes. It is one hundred pounds for a piece no big- 
 ger than a pigeon's egg in Suva. I have seen." 
 
 And the Chief of Luana knew this to be so. For a 
 while his brow was creased by a myriad wrinkles, which 
 signified that he was trying to think; then he waved 
 Felisi from the presence. 
 
 "Go," he ordered, "and tend these guests as you 
 would others. I will make known the Government's 
 wishes when I have submitted my report." 
 
 Felisi proceeded to carry out instructions with all the 
 pleasure in life, so that when the visitors awoke, after
 
 THE PEEP SHOW 97 
 
 twenty-four hours of log-like slumber, they found the 
 matting spread with delicacies, and their guide of the 
 previous night in discreet attendance. 
 
 "This is a bit of all right," quoth Morgan, ravenously 
 attacking the prawns. 
 
 "Very kind," said the tall man; " but I think we ought 
 to tell you," he added, turning to Felisi, "we can't pay 
 for anything. We have no money." 
 
 "Oh, that's all right," said Morgan through a mouth- 
 ful. "This is the way in the out-back villages guest 
 house and all the rest of it. I know down-and-outs 
 who've lived like princes for three months and more in 
 one of 'em for nothing but an old shirt. We're on vel- 
 vet, Slade, and about time, too, I reckon." 
 
 The tall man waited until the other's voice was 
 entirely deadened by food, then turned again to their 
 hostess. 
 
 "Where are we?" he asked, with his whimsical smile. 
 
 "Him Luana," came the response out of the shadows. 
 
 "Luana, eh? Well, it sounds pretty, and is pretty, 
 but how do we get out of here to where there are steam- 
 ers steamers, savvy?" 
 
 "Me savvy," replied Felisi, with a pout at the re- 
 flection on her intelligence. "You wait maybe six, 
 maybe thirty day, and cutter him take you outahere." 
 
 "Maybe six, maybe thirty," mused the tall man. 
 "And whom do we thank for looking after us all that 
 time?" 
 
 Felisi wriggled in delicious self-consciousness on the 
 mats. 
 
 "Oh, cut it out, Slade," interposed Morgan. "They
 
 98 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 don't want thanks. Don't understand 'em. They 
 look after us for the honour of the thing. Pleases the 
 chief, and all that. As long as we are looked after, what 
 does it matter who does it, or why? You make me 
 tired. Hi, Mary, some more faro, lively!" 
 
 "Will you go to the Chief of Luana," continued the 
 tall man, as though the other had not spoken, "and 
 convey to him our thanks?" 
 
 Felisi nodded and retired, whereupon the tall man 
 drew a battered pouch from his pocket and thoughtfully 
 filled his pipe. 
 
 "Look here, Morgan," he said, "it's about time you 
 and I understood one another." 
 
 "I'm on," agreed Morgan. 
 
 "We're partners," the other continued slowly, "until 
 we sell and divide the proceeds; there's no avoiding that. 
 But there's no need to hide the fact that we dislike each 
 other pretty thoroughly, is there?" 
 
 Morgan drew his knees to his chin, and sat staring 
 over them with his bright, furtive little eyes. 
 
 "All right," he said, "we'll let it go at that." 
 
 "And personally I don't see any need for us to rely 
 solely on one another's company for perhaps thirty 
 more days, either, do you?" 
 
 There was no answer. 
 
 "So, while we're waiting for a cutter, I suggest 
 that either you or I get out of here. Which is it to 
 be?" 
 
 "Who looks after the stuff?" 
 
 "I do," said Slade. 
 
 "I see," sneered Morgan.
 
 THE PEEP SHOW 99 
 
 "I do," Slade repeated, puffing meditatively at his 
 pipe. "I don't trust you, Morgan." 
 
 "And why should I trust you?" 
 
 "Because I've never given you cause to distrust me," 
 returned Slade. He turned slowly and looked full into 
 the venomous eyes of his partner. "I found you out 
 that's why you hate me so, Morgan. I suppose 
 you've forgotten all that happened back there in the 
 mangroves. I haven't. Why, man, you wouldn't 
 be here now if I hadn't dragged and carried and kicked 
 you here! Yet ever since I ran across this stuff your 
 one thought has been how to rob me of my share of it. 
 Twice I caught you, Morgan, slinking off. The first 
 time I believed the yarn you put up, instead of leaving 
 you to rot. The second time you confessed and asked 
 my forgiveness, grovelling there in the swamp " 
 
 "Who'll believe that?" 
 
 "No one, because no one will be told of it; but I know 
 it, and that's why you hate me, and that's why I distrust 
 you, and why I'm going to look after our property until 
 it's sold." 
 
 A glint came into Morgan's eyes. 
 
 "I'll toss you for the lot," he suggested magnani- 
 mously, "and that'll make an end of it. Come, be a 
 sport, Slade; just the flick of a coin your com, if you 
 like." 
 
 Slade shook his head wearily. 
 
 "If that's being a sport, I've finished with sport," he 
 said. "I've had too many little fortunes within cooee 
 and lost them, to do the same with this. I'm afraid to 
 take the chance^ if you like. I tell you, this last little
 
 100 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 jaunt's taken it clean out of me. I'm getting old. I'm 
 going to stick to what I've got this time, in spite of you 
 or the devil, and make a clean breakaway for the cool 
 rains and other things worth having." His hand rested 
 on the bundle at his side. "This means more to me 
 than I'd ever dream of telling you, or you'd under- 
 stand," he added gravely. "It means everything." 
 
 Morgan's glance travelled to the weather-worn sack- 
 ing that covered their joint fortune, and rested there a 
 moment. The other smiled. 
 
 "You'll have to kill me to get it, Morgan," he said 
 quietly, "and I don't think you'd do that." 
 
 "Why not?" The question came involuntarily. 
 
 "Because you haven't the pluck," said Slade. 
 "You're a sneak thief, not a murderer." 
 
 Morgan sat motionless for a long moment, then got 
 slowly to his feet. 
 
 "That's straight," he said. 
 
 "It's meant to be," returned Slade. "Why should 
 we be anything else with one another? You know me, 
 and I know you, or, if we don't, we ought to by now. 
 What's the good of pretence between us two?" 
 
 Morgan shrugged his lean shoulders. 
 
 "And just what is it you want now?" he asked, after 
 a pause. 
 
 "I want a rest," said Slade, "don't you? The length 
 of the village apart will suit me, if it suits you." 
 
 "And what if it doesn't suit me?" 
 
 "The next month will have to be rather more 
 trying for both of us than it need be, that's all," said 
 Slade.
 
 THE PEEP SHOW 101 
 
 Morgan went over to the doorway and stood looking 
 out at the glare. 
 
 "All right," he said suddenly, and passed outside, 
 whistling. 
 
 Slade sat staring after him for a while, then drew the 
 back of his hand across his forehead and sank back on to 
 the mats. 
 
 "Now," he muttered. "Now, of all times!" and 
 drew a mat over his already trembling body. 
 
 The second act of Felisi's peep show had been enter- 
 taining. Perhaps the acting was rather more subdued 
 than a transpontine audience could have wished, but it 
 gave promise of development. Felisi lowered the cur- 
 tain by the simple expedient of allowing the reed wall 
 to resume its normal contour, and went into the guest 
 house to clear away. 
 
 The tall man lay watching her from under his mat 
 with unnaturally bright eyes and compressed lips. 
 Felisi recognized the symptoms: he was trying to keep 
 his teeth from chattering. Why did they all do that? 
 Because it was in their nature to make a fight? Per- 
 haps. But the tall man was fighting something stronger 
 than himself, and by nightfall he was in a raging fever. 
 
 "Another mat, and I shall be all right," he jerked out; 
 "just one more. Ah, thank you, little girl! And keep 
 everyone away. Don't let them know any one, mind. 
 I mustn't lose control mustn't. . . ." The words 
 came from him in convulsive jerks. It was terrible to 
 watch. And all the while the bundle was clasped tight 
 in his straining arms. "After all and so near the end, 
 so near .... Out of here, away home, start
 
 102 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 afresh, go slow; it's the last chance, the last. . . .' 
 Hark! There he is!" But it was only a hurricane 
 bird crying overhead, and Felisi told him so, and knelt 
 beside him with a cocoanut shell of water. "Quite the 
 little nurse, aren't you?" stuttered the tall man, his 
 eyes blazing at her out of the darkness. "I shan't for- 
 get this. What was your name? Ah, Felisi! Felisi, 
 no Macduff, eh? Well, I shan't forget it. There 
 there he is!" 
 
 The water spilled from his lips, his body remained 
 rigid while a trickle of laughter filtered through the 
 night. It was Morgan's over kava in the chief's house 
 not fifty yards distant. He had a way with chiefs, had 
 Morgan. If he heard! If he came now! Felisi took 
 the sick man's burning hand between her own and 
 tried to soothe him to silence. 
 
 "Him no come," she crooned. "Him no : But 
 
 he was coming. A musical whistling drew nearer. 
 
 "Keep him away!" gasped the tall man hi what he 
 had intended for a whisper, but what was jerked from 
 his throat in a raucous shout. 
 
 The whistling ceased abruptly. There was a pause, 
 then the faint sound of naked feet on the wooden run- 
 way leading up to the guest house, and Morgan came in. 
 
 What he saw appeared to amuse him, for his mouth 
 twisted into a smile. 
 
 "Got it, eh?" he observed, looking down on his 
 stricken partner. 
 
 "Just a touch," said Slade between clenched teeth. 
 
 "Only a touch. Well, that's all right. Pity we 
 haven't any quinine; but you'll be better after a bit."
 
 THE PEEP SHOW 103 
 
 And then he went. Felisi could scarcely bring her- 
 self to believe it, but it was so. He had gone. The 
 other's ramblings provided the explanation. 
 
 "Hardly ripe . . . might put up a fight . . . 
 wait till I'm helpless. . . ."A defiant chuckle came 
 from under the quaking pyramid of mats. "But that's 
 where he makes the mistake big mistake. I'm not 
 going under. I'm better. D'you hear that, Felisi no 
 Macduff? Better ah . . . ." And with that the 
 tall man lost consciousness. 
 
 Morgan had returned to the chief's house, and was be- 
 guiling him with titbits of officialdom when Felisi found 
 time to shift her sphere of activities. 
 
 ". . . and I don't mind telling you, chief, I am 
 favourably impressed with the conduct of affairs in 
 Luana," he was saying in glib dialect, "very favourably 
 impressed. It seems to me you are wasted here. What 
 you want is influence, commonly called 'boost.' ' 
 
 "Boost," repeated the chief, who was rapidly be- 
 coming impressed. 
 
 "Yes. Now, there's my dear old friend Bettington, 
 the Commissioner you may have heard of him?" 
 The chief nodded with bulging eyes. "There's a 
 man who could give you a lift, if any one could, and 
 sometimes, over one of our little dinners, I can do a 
 lot. You send in your report, and I'll see that it's 
 noticed in the proper quarter. That's the way we do 
 things." 
 
 With his customary expression of bemused anxiety 
 when dealing with matters beyond his depth, the Chief 
 of Luana sat fingering buff Form No. 21875, and won-
 
 104 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 dering what this exceedingly pleasant person required. 
 He was not long left in suspense. 
 
 "In the meantime," proceeded the pleasant person, 
 "my friend is too ill to travel, and I shall be obliged 
 to go on alone at once. If you place a good sailing canoe 
 and two men at my disposal for a week from to-night, 
 and look after my friend until I return for him in the 
 Government launch probably with Bettington himself 
 I will simply hand you here and now what we call in 
 official circles a promissory note " 
 
 "A form," muttered the chief uncertainly. 
 
 "Exactly, a form," agreed Morgan, "duly signed, 
 sealed, and delivered for any amount within reason. 
 As you know, we of the Government are not sticklers 
 as to cost. . . ." 
 
 He said a great deal more, but Felisi could wait no 
 longer. Her services were in request elsewhere. 
 
 The third act of the peep show was eminently satis- 
 factory. It opened on an empty stage save for a pile 
 of mats in a far corner of the guest house and the 
 flickering light of a candlenut that cast long shadows 
 across the yellow matting of the floor. 
 
 It seemed a long time before it came, but at last an- 
 other and more definite shadow joined the rest, moving 
 swiftly across the guest house. At the pile of mats it 
 paused, kneeling, peering, outstretching an arm. It 
 was a hesitant shadow even now, and not without cause, 
 for in its gropings under the mats its arm became sud- 
 denly transfixed, and in a moment the guest house was 
 a chaos of struggling men. 
 
 But it did not last long. Morgan was infinitely the
 
 THE PEEP SHOW 105 
 
 stronger. With a wrench he was free and away, the 
 bundle under his arm, his partner, a gaunt, dishevelled 
 figure, stumbling impotently in his wake. Felisi 
 watched them go down through the moon-mottled 
 fringes of the palm grove and out on to the beach. 
 
 There a canoe was waiting on a sea of inky shadows, 
 and Morgan was soon lost to sight. The other stood 
 for a moment, swaying gently, his long arms hanging 
 nerveless at his sides until the last iota of his strength 
 had ebbed, and he crumpled face downward on the sand. 
 
 Felisi smiled to herself in the shadow of the guest 
 house. Undoubtedly the third act had been a success. 
 It only remained to supply a fitting climax, which she 
 proceeded to do by combing her hair, and taking from 
 its hiding place a bundle wrapped in weather-worn 
 sacking. This she carried down to the beach, that it 
 might be the first thing her patient's eye should rest 
 upon. 
 
 Unfortunately, the more telling phase of the climax 
 was perforce enacted "off," when somewhere and at 
 some time an exactly similar bundle was exultantly 
 unwrapped, exposing to view a congealed mass of 
 Luana's good red clay. But you cannot have it both 
 ways, even in a peep show.
 
 THE LONELY LADY 
 
 F | ^HE yacht, a graceful thing of slender spars and 
 glinting white enamel, rounded the headland 
 
 -- and dropped anchor a cable's length from shore. 
 
 All Luana, comprising sixty souls of respective age, 
 sex, and volubility, a medley of nondescript dogs and 
 chickens, several pigs, and a tethered turtle or two, was 
 awakened from its customary torpor to witness the 
 amazing spectacle. Even the broad leaves of the cocoa- 
 nut palms, falling in green waves to the beach, seemed 
 to quiver in sympathetic excitement. Never had Luana 
 been treated to anything half as thrilling ! Luana,that is, 
 with the exception of Felisi. 
 
 She stood apart from her flustered and clucking rela- 
 tives, silent, watchful, apparently unimpressed, though 
 a certain tensity in her mien gave the lie to her pose of 
 indifference. For it was a pose, or a form of self- 
 control, which you will. Probably Felisi would have 
 accorded a first glimpse of any of the world's great capi- 
 tals precisely the same need of outward appreciation 
 she now bestowed on Strode's yacht. 
 
 And why should it be otherwise, even in the fifteen- 
 year-old daughter of an obscure chief in the South Pa- 
 cific Islands? If you had moved in civilized circles for 
 a space; if, that is, you had dispensed imitation pink 
 coral on the wharves of Suva to every passenger with 
 
 106
 
 THE LONELY LADY 107 
 
 a heart between San Francisco and Sydney, and ob- 
 served the ways of the white man as had Felisi of Lu- 
 ana, you would know that the display of vulgar curi- 
 osity is detrimental to dignity. 
 
 You would know, also, that the correct thing to do is 
 to saunter in leisurely fashion as far as the palm groves, 
 only breaking into a run when they obscure you from 
 the public gaze. Thereafter, it is permissible to race 
 beachward with hair and sulu streaming in your wake, 
 and load your canoe with the first mangoes and mummy 
 apples to hand as a valid excuse for prying into other 
 people's affairs. In any case, that is what Felisi did. 
 
 What it must be to have all the money in the world, 
 and therefore all the happiness! That is what she 
 tried to imagine squatting in the canoe amongst her 
 wares, and staring wide-eyed at the beautiful lady who 
 stood alone at the yacht's after rail looking out over 
 the water. To own a floating palace of white and gold, 
 and go drifting over the world to every scene of pleasure 
 and excitement! To know nothing of taro patches 
 tended in the heat of the day, and teeming fish traps, and 
 exacting rela- 
 tives requiring 
 obedience and 
 support ! Felisi 
 sighed. 
 
 And curiously 
 enough Mrs. 
 Strode chanced 
 to sigh at much the same moment as she leant over the 
 yacht's rail watching an outrigger canoe and its diminu-
 
 108 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 tive bronze occupant rising and falling on the gentle swell. 
 What it must be to have nothing, and therefore happi- 
 ness! To live in an earthly paradise and a sulu. To 
 know nothing of the fetish of civilization. To be some- 
 thing more than an automaton to the man you love, 
 even though he be your husband. . . . 
 
 Such was the trend of Mrs. Strode's conjectures until 
 interrupted by unmistakable signals from the canoe: 
 two arms upheld, a mango in the hand of each, and a 
 small, clear voice coming over the water: "You want 
 'im mango, lady?" 
 
 "Good gracious," exclaimed Mrs. Strode, "the child 
 speaks English! Yes," she called, "come alongside! 
 Parks, have you any money?" 
 
 A steward, who seemed to have appeared noiselessly 
 from nowhere, fumbled in his pocket amongst the sad 
 remains of last night's poker, and with some diffidence 
 produced sixpence. 
 
 "If you'll pardon me, madam," he warned in a 
 note of deferential confidence, "the fruit brought horf 
 in the bum-boats is 'igh as to price, and not to be 
 relied on." 
 
 "Nonsense," said Mrs. Strode, "you're not at Port 
 Said or Colombo now, you know, Parks. Besides, I 
 don't want the fruit." 
 
 Exactly what it was Mrs. Strode did want was hard 
 to determine, so Parks retired gracefully. For some 
 time she leant over the rail looking down into an up- 
 turned elfin face, and noting the perfect teeth, the 
 velvety skin, the brown wistful eyes, and above all the 
 wealth of blue-black hair assimilating, in short, all
 
 THE LONELY LADY 109 
 
 those qualities in Felisi of Luana that helped so ma- 
 terially in the sale of imitation pink coral or mangoes. 
 
 "You dear!" she cried suddenly. "Come aboard at 
 once." 
 
 And Felisi came. 
 
 Somewhere, and about an hour later, it struck two 
 bells, and the mellow boom of a gong followed soon 
 afterward announcing lunch aboard the Ajax, but Mrs. 
 Strode was otherwise engaged. To be exact, she was 
 undergoing a course of instruction in making cigarettes 
 of dried banana leaf, and finding it absorbing. Some- 
 how, this quaint little creature out of the world's end 
 had taken hold of Mrs. Strode. Listening to its 
 glib jargon, watching its deft, unconsciously graceful 
 movements, and trying to plumb the admixture of 
 crass ignorance and subtle wisdom that appeared to 
 constitute its mind, gave this lonely woman keener 
 pleasure than she had experienced for many a day. 
 
 " . . . and you must take me out to the reef," 
 she told Felisi; "just us two in the canoe, and show me 
 how to do things spear fish, and stay under water two 
 minutes." 
 
 Felisi appeared unimpressed with the possibilities in 
 this direction. 
 
 "You no spear fish," she retorted, surveying her 
 luxurious surroundings as though in some manner they 
 might be held responsible for their owner's inability to 
 do anything. "You no stay under water one minute." 
 
 "Indeed?" Mrs. Strode was piqued. It was not 
 often of late she had been told there were things she 
 could not do. It took her back to the days not so
 
 110 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 far distant when, as the only sister of four unruly 
 brothers she had seldom been proof against "the dare." 
 "We'll see," she added, with a touch of asperity. 
 "There may be more in me than meets the eye do 
 you understand?" 
 
 Felisi nodded gravely, a method of response she 
 had found effective when not understanding in the 
 least. 
 
 "Then that's settled," said the beautiful lady. 
 "You come alongside with the canoe early to-morrow 
 morning, and we'll make a day of it, you and I oh, the 
 mangoes," she added, proffering Parks's sixpence. 
 
 Felisi refused it bluntly. 
 
 "You no want 'em mangoes," she affirmed. 
 
 "You seem to know more about me than I do my- 
 self," said Mrs. Strode; "what makes you think I don't 
 want the mangoes?" 
 
 "Me hear you." 
 
 "Oh, you heard me, did you? I expect you hear a 
 good deal that you're not supposed to." 
 
 "Me hear plenty," admitted Felisi non-committally. 
 
 "If you're not the quaintest infant!" laughed Mrs. 
 Strode. "But you'll take the money, won't you?" 
 
 Felisi shook her head. 
 
 "You no want 'em mangoes, me no want 'em 
 money," she explained lucidly. 
 
 "I see," mused Mrs. Strode. "Parks," she added, 
 turning to the steward who had again materialized, 
 "your good money has been spurned. I think I told 
 you we were not at Port Said or Colombo." 
 
 "Yes, madam. Luncheon has been served twenty
 
 THE LONELY LADY 111 
 
 minutes, madam," recited Parks, studiously avoiding 
 Felisi's childlike gaze. 
 
 "Is Mr. Strode down yet?" 
 
 "Not yet, madam." 
 
 "He has been told as well as the gong?" 
 
 "Yes, madam." 
 
 Mrs. Strode sighed. 
 
 "Very well," she said. "I'll come directly." 
 
 But she did not. 
 
 "I suppose some day you'll have a husband," she 
 said, turning to her guest. 
 
 Felisi nodded with every appearance of delight at the 
 prospect. 
 
 "They're not all like that, you know," warned Mrs. 
 Strode, with a whimsical half-smile. "But I expect you 
 manage them differently. . . ." 
 
 "Husband all right," defended Felisi stoutly. 
 
 "Sometimes," said Mrs. Strode. A glint of mis- 
 chief, never very far distant, came into her eyes. 
 "Would you like to see mine?" she suggested suddenly. 
 
 There was apparently nothing in life Felisi preferred. 
 
 "You come along here," said Mrs. Strode, leading 
 the way over the cocoanut matting of the deck, "and 
 up these funny little stairs, and round here, and across 
 this bridge, and at last you come to the hutch where 
 Bunny lives." 
 
 Felisi beheld a white deck house, replete with highly 
 varnished doors and glittering brass portholes. 
 
 "You see," continued Mrs. Strode, "he is right 
 away from everyone here, and that is what Bunny 
 likes."
 
 112 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "All the time?" 
 
 "Very nearly," said Mrs. Strode cheerfully. "Go 
 and see what you think of him." 
 
 Felisi stood on tiptoe to peer through one of the port- 
 holes, a proceeding at which she was something of an 
 adept. Within were books, seemingly thousands of 
 them, filling three walls of the room from floor to ceil- 
 ing. Along the fourth ran a bench littered with 
 stones, lumps of coral, and inexplicable instruments; 
 and under the skylight, at a desk equally littered with 
 papers, sat a large blond man in a dressing gown 
 writing assiduously. He looked kind. Felisi had 
 studied various samples of the genus turaga, and this 
 one appeared well up to standard. But She re- 
 turned to Mrs. Strode for further enlightenment. 
 
 "Bunny all right," she announced, by way of en- 
 couragement. 
 
 "I'm glad you like him," said Mrs. Strode. 
 
 "An' you?" 
 
 Mrs. Strode pursed her lips and looked out over the 
 sea. 
 
 "As much as I see of him," she confessed. "You 
 see," she went on in explanatory vein, "he is really a 
 great man, and came all this way to find out things 
 about the world your world. You think it beautiful 
 and pleasant to live in, and that's enough for you and 
 me; but it isn't enough for him. He likes to find out 
 why it's beautiful and pleasant, what it's made of, and 
 who lived in it before we did; then he goes into the 
 hutch and puts it all into a book." 
 
 Felisi listened enthralled. The beautiful lady was
 
 THE LONELY LADY 113 
 
 surpassing herself; but nothing that she said disguised 
 or clouded for one instant the main issue, which to the 
 philosopher of Luana was as clear as day : the beautiful 
 lady was also a lonely lady. 
 
 "Too much 'utch," she commiserated solemnly. 
 Whereat Mrs. Strode was consumed with silent laugh- 
 ter, and hustled her toward the companion. 
 
 "You'd better run along now," she warned; "I'm 
 going to fetch Bunny out, and he's rather fierce some- 
 times." 
 
 But Bunny proved unusually tractable that morn- 
 ing. He turned as his wife entered with a vaguely 
 apologetic smile. 
 
 "Ah, yes, of course," he murmured, and proceeded 
 to change his dressing gown for a duck jacket. "Of 
 course," he added with emphasis, though apropos of 
 nothing tangible. 
 
 Mrs. Strode stood looking out through an open port. 
 
 "You needn't hurry," she said. "We're only half 
 an hour late." 
 
 "Ah, I'm sorry, my dear," Mr. Strode crossed to a 
 cabinet washstand, "but I'm just beginning to see 
 daylight just beginning. We're now in the Lau 
 Group, and if the formations tally my theory's proved 
 proved," he repeated, vigorously bespattering the 
 carpet with soapsuds. "There's no end to this thing- 
 no end. . . ." 
 
 Apparently there was not. Mrs. Strode had suffered 
 it for a considerable period, tried to resign herself to it, 
 and failed. To be ousted by a theory! Yet that was 
 what it amounted to. To some women it would have
 
 114 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 meant little more than an early boredom, followed by 
 diversion sought, and probably found, elsewhere, but 
 unfortunately Mrs. Strode was not of that type. She 
 had made the mistake of marrying John Strode because 
 she loved him. 
 
 This complete, almost fanatical subjugation to an 
 idea was a disease, she had decided during her long 
 self-communings, as much a disease as any other, but 
 less susceptible to treatment in that the patient was 
 unaware of its presence. No one would have been 
 more surprised or distressed than John Strode had he 
 guessed that he was causing his wife one moment's 
 unhappiness; yet she lived in the knowledge that she 
 was no more to this man of her choice than if she had 
 never been . . . 
 
 The following morning, soon after a blood-red sun 
 had climbed out of the sea, a canoe shot from the Ajax's 
 lee and headed for the barrier reef. 
 
 To Mrs. Strode, paddling joyfully in the bows clad in 
 a boy's bathing suit and a kimono, the world was young 
 that morning and full of promise. Why was it ever nec- 
 essary to do anything else than speed over blue water, 
 with spindrift lashing the face, and the deep-toned 
 roar of surf filling the universe and drowning all care 
 like an opiate? This was life, she told herself exult- 
 antly, the rest a pitiable pretence. 
 
 Into the very heart of the green-bellied combers it 
 seemed they were heading, until the laughing child of 
 nature at the steering paddle swerved the canoe as by 
 a miracle into a narrow pass, and through it to the 
 open sea. Here, without pause, it turned in its own
 
 THE LONELY LADY 115 
 
 length and, lifting to the swell of deep waters, bore 
 down upon the reef. There was a momentary check, 
 a soaring as through space, and the canoe, borne on a 
 cascade of foam, shot to rest on the still waters of the 
 Lagoon. 
 
 Mrs. Strode had leapt Luana reef. 
 
 "Again!" she cried. 
 
 But best of all she loved the quiet places, unfathom- 
 able rock pools immune from the busy surf, and beset 
 with coral islets, archways, and caves. Here it was 
 possible to plunge into an unknown world and, with 
 Felisi's hand tight clasped in hers, explore its mysterious 
 labyrinths as long as breath would last. Then came 
 the respite, prone at the water's edge, looking down 
 into the cool green depths with their swaying weed 
 and rainbow-tinted fish: 
 
 'Why plan and strive and plan again 
 While all things earthly pall? 
 
 What goal at last will you attain? 
 Come down and end it all." 
 
 chanted Mrs. Strode, in a low contralto, and Felisi 
 called for more, but of a sudden the lonely lady had 
 fallen silent. 
 
 "I wonder," she mused, still staring downward with 
 a strange fixity; "I wonder what he would do. . . ." 
 
 And Felisi wondered too. It was a weakness of hers. 
 
 About two o'clock that day John Strode became 
 aware of a difference. There is no other way of put-
 
 116 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 ting it a vaguely disturbing element, if you will in 
 his usually preoccupied existence. 
 
 The hutch was hot; but it was not that. He tried to 
 ignore the annoyance, but failed. He thrust it from 
 him, but it returned with maddening persistence. 
 Finally, and after a supreme effort at concentration, he 
 turned abruptly in the swivel chair, crossed the room, 
 and stood looking in bemused fashion through one of 
 the ports. 
 
 A cloud of gannets flecked the intense blue of the 
 sky, dropping now and again like stones upon their 
 prey. The sea, slashed by the white ribbon of the 
 barrier reef, rose and fell as though breathing in its 
 sleep. The eternal sun shone down. Clearly the dis- 
 turbing influence was not there. 
 
 Strode turned from the port with a frown of baffled 
 annoyance. 
 
 Then, one by one, sluggishly, the small realities of 
 life began to filter into his consciousness. He glanced 
 at his watch. It had stopped because he had for- 
 gotten to wind it. He was hungry. Why? Perhaps 
 he had had nothing to eat. What about break- 
 fast . . . and lunch? It must be after noon. 
 Curious ! He grunted, flung open the door of the hutch, 
 and went on deck. 
 
 His train of thought had been derailed by hunger; 
 that was what had happened to John Strode. But he 
 was only aware of the accident's curious effect upon 
 himself. It seemed, as he wandered over the yacht, 
 that he had just returned from a long journey. Every- 
 thing was familiar yet strangely new; and something
 
 THE LONELY LADY 117 
 
 was lacking; he felt it, but his mind refused to supply 
 the deficiency. In the saloon he mixed himself a stiff 
 brandy and soda. 
 
 "Befuddled!" he muttered angrily. "Must have 
 been at it longer than I thought." 
 
 Suddenly he caught sight of his face in a mirror, and 
 went nearer to examine it more closely. There were 
 shadows under the eyes that emphasized their already 
 unnatural brilliance; the cheeks were hollow, and the 
 beard disgracefully unkempt. Strode stretched his 
 clenched fists above his head until his joints cracked 
 with the unaccustomed tension, and as he did so, 
 caught reflected in the glass a glimpse of the far corner 
 of the saloon behind him a standard lamp with a rose 
 shade, a guitar standing propped against it, and an 
 empty armchair. 
 
 The little picture conveyed nothing to Strode beyond 
 the same aggravating impression of incompleteness. 
 He turned and crossed the saloon. Lying on the arm 
 of the chair was one of his own socks, a darning needle 
 caught in the wool. He picked it up and examined it 
 mechanically, then dropped it with a short laugh, for 
 it had told him what was lacking aboard the Ajax, and 
 to think that it had not occurred to him before was 
 really rather amusing. He rang the bell. 
 
 "Parks," he demanded of the startled individual who 
 appeared in the doorway slightly dishevelled from a 
 hasty toilet. "Where is Mrs. Strode?" 
 
 "Mrs. Strode left early, sir." 
 
 "Did she leave any message?" 
 
 "No, sir."
 
 118 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "But have you no idea where she has gone?" 
 
 "To the reef, I believe, sir, on a picnic." 
 
 "Alone?" 
 
 "With a young native person, sir." 
 
 Strode looked about him with an expression of vague 
 bewilderment. 
 
 "And, Parks." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Why have I had no breakfast or lunch?" 
 
 "We have strict instructions that on no account are 
 you to be disturbed, sir." 
 
 "Yes, that's so," mused Strode. "Then do you 
 mind telling me," he added with whimsical pathos, 
 "how I ever chance to get anything to eat at all?" 
 
 "Mrs. Strode fetches you, sir." 
 
 "Oh." Strode appeared to ponder over the matter. 
 "Well, supposing something's fetched to me this time 
 by way of a change, Parks cold, with salad." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 Parks withdrew, and on rousing the cook from his 
 habitual and audible siesta to receive instructions, 
 touched his forehead significantly. The cook heartily 
 concurred. 
 
 To the accompaniment of cold chicken Strode com- 
 muned with himself. So he was "fetched," was he? 
 Somehow the word met with his disapproval. Rather 
 ignominious, wasn't it? How long had it been going 
 on, he wondered? Nice sort of occupation for Stella, 
 too. By the way, what had she been doing with her- 
 self for the past few days or was it weeks? He had 
 no distinct recollection of her presence, yet, yes, he
 
 THE LONELY LADY 119 
 
 seemed to remember her at meals, the same gracious 
 figure at the end of his table, silent, unobtrusive, yet 
 conveying a subtle air of sympathy for a dreamer's 
 moods and abstractions. Curious that she should go 
 away like that, without a word. Aggravating, too, 
 considering that at that particular moment he rather 
 needed her. Someone to talk to about one's work, 
 you know. Necessary sometimes, or one became 
 atrophied. To-day of all days and for so long it 
 must be nearly three. Unusually thoughtless. Gad, 
 wouldn't she be in a stew when she learnt that he had 
 gone without his breakfast and lunch. . . . ? 
 
 An hour later Strode was pacing the deck with ill- 
 concealed impatience. He was not used to being 
 baulked of anything, and in the present instance he 
 was aware of an inordinate and unaccountable desire 
 to set eyes on his wife. 
 
 Afternoon tea, served by the implacable Parks, 
 proved a dreary affair, and by five o'clock impatience 
 had given way to a senseless but none-the-less acute 
 anxiety. He might go and meet her. It would be a 
 pleasant surprise. He called for the sailing dinghy, 
 and set out for the reef. After all, it was only about 
 half a mile long, and Stella must be somewhere on 
 it. ... 
 
 The dinghy sailed like a witch. There was a sunset 
 to dream of pearl-gray islands of cloud floating in 
 amethyst. The evening breeze was a cool caress 
 but there was no sign of Stella. This was absurd ! He 
 shouted lustily as he sailed, and presently from afar 
 came a small, answering cry. His heart leapt to it in
 
 120 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 the most ridiculous manner. What ailed him? He 
 did not know; he did not care; he had found Stella. 
 
 She was lying beside a rock pool with Parks's "young 
 native person", and waved a greeting as he came 
 stumbling over the coral toward them. 
 
 "My dear John," she exclaimed, "what has hap- 
 pened? Ship on fire?" 
 
 It was hardly the reception he had expected. He 
 sat down rather abruptly, and tried to regain his 
 breath. Somehow he felt out of it, a lamentably gross 
 and mundane figure puffing there on a rock in the 
 presence of this sylph-like person who was his wife. 
 It was in keeping with all the rest on this day of strange 
 experiences that he seemed to behold her for the first 
 time. 
 
 "No, nothing," he defended lamely, "but do you 
 know the time?" 
 
 "Time?" scoffed Mrs. Strode, with dancing eyes. 
 "What have we to do with time?" She took Felisi's 
 hand in hers. "Perhaps you didn't know you had 
 married a mermaid. Behold, oh, Caliban, we are 
 about to show off!" 
 
 The two figures slid beneath the water as silently as 
 seals. The ripples expanded in ever-widening circles, 
 and were still. 
 
 At the end of perhaps half a minute, which to Strode 
 seemed more like half an hour, he went to the edge of 
 the pool and looked down. There was nothing 
 nothing but a pale green abyss fringed with swaying 
 weed. Stella had always been fearless where water 
 was concerned, he remembered. All the same, he
 
 THE LONELY LADY 121 
 
 wished she wouldn't do this sort of thing. It was dis- 
 turbing, and he disliked being disturbed. 
 
 A minute must have passed, and a minute was a 
 long time, a deuced long time. It could not be good. 
 He must put his foot down . . . Strode dropped 
 to his knees at the edge of the pool and found 
 himself watching a minute fish, striped like a zebra, 
 that darted out from a coral cranny, and hovered like 
 a marine butterfly in the translucent water. A squid 
 trailed by. . . . But this was preposterous! A 
 prank? How could that be? Stella was down there 
 somewhere somehow. ... A thought leapt to 
 Strode' s mind that caused his unruly heart to stand 
 still. What if ... Absurb! She would be the 
 first to laugh at his fears afterward . . . but what 
 if there were no afterward ... if even now, 
 while he stared down like a fool .... On the 
 instant his mind was aflood with ghastly possibilities. 
 He could not support them. . . . Three minutes, 
 he would swear! The thing was impossible . . . 
 
 ah' 
 
 1 1 n .... 
 
 A shadow appeared in the pool, deep down, then shot 
 to the surface like a meteor, resolving itself into a sleek 
 head that turned on Strode its staring, terrified eyes. 
 It was the native girl alone. The fact smote Strode 
 with the force of a physical blow. For a moment he 
 crouched there, stunned into impotence; then without 
 word or look, plunged into the pool. 
 
 As a dive it was a poor performance, Felisi decided, 
 and it soon became evident that Bunny could not 
 swim, either. For this reason it took them an uncon-
 
 122 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 sckmable time to get him out; and it seemed still 
 longer before his eyes opened. But the most amazing 
 thing to Felisi was the attitude of the Lonely Lady. 
 With Bunny's head in her lap, and when it was ap- 
 parent that he had suffered nothing more than the 
 thorough shaking up that he needed, she turned on 
 Felisi like a tigress. 
 
 "Go away, you hateful child!" she stormed. 
 
 And Felisi went. 
 
 What did it all mean? Paddling home in the canoe, 
 she tried to unravel the mystery. The Lonely Lady 
 had "wondered what he would do. . . ." Very 
 well, she (Felisi), had taken the trouble to show her 
 by the simple expedient of depositing her in safety on 
 the far side of a submarine archway, and returning to 
 note results. Were they not satisfactory? Was there 
 ever any understanding the ways of this strange people? 
 
 Felisi of Luana was afraid not. And in the case of 
 Lonely Ladies, she resolved never again to try.
 
 MALUA 
 
 THE floor of the Royal Hotel, Malita, trembled, 
 then sagged, heralding the approach of its pro- 
 prietress, Mrs. Kemp. 
 
 For a moment she stood or as much of her as was 
 physically possible in the bar doorway, leaning 
 through the bead curtains to glance to right and left. 
 On the one hand there was apparently nothing to en- 
 gage her attention; on the other, a diminutive figure in 
 a blue wrapper washing glasses as though its life de- 
 pended on it. 
 
 "Will she do?" asked Mrs. Kemp. 
 
 "The best we've ever had," replied the barmaid, 
 without pause in her adroit manipulation of the cork 
 extractor. 
 
 "Glory be, and let's hope it lasts!" sighed Mrs. 
 Kemp, and faded like an over-substantial dissolving 
 view into the bead curtains. 
 
 So, in Miss Smith's own words, she was "the best 
 they had ever had." Felisi paused hi the process of 
 glass washing to digest this satisfactory but unsur- 
 prising 'piece of information. It had not been intended 
 for her ears, but then neither was a great deal more 
 that came their way in the course of a day behind the 
 Royal bar. 
 
 Would she do? That had been the question. But 
 
 123
 
 124 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 it gave rise to another of far more importance in Felisi's 
 estimation: would the Royal do? She rather fancied 
 that it would. The somewhat menial nature of her 
 employment was amply atoned for by the unrivalled 
 facilities it afforded of prying into other people's busi- 
 ness. And is there anything more fascinating? If so 
 Felisi did not know of it. She blessed the happy con- 
 currence of events her father's desire for a little ready 
 cash, and the Royal's urgent need of an assistant bar- 
 maid that had resulted in her transference from the 
 deathly dullness of her native village to this scene of 
 brilliance and animation. 
 
 There were men, an intermittent stream of them, 
 who had an obliging habit of discussing their private 
 affairs, elbow on bar, within a few feet of Felisi's ob- 
 servation post. There was a piano which, in response 
 to an inserted coin, dispensed enchanting noises, a 
 "billiard room" (containing a decrepit bagatelle board) 
 from whence came the staccato click of balls, and 
 forceful expressions of approval or annoyance. In 
 short, there was life. 
 
 Also, there was Miss Smith. 
 
 To Felisi, this dainty, tactful little lady was a never- 
 ending source of wonder and interest. No one ap- 
 proached the Royal bar but was met with Miss Smith's 
 own smile, gracious as it was impartial. No one in the 
 access of the moment was guilty of an untoward re- 
 mark but she was conveniently deaf, a doubtful action, 
 but she was blind. Indeed, as Felisi soon discovered, 
 there were two separate and distinct Miss Smiths, the 
 one of business hours, an eminently efficient mechanism,
 
 MALUA 125 
 
 and the other of private life, a human creature of joy 
 and sadness, laughter and tears. The first of these all 
 Malita knew and respected, the second was a phase so 
 jealously guarded that it is doubtful if any one dreamed 
 of its existence except Felisi. 
 
 "Come in!" this latter Miss Smith was wont to call 
 in answer to a discreet cough outside her bure across 
 the compound from the ramshackle hotel, and Felisi 
 would enter another world. 
 
 Things were so different away here. There were 
 delicately coloured draperies, and books, and photo- 
 graphs, and bowls of flowers that converted the out- 
 house (for such it was) into a temple of taste and lux- 
 ury. 
 
 But of all the differences in this exceedingly different 
 world, undoubtedly the most striking was Miss Smith 
 herself. Gone were such insignia of office as a rolled- 
 gold bangle above the left elbow, the slightly daring 
 silk jumper, the high-heeled shoes and elaborate coif- 
 fure, to make way for the simplest of wrappers and 
 loosely coiled masses of dark hair. 
 
 "Come," she might say, "there's just time for a 
 walk before supper." And they would leave the 
 Royal Hotel, rearing its unlovely head above a tangle 
 of convolvulus, and plunge into the cool green tunnel 
 of the beach road. These "walks," as Miss Smith 
 called them, had become an institution. They led 
 nowhere in particular, and had no definable purpose, 
 but they pleased Miss Smith, which was the mam 
 point. And how she could walk! Felisi was often 
 obliged to trot to keep pace with her. In quite
 
 126 
 
 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 a short time they covered undreamed-of distances, 
 exploring beach, palm grove, and jungle as fancy 
 led. 
 
 On one occasion a narrow track leading from the 
 beach road toward the sound of falling water attracted 
 Miss Smith's attention. It led, as Felisi knew, to a 
 gorge choked with tree ferns and underbrush, where 
 some time ago a mistaken old man named Billy An- 
 drews had attempted to grow vanilla, 
 and failed. His bungalow, in a state of 
 advanced decay, still clung to the hill- 
 side, held there for the most part by 
 creeping vine. 
 
 Miss Smith came to a halt at the edge 
 of the clearing, and gazed about her with 
 evident relish. There was a waterfall 
 high up the gorge, and down below the 
 sea thrust a tenuous arm along the 
 valley. But what riveted Felisi's atten- 
 tion was a thin ribbon of smoke rising 
 from the lean-to behind the bungalow. 
 Was it possible that someone had been 
 lured into relieving Billy Andrews of his white elephant? 
 If so, it was one of the very few things Felisi had not 
 heard about. What was more, she would dearly like to 
 see that someone. 
 
 Her wish was fulfilled rather sooner than she ex- 
 pected. Miss Smith was still absorbing the view when, 
 to the accompaniment of crackling underbrush, a man 
 broke from the bush and came to an abrupt halt in 
 the middle of the track.
 
 MALUA 127 
 
 "I beg your pardon," he stammered; and that was 
 all he seemed capable of saying at the moment. 
 
 Miss Smith's own smile came to the rescue. 
 
 "Oughtn't we to be doing that?" she said. "We 
 must be trespassing." 
 
 "Not a bit of it," beamed the man. 
 
 "But isn't this your property?" 
 
 "In a way, yes, but 
 
 "Well, then," said Miss Smith, commencing a stra- 
 tegical retreat down the track; "I must apologize. 
 Good evening." 
 
 For a moment he stood watching her go, then burst 
 into incoherent speech. 
 
 "Oh, but I say, won't you that is, what about a 
 cup of tea?" 
 
 Miss Smith's momentum slackened, then ceased. 
 She glanced at Felisi and, seeming to find reassurance 
 in that direction, turned and retraced her steps. 
 
 "You're very kind," she said; "it sounds too good 
 to resist." 
 
 "That's right," encouraged the man, and led the 
 way through a wilderness of empty corned-beef tins 
 and what-not to the bungalow. 
 
 "You must excuse all this," he apologized, dragging 
 the only sound chair procurable across the rat-gnawed 
 veranda; "I I've hardly got going yet." 
 
 "But I think it's wonderful," said Miss Smith, 
 gazing steadfastly over the corned-beef tins to where 
 the slanting sun rays touched the rolling expanse of 
 jungle. 
 
 "It is," agreed the man, "until you try to do some-
 
 128 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 thing with it; then it reduces you to, well, this. . . ." 
 He indicated his rather disreputable appearance with 
 an apologetic laugh, and leant on the veranda rail 
 looking down at Miss Smith. "But what seems a good 
 deal more wonderful to me, if you don't mind my saying 
 so, is meeting someone from 'over there' in the Malita 
 bush. Have you been out long? " 
 
 "Three years," said Miss Smith, with an unaccount- 
 able heightening of colour. 
 
 "Then perhaps," suggested the man, "as an old 
 timer you'd be so good as to tell me what I'm supposed 
 to do with seventy acres of rock and creeping vine, a 
 cook that can't cook, and labour that falls asleep the 
 minute my back's turned." 
 
 "I know it's pretty hopeless at first," laughed Miss 
 Smith, "but you'll have to do what we all try to do 
 keep on keeping on, that's all." 
 
 "I see," said the man. "My name's Wade," he 
 added abruptly. 
 
 "And mine's Smith Irene Smith." 
 
 Their eyes met, and it was clear to any one of per- 
 ception that in that brief exchange of formalities each 
 recognized the other as a kindred denizen of another 
 world the world of "over there." Felisi had seen such 
 things happen before and, like the perfect chaperon 
 that she was, stole from the presence to help a dis- 
 traught cook in his efforts to find an uncracked tea cup. 
 
 "It is always so," he wailed; "the guests come when 
 least expected." 
 
 "But are none the less welcome," amended Felisi. 
 
 The cook grunted non-committally.
 
 MALTJA 129 
 
 "As the daughter of my father, Chief of Luana," 
 Felisi continued serenely, "I have entertained very 
 many guests, and know their ways." 
 
 "Luana," mused the cook, pouring boiling water upon 
 the tea, "I do not seem to have heard of Luana." 
 
 "That is quite possible. Nor Levuka, nor Suva per- 
 haps?" 
 
 "I have passed through those places," admitted the 
 cook with masterly unconcern, "on my way to Sydney 
 and Melbourne." 
 
 Felisi did not so much as flicker an eyelash. 
 
 "Sydney and Melbourne are well enough," she con- 
 ceded, "but when one has been Overthere they are as 
 naught. In Overthere the tea is served hi cups of gold, 
 and- 
 
 " Enough!" cried the baffled cook. "Out of my 
 way, infant!" and he hurried up the crazy steps to the 
 veranda. 
 
 It was not so much tea that they needed up there. 
 
 Out of her boundless knowledge of human nature 
 Felisi knew that, and left them to it. Besides, the cook 
 had called her an infant, and such things could not be 
 allowed to pass. 
 
 When she did return to the veranda, it was to dis- 
 cover with satisfaction that she might have been in 
 the moon for all the notice that was taken of her. 
 
 "You mean," the man was saying, as he gazed rather 
 hopelessly over his primeval property, "that I've bitten 
 off more than I can chew. I've been thinking that 
 myself lately." 
 
 "No, no," cried Miss Smith with a vehemence that
 
 130 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 was new to her; "I mean anything but that. You 
 you will chew it," she insisted with a nervous little 
 laugh. "Of course you will if ... ." 
 
 "Please go on," said the man quietly. 
 
 "If you make up your mind to." 
 
 The man nodded his head slowly. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "that's about it a matter of will 
 power; and will power depends on incentive. I haven't 
 much of that, Miss Smith." 
 
 "There was enough to make you begin." 
 
 "The necessity of doing something," he admitted 
 with a shrug of the shoulders, "to live." 
 
 "Then why isn't there enough to make you go on?" 
 
 "I don't know," muttered the man; "I don't 
 know." 
 
 "Shall I tell you?" said Miss Smith. 
 
 He turned at that. 
 
 "I wish you would," he said. 
 
 For a moment Miss Smith seemed taken aback at her 
 own temerity. 
 
 "Please," pleaded the man. 
 
 "Very well," said Miss Smith with an air of quiet 
 determination. "But I warn you, I'm on my hobby." 
 
 "Good!" said the man. 
 
 "And you mustn't mind what I say." 
 
 He smiled encouragingly. 
 
 "I've seen such a lot of it," she went on, looking 
 out over the valley, "and I can't let it pass when I see 
 the symptoms. I suppose I ought to be going about 
 with tracts and my hair scratched back " 
 
 "I prefer this method," said the man.
 
 MALUA 131 
 
 "Wait before you say that," warned Miss Smith, 
 "this is much less excusable, really. You can crumple 
 up a tract and throw it away, or light your pipe with it, 
 and you can't very well do that with me." 
 
 "No," said the man. "No, I couldn't do that with 
 you." 
 
 "So really I'm taking advantage of your hospitality." 
 
 "Is it as bad as that?" 
 
 "Quite. May I go on?" 
 
 He nodded. His eyes were fastened on Miss Smith. 
 
 "You're in for a bout of what we call malua," she 
 said with a certain deliberation. "It means bye-and- 
 bye. You feel you don't want to just yet; so you 
 don't. And that's all it amounts to at first a slack- 
 ening. But it grows; it grows until you not only feel 
 you don't want to, but find you can't. It leads to to 
 almost anything. There," she ended abruptly, " is that 
 enough?" 
 
 "Not quite," said the man. "What causes it?" 
 
 Miss Smith leant back in her chair with the air of 
 one who has passed dangerous ground. 
 
 "Ah," she mused, "that's difficult, difiicult. There 
 are things in these Islands that can't be explained, and 
 malua's one of them. It is the Islands, that's all. I 
 don't believe we were ever meant to come here. They 
 didn't want us. We just came because there was 
 money in it, or because we were no good elsewhere, and 
 malua's their way of paying us back. Oh, yes," she 
 added quickly in answer to his unspoken question, "it 
 attacks us as well as you." 
 
 The man smiled down at her.
 
 132 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "I don't see much evidence of it," he said. 
 
 "No? Well, I can only tell you that it does." 
 
 "And the cure?" he suggested. "You mustn't 
 diagnose without prescribing, you know." 
 
 "I won't," said Miss Smith. "There is none that 
 I know of when it once takes hold; but there's preven- 
 tion, and that is work just keeping on keeping on 
 until you've made enough to go away and give it the 
 slip; then go just as quickly as you can. That's what 
 I'm doing," she added thoughtfully, "and it seems to 
 have answered, so far." 
 
 "You?" muttered the man. 
 
 She turned to him with a short laugh. 
 
 "You don't imagine I wander about the Malita bush 
 for a living, do you?" 
 
 "No, but " 
 
 "And such a living! When next you come to the 
 settlement run into the Royal, and you'll see me in my 
 war paint." 
 
 "The Royal?" 
 
 "Yes, I'm barmaid." 
 
 The man stood silent. 
 
 "I thought that would give you a shock," she said. 
 "A nice sort of person to be proselytizing, am I not? 
 But I'm a good barmaid, so they say, and I've nearly 
 done they pay well in these outlandish places; then 
 hey for 'over there'!" 
 
 j "Shock!" repeated the man, "I won't pretend that 
 it isn't. It's the pluckiest thing I've met with in many 
 a day." 
 
 "And not so plucky as you might think," said Miss
 
 MALUA 133 
 
 Smith. "There's always four feet of good solid bar 
 between you and and any one, besides, they're not like 
 that 'out back.' It's in the cities. I tried most things 
 before coming to the Royal, and I know where I've 
 been shown the most respect. Girls are beginning to 
 find that out." 
 
 "Yes, but they're real barmaids " 
 
 "And pray what am I?" demanded Miss Smith. 
 
 The man seemed unable to reply. He shifted his 
 position against the rail. 
 
 "Somehow I can't imagine you " he began. 
 
 "Well, come and see," taunted Miss Smith. 
 
 "I'd rather not if you don't mind," he said slowly. 
 "I prefer you as you are. . . . You'll come again? " 
 he said as she rose to go. 
 
 Miss Smith did not answer at the moment, but she 
 came again, as Felisi knew that she would. Indeed, 
 the "walks" took a natural trend in that direction, and 
 their effect was magical. Within a month Billy An- 
 drews's old place and its new owner were transformed, 
 and as for Miss Smith, there was something in her eyes 
 that had not been there before. 
 
 Felisi preened herself in the knowledge that there 
 was only one end to it all, the eminently satisfactory 
 end beloved of all good chaperons so that the dS- 
 nouement came as something of a shock. 
 
 It happened on an evening so still that only the whis- 
 per of the waterfall up the gorge and the low-toned 
 voices on the veranda reached the ear. He put it 
 very nicely, Felisi thought, and his large brown hands 
 went out, covering Miss Smith's. For a moment
 
 134 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 she sat quite still, then gently withdrew them, and 
 stood looking out over the valley. 
 
 "I'm sorry," she said in a small, uneven voice. "I 
 
 hoped I thought Oh, what does it matter what I 
 
 thought?" she cried bitterly. "It's mean, mean, to 
 have let it come to this." 
 
 "You couldn't help it," said the man quietly, "any 
 more than I. We belong. You can't deny it." 
 
 Miss Smith did not try. She stood there a silent, 
 forlorn little figure at the veranda rail. 
 
 Presently her lips moved. 
 
 "I should have known where it led I knew, and did 
 nothing. It's malua," she whispered, "malua. . ." 
 
 The dull, insistent note of a native drum floated up 
 from the beach, reverberating through the gorge, so that 
 for Felisi the rest was inaudible. But it was vital, there 
 could be no doubt of that, for by the time the exasperat- 
 ing noise had ceased Miss Smith had ceased also, and 
 was hurrying down the bush track, leaving the man, a 
 figure of stone, staring after her. 
 
 What did it all mean? For once Felisi was at a loss. 
 During the days that followed it meant little that one 
 could detect. Miss Smith's smile was never more in 
 evidence over the Royal bar. The rolled-gold bangle 
 and other appurtenances appeared in their appointed 
 time and place. The hand on the cork extractor had 
 lost none of its cunning. 
 
 And the man? Felisi had visions on that score. Day 
 by day she waited on tenterhooks for him to descend 
 on the Royal bar, as she had learnt in her mekes (dances)
 
 MALUA 135 
 
 that the hillsmen of old descended on the beach dwellers, 
 and carry off Miss Smith in spite of herself, in spite of 
 all whatever that might be. But nothing of the sort 
 happened in modern Malita. Instead, he was seen 
 emerging from a low-down rival of the Royal's and 
 laughing a raucous farewell to his new-found friends as 
 he mounted his Tongan pony unsteadily, and cantered 
 off into the darkness. 
 
 So, that was the way of it. ... Felisi sighed, 
 and fell to glass wiping. 
 
 It was not until a week of speculation had passed that 
 the threads of this disappointing affair could again be 
 caught up and woven into anything tangible. 
 
 As threads, they came in curious guise a man, 
 prematurely old, with cunning eyes, a twitching mouth, 
 and uncertain ways. He came during the slack morn- 
 ing hours, when it was Miss Smith's custom to sit and 
 read or do needlework behind the bar, so that she did 
 not see him at first. But Felisi did. His movements, 
 his very appearance somehow suggested a bird of prey. 
 For a while he hovered in the doorway, peering in, then, 
 of a sudden, swooped down upon the bar. 
 
 At the sound of footsteps Miss Smith looked up. It 
 was ghastly. The smile was there, but transfixed in the 
 bloodless mask of her face. 
 
 The man spoke. His voice was low and ingratiating. 
 
 "Don't look like that, my dear; one would think you 
 weren't glad to see me." His mouth twitched. "And 
 look here." He leant across the bar, "Don't imagine 
 that I'm going to be the smallest bit of trouble, because 
 I'm not. Wouldn't interfere for the world." He
 
 136 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 looked about him with evident approval. "Who'd 
 have thought, though however, any port in a storm, 
 and I expect it's all right quite all right. By the way," 
 his voice sank still lower, "What's the name?" 
 
 In little more than a whisper Miss Smith answered 
 him. 
 
 "Smith Miss Smith." 
 
 "Then that's all right," commented the man; "who 
 am I to cavil at a name? I'll have just a suggestion, if 
 you please Miss Smith." 
 
 And she served him, though no money changed hands. 
 
 "That is distinctly better," said the man, setting 
 down the glass, and smacking his loose lips. "What are 
 you going to do about it?" he added. "Make another 
 break for it?" 
 
 Miss Smith made answer like some mechanical in- 
 strument. 
 
 "I haven't thought. I haven't had time to think." 
 
 "No. Well, when you have you'll let me know, won't 
 you? It saves a lot of trouble and er, expense. In the 
 meantime. . . ." He paused, gazing speculatively 
 across the bar. 
 
 Miss Smith gave him money, and flinched from his 
 outstretched hand. 
 
 He moved toward the door. 
 
 "Don't forget," he said in his soft voice, "no inter- 
 ference no trouble of any sort just me, where I belong, 
 that's all." And he was gone. 
 
 But he returned, and kept returning. He haunted 
 the Royal like an insidious wraith. One came upon
 
 MALUA 137 
 
 him at odd times, in unlikely places, doing nothing, say- 
 ing little, but ever present. And at last Felisi saw him 
 enter Miss Smith's bure. 
 
 For a time the low drone of voices came from within. 
 Then the man's, raised in horrible anger, followed by a 
 sudden silence, and presently his figure stealing out into 
 the compound. 
 
 Without waiting for permission, Felisi thrust open the 
 door and went in. The room was a chaos of disordered 
 and broken chattels, and in the midst of it sat Miss 
 Smith, vainly trying to hide a flaming wale across her 
 cheek. 
 
 "You saw," she said. 
 
 Felisi nodded. She could do no more at the moment. 
 
 "It doesn't matter," said Miss Smith. "Nothing 
 matters now, except will you do something for me, 
 Felisi?" 
 
 She crossed a little unsteadily to the table, and sat 
 there writing for a few moments; then handed Felisi a 
 note and a bulky package. 
 
 "Take these to the man " she said, and paused. 
 
 "Man with no good cook," prompted Felisi. 
 
 Miss Smith smiled faintly. 
 
 "Yes, you uncanny child, to the man with the no 
 good cook. . . ." 
 
 Felisi departed with all the pleasure in life. But her 
 willingness to do anything in the world for Miss Smith 
 in no way appeased her own burning curiosity. The 
 nature of the package's contents was soon determined, 
 but the note was another matter. They were wonder- 
 ful, these thin bags of paper that contained so little yet
 
 138 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 seemingly so much! She had seen people laugh over 
 them, and weep, and ponder for hours on end. She 
 wondered what would be the particular effect of the one 
 she carried which meant that she was determined to 
 find out. 
 
 That was why, instead of folio whig the beach road, 
 she elected to go by canoe. The track to the landing 
 led past the hut of Willie the half-caste, and as all 
 the world allowed, there was nothing Willie did not 
 know. 
 
 "There are certain matters, oh, my Willie," said 
 Felisi squatting in his doorway. 
 
 "You have been a good child," admitted Willie. 
 "What now?" 
 
 "I have these," said Felisi, producing a handful of the 
 Royal's most poisonous cigars, "which shall be yours for 
 one small favour." 
 
 "Name it," said Willie, his wise old eyes glinting in 
 the lamplight. 
 
 "Speak this to me," said Felisi, "that I may laugh or 
 weep or ponder on it as others do." 
 
 Willie twisted the note in his gnarled fingers, and 
 leant nearer the light. 
 
 "But it is not yours," he pointed out. 
 
 "That is so," admitted Felisi, "but you will speak it 
 to me because of these cigars, and because of other 
 things that I know." 
 
 "And if I open it all will know that it has been 
 opened," he protested. 
 
 "Are they like that?" 
 
 "How else?" demanded Willie. Nevertheless, his
 
 MALUA 139 
 
 glance wavered between the steam rising from a pot of 
 taro and the cigars. 
 
 And that was how in the end Felisi came to watch 
 the paper bag curl back and open of its own accord, and 
 listened to the droning voice of Willie the half-caste who, 
 it was clear, knew all things. The translation was 
 free but adequate: 
 
 You will, I know, want to return what I am sending by the mes- 
 senger who brings it. You will think the very sending of it an in- 
 sult, but when you have read this note perhaps you will understand. 
 That is what I pray. 
 
 "My small savings were for 'over there,' but all hope of that is 
 gone. My husband has found me. He will always find me. There 
 is no escape, and I am too tired to fight any more. . . 
 
 If you have loved me, take this my present he will have it if 
 you do not and go; go now, before it is too late. It would make me 
 feel that my work has not been in vain. It would make me happy 
 in spite of all. Do this for me, and cheat malua. 
 
 The effect of this effusion on Willie was negligible. 
 He merely refastened the note, returned it, and lit a 
 cigar. But with Felisi it was otherwise. This, then, 
 was why people laughed, and wept, and pondered and 
 small wonder! She was pondering herself on the way 
 to the landing, or she would have seen who followed. 
 
 As it was she had already boarded the canoe at the 
 landing steps when a man's figure the same that had 
 left Miss Smith's bure disengaged itself from the 
 shadow of a bollard, and stumbled in after her. Taking 
 an involuntary seat on the nearest thwart, it leered at 
 her out of the darkness swaying gently. 
 
 "Now," it said in soft, slurred accents; "now we can 
 talk, eh?"
 
 140 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 Felisi should have been alarmed. But she was not. 
 She had seen men in this condition before, and feared 
 them not at all. 
 
 "You want talk?" she responded brightly, and dip- 
 ped her paddle, heading the canoe seaward. 
 
 Apparently the man did. 
 
 "I knew it was there . . . and she gave it you 
 
 I saw . . . She gave it you just to 
 
 cheat me . . . Hand it over, kid, and you can have 
 
 anything you fancy. . . . Hand it over and save 
 
 yourself a lot of trouble, a whole lot. . . ." 
 
 He said a great deal more. His voice rose in threat, 
 sank in persuasion, spluttered in sudden outbursts of 
 passion, but nothing that he said had the slightest ef- 
 fect on the easy swing and dip of the paddle, nor on 
 Felisi's thoughts that accompanied them. There was 
 something radically wrong with all this wrong and 
 ugly in a world that should be right and beautiful. And 
 it was so simple to rectify ... so tantalizingly 
 simple. . . . 
 
 Exactly what happened was hard to determine, and 
 quite unnecessary. The man's voice had risen in a 
 querulous crescendo. He was on his feet. His out- 
 stretched, grasping hands were descending on Felisi. 
 She was sure of this as sure as she was that they 
 missed her by several inches; that the canoe turned 
 neatly bottom up, and remained so for a considerable 
 time. But then dugouts are deplorably unstable at the 
 best of times. 
 
 Felisi was thinking that very thing amongst others 
 as she paddled home, alone.
 
 THEIR TROUBLES 
 
 TIME passes, even in the Islands. Felisi of 
 Luana had now reached the mature age of six- 
 teen. 
 
 And things had happened during the past year, drastic 
 things that have a habit of changing the whole aspect of 
 life. No longer was she called upon by her father to ad- 
 venture forth from the family roof tree and wrest from a 
 grudging world the wherewithal to purchase such lux- 
 uries as his advanced tastes demanded. Such excur- 
 sions were no more, so that for Felisi the curtain was 
 rung down on the thrilling drama of other people's busi- 
 ness. Henceforth, she must attend to her own. That 
 is why we come upon her engaged in nothing more ro- 
 mantic than turning the handle of a borrowed sewing 
 machine. 
 
 It came hard at first. For the matter of that, and 
 after eighteen months of eventless Luana, it still came 
 hard at times, and she paused in her work to gaze wist- 
 fully through the doorway and across the stretch of 
 sparkling Pacific that separated her from the great 
 "outside." 
 
 What was happening over there, she wondered? Who 
 was now dispensing imitation pink coral on Suva's 
 crowded wharves, or lending a helping hand where it was 
 needed and sometimes where it was not in the 
 
 141
 
 142 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 multifarious and intricate problems of human existence? 
 In short, how was the world continuing to survive with- 
 out her? She was sorry for it, as sorry for the world in 
 its bereavement as she occasionally was for herself. 
 Then her glance would leave the horizon, and rest on 
 the bundle at her side, and she would sigh and return 
 to her sewing, persuaded that perhaps all was for the 
 best. It was growing, that bundle, and from it she 
 derived all the comforts that a nest-egg brings. 
 
 At the moment, however, unrest possessed her. A 
 white man had come to live at Luana ; nothing less ! And 
 what was more, a white man of an entirely new pattern 
 sparse as to hair at the temples, almost blind to judge 
 by the size of tortoise-shell rimmed sun-glasses that 
 he wore, thoughtful of countenance, and content to 
 sit in a cane chair under a mango tree for longer 
 than Felisi had ever seen a white man sit in any one 
 place. 
 
 True, he occasionally wrote letters with a chewed 
 pencil on flimsy paper, and as often tore them up when 
 written; but for the most part he merely sat there in the 
 little square of croton-bordered garden before the house 
 he had acquired, staring into vacancy. 
 
 So much she knew from casual observation, but what 
 of the rest? Who was he? Why was he? In fact, 
 what about him? It was still a physical impossibility, 
 then, for Felisi to live in the neighbourhood of a mys- 
 tery without trying to solve it? It is to be feared so. 
 
 Toward evening she found herself ornamenting her 
 hair with a red hibiscus blossom, donning her most 
 striking sulu, and practising her smile. Why? Well,
 
 THEIR TROUBLES 143 
 
 such things play a more prominent part in the elucida- 
 tion of mysteries than might be supposed. Besides, 
 it was necessary to fill the bamboo with drinking water, 
 and the path to the spring led past her new neighbour's 
 abode, and and is it not permissible to look as at- 
 tractive as one can, anyway? 
 
 The precious bundle was relegated to the care of one 
 of her numerous relatives, and Felisi set out. At the 
 croton hedge she paused for breath, but was allowed to 
 proceed without so much as a glance in her direction. It 
 was strange, but not past remedy. On the return 
 journey she came swinging down the hill, a truly devas- 
 tating apparition. Precisely at the croton hedge the 
 water bamboo needed readjustment to the accompani- 
 ment of a hummed meke air. But nothing happened 
 nothing whatsoever. . . . 
 
 That was why a few minutes later Garnet was brought 
 back from a particularly promising flight of fancy to 
 things practical by a mango dropping fair and square in 
 the middle of his manuscript. It was a disturbing oc- 
 currence, but when he came to think of it the wonder was 
 it had not happened before, considering the heavily 
 laden state of the tree overhead and the litter of fruit 
 about the garden. This last would have to be attended 
 to. There were several things that needed attending 
 to. ... And that was as far as Garnet usually 
 got in attending to them. But on this occasion it 
 seemed providential that a native of some sort was 
 staring at him over the hedge. 
 
 "Hi!" he called. "You want mango?" He indi- 
 cated the untidy garden with a wave of the hand.
 
 144 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 The "native of some sort" seemed unimpressed with 
 the possibilities in mangoes; or was it that she failed to 
 understand? 
 
 "Mango!" repeated Garnet, stabbing the air in their 
 direction with the chewed pencil. "Plenty mango, 
 savvy?" 
 
 Felisi pouted, then smiled. She was equally expert 
 at either. 
 
 "Me get you," she said brightly, displaying her latest 
 linguistic achievement fresh garnered from an American 
 schooner. 
 
 It had the desired effect. Garnet removed his sun- 
 glasses, levered himself out of the chair, and strolled 
 over to the hedge. 
 
 "Oh, so you get me, do you?" he observed, also and 
 unconsciously observing those qualities in Felisi of 
 Luana that he had been intended to. "Well, what 
 about it?" 
 
 He looked considerably younger without the glasses, 
 Felisi reflected, and he had kind eyes. There was a 
 button missing from his shirt, and a hole in one of his 
 socks. A freshly crumpled letter protruded from the 
 left pocket of his duck jacket. His manner was of the 
 bluff, playful order universally adopted by white folk 
 in dealing with children, dogs, and natives, but it was 
 assumed, she decided. He was not really like that. . . . 
 
 "Clear them up and you can have them," he con- 
 tinued. "How would that do?" 
 
 "You no like 'em mango?" suggested Felisi. 
 
 "Hate 'em," said Garnet. 
 
 "Me, too," admitted Felisi.
 
 THEIR TROUBLES 145 
 
 Garnet laughed. Refreshing little person, he told 
 himself. Evidently had ideas of her own, and after 
 all, why not? Wonderful eyes . . . and what 
 hair, and skin, and carriage! But it was the possibili- 
 ties of a mind that intrigued Garnet. What if she 
 actually had one? And if she had, what did it harbour? 
 Rather interesting, that life through a Kanaka's eyes. 
 Entirely new viewpoint. He wondered . . . That 
 was his trade. 
 
 His wonder grew as the sun-drenched days passed by, 
 and each evening Felisi appeared with a reed basket to 
 relieve him of some mangoes never all, because that 
 would have ended the visitations but sufficient to make 
 a showing before she squatted at his feet, and they in- 
 dulged in a sort of mango social. It was a quaint oc- 
 casion, but they both enjoyed it. 
 
 "What about the Princess and the poor man?" sug- 
 gested Garnet. "You might let me have that again, 
 will you?" 
 
 "You like 'im, eh?" questioned Felisi. 
 
 "Very much," said Garnet. "But there's something 
 wrong with the end. They were drowned, weren't 
 they?" 
 
 Felisi regarded him reproachfully. 
 
 "Them no drowned," she said. "Them marry." 
 
 "But how can that be if they dived together off a 
 cliff higher than Suva church because the King wouldn't 
 let them, and never came up again?" 
 
 "Me no say them never come up again," protested 
 Felisi in injured tones. "Me no finish." 
 
 "Ah, I see," murmured Garnet, leaning back in his
 
 146 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 chair. "Another powerful instalment in our next, 
 eh? Well, fire ahead." 
 
 "Them dive," proceeded Felisi dramatically, "down 
 down, an' never come up " 
 
 "There you are," said Garnet. 
 
 "Never come up three six days," continued Felisi, 
 ignoring the interruption. 
 
 "Gad, they must have had a pair of lungs on them," 
 came another that met with a like fate. 
 
 "King him think them finish, but " 
 
 "Ah!" breathed Garnet. 
 
 " Poor man him hunt plenty turtle. Him see turtle go 
 in cave under sea. Him take Princess in cave " 
 
 "And I suppose when they did come out, the King 
 was so pleased to see his daughter again that he made 
 the poor man a chief, and let them marry?" 
 
 Felisi nodded gravely. 
 
 "How you know?" she demanded. 
 
 "I have an instinct in these things," said Garnet. 
 
 Felisi decided it was a disappointing process to re- 
 count Island history to people with instinct whatever 
 that might be. It robbed the narrator of a legitimate 
 and hard-earned climax. 
 
 "Fow now," she announced, after sitting in silence 
 while Garnet produced reflective smoke clouds that 
 hung on the still air above his head. 
 
 "What's that?" he exclaimed, with the sudden 
 dread of his species that something was expected of 
 him. 
 
 "But I don't know anything," he faltered. "Be- 
 sides, I come from a cold, uninteresting place where
 
 THEIR TROUBLES 147 
 
 princesses don't dive off cliffs or or do anything like 
 that." 
 
 "You write plenty letters," accused Felisi with seem- 
 ing irrelevance. 
 
 "Letters? Yes, I suppose I do," admitted Garnet 
 on reflection. "I must write quite a lot of letters, 
 heaven help me!" 
 
 "What for you write *em?" 
 
 Garnet pondered the matter, perceiving that it was 
 in truth his turn now. 
 
 "Money, mostly," he stated truthfully. 
 
 "Plenty friend belong you, eh?" 
 
 "A fair number." 
 
 "An' you write 'em letter for money." 
 
 "In a way; that is yes." 
 
 Felisi relapsed into silence. The mystery was solved. 
 She had no idea that writing to one's friends for money 
 was such a remunerative proceeding. 
 
 There followed further cursory conversation, possibly 
 a cup of tea, and Felisi's departure, impeded by the 
 laden reed basket. 
 
 Such were the mango socials, and they continued 
 with marked success for nearly a month. Then Gar- 
 net's conscience got to work. There was a calendar in 
 his house, an advertisement of the local shipping com- 
 pany, and more than once he found himself standing 
 before it staring fixedly at a date whereon was printed 
 in small blue letters: 
 
 "S.S. Levu arrives Malita." The announcement had 
 the effect of making him feel supremely uncomfortable. 
 It was absurd, but it was so.
 
 148 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "Poor little devil," he muttered, and strolled out to 
 the garden. 
 
 Felisi was diligently eradicating mangoes. Garnet 
 watched her. "What was he to say to her? How was he 
 to say it? He was probably her world, and she would be 
 an exile after to-night. That was what it amounted to. 
 
 A scene from "Madama Butterfly" flashed across his 
 mind, and he found himself revising the cast of charac- 
 ters. He remembered how he had wanted to kick the 
 hero of that opera, just as he was mentally kicking him- 
 self now. Yet what had he done? Nothing that could 
 account for his present state of mind. Unintentionally, 
 even unconsciously, he had won the affection of this 
 child, and the realization of it filled him with pity. How 
 was he to tell her that she must come no more? Gar- 
 net shrank from the ordeal with the repugnance of a 
 deeply sympathetic nature. 
 
 What a deal of unnecessary suffering there was in the 
 world, he mused. We trampled through life, crushing 
 the hope and happiness of others like insects under foot. 
 It was all an accident, of course, but the result was the 
 same. We passed on our way unconscious murderers. 
 Yet there were some in this whirlwind of a world who 
 took time to notice and to think, and suffered in conse- 
 quence. Garnet told himself that he was one of these. 
 He sighed. 
 
 Whereupon Felisi, who had finished the mango har- 
 vest, looked up. 
 
 "Him sick?" she suggested, indicating the place 
 where the lower half of Garnet's waistcoat should have 
 been.
 
 THEIR TROUBLES 149 
 
 "No," he said. "I was thinking about a story that 
 I have to tell, and don't know how." 
 
 "You tell 'em all right," encouraged Felisi. 
 
 "Think so?" said Garnet. "Well, here goes!" 
 
 He could not bring himself to look at her as he 
 spoke. Instead, he addressed the branches of the mango 
 tree: 
 
 "There was once a garden, a little girl, and a man. 
 The man liked the little girl, the little girl liked the man, 
 and they both liked the garden, so for some time they 
 had a very pleasant time all round. But outside this 
 garden, and creeping nearer every day, there was 
 a a trouble, a she trouble that particularly disliked 
 little girls. Of course the little girl knew nothing of 
 this trouble, but the man knew it very well indeed so 
 well that when it was only a day's journey from the 
 garden he thought it best to tell the little girl so that 
 she could run away and not be troubled with the trouble. 
 That was why one evening he made it all into a 
 story and told it her while they were sitting in the 
 garden." 
 
 It was some time before Garnet dared to steal a glance 
 at his audience, but when he did there was something in 
 Felisi's silence that told him she understood. Then, 
 of a sudden, she was on her feet, her body swaying with 
 excitement. 
 
 "Him all right," she said breathlessly. "Me now. 
 All the same story girl, garden, man, trouble him 
 he trouble, mine," and with that she turned and 
 fled. 
 
 Perhaps it was as well, Garnet decided, fumbling for
 
 150 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 his pipe; but the garden looked infernally empty . . . 
 and what on earth could the child mean . . . ? 
 
 Malita wharf was aswarm with its "steamer day" 
 crowd when the Levu came alongside. Garnet saw his 
 wife almost immediately, and waved a greeting with 
 his hat over the head of the little native woman in front 
 who had a bundle securely spliced to her side with a 
 crimson sulu. This contained a minute object in the 
 way of babies, but apparently in proper working order 
 by the sounds it produced. It was its mother, though, 
 that attracted Garnet's attention. Her head, though 
 he could only see the back of it, was vaguely familiar. 
 He looked again, and saw Felisi of Luana. 
 
 Before the gangway was out her husband, a bronze 
 giant with a grin that threatened to interfere with his 
 ears, had bounded onto the wharf and taken possession. 
 He examined his wife, and she smiled radiantly; he 
 examined her precious bundle, and she laughed ecstati- 
 cally. 
 
 This, then, was the nature of Felisi's "trouble." 
 Garnet smiled as he turned to meet his own.
 
 MOTHER -OF-PEARL 
 
 IF THEY were as progressive as they are inventive," 
 said the Professor, in his best lecture-room manner, 
 "they would rule this earth to-day instead of in a 
 few centuries to come. I have a great admiration for 
 the Chinese," he added magnanimously. 
 
 His audience, consisting of a meagrely hirsute young 
 man, an earnest lady in pink, and an elderly gentleman 
 of funereal aspect, grouped about the great man's chair 
 on the promenade deck of the Mana, wagged their 
 heads in unison. They entirely agreed. They would 
 have agreed to black being a light shade of puce, pro- 
 vided Doctor Wigmore had said so. Was he not head 
 of the Manderville Bequest Research Party, that spent 
 more in a month studying the antics of the coral polyp 
 than would provide the normal human with a meal 
 ticket for life?" 
 
 Yet a few yards distant Ah Fang smoked on unmoved. 
 
 "Fortunately for us," the Professor continued, "they 
 have a knack of getting just so far with a thing, and 
 leaving the rest for others to perfect and profit by. The 
 mariner's compass and gunpowder are indisputably 
 theirs, and now it really is remarkably interesting 
 ah. . . ." 
 
 His audience waited in a state approaching suspended 
 
 151
 
 152 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 animation while the Professor blinked thoughtfully at 
 the Pacific. 
 
 "Yes?" ventured the earnest lady at length. 
 
 "Ah, yes," boomed the Professor, "as I was saying, 
 I saw some remarkable things on the upper reaches 
 of the Tai Tung Kyang" it will be noticed that 
 the Professor had said nothing of the sort, but this 
 was an engaging habit of his "amongst others, the 
 manufacture of half -pearls," he ended with dramatic 
 abruptness. 
 
 There fell a momentary silence, during which it 
 might have been noticed that Ah Fang knocked out his 
 pipe and moved nearer on the steerage hatch. 
 
 "Fish scale dust adhering to wafer glass," suggested 
 the funereal gentleman. 
 
 "Not at all," snapped the Professor. "You may 
 buy such trash on Fifth Avenue, in Regent Street, or 
 the Rue de Rivoli. I am speaking of the genuine 
 article. What is a pearl but layer upon layer of mother- 
 of-pearl? And so on the Tai Tung Kyang they take 
 the fresh-water mussel it being a hardier species than 
 the oyster introduce a pilule of prepared wax a 
 delicate operation, by the way and wait for it to be 
 covered. In six months or less they have a half -pearl 
 adhering to the shell that it is impossible to tell from 
 the real thing, except for its foundation, which can 
 easily be hidden in a skilful setting. There is a temple 
 to the discoverer of the process on the Tai Tung, and 
 those engaging in the industry pay tribute ah. . ." 
 
 Again the Professor lapsed into reverie, and again the 
 earnest lady saw fit to resuscitate him.
 
 MOTHER-OF-PEARL 153 
 
 "And what is the foundation of the true pearl?" she 
 asked brightly. 
 
 "A cestoid," he answered "a cestoid that enters 
 the digestive organs and sets up irritation." 
 
 "And where does the cestoid originate?" 
 
 The Professor turned upon her his long-suffering gaze. 
 
 "My dear young lady," he sighed, "the man who 
 knows that, and could keep it to himself, would own the 
 earth, or pearls would cease to be of value one of the 
 two. And now what about that return at deck golf?" 
 
 Ah Fang watched the party move for'ard and proceed 
 with the utmost gravity to push blocks of wood with 
 a stick. Their conversation, which he understood 
 perfectly after his year's intensive study of their jaw- 
 breaking language at Canton, had been entertaining and 
 mildly instructive. It showed that others were on the 
 trail on the trail perhaps half a century behind Ah 
 Fang. Undoubtedly the Professor was an intelligent 
 man, but how he talked! How they all talked! And 
 why? Ah Fang gave it up, as be bad so often been 
 forced to give up an explanation of this people's folly. 
 
 One thing, however, he thoroughly understood, and 
 envied them, and that was the Manderville Bequest. 
 With such a backing what could not he, Ah Fang, ac- 
 complish? But they did not do things like that in 
 China. Instead, the temple on the banks of the Tai 
 Tung Kyang had seen fit to send its savant steerage. 
 Ah Fang edged still farther from the unclean Tamil 
 at his elbow, and relit his pipe. 
 
 At Papeete, moored to the coral wall that forms the 
 beach, her slender spars clear-cut against a dark green
 
 154 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 background of shady trees, the Manderville auxiliary 
 schooner-yacht Phoenix awaited her distinguished 
 passenger. There was no delay. A trim launch came 
 off to the Mana, the Professor stepped aboard, and half 
 an hour later the yacht was heading for the reef passage, 
 with the great man waving a genial farewell from the 
 bows. He was conducting researches on an outlying 
 atoll of the group. His wife would join him shortly. 
 
 For Ah Fang matters were rather more complicated, 
 but when at last, and after a severe manhandling by 
 over-zealous officials, he was allowed to betake himself 
 and his little camphor-wood box ashore, there was no 
 hesitation in his movements. As though acquainted 
 with the place from infancy, he plunged into the town. 
 
 Papeete took no heed of his advent Papeete has 
 other things to do of an evening and, if she had, it 
 would only have been to note that another Chinaman 
 had come to town another of those inscrutable, in- 
 dustrious yellow men who are the finest plantation 
 labour on the market, and the hardest but squarest nut 
 to crack in a deal. 
 
 Past the club, with its inevitable veranda full of 
 imbibing schooner skippers, past the more pretentious 
 French and British stores, the markets at this late 
 hour deserted and forlorn through the maze of tumble- 
 down weatherboard hovels emitting the indescribable, 
 unmistakable odour of a Chinese quarter, Ah Fang 
 wended his way, emerging finally on the open spaces 
 behind the town, where the palm groves rise in waves 
 and rugged mountains loom against the stars. 
 
 Across a grass-grown avenue of flamboyants two
 
 MOTHER-OF-PEARL 155 
 
 lights glimmered, a green and a yellow. Ah Fang made 
 straight toward them, swung open the garden gate of a 
 commodious house standing in its own grounds, and was 
 about to ring the bell, when the door opened and he was 
 ushered, camphor-wood box and all, into a brightly 
 lighted room of strange aspect. The chairs and sofa 
 were upholstered in red plush. A heavy pile carpet, 
 that looked as if it had never suffered the pressure of 
 human foot, covered the floor, and enlarged photographs 
 of hideous people in gift frames bespattered the walls. 
 Ah Fang had never before seen the home of a fellow 
 countryman married to a Tahitian half-caste, but he 
 saw it now. Also he saw the parties to this amazing 
 but apparently happy union in the persons of an im- 
 mensely fat man swathed in sweltering broadcloth and 
 a dainty little lady in pink silk. They were Mr. Lee 
 How, president of the Lee How Trading Co. Inc., and 
 his wife; moreover, they were the first persons to 
 show Ah Fang the slightest respect since he had left 
 Canton. 
 
 "We are honoured, Professor," said Lee How, bowing 
 thrice. 
 
 "That is so," replied Ah Fang, with new-found dig- 
 nity, returning the salute. "Shall we go where we 
 may talk?" 
 
 His eye traversed the gorgeous apartment, coming to 
 rest on an enlarged photograph, helped out in crayon, 
 of Mrs. Lee How's mother. A telegraphic glance 
 passed from husband to wife, causing the latter to pout 
 prettily and retire. 
 
 "It is the women," said Lee How, glancing apolo-
 
 156 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 getically about him. "They have their notions, and it 
 is best to humour them/' 
 
 "Is that so?" 
 
 "It is so in this country," affirmed Lee How. "I 
 fear we grow out of touch." 
 
 "A pity," mused Ah Fang, whose mind was already 
 occupied with more important matters. "All is pre- 
 pared?" 
 
 "All. I have lately opened a small store, under the 
 name of Woy Tow, on the beach road fifteen miles out 
 of Papeete. There will be little custom, but it will 
 serve its purpose, and shall be attended to by a native 
 boy I have engaged. There is ample living accommo- 
 dation behind the store, and the backyard adjoins the 
 beach." 
 
 "It sounds satisfactory," admitted Ah Fang. "I 
 trust I shall be able to send a favourable report." 
 
 Lee How bowed. 
 
 The next day one of the motor monstrosities that 
 infest Papeete conveyed a Chinaman and a camphor- 
 wood box to the newly opened Woy Tow store on the 
 beach road. A few scraggy chickens strutted and 
 pecked about the veranda steps. A cat peered round 
 a corner and fled. Against a variegated background of 
 tinned foodstuffs and brightly hued prints a native 
 youth, head on arms and arms on counter, slept the 
 sleep of a Tahitian at two p. m. 
 
 Ah Fang deposited the camphor-wood box hi the 
 back room and passed out to the yard which, as Lee 
 How had said, adjoined the beach. It is doubtful if 
 there is anything more beautiful than the scene that
 
 MOTHER-OF-PEARL 
 
 157 
 
 confronted him the indescribable colouring of the 
 shallows merging into the dark blue of deep water, the 
 white ribbon of the barrier reef, with its thundering 
 surf and far-flung spindrift, that floated and danced in 
 miniature rainbows before the sun, and, back of all, 
 the fantastic outline of Moorea. But Ah Fang saw 
 none of these things. They were not the affair of a 
 man of single purpose. Without 
 haste or hesitation he waded into 
 the lagoon, knee, waist, chest 
 deep, minutely examining its floor. 
 There were coral rocks and fronds 
 reflecting a green, unearthly light, 
 delicate weeds like a woman's hair 
 flowing and rippling with the cur- 
 rent, shells big and little, propelled at amazing speed 
 by their hermit crab inhabitants, and that was all- 
 all that interested Ah Fang. 
 
 A native girl waded by with a cast-net, flung it into 
 deeper water and dived, appearing presently with a 
 glittering fish between her teeth. She smiled at Ah 
 Fang and passed on. 
 
 This would never do, he decided, and during the 
 week that followed a gang of Lee How's minions was 
 engaged in the prolongation of the backyard fence, 
 so that it crossed the beach and embraced fifty square 
 yards of the lagoon. 
 
 From that hour Ah Fang's private affairs became a 
 matter of increasing interest to Miri of the cast-net. 
 Unconsciously he had fenced off the girl's favourite 
 fishing ground, and must put up with the consequences.
 
 158 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 These consisted, for the present, in an eagle-like watch 
 being kept on his every movement. Did he but sun 
 himself on his strip of beach, then Miri knew of it. 
 Did he sit at the window of his room behind the store, 
 bending over an instrument of polished brass, then 
 Miri saw him. What right had a Chinaman, or any 
 one, to take unto himself the ocean? None. What 
 was to be done about it? Nothing, because nothing 
 much is done about anything on Tahiti. Miri waited 
 and watched. 
 
 At dawn of a certain day, and floating upright but 
 motionless in the still water, she saw a heavily laden 
 canoe arrive at the hated fence and miraculously pass 
 inside. There was evidently a door, but doors had 
 little meaning for Miri. With a few effortless strokes 
 she was at the seaward end and peering between the 
 bamboos. Four men stood knee-deep about the canoe, 
 unloading its contents into shallow water, while Ah 
 Fang supervised from the beach. This done, the 
 canoe returned by the way it had come, and Ah Fang 
 proceeded to sort his cargo with extreme care. It was 
 then that Miri saw what he was handling. They were 
 oysters more oysters and larger oysters than she had 
 ever seen. Ah Fang took them in armfuls, waded 
 waist-deep, and placed them in methodical rows on the 
 floor of the lagoon. Was the man mad? Miri had 
 seen many oysters taken out of the sea, but not put into 
 it. She gave the matter her undivided attention until 
 sunset, and, returning home empty handed, received a 
 severe reprimand from her chronically peevish mother. 
 
 "It will be better to-morrow." she assured her irate
 
 MOTHER-OF-PEARL 159 
 
 parent; and it was. The next day they dined on 
 oysters. 
 
 The process was repeated twice. It was supremely 
 simple. You merely tied the canoe to a bamboo, in- 
 sinuated your lithe little body between two others, and 
 dived, remaining under water perhaps two minutes. 
 During this time it was possible to collect an armful of 
 edibles, which you dumped into the canoe, and paddled 
 home singing. 
 
 But at the third venture things happened. The 
 end of Miri's underwater tether was almost reached, and 
 she had turned to the canoe, when something seized 
 her by the hair, something that dragged her shrieking 
 into the shallows, and she found herself staring wild- 
 eyed into the face of an enraged Chinaman. 
 
 She had never seen such a thing before. It twisted 
 into gruesome shapes, and emitted noises for all the 
 world like a choking dog. In the heat of the moment 
 Ah Fang was employing his native tongue. He 
 checked himself with an effort. 
 
 "You steal my oysters," he accused in precise Canton 
 College accents. 
 
 Miri was too frightened to notice that he spoke 
 English better English than the beche-de-mer she her- 
 self had picked up on passing schooners. But the 
 weight of his hand on her hair caused a glint to come 
 into her mild brown eyes. 
 
 "You steal my fish!" she retorted, with heat. 
 
 Ah Fang pondered the matter. Anger had died out of 
 his face, and presently his hand fell from the girl's hair. 
 
 "That is so," he said quietly. "Wait."
 
 160 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 Out of mingled surprise and curiosity, Miri waited. 
 Ah Fang ambled up the beach and into the store, re- 
 turning shortly with three labelled tins that she rec- 
 ognized from afar. They were salmon, that doubtful 
 delicacy for which, for some reason, your South Sea 
 Islander will barter his immortal soul. 
 
 "There is more," he told her, placing the tins in her 
 outstretched hands, "if you do not steal the oysters. 
 You swim well," he added judicially. "Where do you 
 live?" 
 
 Miri nodded up the beach. 
 
 "I will call on your father," said Ah Fang. 
 
 "Papa belong me finish," Miri answered, without 
 emotion. 
 
 "Your mother then." 
 
 "Mama belong me plenty sick." 
 
 "All the same, I will call," said Ah Fang, and watched 
 his diminutive prisoner swim for the canoe with the 
 tinned salmon clasped tightly to her breast. 
 
 The interview that ensued was short and to the point. 
 
 "I wish to buy your daughter," Ah Fang informed a 
 lady of ample proportions squatting on the mats of a 
 dilapidated grass house. 
 
 Miri, being the linguist of the family, conducted the 
 proceedings. 
 
 "Mama say what for you want buy?" she translated 
 glibly. 
 
 "That is my affair," said Ah Fang. "I need assist- 
 ance in the house and outside. I am willing to pay 
 for it. My leflence is the Lee How Tlading Company 
 Incorporated." He still had difficulty with his r's.
 
 MOTHER-OF-PEARL 161 
 
 Following this announcement, the lady on the mats 
 commenced to sway and croon by way of displaying 
 her grief at the prospect of parting with so valuable a 
 daughter. Ah Fang moved toward the door, where- 
 upon the swaying ceased. 
 
 "How much?" Miri translated, though her mother 
 had not spoken. 
 
 "I will pay one hundred dollars down," replied Ah 
 Fang, "and your mother shall be supplied with food 
 and clothing from the store." 
 
 The swaying recommenced. There was a pause, 
 during which the boom of the surf and the rattle 
 of screw pine leaves held sway. Then Miri's mother 
 spoke. 
 
 "Mama say you marry, all right," announced Miri, a 
 business-like tang in her usually soft voice. 
 
 Ah Fang gazed straight before him for perhaps half a 
 minute, then turned to her with the hint of a smile 
 twisting the corners of his mouth. 
 
 "It shall be as your mother wish," he conceded 
 blandly. 
 
 To Ah Fang the days immediately following this 
 interview constituted an accumulative nightmare. Be- 
 ginning with incomprehensible alarms and excursions 
 that interfered abominably with one's work, they 
 dragged their weary length through feastings, music, 
 and dancing to a culminating ceremony that defies 
 faithful description. Yet he suffered it all with out- 
 ward calm. Such buffooneries were evidently as nec- 
 essary to these people as Miri was to himself. He let
 
 162 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 it go at that. It must be remembered that Ah Fang 
 was a man of single purpose. 
 
 Miri found him so, and would not have had him 
 otherwise. Provided she dedicated a certain portion 
 of each day to the cultivation of oysters, her time was 
 her own, as also were the contents of the Woy Tow 
 store, where she revelled in tinned salmon and pink 
 silk. Before a fortnight had passed, red plush began 
 to make its appearance in the largest of the two rooms 
 at her disposal. Miri was content. 
 
 So also was Ah Fang. The discomforts he had 
 lately endured were amply atoned for by an amphibious 
 wife. It was now possible to plant the oysters at 
 greater depth, and retrieve them by means of a cunning 
 brown hand instead of the clumsy net. Even in their 
 treatment Miri came to have her uses. Her nimble 
 fingers soon became no less deft than Ah Fang's at 
 opening the shell in shallow water with a finely tapered 
 wooden wedge, and by such minute degrees that the 
 delicate fish remained unharmed. But beyond this 
 stage in the proceedings she was not allowed to go. 
 Thereafter Ah Fang took the shells one by one to his 
 stuffy room behind the store, and conjured with them 
 in strict privacy. 
 
 What it was all about, Miri had no notion, and at 
 times she wondered for instance, when the Lee How 
 canoe arrived, towing a half-dead shark in its wake, 
 to be incarcerated in a fish fence partition of its own, 
 or when Ah Fang almost hurried up the beach with 
 weird marine messes to be subjected to the brass in- 
 strument that for ever glittered at the back window.
 
 MOTHER-OF-PEARL 163 
 
 But something stayed her from inquiry, perhaps the 
 knowledge that it would be futile, perhaps the memory 
 of her husband's face when he dragged her from the sea 
 by her hair. For the most part, Miri was content to 
 add trophies to her parlour, or, with her strangely re- 
 juvenated mother, parade Papeete beach of an evening 
 in imitation silk stockings, to the lasting envy of rela- 
 tives and friends. At such times the most that they 
 could say was: "Where is your husband?" To 
 which Miri would reply with a touch of hauteur and 
 scathing emphasis on the pronoun: "My husband 
 works." 
 
 And she spoke truth. None but a fanatic or a 
 Chinaman could have laboured with the whole- 
 souled concentration of Ah Fang. Yet he had his 
 softer moments, when he would sit in state and ex- 
 treme discomfort on the parlour sofa, and occasionally 
 speak. 
 
 "You have done well," he told his wife on one of 
 these rare occasions. "You will make holiday with 
 your mother. There will be a motor car, and you will 
 visit your fliends for a week." 
 
 Now, if there is one thing calculated to elevate the 
 aspiring Tahitian to the seventh heaven, it is sitting 
 back in a bone-shaking machine and smothering less 
 fortunate acquaintances with dust. Miri's eyes spar- 
 kled, as Ah Fang had known they would. 
 
 "An' you?" she suggested, when the first ecstasy had 
 passed. 
 
 "I shall stay," said Ah Fang, and fell to filling his 
 glass pipe, a sure indication that the matter was ended.
 
 164 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 In due course the hour and the car arrived, and with 
 equal precision departed, together with Miri and her 
 mother, a bored half-caste chauffeur, a case of peach 
 brandy, and twenty tins of tropically freckled ciga- 
 rettes. 
 
 Miri found it pleasant to sit thus behind a purring 
 monster that devoured the white ribbon of the beach 
 road mile on mile . . . Ah Fang was kind. They 
 would visit the Maevatuas and the Teahis, and show 
 them life as it should be lived. ... Or was it that 
 Ah Fang wished to be rid of her? She had never 
 thought of that. How the wind whistled, and the car 
 rocked, and the lagoon streamed by. . . . What 
 was this secret that stood between Ah Fang and her- 
 self? There, they had nearly accounted for a chicken! 
 How it scuttled and clucked out of their all-conquering 
 path! . . . And how long would it remain a se- 
 cret? Just so long as she (Miri) allowed it. Why 
 did she allow it? Because she was afraid. Of what 
 was she afraid? She did not know unless it was Ah 
 Fang. She laughed and nodded to old Roo, who stood 
 satisfactorily agape in a cloud of dust as they swept by. 
 
 Thus did the purring of the road devourer stimulate 
 thought, so that by the time it had reached the first 
 road house Miri had reached a conclusion. She could 
 never rest until she knew. Things came to her like 
 that, of a sudden, out of a clear sky, and with all- 
 consuming force. 
 
 Leaving her mother to exchange confidences with 
 the proprietress over peach brandy and cigarettes, 
 Miri discarded her finery for the more serviceable
 
 MOTHER-OF-PEARL 165 
 
 pareu, and sped by short cuts across the lagoon shallows 
 toward the Woy Tow store. 
 
 It is a strange experience to approach one's home as 
 a trespasser. Indeed, the thing is impossible. Miri 
 assured herself of this as the canoe glided silently 
 toward the seaward end of the fish fence. Who has better 
 right of entry than the housewife? She asked herself 
 the question while making fast the canoe, and answered 
 it by peering cautiously through the bamboos. 
 
 Dusk had fallen, and there was no light in Ah Fang's 
 room. The place was deserted. Yet Miri dived and 
 swam under water to the beach, and, as she swam, her 
 hands, out of habit, passed over the familiar floor of 
 the lagoon. The oysters in the shallows, over a hun- 
 dred of them, had gone to the room! The door was 
 locked, as usual, but the window was ill-fitting. Miri 
 lowered herself to the floor and glanced about her. 
 There was nothing nothing but a litter of oyster 
 shells, reflecting an unctuous sheen in the half-light, 
 and the sickening stench of decayed fish. 
 
 It was then that a thought came to Miri a thought 
 so stupendous as to leave her numb. Presently it led 
 her as hi a trance through the window, which she closed 
 with extreme care, and down to the lagoon, where she 
 slid beneath the surface like a seal. ' 
 
 There were still some oysters in the deeper water. 
 Miri took two to the canoe and opened them with a 
 piece of hoop-iron. Out of each rolled a pearl the size 
 of a healthy pea. She handled them in her hands 
 reverently, as a mother would her child. She placed 
 them at the lobes of her ears, and set her head at an
 
 166 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 angle. Out there in the darkness she trembled at 
 thought of what she knew. Ah Fang could make 
 pearls! As others grew cocoanuts, so her husband 
 could grow pearls. Where was the end of it? There 
 was none. It was like trying to think of space. She 
 sought relief in action on the floor of the lagoon. There 
 were several oysters, but they were scattered. It was 
 necessary to travel far and remain under a long time 
 a very long time. But there was a pearl in every one, 
 and were they not her children, hers and Ah Fang's? 
 A pearl in every one! The refrain sang in her ears. 
 Her sleek body left trails of phosphorescent light as it 
 darted here and there in the inky water. A pearl in 
 every one! The refrain swelled to a roar as something 
 dragged her down, down. . . . 
 
 Ah Fang ambled dripping up the beach, lighted the 
 lamp in his odoriferous back room, and, sweeping a 
 space amongst the litter of oyster shells, indited a letter. 
 Here is the gist of it 
 
 HONOURABLE SIRS: 
 
 I write this in case it is decreed that I shall not return. I have the 
 honour to report that my experiments have proved successful. 
 Given the ideal conditions which exist here in Tahiti, it is possible 
 to do all that we had hoped. The cestoid is a common disease of the 
 shark, and transmission by injection is simple and certain with 
 ordinary care. I need say no more, except that an unforeseen ob- 
 stacle at one time threatened the future success of the enterprise, 
 and it is the removal of this obstacle, combined with the strange 
 customs of the country, which necessitate the immediate departure 
 of your obedient servant, 
 
 AH FANG.
 
 HIT OR Miss 
 
 TO-MORROW daylight, then?" 
 "That's right." 
 "Good-night." 
 
 "Good-night, Frank." 
 
 When he had gone, Amery settled back on the cabin 
 locker to smoke a disreputable pipe in slow, methodical 
 puffs, and stare fixedly at the swinging lamp. He knew 
 exactly where his partner was going. He would catch 
 the two-thirty ferry across the harbour and climb the 
 red earth path to the bungalow with the garden over- 
 looking the sea. There he would be as charming as 
 Frank Baird knew how to be. He would balance a 
 tea cup on his knee with the ease of an expert, and talk 
 trivialities until the old man fell asleep. Then he and 
 Dorothy would go into the garden. There was an ar- 
 bour at the bottom, right on the edge of the cliff, covered 
 with passion-fruit vine. . . 
 
 Here Amery checked the flow of his thoughts as 
 though turning off a tap. He possessed the unusual 
 strength of mind to do this and always did it at the 
 same juncture. He considered it unwise to go further, 
 because once, when he had allowed himself that privi- 
 lege, he found himself entertaining disturbing and alto- 
 gether foreign sentiments toward Frank. And that 
 would never do. Better break with your partner than 
 
 167
 
 168 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 hate him. Besides, the thing was childish. . . . 
 Amery uncrossed his legs, stood up, and shook himself 
 like a mastiff, then reached down a roll of charts from 
 the rack in the cabin roof, and fell to studying them 
 with knit brows. 
 
 So correct had he been in his estimate of Baird's move- 
 ments, that at that moment his partner was balancing 
 a blue-and-white china cup on his knee, the while he 
 discussed party politics with the old man. An hour 
 later he was sitting in the vine-clad arbour at the bottom 
 of the garden, pretending to watch the ferry boats that 
 scarred the fair face of the harbour, but in reality un- 
 conscious of anything save the woman at his side. 
 
 "The Islands are a lottery," he was telling her. 
 "Draw the right number, and you're 
 made. That's why we stick to them." 
 "You and Tom have had a good 
 many draws, haven't you?" said the 
 girl, smiling. 
 
 "I suppose we have," he confessed, 
 "but you never know your luck, and 
 this time. . . ." He stopped 
 abruptly, plucked a passion-fruit 
 leaf with a quick, nervous movement, and commenced 
 tearing it to ribbons. 
 
 "Yes, this time?" prompted the girl. 
 "It's hit or miss. " He looked into her unwavering 
 eyes. "Hit or miss this time." 
 
 "And Tom told you not to let me know anything 
 about it," suggested the girl, in her low, even voice. 
 Baird looked down at the shredded leaf in his hand,
 
 HIT OR MISS 169 
 
 then flicked it from him and settled back on the cush- 
 ions. 
 
 "Tom doesn't 'tell' me to do things like that," he 
 said deliberately. "He's nominal skipper aboard, 
 because someone's got to be, and he's the elder man, 
 but we're partners. It was an understanding." 
 
 "I see," said the girl softly. "I like the way you 
 and Tom understand one another." 
 
 "We ought to, after being shipmates seven years." 
 
 "And I envy you Tom." 
 
 Baird looked away over the harbour, the tan of his 
 face slowly deepening. 
 
 "He's a good fellow," he said shortly. 
 
 A silence fell between them, one of those silences that 
 a woman knows intuitively how long to sustain. It 
 was inevitably Baird who broke it. 
 
 "We've bought the Spindrift" he announced. 
 
 "The Spindrift?" 
 
 "Yes, Tatham's auxiliary yacht," he went on 
 hurriedly, as though pent-up thoughts had suddenly 
 found vent. "She's only fifty feet over all, but 
 a picture. The auxiliary motor drives her at six. 
 I've been learning 'em up. I'm engineer." He 
 laughed boyishly. "I tell you, we're all in with the 
 Spindrift." 
 
 "But isn't she very small for for the Islands?" 
 
 "In tonnage, perhaps, but you should see her con- 
 struction. She's a cruiser, fit to go anywhere, and two 
 men can handle her; that's what we want." 
 
 "You two alone?" 
 
 "As far as the Islands, yes. We'll pick up a Kanaka
 
 170 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 crew there if we want one." Baird grinned mysteri- 
 ously. "We're on to something this time." 
 
 Again there fell a silence, and again it was Baird who 
 broke it. 
 
 "Copra and shell are dead," he went on. "Compa- 
 nies with steamers are handling that sort of stuff these 
 days. We're after something better than copra and 
 
 shell, and if we get it if we get it -" His long, 
 
 nervous fingers were interlocked and writhing between 
 his knees. "But there's always an 'if,' isn't there?" 
 he ended abruptly. 
 
 "You mustn't look at it like that," said the girl. 
 "Of course you'll get it, though I don't know what the 
 'it' is no," she added quickly, as he turned to her with 
 parted lips, "and I don't want to know if Tom would 
 rather not." 
 
 "It was only that we thought " 
 
 "It was an understanding," the girl reminded him. 
 "Good luck to you both." 
 
 "Thanks," he said, staring over the harbour. "And 
 whether it's hit or miss, you'll be the first to hear; but 
 you know that." 
 
 "Yes, I know that," she answered. 
 
 A grim smile twisted Baird 's mouth, but his eyes 
 never left the harbour. 
 
 "Sometimes," he said, "I wonder just what will hap- 
 pen if we do hit." 
 
 Across the water a clock boomed the hour of six. 
 It seemed to break Baird's train of thought. He stirred 
 uneasily, then got up. 
 
 "I must be going," he said; "we sail at daylight."
 
 HIT OR MISS 171 
 
 And he went, leaving the girl, a dainty white figure 
 against the all-pervading green of the garden, looking 
 after him with thoughtful eyes. 
 
 Even then he only missed his partner by a few min- 
 utes. Once they had met on that red earth path lead- 
 ing up to the bungalow, and it had constituted a situ- 
 ation not to be repeated. Thereafter, through all the 
 years that they had known Dorothy Fielding, it was 
 tacitly agreed between them that Baird should go in the 
 afternoon and Amery in the evening. Their under- 
 standing of one another was extraordinarily clear. 
 
 "I envy you Tom," the girl had said, and she spoke 
 truth. There was that in Amery that inspired confi- 
 dence, a quiet solidity that was infinitely restful, 
 especially to a woman. She went on with her needle- 
 work when he came, and Amery sat smoking placidly, 
 saying little, but absorbing her proximity with a thor- 
 oughness that converted her every word and movement 
 into a memory. 
 
 And at daylight the next morning she stood on the 
 edge of the cliff in a fluttering kimono, her hands at her 
 breast, while a trim white yacht surged down the har- 
 bour fairway under power. As the vessel drew level 
 with the bungalow, the helmsman raised an arm, 
 and presently, above the sliding hatch aft, a head 
 appeared and another arm was raised and lowered in 
 farewell. 
 
 So the partners put to sea, and the woman they 
 loved watched them from the cliff until their ship dis- 
 solved into the rose-tinted haze of dawn. 
 
 North-northeast they sailed, the southeast trade
 
 172 SOUTH OP THE LINE 
 
 serving them well. The Spindrift proved a witch. 
 Sometimes, with tiller lashed for hours on end, she 
 surged through indigo waters, while the partners ate or 
 slept or discussed their undertaking over charts out- 
 spread on the cabin table. The fittings of the Spindrift 
 had been reduced to bare necessities. Gone were 
 Tatham's atrocious water colours in gilt frames that 
 had bespattered the white walls of the saloon, flimsy 
 door hangings, tapestry cushion covers, and all the 
 senseless fripperies of an overdressed ship. And the 
 partners were no less business-like. They spoke only 
 when they had something to say. Small talk had long 
 since passed out of their curriculum. They knew in- 
 stinctively what there was to be done, and did it with 
 a maximum of efficiency and a minimum of fuss. More- 
 over, they had shed their shore-going clothes as effec- 
 tively as their party manners. Baird wore a flimsy 
 straw hat, an undervest, and a towel; Amery a battered 
 solar topee, a sleeveless shirt, and a pair of well-beloved 
 dungarees. 
 
 One thing only remained unchanged below deck on 
 the Spindrift, and that was the gorgeous mahogany 
 chronometer case in the saloon. It contained, un- 
 touched and rated to the last minute of departure, three 
 of the best instruments money could buy, and in an- 
 other compartment, no less sacred, Amery's disrepu- 
 table-looking pillar sextant. 
 
 After something like two weeks of almost monoto- 
 nously perfect weather, the Spindrift raised an atoll. 
 It was the first of the Tau group, comprising over three 
 hundred of these fairy rings of the sea. For the rest
 
 HIT OR MISS 173 
 
 of the day the yacht sailed along walls of surf-pounded 
 coral enclosing lagoons of unbelievable colour. 
 
 At night she anchored to the reef, for no one ven- 
 tures amongst the Taus when it is impossible to tell blue 
 water from green, and Baird went ashore, returning 
 in a few hours with three sturdy "boys." These had 
 no idea where they were going, nor when, if ever, they 
 would return; neither did they care, provided there was 
 a ship to sail. Coast Kanakas are like that, and they 
 worked the Spindrift to such purpose that in two days 
 their home was well over the rim of the horizon and the 
 yacht lay hove-to on an oily swell. 
 
 Amery lowered his binoculars. 
 
 "Piper's a bit out," he said, "but that's to be ex- 
 pected. 
 
 Baird nodded. 
 
 "Better charm her up and have a look round." 
 
 Exactly what the Tau "boys" thought of the Spin- 
 drift's subsequent antics it is hard to say. A machine 
 was set in motion that had the amazing effect of pro- 
 pelling them through a stark calm at six knots for three 
 days and in ever-widening circles, while the two white 
 men ceaselessly scoured the horizon. What they ex- 
 pected to find, the great spirits alone knew, for it is well 
 known that beyond Tau there is nothing. 
 
 It was equally evident that these two were capable of 
 miracles, for at the end of a weary week two bo'sun 
 birds, their long, thread-like tails streaming in their 
 wake, appeared out of nowhere, after the fashion of 
 sea birds, and circled above the ship's truck, swooping 
 now and then to get a closer view of the intruders.
 
 174 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 Others joined them, and presently, amid the babel of 
 bird voices and the rush of wings, one of the white men, 
 who had stood like a figurehead in the bows for the 
 past hour, flung up an arm, and where he pointed a dull 
 gray mass rose out of the sea. That is what the Tau 
 "boys" claim to this day. It was interesting, too, to 
 see the effect of this miracle upon its workers. The 
 hands of one trembled visibly as he took the wheel and 
 spun it over. The other showed no sign. By such 
 trivialities do the unsophisticated tell the fibre of a man. 
 
 The land they were now rapidly nearing was shrouded 
 in mist a mist of birds that rose and hovered and 
 shrieked. It was necessary to shout above the .din. 
 Wings fanned the face. The whale boat was lowered 
 and rowed shoreward under a drumming roof of them. 
 
 Amery and Baird landed without difficulty, and 
 trudged inland through an ankle-deep, grayish dust 
 that rose about them in choking clouds. Neither spoke. 
 All day, without food or drink, they scoured the island 
 in a wilting heat that seemed to affect them not at all. 
 From north to south, east to west, they plodded and 
 paced, always through the same gray dust littered with 
 the skeletons and feathers of birds, and always to the 
 drumming accompaniment of wings. 
 
 Toward night they stumbled down to the beach like 
 a pair of weary dustmen, rowed out to the ship, and sat 
 staring at one another across the cabin table. 
 
 It was hard to realize even now. The island they 
 had found, the same that old Piper, the consumptive 
 schooner skipper swore he had seen, but was too sick 
 at the time to alter his course and inspect, was a strag-
 
 HIT OR MISS 175 
 
 gler, a lost, uncharted child of the Taus. It was of 
 upheaved coral formation, which means that it had been 
 an atoll until some mighty convulsion of the earth's 
 past had thrust it clear of the sea. What had once 
 been its lagoon was now a bone-dry basin a mile by a 
 mile and a half, filled to the brim with pure guano. 
 And it was theirs. 
 
 "Well, that's that, and here's to it!" said Baird, with 
 glass upraised and an excited catch in his voice. 
 
 Amery filled his pipe with customary deliberation. 
 
 "Piper was a degree out," he complained, "a 
 degree. . . ." 
 
 Such was their respective fashion of hailing good 
 fortune. 
 
 An hour later the auxiliary was propelling the Spin- 
 drift through an oily calm when a shudder ran through 
 the ship, followed by the faint clang of metal and the 
 crazy racing of the engine. 
 
 Amery sprang aft, and saw under a bare fathom of 
 crystal-clear water a forest of coral fronds, and above 
 them, protruding from the ship's quarter, the shattered 
 remains of a propeller. They had barely grazed a 
 submerged reef, another atoll in the making, but it was 
 enough; the Spindrift lay helpless as a log. Thus the 
 Islands kiss on one cheek and strike the other within an 
 hour. 
 
 The days that followed were in the nature of an ac- 
 cumulative nightmare. For the first three the Tau 
 "boys" squatted in the bows, whistling for a wind that 
 never came, and the partners occupied their thoughts 
 with a garden overlooking the sea and other things
 
 176 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 worth having. On the fourth, gray clouds assembled, 
 merged into a nondescript murk, and settled down on 
 the face of the waters like a giant hand intent on crush- 
 ing the breath out of life. 
 
 "Looks like a stayer," commented Baird. 
 
 Amery nodded. He knew the signs of this pestifer- 
 ous region on the Line. He could recall the name of a 
 sailing ship that had had her insurance paid before get- 
 ting clear of the Taus. But what troubled him was the 
 knowledge that on the morrow they must begin to ra- 
 tion the water. 
 
 There came a night, as dead as the eternity of days 
 and nights that had preceded it, when Amery woke from 
 a fevered sleep and lay staring at the beams above his 
 bunk. His throat ached abominably, his tongue felt 
 like dry flannel in his mouth, but there was nothing new 
 in this. The ship's company was long since down to 
 half a point of water a day, and all that remained was a 
 bare three gallons in a beaker carefully guarded in the 
 saloon. What struck Amery as unusual was a sound, 
 so faint as to be hardly discernible, but to his fever- 
 sharpened ears maddeningly unmistakable the gentle 
 trickle of water. For an instant he ascribed it to his 
 own delirium, the next he had moved his head suffi- 
 ciently to catch a glimpse of the saloon. It was dark, 
 but on the floor it seemed there was something in faint 
 relief, something altogether too close to the water beaker. 
 It moved. 
 
 "Swab!" croaked Amery and fired. 
 
 Yet, by the time he had sprung from his bunk and
 
 HIT OR MISS 177 
 
 switched on the light, there was nothing to be seen 
 but the three startled faces of the Tail "boys," each 
 on his mat in the fo'castle, and Baird raised on an el- 
 bow, peevishly demanding to know the cause of the 
 racket. 
 
 "Either I'm a rotten bad shot, or I've got 'em," said 
 Amery, flicking the perspiration from his forehead. 
 
 "Bit of both, I expect," grumbled Baird. "Finished 
 the quinine?" 
 
 He was standing it better than his partner, but then 
 he was a younger man, and fever had never taken a 
 proper hold on him. Amery climbed back to his bunk 
 alternately shivering under a pyramid of blankets and 
 anathematizing himself for a back number. 
 
 The next day it rained, but a mile away. It has a 
 knack of doing that on the Line. You may stand on 
 a ship's deck and see the gray pall of the sky burst into 
 a deluge on either hand, hear the maddening patter and 
 plash of fresh water meeting salt, and never a drop 
 come your way. Again the Islands, in whimsical 
 mood. 
 
 And then, as though by magic, there came an evening 
 when it was possible to breathe without effort, when 
 one could lean over the rail, at first imagining, then 
 convincing oneself of the blessed motion of air by the 
 faint bellying of the mainsail. The Spindrift was under 
 way. 
 
 Baird took over, spuming the wheel with a flourish. 
 
 "West-sou'-west," Amery directed between clenched 
 teeth, and staggered to his bunk. 
 
 The Kanakas capered in the bows at the sight of the
 
 178 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 Taus a few days later, swam ashore before the anchor 
 had touched bottom and returned with a canoe load of 
 green cocoanuts. 
 
 Baird leant over his partner's bunk. 
 
 "It's all over, old man," he said, shaking him gently. 
 "Tom, d'you hear?" 
 
 Amery heard, and opened his eyes on a brimming 
 shell of cocoanut milk, that he drained at a draught. 
 But he was weak, pitiably weak. 
 
 "You'd better get on with it," he whispered. "I'm 
 no good for a bit." 
 
 Baird looked down on him, a strange expression in 
 his eyes. 
 
 "What d'you take me for?" he demanded. 
 
 Amery struggled on to an elbow. 
 
 "You know what I've taken you for these seven 
 years," he growled, "and if you're anything like it, 
 you'll do what I say. Heave right ahead register, 
 and lease, and all the rest of it. Piper'll give you a 
 hand. Amery, Baird, and Piper Incorporated, eh?" 
 He chuckled raucously. "A thing like this doesn't 
 want to be left a day longer than need be. I'll follow 
 on the first chance. 
 
 Baird turned away and stared through a porthole. 
 He could do that the best possible for his partner. 
 All his wit and energy must be centred on just that 
 from now on the best possible for Amery, and per- 
 haps, in time. . . . 
 
 "What the devil's got you?" boomed Amery. 
 
 Baird started and turned. 
 
 "Nothing," he said. "I'll go."
 
 HIT OR MISS 179 
 
 He had not meant to go to the garden overlooking the 
 sea, not until Amery was back. But the first evening, 
 alone with his thoughts after a day of interviewing 
 sleek gentlemen at roll-top desks with entirely satisfac- 
 tory results, broke down his resolve. There could be no 
 harm, and he must talk to someone or go mad, and 
 wouldn't she think it strange. . . .? Of course she 
 would, and she did, and said so in the arbour at the 
 bottom of the garden. If she had not been the first to 
 hear, as he had promised, she would never have for- 
 given him. 
 
 Baird told her all or nearly all, and at the end sat 
 staring before him with troubled eyes until the girl's 
 hand touched his arm. 
 
 "What's the matter, Frank?" she questioned gently. 
 
 He started and stared at her. 
 
 " Nothing," he said. " Why? " 
 
 "You can't tell me that," she insisted, still very 
 gently. 
 
 Baird moved uneasily. 
 
 "I was thinking of Tom," he confessed. 
 
 The girl leant back on the cushions. 
 
 "Oh, you two!" she laughed, and was startled at the 
 look in his eyes as he turned on her. 
 
 "I tell you this," he jerked out; "nothing that I can 
 do, nothing, you understand, will ever repay Tom for 
 what I've for what he's done for me. I ..." 
 
 And that was probably why half an hour later Doro- 
 thy Fielding was in his arms. 
 
 "It was never any one else?" he demanded roughly. 
 
 "Never," she told him.
 
 180 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "And nothing can make any difference nothing?" 
 
 She looked into his eyes, and he had his answer. 
 
 Two months after they were married Amery came 
 back, a trifle thinner, but otherwise his old self. 
 
 "And what do you think of an old crock who can't hold 
 his end up?" he asked Dorothy, on the afternoon of his 
 first call. 
 
 "Now you're fishing," she bantered. "Frank 
 says " 
 
 "But you surely don't take any notice of what Frank 
 says now?" laughed Amery. 
 
 They managed it very well, that first meeting, until 
 Baird left them to afternoon tea, while he interviewed 
 further gentlemen at roll-top desks. Then things 
 seemed to drag. They had never dragged before, and 
 Amery was at a loss until the girl took up her needle- 
 work as of old. 
 
 "Tom," she said presently, without looking up, "will 
 you help us? But I needn't have asked that," she 
 added, the colour suffusing her averted face. "Just lis- 
 ten, and don't say anything till the end, like you always 
 do. Frank has something to tell you something that 
 he has told me. If he didn't tell you, I believe it would 
 kill him; he is like that." Her head bent lower over her 
 work, her voice was a low monotone. "It is a thing 
 that he that we both think shameful. Nothing will 
 make it right, but something surely something that a 
 man can say to a man will make it easier for him." She 
 lifted her head for the first time. "Promise me you'll 
 say it." 
 
 "I promise," said Amery. "Go on."
 
 HIT OR MISS 181 
 
 She put down her work and went over to the window, 
 standing with her back to the room, her eyes fastened 
 on the little square of suburban garden outside. 
 
 "You shot Frank," she said quietly. 
 
 For hours after that ghastly interview Amery paced 
 his hotel bedroom. Curiously enough, he felt no 
 resentment, only an overwhelming pity for his partner. 
 Heavens, what a confession for a man to have to make! 
 And he, Amery, must listen to it and say something at 
 the end "to make it easier for him." He laughed in 
 sheer hopelessness at the task none but a woman would 
 set. Nothing would make it right, she had admitted 
 that. . . . Amery paused in his stride. Two 
 wrongs did not make a right, he told himself, yet 
 they have been mighty comforting on occasion. The 
 thought seized on him, held him. He was actually 
 chuckling at his own cunning when the bell-boy an- 
 nounced Baird. 
 
 It was plain that he laboured under intense excite- 
 ment. 
 
 "I shan't keep you long," he said, declining the chair 
 Amery indicated. "I've only come to let you know 
 that I'm the swab you once called me. Look at this." 
 He rolled up a trouser leg, exposing a clean flesh 
 wound in the calf. "You did that, and you know 
 when. I took water. What have you got to say to 
 that?" 
 
 Amery slowly levered himself out of his chair. 
 
 "Nothing much," he said, "except that I can't see 
 the necessity of all this song and dance about it."
 
 182 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "Why don't you say what you think?" Baird ex- 
 ploded. "I'll take anything glad to." 
 
 Amery looked at him, a whimsical smile playing under 
 his moustache. 
 
 "You fellows with superfine consciences make me 
 sick," he said. "You're a pest. You took water. 
 "Well, for that matter, so did I."
 
 Roo OF THE ATOLLS 
 
 A~ IINUTE passed two minutes. 
 Down there Roo's sleek bronze body was no 
 more than a flickering shadow on the pale green 
 floor of the lagoon. He had gone deep, for it is in the 
 depths and the less accessible crevices of the coral that 
 the old shell is to be found, bigger than soup plates, 
 gnarled and barnacle-encrusted without, but con- 
 taining a lustre incomparable, and perhaps But one 
 
 must not speculate. It is not done in the Paumotus, 
 nor any other pearling grounds in the Pacific. Things 
 happen or do not happen, according to one's own partic- 
 ular beliefs, and to think too much about them brings 
 ill-fortune in its wake as surely as preparing the basket 
 before the fish is caught. 
 
 Three minutes came and went. The canoe rode 
 empty and inert on the silken surface of the lagoon. A 
 bo'sun bird swooped out of the brazen sky and, alighting 
 on an outrigger pole, preened himself undisturbed. The 
 shadow on the sloping floor of the lagoon was no longer 
 visible. Roo had gone still deeper, to fifteen fathoms, 
 perhaps, and into a world of his own, where none but his 
 kind could follow. Bubbles rose, tiny globules of light 
 that flicked upward and were gone, followed at last by 
 a dark form that shot from the depths like a meteor. 
 
 Roo shook the water from his hair, pushed the goggles 
 
 183
 
 184 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 from his eyes on to his forehead, and wallowed to the 
 canoe. About his neck hung a string bag filled with 
 shell. This he flung aboard, and clambering after it, 
 commenced opening operations with the same leisurely 
 deliberation that marked all his movements. 
 
 His was killing work, and there is no object in hurry- 
 ing over suicide. Already his eyes protruded omi- 
 nously, a perpetual dirge resounded in one ear, and on 
 occasion he had caught himself stumbling over 
 an obstacle that did not exist. Inevitably 
 he would go the way of all pearl-divers in the 
 end unless Something fell from the half- 
 opened shell in his hand, tinkled against the 
 knife-blade and dropped between his feet. 
 
 In the breathless moments that followed 
 he knew that the unmentioned dream haunting the 
 thoughts of every diver had in his own case come true. 
 
 Unlike most people of the atolls, Roo was a man of 
 set purpose the gaining of the world for the most beau- 
 tiful woman in it, nothing less. It was for this that his 
 eyes bulged, his ear sang, and he stumbled as he walked. 
 He placed the pearl reverently in his mouth, caressing it 
 with his tongue, and paddled unhurriedly for the beach. 
 The omnivorous buyer, seated on his spine in a wicker 
 chair, glowered contemptuously at Roo's meagre of- 
 fering of shell. 
 
 "And they are piquS at that," he complained lan- 
 guidly in native parlance. "You must do better than 
 this, or there will be trouble." 
 
 Roo appeared unimpressed, and shifted his weight 
 from one enormous foot to the other, whereat the buyer
 
 ROO OF THE ATOLLS 185 
 
 sighed, levered himself out of the chair, and went into 
 the store, returning presently with a formidable-looking 
 ledger. 
 
 "You now owe the Compagnie Maritime two thou- 
 sand francs," he droned, "and we can allow you nothing 
 more until at least half this amount is paid in shell. If 
 you dispose of it elsewhere, the Compagnie will take ac- 
 tion." 
 
 The tone was that of one who repeats a set piece. It 
 was a set piece, composed by one of the bewhiskered 
 directors of the Compagnie in Paris. The buyer re- 
 cited it, according to instructions, not less than five 
 times daily, and had long since ceased to derive amuse- 
 ment from the nai've idea of "taking action" against a 
 grinning, mother-naked savage of the Paumotus. 
 
 "It shall be paid," said Roo, still unmoved. "In the 
 meantime, I desire a pareu and a silk shirt." 
 
 "Take them, then," snapped the buyer, subsiding 
 hopelessly on to his spine, "but bring us shell." 
 
 It was on the tip of Roo's tongue to say that he had 
 done with shell, and done with the Compagnie Mari- 
 time a man is prone to such foolishness in the hour of 
 triumph but there was something of vastly more im- 
 portance on the tip of his tongue at the moment, and he 
 refrained. 
 
 Resplendent in his new pareu and silk shirt, he sought 
 the most beautiful woman in the world, and found her 
 ensconced in her superlative parlour, powdering her 
 nose. Mata was beautiful there was no denying 
 that and, what was perhaps equally desirable, she was 
 the last word in Tahitian culture to reach the Paumotus.
 
 186 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 Though merely the daughter of a local shell sorter af- 
 flicted with elephantiasis, she had stayed for more than 
 a month with distant half-caste relatives in Papeete. 
 Consequently, she knew precisely what to do and how 
 to do it. Her surroundings reflected this knowledge. 
 Externally her father's house might be no more than a 
 battered and rusty corrugated iron shed set on a blazing 
 strip of coral sand, but somewhere enshrined within 
 that unworthy structure was Mata's parlour. 
 
 Here one sat on chairs instead of mats. The lamp 
 was an intricate affair of dangling prisms and painted 
 flowers. There were spindle-legged "occasional" ta- 
 bles supporting nothing of any practical use, a heavy 
 pile carpet, a gramophone, framed photographs of 
 wedding groups, and an overpowering stench of scent. 
 
 Then there was Mata herself, usually in pink silk, a 
 gold bangle above the elbow of one shapely arm, a pear- 
 shaped pipi dangling from either of her incomparable 
 ears, and a pair of languorous but all-seeing brown eyes 
 rolling assiduously in her well-poised little head. 
 
 Usually Roo entered the precincts with a considerable 
 amount of trepidation, in spite of the fact that he had 
 supplied the gramophone and the bangle, which, by the 
 way, where the sole reasons that Mata suffered him. 
 But to-day he was filled with the courage of achieve- 
 ment. He found it possible to look his awe-inspiring 
 surroundings in the eye, to sit squarely on unaccus- 
 tomed furniture, and even dispose of the eternal en- 
 cumbrance of his feet. 
 
 Mata noticed the change in his demeanour and won- 
 dered vaguely, but held her peace. She knew that
 
 ROO OF THE ATOLLS 187 
 
 whatever caused it was bound to come to the surface in 
 a child-like nature such as Roo's. And she was not 
 mistaken. 
 
 "Mata," he boomed hi his deep chest voice, "the 
 time has come for us to marry." 
 
 "So?" she questioned with charming insouciance. 
 
 "It is so," chanted Roo. "You wish for Papeete, 
 for a house, for many stockings of silk, for a piano 
 for the world. It is yours. I can give it you, I!" 
 He thumped his massive chest dramatically. "For two 
 years I have worked alone in the deep waters for you. 
 For two years I have faced the perils of shark and 
 devil-fish. . . ." 
 
 He said a great deal more the people of the atolls 
 are not addicted to mock modesty and long before he 
 had done Mata was leaning forward with parted lips 
 and shining eyes. 
 
 "Show it me," she whispered. "Roo, you must 
 show it me ! " 
 
 Roo did as he was bid. He was incapable of doing 
 anything else where Mata was concerned. She took 
 the pearl from between his clumsy fingers and devoured 
 it with her eyes. There was not a doubt that all Roo 
 had said was true. Mata was a judge. Her only re- 
 gret was that out of her many and varied suitors suc- 
 cess had fallen to this man of bulging eyes and incipient 
 paralysis. She studied him furtively and for the first 
 time thoroughly. Could anything be done with him? 
 Was there the slightest hope of rendering him passable 
 before the critical tribunal of her distant half-caste 
 relatives hi Papeete? She was afraid not. And yet
 
 188 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 Her glance fell again to the pearl, appraising its value 
 to the last franc. The computation made almost any- 
 thing possible. 
 
 "You will sell to Andre?" she suggested. 
 
 Roo shook his head. 
 
 "We will go to Papeete," he said with unusual firm- 
 ness, "and I will sell to the Chinaman. He is honest." 
 
 Mata allowed a low, rippling laugh to escape her. 
 She knew well Roo's opinion of his rival Andre. 
 
 "I was but teasing, my Roo," she said. 
 
 "Then we sail on the Miri in three days' time," 
 boomed Roo. 
 
 "Three days!" wailed Mata in simulated alarm. 
 "Only three days?" 
 
 "That is all, my Mata, and in the meantime no one 
 shall know?" 
 
 "Need you ask? And you will take care " 
 
 Roo tapped his belt significantly. A man is prone 
 to such foolishness in the hour of triumph. On one 
 side was a small pouch, on the other a sheathed knife. 
 Then he passed out into the sunshine, stumbling over 
 nothing whatever in the doorway. 
 
 There was little time and much to be done. Two 
 days Roo spent shelling with the others, thereby con- 
 vincing the weary buyer for the Compagnie Maritime 
 that his advice had been taken. So much so that Roo 
 succeeded in extracting from him a Prince Albert suit 
 and its appurtenances. This he donned at noon of the 
 third day, and, in a bath of perspiration such as only 
 these atrocities in raiment can produce, was striding 
 into the settlement when he met Andre.
 
 ROO OF THE ATOLLS 189 
 
 "Where now?" queried this half-caste pearl expert, 
 with his ingratiating smile. 
 
 "To my business," boomed Roo. 
 
 "And that?" 
 
 "Is my business," returned Roo, and instantly 
 wished that he had not said it. It was his to allay 
 suspicion, not arouse it, especially at this, the eleventh 
 hour. 
 
 Andre's ferret eyes rested on Roo with a drunkard's 
 fatuous solemnity. 
 
 "And you have no time, not even for one small drink 
 with a friend?" 
 
 "There is always time for that," said Roo, with what 
 for him was supreme cunning. 
 
 Andre drew a glass flask from his hip pocket. 
 
 "The best out of Papeete!" he chanted, holding it 
 up to the light and swaying gently. "To good-will be- 
 tween rivals, eh?" 
 
 And at that hour Roo found it in his heart to pity 
 Andre. There is no solicitude so genuine as that of the 
 successful suitor for his less fortunate rival. Roo 
 drank, and in less than two minutes was lying prone 
 on the beach, with the attenuated fingers of Andre 
 the expert at his belt. 
 
 He opened his eyes on a canopy of stars. It was 
 night, and the dirge in his ear had swelled to a roar, 
 and there was a band of fire about his head. Also the 
 pearl was gone. 
 
 A giant figure in a dishevelled Prince Albert suit 
 staggered to its feet and stumbled through the sand in 
 the starlight. It came to a halt before the home of the
 
 190 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 most beautiful woman in the world. The superlative 
 parlour was deserted. Only the outhouse showed any 
 signs of life in the form of a flickering yellow light and 
 on the mats beside it Mata's father nursing his mam- 
 moth leg, and swaying and moaning in anguish as be- 
 fits the bereaved. 
 
 Roo took a stride toward the squatting figure, his 
 hand outstretched, the fingers awork, then turned 
 aside and passed down the beach. For a moment he 
 stood staring over the starlit sea, then with quick, fe- 
 rocious movements he tore the Prince Albert suit from 
 his body and flung it on the sand. 
 
 When the moon rose, it found him squatting at the 
 water's edge, still staring seaward. Roo was thinking. 
 
 And the schooner Miri was plowing a phospho- 
 rescent furrow through the night. 
 
 "But it was so simple, my pearl, that I hardly like to 
 speak of it. They are big, but they are soft, these 
 Paumotan savages. One tap, in fair fight, too, and 
 the thing was done.'* 
 
 Thus Andre at the ship's rail, with Mata at his side 
 asking a woman's unnecessary questions. 
 
 "I do not like it, Andre," she said. "That man is 
 different to the others. He will not forget." 
 
 Andre turned and studied the alluring profile at his 
 elbow. 
 
 "Then you would have had me make it impossible 
 for him to remember?" he suggested. 
 
 Mata did not answer, but her meaning was none the 
 less clear. 

 
 ROO OF THE ATOLLS 191 
 
 "Little savage!" laughed Andre, and stroked her 
 hand as it lay on the rail. "Have no fear. Papeete 
 is not the Paumotus. There are gendarmes to pro- 
 tect life and property. Besides, how is he to prove he 
 ever had a pearl?" 
 
 "That is so," mused Mata. But she shivered, and 
 Andre fetched her bedizened wrap from the cabin. 
 
 On arrival in Papeete, where Andre sold the pearl for 
 thirty thousand francs, the sequence of events was as 
 inevitable as may be supposed. From mere neglect, 
 Andre's treatment of Mata descended by rapid stages 
 to vicious brutality, and within the month she was a 
 broken woman. 
 
 Of an evening she would escape from the house that 
 was her torture chamber, and walk aimlessly in a dowdy 
 wrapper along the coral wall that formed the beach. 
 Here the water was deep, and clear and clean. Mata 
 loved to look down down. It reminded her of a 
 Paumotan lagoon. 
 
 And here it was that on a night of dazzling moon- 
 light a head clove the water at her feet. With a curious 
 lack of surprise or alarm she saw that it was Roo's. 
 He had died, then. 
 
 Presently it spoke, with the booming intonation of 
 old. 
 
 "You are not happy, then, my Mata?" 
 
 She did not answer. She could not. But her head 
 was bowed until it rested on her knees. Her body com- 
 menced to sway, and the moan of the bereaved floated 
 out on the water. 
 
 When she looked up, the head was gone.
 
 192 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 Andre had bought his election to the club that over- 
 looks the harbour. Here on the wide balcony, and 
 over countless absinthes at the little round tables, he 
 could mix on equal terms with the elect of Papeete, 
 win or lose prodigious sums at cards, roulette, or bil- 
 liards, and dabble in pearls on quite an imposing scale. 
 
 The life suited him. It presented possibilities of a 
 chicanery that was second nature to Andre. He be- 
 came famous in the Island underworld as a "fence." 
 No matter how a stone had been acquired, Andre 
 would buy it without question for less than half its 
 value. Often he would be sitting at cards when one 
 of his runners whispered in his ear, and he would ex- 
 cuse himself to interview some quaking thief or mur- 
 derer, or both, in the deeper shadows of the beach. It 
 paid. Such people are more tractable than most. 
 
 That was why on a certain night he deserted an un- 
 precedented run of luck to plunge into the velvet dark- 
 ness of the beach road. 
 
 He found his man, as the runner had said, under the 
 flamboyants at the end of the coral wall. Andre did 
 not speak. He was in the habit of letting others do 
 that. But this fellow, a hulking savage, by the loom 
 of his half-naked body in the shadows, was strangely 
 silent. 
 
 "Well?" snapped Andre impatiently. 
 
 A hand was outstretched, an immense hand, and 
 Andre's went to meet it. But the other proved to be 
 empty, and its fingers closed on his like a steel trap. 
 Another shot from the darkness, enveloping his face as 
 in a mask.
 
 ROO OF THE ATOLLS 193 
 
 "Greetings, my friend ! " boomed the voice of Roo. 
 "We will make it a long one, of Papeete's best, eh?" 
 
 The entwined and writhing bodies struck the water 
 as one. The inky waters parted and closed. A minute 
 passed two minutes. Roo had gone deep, to fifteen 
 fathoms, perhaps, and into a world of his own, where 
 none but his kind could follow. The ripples expanded 
 in ever-widening circles, and were still. Three four 
 minutes came and went. Roo was surpassing his own 
 record, and it was not before the end of the fifth that 
 his head broke water and he clambered gasping up the 
 coral wall. 
 
 Mata was tossing sleeplessly on her mats, waiting 
 for she knew not what. She was always waiting now, 
 and never did she know what for until Andre made it 
 clear. 
 
 At the sound of a naked footfall on the veranda 
 steps she started as though stung. 
 
 "Where is Andre?" she demanded of the giant figure 
 that loomed in the doorway. 
 
 "He sleeps," boomed Roo. "We have been drink- 
 ing, Andre and I. Come, my Mata!"
 
 WE OF MAOTA 
 
 HURRICANES and bananas are incompatible. 
 In other words, we of Malita were ruined. En- 
 raged nature had seen fit to stretch out her in- 
 exorable hand and wipe the fruits of our labour from the 
 face of the island as cleanly as a drawing from a slate. 
 We were talking about it on my veranda. 
 
 "The question is," began the .inevitable Tomlin, 
 tilting back his packing case, the cane chairs having 
 gone to his betters, " what are we going to do about it? 
 Personally, I'm down and out." 
 
 "I suppose it hit us all equally," I suggested. 
 
 There followed a series of doleful nods. 
 
 "Pulp," grunted Webb. 
 
 "Except the weeds," chirped Tomlin, "I've got the 
 finest unscathed crop of creeping vine south of the 
 line, and " 
 
 "As a banana country," said Rands, ignoring the 
 
 nuisance, " and as far as I'm concerned, gentlemen " 
 
 He raised his right hand with grave deliberation. 
 
 "Which being interpreted?" I suggested. 
 
 "Never again," explained the American. 
 
 "As bad as that, eh?" 
 
 "Sure. My motto is: 'Once bitten, twice shy; twice 
 bitten cut it out, whatever it is, before it eats you." 
 
 "But I want to tell you this," he added, pausing for 
 
 194
 
 WE OF MALITA 195 
 
 effect; "Pineapples take no account of blows. I came 
 through Hawaii on my way here, and they're growing 
 pineapples there on land that costs them a thousand dol- 
 lars an acre; pineapples no better than ours in the bush 
 of Malita. It costs them a dollar and a half a day for 
 labour, and they're making money. Here we should 
 pay nothing for the land, a shilling a day for labour 
 and a thousand for the canning plant," he ended a trifle 
 hurriedly. His flashing eye challenged the company. 
 "As an idea?" he demanded. 
 
 "Excellent," admitted someone. "But 
 
 "Thank you, gentlemen," said Rands, and subsided. 
 
 "But the thousand?" came the still small voice. 
 
 The American's face was buried in a tumbler of what 
 he persisted in calling a highball. "I've given you the 
 idea," he said on its withdrawal; "the rest is up to you." 
 
 Malita practically lived on my veranda during these 
 drear days of despondency, and one afternoon the 
 same as a hundred others, brazen and breathless Tom- 
 lin was reading the Levuka Herald when he made a 
 noise in his throat and said: "Well, I'm 
 
 As usual, no one took the faintest notice. Tomlin 
 continued to read with extraordinary concentration for 
 upward of five minutes, then wandered across to the 
 veranda railing and stood there, alternately whistling 
 and staring out at the glare. 
 
 Suddenly he turned. "I have an idea," he an- 
 nounced, " and it's a good one, although it's mine." 
 
 "Common theft?" suggested Rands. 
 
 Tomlin shook his head. "No," he said, "you can't 
 call it that."
 
 196 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "Appropriation?" murmured Nares. 
 
 "Out with it," rasped Webb. 
 
 "Then I gather you want my little idea," said the 
 imperturbable Tomlin. "Have any of you ever heard 
 of Colin Sterling?" 
 
 "Sounds Scotch," suggested an intelligent someone. 
 
 "It is," admitted Tomlin. "It is also the name of 
 the wealthiest shipping man in Liverpool. He wallows, 
 literally wallows, in slathers and slathers of money. A 
 thousand to him is as an unripe banana to you and 
 me." 
 
 "And you know him? " I suggested. I thought I was 
 beginning to see daylight. 
 
 "I know of him," corrected Tomlin, "which is quite 
 enough for our purposes. He doesn't know how to 
 spend his money, so he lets his youngest son do it for 
 him. He's the only one of the family who has the 
 knack. The others are like the father and the extraor- 
 dinary thing is that the old man's prouder of the 
 spendthrift than of all the others put together. A son 
 of Colin Sterling who doesn't think twice about keeping 
 a taxi waiting! He's looked on as unique in the annals 
 of the family." 
 
 "This is all very instructive," Nares interpolated. 
 "But is one permitted to ask how the eccentric son of a 
 wealthy Scotsman in Liverpool affects us of Malita?" 
 
 Tomlin waited for his glass to be filled before answer- 
 ing. "Certainly," he said; "the answer is in the news- 
 paper yonder. This same eccentric son is on an educa- 
 tional world tour thinks he paints and he lands in 
 Levuka the day after to-morrow."
 
 WE OF MALITA 197 
 
 We leaned back in our chairs. The tension was re- 
 laxed. This seemed to trouble Tomlin. "Mind you," he 
 warned, " I don't mean what you mean. Nothing would 
 induce me to cadge. Besides, I don't know the man." 
 
 "Sure," murmured Nares, his cigar pointing at a 
 reflective angle. "Haven't been introduced. I know 
 the dope." 
 
 "No; and don't intend to be," supplemented Tomlin, 
 with unusual warmth. "Look here, Rands; I know all 
 sorts of schemes are flitting through your nimble brain, 
 but there's only one way this thing's going to be done, 
 and that's my way. It's going to be a straightforward 
 affair without any subtleties or complications of any 
 kind. It's based on simple logic." 
 
 "I like to hear a man talk like that," said Rands. 
 "Fire ahead." 
 
 Tomlin's simple logic took three minutes to pro- 
 pound and as many hours to discuss. Certainly it 
 was simple, but opinions differed as to its being logic. 
 It was christened variously and according to taste, but 
 Tomlin held his ground with unlooked-for determina- 
 tion. Night descended on Malita like a hot, moist 
 blanket, and our voices, raised in altercation, mingled 
 under the tropic stars and drowned the boom of the 
 surf on the barrier reef. 
 
 One by one we fell into line, driven by the over- 
 powering weight of necessity. Webb was the last to 
 succumb. "All right," he grunted. "Something's got 
 to be done, and I suppose this is something." 
 
 "And that's all the thanks I get," wailed Tomlin. 
 
 It was.
 
 198 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 The launch left Malita the next morning, manned by 
 its owner, Tomlin, and Rands, and, after waving it fare- 
 well from the landing, Webb and I returned to the 
 bungalow in pensive silence. We both knew that we 
 were a couple of old fools, who had been carried 
 away in a weak moment by a full glass and the conta- 
 gious enthusiasm of youth. We both knew that at 
 that moment we would have cheerfully given what 
 little we possessed to be able to hail the launch and cry 
 off. Also, we both knew that it was too late. "How 
 will they do it?" I ventured to suggest at lunch. 
 "Force?" 
 
 Webb shrugged his massive shoulders and gave his 
 attention to curried bush pig. There were occasions 
 when Webb was not the best of company. 
 
 Toward evening two days later, the launch came 
 back to Malita down the golden pathway of the setting 
 sun. Webb lowered the glasses. "They've done it, 
 anyway," he announced, and we strolled mechanically 
 down to the landing. 
 
 Exactly what we expected to see it is difficult to say. 
 Personally, I was conscious of alternate waves of be- 
 wilderment and belief as the launch gave its last de- 
 spairing kick and sheered alongside. At the helm sat 
 a remarkably pink young man in immaculate white 
 flannels and an art tie, chatting pleasantly with Tom- 
 lin. Nares was in his usual state of filth and agitation 
 over his precious engine. Rands was making fast. 
 Tomlin looked up and waved his hand to us. 
 "Cheer-o!" he called. We've brought a visitor."
 
 WE OF MALITA 199 
 
 The remark was accompanied by a prodigious and 
 entirely uncalled-for wink as the pink young man 
 picked a discriminating way through the litter of de- 
 cayed banana skins up the rickety landing steps. 
 
 "Mr. Sterling Webb, father," Tomlin bawled after 
 him, presumably by way of introduction. 
 
 "Awfully good of you," drawled the pink young 
 man, shaking us warmly by the hand. "Topping 
 place you have here." 
 
 Webb grunted, and I said something idiotic; then we 
 all went up to the bungalow. 
 
 At the first opportunity while Sterling was under 
 the shower, to be exact I tackled Rands. 
 
 "Don't know a thing," he jerked at me "don't 
 know a thing except that Tomlin brought him out of 
 the club with a valise, and here he is." 
 
 "And he doesn't know?" I inquired. 
 
 "Hasn't a notion." 
 
 At that moment Sterling emerged from the shower 
 pinker than ever. "Topping bath," he observed, and 
 floated into the bedroom. 
 
 A little later Tomlin was the centre of a hurried con- 
 clave behind the crotons. "Easy as falling off a log," 
 he chortled. "Not a soul in the club, house boy asleep 
 as usual, jumped at the chance of seeing plantation 
 life on a real South Sea island, and here we are." He 
 panted and gazed round the semi-circle of faces. An 
 apprehensive glint came into his eyes. "Look here," 
 he demanded plaintively, "you're not going back on 
 the thing?" 
 
 We protested valiantly.
 
 200 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 At dinner our guest informed us that Malita was 
 "topping; simply topping." "It's been the dream of 
 my life to see the South Seas," he confessed. "Of 
 course I kicked about the Mediterranean a bit in the 
 gov'nor's yacht, but there's nothing at all like this 
 so unsullied, so dreamlike. It's hard to imagine here 
 that somewhere people are slaving their lives away; 
 scrambling after money." 
 
 "Sure," agreed Rands thoughtfully. 
 
 "I mean, now, what can you possibly want here?" 
 Sterling proceeded. "You have three excellent meals 
 a day, a comfortable house, and this." He waved a 
 hand in the direction of the blue-black darkness out- 
 side which happily veiled the decayed stumps of my 
 banana plants and a pile of empty corned-beef tins. 
 "It's paintable," he added, as though this were the 
 acme of praise. 
 
 Rands seemed to be struggling with a strong emotion. 
 "Well, I don't know," he confessed. "Scenery may 
 be good to paint, but it's poor stuff to live on. What 
 we want is pineapples pineapples with a capital P." 
 
 The slogan had been dragged from him. From it he 
 slid into explanation, and before the meal was over 
 Sterling was in possession of the main facts of our piti- 
 ful case. "Topping!" was his verdict, pronounced 
 over the third glass of my whisky. "Absolutely top- 
 ping idea. Pineapples! And only a thousand for a 
 plant ! Why, the thing's a gift. Here's to pineapples ! " 
 
 We drank enthusiastically. 
 
 Rands, with his tongue as near hanging out as I have 
 ever seen a man's, then proceeded to point out the
 
 WE OF MALITA 201 
 
 fatal obstacle to the realization of our dreams. With 
 a catch in his voice, he confessed that the sordid but 
 necessary thousand was not ours to command. 
 
 Sterling was sympathetic. "It's splendid," he an- 
 nounced with conviction. "I think it's perfectly 
 splendid how you fellows out here on the edge of 
 the world face difficulties that would appall a meaner 
 soul. Face them and overcome them," he added 
 hopefully. 
 
 "This one isn't overcome," growled Webb, and I 
 know his enormous foot was swinging under the table; 
 "or ever likely to be." 
 
 "Oh, you can't tell me that," bantered Sterling, 
 "I know what you fellows are splendid, topping," he 
 said meditatively, refilling his glass. 
 
 Then we went out on the veranda. 
 
 Late that night we of Malita assembled in the pack- 
 ing shed and stared at one another blankly. 
 
 "Well, that's that," said Tomlin. 
 
 "I believe the insufferable little tike's pulling our 
 legs," offered Webb. 
 
 "Nix on that," snapped Rands. "I know when I'm 
 being bull-dozed. It's just natural, unadulterated 
 hide. You couldn't prick decent feelings into him with 
 a handspike." 
 
 "And he's got such lots and lots of money," chanted 
 Tomlin from his improvised stage on an empty banana 
 crate. 
 
 Personally, I began to feel uncomfortable, and I know 
 that Webb looked it. Suddenly he burst into speech:
 
 202 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "I have a suggestion to make that we drop it. It's 
 crazy. We're a lot of damned fools." 
 
 There was silence for a moment. Then Rands spoke. 
 "Thank you," he said. "It was someone else's idea; 
 someone else carried it out, and you agreed to see it 
 through. Are you going to let us down?" 
 
 "No," said Webb. "I won't let anybody down. As 
 it happens we can ship the young cub back, and he'll 
 never know what he's missed. Put it to the vote. 
 . . . But mind you," he added, "if this thing goes 
 through, there can be no more half measures about it. 
 It isn't a joke. It's serious business. I've let myself 
 in for it, and, if it has to be done, I'll take on the biggest 
 part of the job." 
 
 It was the longest utterance we of Malita had ever 
 heard Webb make. It sobered even Tomlin for the 
 moment. 
 
 "Those in favour " 
 
 Two hands went up, Rands' and Tomlin's. Nares's 
 fluttered up after them. I'm convinced he was only 
 actuated by the thought that if he didn't vote that 
 way his everlasting launch would have spluttered to 
 Levuka and back for nothing. Webb contemplated 
 the trio from under his shaggy eyebrows for a moment, 
 then grunted and went out. 
 
 "In my opinion " began Nares. We fell upon 
 
 him in a simultaneous paean of encouragement. "In 
 my opinion," he struggled on, "the affair can still be 
 er handled on a pacific basis. Possibly " 
 
 "Why, sure," agreed Rands. "It only wants nous, 
 tact, and you're the man, Nares. You're it." Nares
 
 WE OF MALITA 203 
 
 stared about him with the expression of a startled 
 rabbit. "It's up to you to tell him why he's 
 here," pursued the inexorable Rands. "It's your turn 
 next." 
 
 Nares shot one fleeting glance of entreaty in my 
 direction. It was a horrid sight. Such must have 
 been the look in the eyes of the early 
 martyrs under the upraised sword of 
 the gladiator. And I turned away 
 my head. That's the sort of person 
 I am. 
 
 After breakfast, Sterling, pinker 
 and more ecstatic than ever, wandered 
 off up the beach with the dogs, a water-colour block, 
 and a paint box. He was not going to let his visit 
 interfere with our work, he informed us. He could find 
 plenty to amuse him. 
 
 Our "work" consisted in sitting on the veranda, 
 staring listlessly at the unlovely remains of my banana 
 patch. 
 
 "Only a thousand," mused Tomlin, "and he's got 
 such lots and lots of money." The last part of this ut- 
 terance he had succeeded in rendering particularly ob- 
 noxious by setting it to ragtime. 
 
 Sterling did not return till afternoon tea. In one 
 hand he carried a rush basket 'full of an indescribable 
 mess, in the other a native fish spear. His shoes were 
 slung over his shoulder, his faultless flannels rolled to 
 the knee, and his solar topee set jauntily on the back 
 of his head.
 
 204 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "Oh, lor'!" groaned Webb, "it's going to be 'top- 
 ping'." 
 
 It was. Everything was. What were those nimble 
 little fellows that dashed about with a sort of mast 
 sticking up, and vanished into holes? Soldier crabs? 
 How topping! And those big fellows up in a tree, 
 with eyes, or something, on the end of a stalk a foot 
 
 long? Tree lobsters? Splendid. And this, and this 
 
 He littered the veranda with every species of South 
 Sea Crustacea and there are a few until the place 
 was like an insanitary skating rink. 
 
 Nares's hour of doom drew near. One by one we 
 evaporated from the veranda and collected in the 
 mosquito-proof office adjoining the living room to 
 witness it. Nares had demanded a clear stage for his 
 operations. 
 
 We heard the two men enter the living room, and 
 Nares, in a remarkably natural voice, suggest whisky 
 and sparklet. ". . . Of course, as you see," he 
 was saying in his mincing accents, "we are practically 
 ruined. The hurricane swept everything before it. 
 Luckily the launch escaped, or I don't know what we 
 should have done." 
 
 "Quite," sympathized Sterling. "And is that jolly 
 little launch your only means of leaving the island?" 
 
 "Yes," sighed Nares. "We had in mind, before the 
 hurricane, of course, a fifty-ton auxiliary schooner to 
 carry all our produce, but now" he giggled weakly 
 "we have no produce." 
 
 "Quite," repeated Sterling to the accompaniment of 
 complaining cane as he sank into my only safe chair.
 
 WE OF MALITA 205 
 
 There was a pause, broken after what seemed a cen- 
 tury by another giggle, even more weak. 
 
 "Do you know," said Nares, in tones intended to be 
 conversational, "we have racked our brains to think of 
 some method to raise money, only a little." 
 
 "Really?" remarked Sterling. "That should be 
 easy enough." 
 
 "Ah, but you don't know our difficulties," said 
 Nares. "We are already mortgaged to the hilt. 
 Only a thousand would set us up with a canning plant, 
 and the rest would be plain sailing." 
 
 "In that case," said Sterling (I could feel Rands's 
 fevered breath down the back of my neck. Tomlin was 
 on tiptoe, with mouth agape. Webb was standing 
 with his grizzled head on one side like an inquisitive 
 hen. He is slightly deaf in one ear) "in that case, I 
 should stretch a point to get that thousand." 
 
 "We have intend to," Nares corrected himself. 
 "Fair means or foul, you know." 
 
 "Quite," agreed Sterling. 
 
 "In fact" again Nares had recourse to the giggle, 
 which I could feel was rapidly driving Webb berserk 
 "in fact," he ended weakly and a trifle hurriedly, "we 
 conceived the idea rather daring, of course of ab- 
 ducting some wealthy man and holding him up to 
 ransom." 
 
 There was another brief but agonized pause before 
 Sterling slapped his knee and burst into a roar of 
 laughter. "Daring? Not a bit. What's to stop 
 you? Topping. I should like to see the fun." 
 
 Nares stared at him as though fascinated, then trailed
 
 206 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 off into imitation laughter himself. The two of them 
 sat there making the most absurd noise. 
 
 "You see " Nares had begun again, when some- 
 thing uncommonly like an earthquake rent us of Malita 
 asunder, and stumbled through the mosquito door. 
 It was Webb, a terrible sight. 
 
 "Stop your cackling!" he roared at Nares. "And 
 you," turning on Sterling, "understand this now, if 
 you never did before you're not a guest here; you're a 
 hostage. We abducted you. We'd have abducted 
 you by force if we'd had to. We shall keep you by 
 force if we have to until you hand over a thousand 
 cash. We're not asking for the money ; we're demand- 
 ing it. It's robbery. We're desperate." 
 
 Webb came to an abrupt full stop. The well of his 
 rhetoric had run dry. Sterling turned slowly to Nares. 
 He was slightly less pink than usual, that was all. 
 "Who is this gentleman?" he inquired. "I don't seem 
 to know him." 
 
 "I'm not a gentleman," boomed Webb. "I'm a 
 robber. We're all robbers. Are you going to part 
 up or not? " 
 
 Sterling looked up at him serenely; then, from sheer 
 force of habit, slipped a gold cigarette case from his 
 pocket and tapping one of its contents on the lid. 
 "Topping," he murmured irrelevantly. 
 
 "And that's another thing," flashed Webb. "Say 
 that again and you'll be kicked." 
 
 Sterling regarded him in mild surprise. " Say what? " 
 he inquired. 
 
 "Topping."
 
 WE OF MALITA 207 
 
 "Ah, splendid," drawled Sterling, after due reflection. 
 
 Webb towered over him like an impending hurri- 
 cane. "Are you going to pay?" he demanded. 
 
 "No," said Sterling deliberately. 
 
 "Very well, then." Webb shuffled his enormous feet 
 on the matting of the floor. "You'll stay here until 
 you do." 
 
 "Nothing would please me more," returned Sterling, 
 and helped himself from the tantalus. 
 
 For a moment Webb seemed at a loss. Was our 
 tower of strength faltering? "That can soon be put 
 right," he threatened. "Think it over." 
 
 "Certainly," Sterling agreed. He had now entirely 
 resumed his normal shade of pink. "And now, may 
 we return to a less transpontine mode of intercourse? 
 Mr. Nares here was telling me of some top splendid 
 scheme of raising money for pineapples. . . ." 
 
 "He daren't say it," triumphed Tomlin in the pack- 
 ing shed a few hours later. "We've got him. Al- 
 though I must say he takes it rather well, we've got 
 him." 
 
 "Think so?" grunted Webb. "Seems to me the 
 
 difficulty will be to get rid of him without " His 
 
 voice rumbled away into ruminative silence. 
 
 We hardly dared to look one another in the eye. 
 The appalling possibility conjured up by Webb's 
 unfinished sentence left us speechless. He looked 
 round at me with a grim smile playing under his 
 moustache. 
 
 "I thought you hadn't properly digested this thing
 
 208 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 before you set out on it. We've got to get that money 
 now." 
 
 What is one to do with a hostage who has no desire 
 for freedom? On the contrary, Sterling appeared to 
 be having the time of his life. He told us frankly that 
 he had fallen violently in love with Malita, and if it 
 was a pose it was too cleverly done for us to detect. 
 Each day he wandered at large the dry batteries had 
 been removed from the launch and returned with 
 some noisome thing that was a curio to him and a pest 
 to us. His thirst for island lore was insatiable. His 
 water-colour sketches were eiflier completely above 
 our heads or else the ghastliest daubs that ever soiled 
 paper; personally, I can never tell which. And for us 
 the hard fact remained that time, precious time, was 
 slipping away without any appreciable results. 
 
 "I was wondering how long you'd sit down under 
 this," Webb told us, after some murmurings of dis- 
 content at the fourth packing-shed convention, "and 
 you were all so full of ideas at first. Perhaps you're 
 for climbing out now?" 
 
 We protested violently. 
 
 "Very well, then," said Webb, "what about it?" 
 
 Rands took him by the buttonhole. I think Rands 
 must have been an insurance agent in Denver. "See 
 here, Webb, old man," he crooned. "You're the 
 doctor; there's no getting away from that, and " 
 
 "I knew I should have to be," grumbled Webb. 
 
 And the net result was Sterling's confinement in the 
 smallest and hottest room in the bungalow. There he 
 sat in silk pyjamas, under a corrugated iron roof, and
 
 WE OF MALITA 209 
 
 sizzled, the deathlong day. He grew less pink and a 
 good deal thinner, but, as he pointed out, it gave him a 
 top splendid chance of working out the plans of his 
 model village scheme. 
 
 "They'll be instituting inquiries," suggested Nares 
 in his best startled-rabbit manner, after the third day of 
 the melting process. "We have, as it were, launched 
 an avalanche 
 
 Webb gave him a look that blasted him on the spot. 
 
 "There's nothing else for it," said Rands with slow 
 deliberation. "I guess the old hands at this game knew 
 their business all right." 
 
 "But what how?" 
 
 Instinctively we gathered closer in an awed circle, 
 which Webb broke up by grunting with unprecedented 
 vigour, and stalking from the shed. I'm certain it was 
 only his contempt for our weak-kneed attitude that kept 
 us up to the mark. 
 
 That evening Webb was observed passing a length 
 of stout cord over a beam of the veranda roof. 
 
 "What's the game?" asked Rands. 
 
 Webb did not answer. He completed the task and 
 then turned to me. "Now," he said, "just tie that as 
 tight as you can around my thumbs there, that'll do. 
 Now, you two, pull on the other end." 
 
 We obeyed mechanically. The toes of Webb's enor- 
 mous feet just trailed the ground. 
 
 "Now swing me slowly one, two, three, four. Now 
 let me down." 
 
 He stood there while we untied his thumbs, then went 
 over to the tantalus.
 
 210 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "That, morning and afternoon, increasing one each 
 time," he growled. "Saw it done once." 
 
 Rands and I melted gracefully into the landscape. 
 
 "Whew!" he exclaimed, when we were clear of the 
 bungalow. "Our Mr. Webb is a sticker." 
 
 "Didn't you know that?" said I. 
 
 We walked in pensive silence for a space. 
 
 "Wonder if he heard?" suggested Rands. "That 
 house is like a band-box." 
 
 "I don't see that it makes any difference if he did," 
 said I. 
 
 Rands shrugged his shoulders and gave his attention 
 to the view. "Pineapples," he breathed. "Can't 
 you see 'em on that hill? And a cunning little plant 
 on those flats, and an overhead cable. . . ." 
 
 Yes, it was worth it. 
 
 The next morning a perfectly peaceful sunrise was 
 ruined by the silly, ineffectual noises of Nares. I first 
 heard him running actually running at five o'clock in 
 the morning up the powdered coral pathway to the 
 bungalow, then the hurried patter of his feet on the 
 veranda steps, and finally his panting breath. 
 
 "She's gone," he squealed. "The launch has gone." 
 
 There were the rumblings of an earthquake in the 
 room opposite mine, and Webb's pyjamaed figure ap- 
 peared in the doorway. 
 
 "Where did you put those dry batteries?" he de- 
 manded. 
 
 "They were in my room," panted Nares; "under the 
 bed. I they " 
 
 Webb broke open the door of Sterling's oven with a
 
 WE OF MALITA 211 
 
 gnarled toe. It was no longer Sterling's. It was 
 empty. 
 
 "That's broken it," said Webb, and climbed into 
 bed again, leaving Nares still gesticulating in the middle 
 of the room. 
 
 "B-but the launch," he wailed; "she'll never pass 
 Vuna Point with him driving her. She'll 
 
 "She'll go quite far enough for his purposes," boomed 
 Webb. "Go to bed, you ass." 
 
 "He'll go to Suva," said Rands of the nimble mind. 
 He had been sleeping on the veranda. Rands affects 
 a hammock and a nightshirt for some extraordinary 
 reason. "He'll go to Suva, and bring along the sheriff 
 I mean the police, and 
 
 "Go to bed," repeated Webb. 
 
 "And we can't get away," ended Tomlin brightly. 
 
 Sterling's escape completely broke up Webb. He, 
 even he, who I knew could not have hurt a fly in or- 
 dinary circumstances, had nerved himself up to the 
 necessary pitch for torture, and now the relapse had set 
 in. Each day and all day we scoured the horizon for 
 the craft bearing our fate, but none appeared. We 
 could almost hear the pink young man chortling at our 
 suspense: "Topping!" he would be able to call it with- 
 out restraint. We of Malita grew peevish under the 
 strain, and blamed one another like fishwives. Webb 
 alone sat silent, staring out to sea and swinging his 
 foot. 
 
 "Five years," Tomlin would chirp; "about five 
 years, I should think, with a possible remission for good 
 conduct."
 
 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "Say," Rands would jerk out, "I don't know if I 
 can bash you, Tomlin, but I'll sure try if you don't 
 quit that." 
 
 And Nares would look from one to the other with the 
 same silly startled expression on his rabbit face, and we 
 all knew he was thinking of his launch. 
 
 Oh, it was a ghastly week. Truly, Sterling's venge- 
 ance. 
 
 Then, out of the blue, our fate approached us, climb- 
 ing down from the horizon in a solitary speck that re- 
 solved itself into a launch two launches, one towing 
 the other. The first was a noble affair of white enamel 
 and glittering brass; I could see Nares's mouth watering 
 as he looked at it. The other was his own. 
 
 "Say," exclaimed Rands, with the glasses to his eyes, 
 "it's him, all right; I can see Pink-and- White. There 
 are two others in topees, and the rest's nigs. What do 
 we do about it?" 
 
 "Do?" repeated Webb dully; it was the first time he 
 had spoken that day. "It's the Government, and a 
 squad of comic-opera police. Do? Sit here and wait 
 for 'em. What else?" 
 
 "Not by a jugful," cried the hopeful Rands. "We'll 
 get up into the hills hide. They'll think we've 
 cleared." 
 
 "How?" droned Webb. 
 
 "Swum, flown anything they like. Aw, make a 
 fight for it, Webb." 
 
 "Too hot," said Webb. 
 
 It took a good quarter of an hour to argue Webb out
 
 WE OF MALITA 213 
 
 of his chair on the veranda, and then he only came to 
 satisfy us. 
 
 We of Malita trailed into the hills, a harassed and 
 perspiring flock of refugees. From a ledge high up on 
 the volcanic rock we looked down on our pygmy world 
 the bandbox bungalow, the pathetic square of black dots 
 that had once been a banana patch, the landing like a 
 centipede thrusting its body into the fair face of the 
 Pacific. "It's not a bad old spot, you know," mused 
 Tomlin sentimentally. His words echoed the thoughts 
 in each one of our minds. Malita was very dear now 
 that she was slipping from us. 
 
 "If we can only stick it out a day or two," Rands 
 suggested, "we might be able to slip down in the night 
 and vamose in the launch. What's the matter with 
 Samoa or Tonga?" 
 
 "It's the Government," droned Webb, his every word 
 pulverizing Rands's ideas like a sledge hammer. "It's 
 a man hunt. Ever seen a Government man hunt? 
 They've got us labelled and pigeonholed in their old barn 
 at Suva by this time, and wherever we go, whatever we 
 do, they'll be somewhere in the background. Slow, 
 but oh, lor'! sure." 
 
 There was deathly silence as the two launches came 
 to rest and spilled their pygmy people onto the landing. 
 Sterling led the procession to the bungalow, and without 
 hesitation, passed inside, followed by the Government. 
 The police squatted in a formal row in the com- 
 pound, while one of their number remained with the 
 launch. 
 
 "That's that," remarked Tomlin.
 
 214 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "Rats in a trap!" murmured Nares, presumably to 
 add to the general gaiety. 
 
 Presently the three white men came out, the police 
 sprang to their feet, and the entire cortege spread 
 itself over Malita. Throughout the brazen day we 
 lay on our ledge in agonized suspense. No one came 
 near us. We were hungry, aching, and, above all, 
 thirsty. 
 
 Toward evening the party returned along the beach 
 from the direction of the native village. Sterling and 
 the Government took up their quarters in my bungalow, 
 and the police disposed themselves among the buris 
 (outhouses) in the compound. A yellow, homelike glow 
 sprang into being at the living-room window, and we 
 pictured the pink young man telling the Government 
 over a glass of amber liquid that something or other 
 was "topping." 
 
 Then it rained the warm, penetrating douche of the 
 tropics. 
 
 Webb sat with his feet dangling over the ledge like 
 overweighted pendulums, the lining of the white pulp 
 that had once been his solar topee emitting green cat- 
 aracts down his sodden ducks. 
 
 "This will go on, and on, and on until they get us," 
 he rumbled. "They've written a 'report' on their first 
 day's 'investigations.' There'll be another to-morrow, 
 and another the day after that, until they'll be able to 
 write down, very neatly: 'On January 26, at 10 A. M, 
 
 the prisoners were discovered ' Pah!" he bellowed, 
 
 and scrambled to his feet. "What's the use?" 
 
 "What are you going to do?" inquired someone.
 
 WE OF MALITA 215 
 
 "Go down and give myself up," he retorted. "A 
 cell's dry." 
 
 And would you believe it? we all followed him. 
 Like a flock of sodden sheep we trailed down that 
 hillside and up the bungalow path. What we must 
 have looked like standing in pools of our own making 
 on the veranda, I have no idea, though I believe 
 Sterling has. 
 
 Webb marched in on a homely little scene. The 
 Government was leaning over a plan of Malita out- 
 spread on my table. Sterling was sprawled in my 
 favourite chair, blowing smoke rings from a noble-look- 
 ing cigar and staring dreamily at the ceiling. "Where 
 on earth have you been?" he demanded at sight of the 
 apparition. 
 
 "Little pleasure excursion up the hillside," said 
 Webb. "What are you going to do with us?" 
 
 "Sorry," Sterling apologized, and poured out five 
 ample tots of a brandy that was new to me but un- 
 commonly mellow. "Hadn't you better change?" he 
 suggested. 
 
 We changed in stony silence. 
 
 "And now," he said, "I want to thank you for the 
 top splendid time you gave me, and apologize for my 
 hasty departure. That room 
 
 "We'd rather you wouldn't be funny about it," said 
 Webb. "Come to the point." 
 
 "Very well," agreed Sterling; "what about those 
 pineapples?" 
 
 "Pineapples!" 
 
 "Yes; you're not going to tell me you fellows went
 
 216 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 through the agonies you must have suffered without 
 there being something in this pineapple idea?" 
 
 "Who are these?" demanded Webb, suddenly in- 
 dicating the gaping Government with a hairy hand. 
 
 "Surveyors," said Sterling. "W 7 ho did you think 
 they were?" 
 
 "That doesn't matter," said Webb;."but " 
 
 A pained expression passed over Sterling's pink face. 
 "You're not going to let me down," he wailed "after 
 me buying the island for you, mortgages and all?" 
 
 And to this day Sterling cannot be brought to believe 
 that Webb's intentions with the rope on the veranda 
 were serious. The argument invariably causes one to 
 say: "Top splendid!" and the other to swing an 
 enormous foot, when we foregather on the veranda 
 of a large white bungalow overlooking the Malita Pine- 
 apple Estate Incorporated.
 
 THE PREPOSTEROUS PARTNER 
 
 SIMULTANEOUSLY with the roar of the explo- 
 sion, a geyser of earth, roots, and stones shot 
 skyward, to fall rattling amongst the neighbour- 
 ing trees, and again the silence of the bush closed 
 down. 
 
 "Five!" counted Creswell aloud, and grinned through 
 his sweat. He had taken to talking to himself of late, 
 though he had no notion of it. A man has little time 
 for noticing anything besides his work when he battles 
 with the Queensland bush. 
 
 "Not so bad," he added judicially, inspecting the 
 churned-up earth and root ends that were all that the 
 dynamite charge had left of a six-foot eucalyptus 
 stump. "Not so bad." 
 
 With hardly a pause, he went on to the next, a stub- 
 born blood- wood, and opened the attack with a crow- 
 bar. It was killing work, and it was killing Creswell, 
 though he would have been the first to ridicule such a 
 suggestion. No one did suggest it, because no one in 
 the Nambye district cared one way or another. If a 
 crazy "new chum" chose to work himself to death in 
 the bush, whose business was it but his own? That 
 was Nambye's attitude. Such a thing had happened 
 before, and would no doubt happen again, until the 
 over-zealous pioneer realized that the correct method 
 
 217
 
 218 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 of acquiring a pineapple plantation is to relieve his 
 neighbours of their played-out acres at a fancy figure. 
 
 But then Nambye did not know. No one knew, 
 except Joyce Helliar, what manner of fever it was that 
 consumed Bob Creswell, and she kept that knowledge 
 to herself. It was doubtful if Nambye would under- 
 stand. Few men suffer from overscrupulousness, and 
 that was what ailed Creswell. Two years ago the 
 flick of a coin had decided whether he or his partner 
 Soames should go to the War. Soames had won, and 
 Creswell had never forgotten it. Soames was to fight 
 his country's enemies; Creswell was to fight nothing 
 more romantic than the Queensland bush and a bank 
 overdraft. The humiliation of it! And he had given 
 his word there was no wriggling out his word that 
 he would "look after the place and Joyce"; that was 
 how the happy-go-lucky Soames had put it, with a 
 nudged elbow and a grin at the last injunction that 
 was entirely lost on his more stolid partner Three 
 times Creswell had written asking to be let off, pleading 
 with Soames that it was more than he could bear; 
 but he received no reply. Soames had only written 
 twice, soon after he left, the chatty, inconsequential 
 letters of a man without a care in the world, and his 
 name had never appeared in the casualty lists. Until 
 that happened Creswell considered himself bound. 
 
 "Look after the place and Joyce!" That was all 
 he had to go upon, and he had gone upon it to such 
 effect that five acres were already bearing, another 
 five of virgin bush were cleared and ready for the 
 plow, the overdraft was at least stationary, Joyce
 
 THE PREPOSTEROUS PARTNER 219 
 
 was as well as a perfectly healthy young woman can be, 
 and he had reduced himself to the semblance of a 
 scarecrow. A fool? Perhaps; but some men are built 
 like that. 
 
 Joyce dismounted at the edge of the clearing, a cool 
 white figure against the sweltering background of the 
 bush, and coo-ee'd twice before Creswell looked up 
 and came shambling toward her. His beard was rather 
 more ragged than ever, she noticed; his clothes, clotted 
 and smeared with red earth, seemed to hang from his 
 broad, angular shoulders. The inevitable question was 
 in his eyes, and Joyce met it with a smile and a shake 
 of the head. 
 
 "I can't make it out," he said, sitting in the grass 
 beside her and scraping the earth from his boots with a 
 twig. He always said that, and Joyce's reply was in- 
 variably the same. 
 
 "No news is good news, remember." Then Creswell 
 would subject her to his slow, appraising scrutiny, and 
 talk about "the place," always about "the place." 
 
 The usual programme was proceeding without a hitch,, 
 when Joyce introduced an entirely unlooked-for re- 
 mark: 
 
 "Have you had any dinner?" 
 
 It had a marked effect on Creswell. He was in the 
 midst of a minute description of blasting operations, 
 and he stopped dead, staring at her in a daze. 
 
 "Yes that is, I think so," he faltered. 
 
 "But you're not quite sure," said Joyce gravely. 
 "Well, perhaps you can find room for these." 
 
 She watched him as he sat munching the sandwiches
 
 220 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 she had brought, his eyes never leaving his handiwork 
 out in the clearing. 
 
 "Not so bad, is it?" He nodded in the direction of 
 the dynamite debris. "Five in a week. It'll please 
 Clem." 
 
 "If it doesn't, it ought to," said Joyce, with unusual 
 asperity. The sight of Creswell that morning had 
 somehow come as a shock. 
 
 He regarded her in blank amazement for a moment. 
 To Creswell such a remark savoured almost of sacrilege. 
 
 "I mean it," she added firmly. "I think he's very 
 lucky to have a partner to carry on as you are, and 
 and he ought to write and say so." 
 
 Creswell looked away across the clearing with a 
 puzzled frown. He had always regarded women as 
 peculiar, but there was something radically wrong here. 
 She was thinking of him him instead of Soames. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," he said patiently. "I expect 
 he has plenty to do without writing plenty to do. 
 Besides" he turned with a sudden earnestness 
 "what is anything anything that I can do here com- 
 pared with what he is doing over there?" 
 
 Joyce did not answer. What could she say? That 
 he, Creswell, would have found time to write under 
 any circumstances? That it was not his fault, but his 
 misfortune that he was not "over there," too, and that 
 he was paying for it doublefold? In short, that Cres- 
 well was worth three of Soames, anyhow? When is it 
 possible for a woman to say what is in her mind? And 
 so Joyce Helliar did not answer. She was sorry now 
 that she had said so much.
 
 THE PREPOSTEROUS PARTNER 221 
 
 He showed her "the place", as though she had not 
 seen it from end to end a hundred times. The young 
 pines were coming on, weren't they? First crop in 
 another three months, and then down with the over- 
 draft! She followed his gaunt, restless figure between 
 the rows, and watched the pleasure lighting his eyes 
 when she made an admiring comment. She found that 
 "Clem would like to see that" pleased him most. 
 
 He even demonstrated for her benefit, and with 
 child-like pride, the workings of the latest addition to 
 the corrugated-iron humpy* on the top of the hill a 
 real live shower-bath, consisting of a riddled kerosene 
 tin filled with water and hoisted by a rope and pulley. 
 
 "Can't you just see him wriggling and spluttering 
 under it, after a hard day in the bush?" he demanded 
 triumphantly. 
 
 Joyce admitted that she could, though at that par- 
 ticular moment she was paying more attention to the 
 fact that CreswelPs trousers were upheld with wire 
 nails instead of buttons, and that his mouth had taken 
 to twitching. 
 
 That night the dry spell broke. It began with 
 rain that beat a welcome tattoo on the roof of Creswell's 
 humpy. 
 
 "Good!" he muttered, and lay staring up at the 
 ridge pole with a contented smile. It was just what 
 the young pines wanted. 
 
 But what they did not want was precisely what the 
 playful Queensland climate saw fit to give them during 
 the next two hours. The clamour overhead broke into 
 
 *Cabin.
 
 22 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 a deafening crescendo. The roof trembled and sagged 
 as though under the assault of battering-rams. With 
 his face pressed close to the window-pane, Creswell 
 looked out through a sheet of falling water, and, by 
 the fitful gleam of lightning, caught distorted glimpses 
 of red earth churned to a morass, of thriving paw-paw 
 trees beaten to a pulp. And this was on the hilltop. 
 What of the young pines on the slope? He flung open 
 the door and went outside. At the first impact he was 
 beaten to his knees, so he crawled crawled on hands 
 and knees down the bed of a cataract that was the 
 slope of the hill. He could see nothing, but he 
 could feel, and he must know. Inaction was the hell 
 of it! 
 
 Things jostled him and swept by in a turmoil of 
 water. He wondered vaguely what they were. His 
 wondering developed into a stubborn refusal to believe 
 what they were, until his hand went out involuntarily 
 and grasped an uprooted pineapple plant. Then he 
 knew. There was an ever-growing dump of them at 
 the bottom of the hill, and against this he sank ex- 
 hausted. 
 
 He was aroused by brilliant sunshine and the de- 
 risive call of a "laughing jackass."* What could be 
 more appropriate? Creswell laughed, too a mirthless 
 sound that came from the soul. The world was still 
 in existence, then, the same old world of rolling red- 
 earth hills, bush, and sunshine; only the puny works 
 of man had passed. The young pines were no more. 
 It was as though in a frenzy the fingers of some giant 
 
 *An Australian bird.
 
 THE PREPOSTEROUS PARTNER 223 
 
 hand had descended on the fair face of the hillside and 
 clawed it to ribbons. 
 
 Creswell rose slowly and plodded through ankle-deep 
 mud to the humpy. There he methodically prepared 
 breakfast, and an hour later had resumed operations on 
 the refractory bloodwood stump with a crowbar. 
 
 It was so that Joyce found him when she dismounted 
 at the edge of the clearing. One glimpse of the chaos 
 on the hillside was enough; her glance returned to the 
 dishevelled figure at work on the bloodwood stump, and 
 a mist came into her eyes. She could not bring herself 
 to speak when he came toward her. 
 
 "Nasty damp night," he said, with a wry smile, and 
 proceeded to scrape the mud from his boots with a 
 twig. 
 
 Involuntarily her hand went out. 
 
 "Bob," she said softly "oh, Bob!" 
 
 He turned and looked into her tear-filled eyes, which 
 caused him to look away again. 
 
 "More than half my fault," he jerked out. "Might 
 have known that slope was a bit too steep. The other 
 will be better when it's cleared." 
 
 "It's not that, Bob not the place. What does it 
 matter compared with with other things?" 
 
 He did not answer. Soames might have made 
 things a bit clearer before he went away, Creswell re- 
 flected. It made it difficult to know just what to say 
 to a woman with tears in her eyes. What did the place 
 matter? Wasn't it clear enough that it meant every- 
 thing to the two of them a home, a future? That 
 when Soames came back he, Creswell, would discreetly
 
 224 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 remove himself, and that this, the little he could do for 
 his partner, was all that had kept him going during the 
 past nightmare months, all that spurred him even 
 now to fresh endeavour? Evidently not. There was 
 a hitch somewhere. He stared helplessly across the 
 clearing. 
 
 Her voice seemed to be coming from a long way off, 
 but he heard it. He distinctly heard her saying. 
 ". . . It's not the place, Bob; it's you," and the 
 words caused his clasped hands to tighten their grip. 
 
 "I?" he demanded harshly. "What do you mean?" 
 
 "Can't you see?" questioned Joyce. "Can't you 
 see that it isn't right for you to go on and on like this 
 that no man can stand it?" 
 
 "Clem's standing it," grinned Creswell. 
 
 "Not without a rest," she objected quietly "not 
 without a single break, alone in the bush, month after 
 month, year after year. He at least has excitement, 
 change, people to talk to oh, all the things that a man 
 can't do without and remain 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "A man," she ended desperately. 
 
 "Thanks," said Creswell, staring at his boots. 
 
 "It's the truth," flashed Joyce. "Take a little- 
 ever such a little holiday. Come down to Nambye 
 and stay with Father and me for a week. There's ten- 
 nis and and a piano. Anything for a change." She 
 took hold of his arm and shook him gently. "Do, 
 Bob forme!" 
 
 Creswell shrank from her. Suddenly he was afraid, 
 mortally afraid of himself. After all these months
 
 THE PREPOSTEROUS PARTNER 225 
 
 and years of iron discipline, it had come to this! And 
 what if some day this same discipline failed? Such a 
 contingency had never presented itself before. The 
 mere thought of it now frightened him into speech. 
 
 "Thanks," he muttered, a senseless smile twisting his 
 lips. "But why all this trouble over me?" 
 
 He was aware that she moved away from him, but 
 he dared not look round, not until he heard the beat 
 of her pony's hoofs and caught a glint of white vanish- 
 ing amongst the trees. 
 
 So in some way he had offended her. Perhaps it 
 was as well. He walked slowly across the clearing 
 and picked up the crowbar. 
 
 Then came the armistice, and not long afterward a 
 telegram for Joyce. It was from Soames, and it in- 
 vited her and Creswell to dinner at an hotel in Brisbane. 
 She smiled in spite of herself it was so exactly 
 like Clem. But the smile died from her lips as she 
 glanced toward the hills, and she went to Brisbane 
 alone. 
 
 At the hotel an immaculate individual in khaki met 
 her in the vestibule. It was Clem Clem with such a 
 prodigious difference that for a moment she was at a 
 loss. But only for a moment. She soon found him to 
 be the same old Clem, boyish of face and manner, 
 care-free, irresponsible, skimming over the surface of 
 life with his usual adroitness. He had changed in 
 nothing but his clothes, she decided. 
 
 "Where's Bob?" he asked suddenly, as though his 
 partner's absence had only just struck him. 
 
 "He's not well," said Joyce.
 
 226 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "Poor old beggar! Still taking life too seriously?" 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "Why didn't you write, Clem?" 
 
 Soames looked up from his soup and laughed. 
 
 "I should like to know how many times I meant to," 
 he said; "but something always came in the way. Be- 
 sides, if I had, there would have been nothing to say 
 but mud, shells, and again mud. You saw it all in the 
 papers." 
 
 "Yes," said Joyce. 
 
 "But I can't complain. Done pretty well, and the 
 life does get a grip on you. I couldn't do anything 
 else now somehow everything seems so small. All 
 the same." he added thoughtfully, "I should like to 
 have seen old Bob." 
 
 Joyce found herself staring unseeingly at one of his 
 glittering buttons. 
 
 "Aren't you going to see him?" she asked quietly. 
 
 "Don't see how I can," said Soames, crumbling the 
 bread at the side of his plate. "I only came over in 
 charge of a repatriated draft. I ought to sail to- 
 morrow." 
 
 "Then " But Joyce stopped. The futility of 
 
 what she was going to say to this man struck her 
 dumb. Instead, she leant over the table, with one 
 hand unconsciously extended on the cloth. "Clem," 
 she said, "I want you to listen." 
 
 He looked up at that. 
 
 " Clem, you must see Bob." Something in her voice 
 startled Soames into attentive silence. "You must," 
 she repeated, with a defiant toss of the head; "you owe
 
 THE PREPOSTEROUS PARTNER 227 
 
 it to him. Oh, I know what you mean," she went on 
 hurriedly; "everything's so small it must be, after 
 all you've seen and done. 'The place' means nothing 
 to you now, but it does to Bob. It's it's his life. 
 You don't know what he has been through for you." 
 
 "Forme?" 
 
 "Yes. I know it must sound comic, but it's the 
 truth. I can't explain. You must see, then perhaps 
 you'll understand." 
 
 Soames was as perturbed as he ever allowed himself 
 to be. In rather a bewildered state of mind he left his 
 servant to pack, and rushed up to Nambye the next 
 morning in the fastest car Brisbane had to offer. He 
 left it in the village and trudged alone up a red-earth 
 bush track until he came to a small square clearing in 
 the surrounding sea of eucalyptus trees. 
 
 At the slip rails his eye encountered in turn a cor- 
 rugated iron humpy on the hilltop, a few tree stumps, 
 and a red-earth slope with what appeared to be a rub- 
 bish heap at the bottom. This was "the place" as 
 Soames saw it. 
 
 At the crest of the hill he caught sight of an exceed- 
 ingly tall thin man at work on a tree stump, with a 
 crowbar. This was his partner. 
 
 "Hullo, old man!" he called. 
 
 Creswell turned, stood for a moment with drooping 
 jaw, then came shambling toward him. It was so 
 that the partners met after three years. 
 
 During the next hour it was given Soames to under- 
 stand. He marvelled at the destruction of five stumps 
 per week. He exonerated his partner from all blame
 
 228 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 for the rubbish heap at the bottom of the hill, and 
 waxed equally eloquent over the kerosene-tin shower 
 bath and the fact that the bank overdraft was station- 
 ary. He even ate with apparent "relish the damper and 
 salt beef that awaited them in the humpy. But where 
 he surpassed himself was after the meal, when he went 
 over to the window and stood looking out, wondering 
 how he was going to tell his partner that he had pre- 
 cisely two hours in which to catch the steamer. 
 
 " Ton my word, old man," he said, taking the deep 
 breath of the diver before the plunge, "you've done 
 such wonders with 'the place' I hate leaving it." 
 
 There followed an awkward silence, so he hurried on 
 
 "The new slope's going to be a topper, I can see that; 
 and, as you say, the other will do for oranges er 
 but the fact is, I've found the only job I'm any good at, 
 and well, I must be getting on with it." 
 
 He turned. Creswell was standing beside the table, 
 with set mouth and something in his eyes that Soames 
 was at a loss to understand. 
 
 "What d'you mean?" he said shortly. 
 
 Soames had faced a variety of things in the past three 
 years, but it is doubtful if any of them had been more 
 objectionable than this. He squared his shoulders to 
 it. 
 
 "I mean that soldiering has got me for keeps, Bob," 
 he said. "I believe it's what I was made for I can't 
 see anything else. I never was any good here. I never 
 should be; you know that." 
 
 "You mean you don't want 'the place'?" said Cres- 
 well.
 
 THE PREPOSTEROUS PARTNER 229 
 
 Soames nodded and took refuge in pacing the floor. 
 
 "You can buy me out, or something," he suggested 
 airily. "It's hard to explain, but 
 
 "You needn't trouble," Creswell interposed. "I 
 understand perfectly. But what about Joyce?" 
 
 Soames stopped in his stride. 
 
 "Joyce?" he repeated. 
 
 "Yes," said Creswell doggedly. "Perhaps you've 
 forgotten what your last words to me were?" 
 
 Soames remained motionless, thinking furiously. 
 Then quite suddenly he remembered. He saw it all. 
 He could have laughed, but for Creswell's eyes. He 
 crossed the room to this preposterous partner of his 
 and laid a hand on either of his shoulders. 
 
 "Bob," he said, "as well as being the soundest man 
 I ever knew, you're an old fool, No, I haven't for- 
 gotten. 'The place' is all right, but you haven't looked 
 after Joyce as I meant you to. Don't you think you'd 
 better be getting on with it?" 
 
 A cloud of red dust marked the passage of Soames's 
 car toward Brisbane. Creswell turned back into the 
 humpy, paused for a while in deep thought, then pro- 
 ceeded with the utmost deliberation to bathe, shave, 
 and dress. This done, he passed down the bush track 
 to Nambye, and found Joyce alone, in a hammock on 
 the veranda.
 
 " How THE OTHER HALF LIVES" 
 
 riS a disconcerting thing, when dressing for dinner, 
 ;o find that someone has been watching you through 
 the entire process. Mr. Mumpus jerked the absurd 
 little curtain over as much of the open porthole as it 
 would cover, and fell to doing the same thing with his 
 hair. 
 
 As a matter of fact, and although he would not have 
 had it known for worlds, Mr. Mumpus was not in the 
 habit of dressing for dinner at all. He was a hack ac- 
 countant, if you know what that means, and when his 
 day's work of mental acrobatics was done, he was only 
 too pleased to climb into a moth-eaten dressing gown 
 and abandon himself to the production of uncertain 
 noises on the clarionet, this being his only means of 
 expressing what was in him apart from a mind like a 
 ready-reckoner. 
 
 But on the S. S. Wykeba it was a different matter. 
 He was on holiday, the first clean breakaway in his 
 routine-sodden life. He had fallen for the cunningly 
 devised announcements of the Phipps Gilroy Naviga- 
 tion Co. anent Island travel. He was "revelling in the 
 romance of 'the Islands of the Blest'; witnessing the 
 strange customs of a picturesque people; casting off for 
 thirty days (and incidentally thirty pounds) the shack- 
 les of present-day civilization, and harking back to un- 
 
 230
 
 "HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES" 231 
 
 trammelled Nature.'* Or so the announcements read, 
 and who was he to argue the point? Had not the 
 Wykeba touched at three separate South Sea Islands for 
 not less than twelve hours apiece? Had he not wit- 
 nessed a hula or a meke or whatever they called it, nau- 
 seated himself in an effort to drink kava, and bought a 
 war club (manufactured in Sydney), and a rush basket 
 of coral fronds that he had 
 no notion what to do with 
 when he had it? 
 
 And now the Wykeba 
 was alongside Mahiti wharf. - 
 Mr. Mumpus had looked it ~. 
 all up. Mahiti was a French 
 protectorate with twelve thousand inhabitants. Its 
 chief exports were copra, pearl shell, and vanilla, and he 
 was there for twelve mortal hours. What was to be 
 done? According to schedule, and the dictates of an 
 intensely methodical mind, he should go ashore and 
 "revel, etc.," but for the first time on this epoch-making 
 tour his spirit rebelled. He refused to do any one of 
 those things that Messrs. Phipps Gilroy had mapped 
 out for him. Instead, he would take his clarionet into 
 the music room and get the rather dull little person in 
 apparently eternal mauve "semi-evening" to play his 
 accompaniments. She would do it. She seemed of the 
 type that will do anything for anybody, and conse- 
 quently receives little or no attention herself. 
 
 With this object in view, Mr. Mumpus pieced to- 
 gether his beloved instrument and tested the reed by 
 playing the opening movement of a cavatina. During
 
 232 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 the pause that followed, a faint clapping of hands and 
 a whispered "encore" came from behind the port- 
 hole curtain, and with a cluck of annoyance he drew it 
 aside. 
 
 "Go away," he ordered severely. "D'you hear? 
 Go " and there he stopped. 
 
 There was something in the little picture he had dis- 
 closed that gave him pause. It was beautiful, far too 
 beautiful to dispel peremptorily. The porthole was 
 level with the wharf, and as though in a dull gold frame 
 an elfin figure reclined, its soft brown eyes fastened on 
 Mr. Mumpus in a child-like stare of wonderment; while 
 from out the background of velvet darkness came a 
 medley of tropic scent and sound frangipane, copra, 
 and sandalwood, the ceaseless chatter of crickets, the 
 patter of naked feet, snatches of song. 
 
 "What you want?" demanded Mr. Mumpus with a 
 valiant effort at beche-de mer. 
 
 The elf nodded at the instrument in his hand. 
 
 "Me like 'im," it solemnly averred. 
 
 "You do, eh?" A whim seized Mr. Mumpus. He 
 knelt on the settee, and trilled a stanza from the 
 "Mikado." "How's that?" 
 
 The elf wriggled its approval. Mr. Mumpus ex- 
 perienced the acute satisfaction of holding an audience 
 in his hand. 
 
 "Ze 'Marseillaise' ! " it ordered, beating its small 
 brown fists on the planking of the wharf. "Ze 'Marseil- 
 laise'! 'E is ze day of France!" 
 
 And Mr. Mumpus found himself obliging with the 
 utmost zest.
 
 "HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES" 233 
 
 "Papa belong me 'im Frenchman," explained the elf 
 with a touch of pride when it was done. 
 
 "Indeed?" murmured Mr. Mumpus. "And your 
 mother?" 
 
 "Mama belong me Mahitienne. Them finish." 
 
 "Finish?" 
 
 "Mais oui, pouf ! like zat." 
 
 "Indeed," repeated Mr. Mumpus sympathetically 
 and for lack of something better to say. He still knelt 
 on the settee, and contemplated at a range of perhaps 
 twelve inches this diverting work of nature. It was 
 apparently perfect. The hair was blue-black and of 
 amazing length and richness, the teeth white and 
 even, the skin a dull gold, the eyes there was some- 
 thing in the eyes that vaguely disturbed Mr. Mumpus. 
 They were essentially not of his world, but of another, 
 mysterious, alluring, out there through the porthole. 
 They caused him temporarily to overlook the fact that 
 he was a hack accountant, much less an exemplary 
 tourist already late for an exemplary dinner of frozen 
 meats and tinned asparagus. For the first time in 
 his life Mr. Mumpus obeyed impulse without question. 
 Mechanically slipping a section of clarionet into either 
 pocket of his "ready to wear" dinner jacket, he insinu- 
 ated his meagre person through the porthole, and 
 stood looking down on the elf. 
 
 "Now!" he cried with challenging abandon. 
 
 She took him to a shop across the way, and pointed 
 out a perfectly preposterous mask of bucolic cheeks and 
 elongated nose. 
 
 "I'm all right," she said judicially, and Mr. Mumpus
 
 234 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 bought it. What was more, he put it on, to the intense 
 delight of his companion, and they set off into the town, 
 as strangely assorted a pair as ever Mahitian moon has 
 smiled upon. 
 
 Unquestionably it was the day of France. A band 
 played somewhere. The flamboyant-bordered streets 
 seethed with heterogeneous humanity stolid Anglo- 
 Saxons, vivacious Latins, Chinamen, Kanakas, and a 
 blending of each too subtle for analysis. Carnival was 
 in the air. No one cared, least of all Mr. Mumpus. 
 No one knew him. He did not know himself. A solid 
 handful of confetti caught him in the nape of the neck, 
 and slowly worked its passage down his spine. A paper 
 tongue, full three feet long, shot from out the laughing 
 face of a passer-by and smote him on his false nose. 
 This was too much. He bought a bag full of miniature 
 bombs that exploded on impact, and used them with 
 telling effect. 
 
 At a crowded cafe he ordered vin rouge and an omelette 
 with the air of an habitue, and derived infinite satisfac- 
 tion from watching a sprinkling of his fellow passengers 
 looking bored and a trifle foolish in their bizarre sur- 
 roundings. There was the ponderous lady in blue who 
 at one time had no doubt possessed a voice, and her lap 
 husband; also the young couple that had such an an- 
 noying habit of getting under foot on the boat deck 
 of an evening; the Yankee inventor of an entirely new 
 abortion in safety razors, and a successful composer who 
 rendered life in the music-room unendurable with lus- 
 cious ballads. They were all so obviously what they 
 were, whereas he, Mr. Mumpus, behind his impenetra-
 
 "HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES" 235 
 
 ble incognito of vermilion pasteboard, might be any- 
 thing anything! Was he not sitting cheek by jowl 
 with such romantic figures as schooner skippers, shellers, 
 planters, adventurers? Their very conversation, heard 
 in snatches and in conjunction with a second glass of 
 vin rouge, held a mystery all its own 
 
 ". . too deep for skin diving . . . yes, 
 and sharks . . . hear they've got compressors, up 
 in the Straits . . forty-two fathoms, what d'you 
 say to that?" 
 
 Or- 
 
 "We could get a court in behind the old vanilla." 
 
 "Wouldn't be enough run-back." 
 
 "Chop down vanilla. Must have a court . . . 
 put the boys onto it on Monday . . . play you for 
 that Passing Show record on Wednesday." 
 
 "That's a go." 
 
 "Here's how!" 
 
 "Cheer-o." 
 
 Or 
 
 "Who's the gink in the proboscis?" 
 
 "Search me, but the kid's got him, anyway." 
 
 "May be one of them." 
 
 "Don't think so; Pete's watching 'em like a cat." 
 
 "But I thought Pete. . . ." 
 
 "Out a week ago . . . kid can't shake him off 
 . . . too bad, but there you are. . . ." 
 
 It was at this juncture that the elf seized Mr. Mum- 
 pus by the hand and literally dragged him into the 
 street. 
 
 "Too much *ot," she contrived to explain as they
 
 236 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 wormed a passage through the throng, yet it occurred 
 to Mr. Mumpus that her hand was cold, deathly cold. 
 "Ah Wong all right," she added, and steered him into a 
 fetid haunt of fan tan and "dope" where they found 
 a vacant corner of a battered settee. 
 
 Exactly why they had come there, Mr. Mumpus 
 never discovered, for it seemed that he had no sooner 
 taken in his surroundings of smoke, a Chinese banker 
 by murky lamplight, wrangling humanity and the 
 staccato click of counters, and was fairly launched on 
 coffee, liqueur, and a freckled cigarette, than he was for 
 some obscure reason wafted out of the place and across 
 the street to the Palais de Dance. 
 
 The transition was a trifle sudden, but then so was the 
 elf, and somehow it seemed to fit in with the generally 
 kaleidoscopic nature of the evening's happenings. He 
 could not play fan tan, neither could he dance, yet he 
 found his arms encircling the elf, and his feet moving 
 more or less rhythmically to the strains of a two-piece 
 orchestra. In fact, it seemed to him that he was doing 
 rather well. This, then, was dancing. He had no 
 idea it was so simple merely a matter of one two, and 
 one two, so that it came as all the more of a shock 
 when he found himself on a moonlit beach. They had 
 evidently danced clean through the Palais, and out 
 of the open door at the far end. The elf was rearrang- 
 ing his "made-up" tie that had an uncanny knack of 
 standing on end. He looked into her upturned face, 
 and fancied that he saw fear in her eyes. 
 
 But there was no time to make sure of anything in 
 this fantasia that had caught him up like a whirlwind.
 
 "HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES" 237 
 
 They were off again, hand in hand along the hard wet 
 sand, skirting the festoons of silver ripples, and sending 
 the hermit crabs scuttling and crackling to their bur- 
 rows. There was no sense to it all, no sense whatever, 
 he reflected, and thanking Providence on that account, 
 joined his raucous barytone to the elf's clear contralto 
 as she chanted a meke to the moon. 
 
 At a place where coral mushrooms reared fantastic 
 shapes out of the still waters of the lagoon, they cried a 
 halt and, sitting side by side in the sand, Mr. Mumpus 
 "by request" boomed the fine, round notes of his clari- 
 onet into the night, while the elf listened enthralled. 
 She had never met such a man. Indeed, it was ex- 
 tremely doubtful if she would ever meet such another. 
 
 To Mr. Mumpus it seemed that he had never pro- 
 duced such exquisite sound. "Damon," "O Santis- 
 sima, " Raff's "Cavatina," floated in turn over the 
 lagoon, and were lost in the distant thunder of surf on 
 the barrier reef. He was as lost to the world as the 
 great beyond. 
 
 He did not even notice when the elf left his side, and 
 went to meet the slinking shadow of a man that ap- 
 proached them along the edge of the beach. 
 
 She stood before him when they met, her two hands at 
 her breast, as though to ward off a blow. 
 
 "Well?" he said in French. 
 
 She did not answer. 
 
 "Well?" he repeated and, taking her two shoulders 
 in his powerful hands, crushed them as in a vise. 
 
 "He is so small," pleaded the elf, her face twisted 
 with pain, "and and he has nothing nothing ah!"
 
 238 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "Then why. . . ." 
 
 "I do not know," wailed the elf. "Pete, mon Dieu, 
 stop! I do not know, unless unless it was that." A 
 note hung on the still air, a reed-like note that swelled 
 and faded, and died. 
 
 The man turned his head in the direction of a grotes- 
 que figure squatting on the sand in the moonlight. 
 Its profile was one of bloated cheeks and absurdly mis- 
 shapen nose, and it swayed in rhythmic ecstasy. 
 
 As a matter of fact, Mr. Mumpus was in the throes of 
 his favourite serenade, and nothing short of an earth- 
 quake would have disturbed him. 
 
 "Is he mad, or drunk, or both?" demanded the man. 
 
 "I do not know," repeated the elf dully, "but he is so 
 small, so helpless Pete!" 
 
 He flung her aside and took two strides toward the 
 squatting figure, but only two. The elf's hand shot out 
 and caught him by the ankle, spilling him to the ground, 
 and a wild-cat, not an elf, was on his shoulders, raining 
 blow after blow with a coral rock upon his head. 
 
 He did not move. The elf stood back panting, and 
 viewed her handiwork. Still he did not move. Then 
 she turned and ran, blindly, madly along the beach, a 
 flitting figure in the moonlight that dwindled, and faded, 
 and was lost amongst the palm groves. 
 
 And Mr. Mumpus finished his favourite serenade, 
 and looked about him. The elf was gone. The spell 
 was broken . . . perhaps it was as well. He con- 
 sulted his watch, the first sign of rational thought, and 
 clucked in horror at the hour. It was nearly four . . . 
 and the Wykeba sailed at dawn . . . and there
 
 "HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES" 239 
 
 was a hint of pallor on the horizon! He scrambled to 
 his feet and hurried along the beach, passing within a 
 few yards of an oblong shadow on the sand, until the 
 dark bulk of the Wykeba loomed ahead. 
 
 But it was not until he emerged into the searching 
 rays of the bunch-light at the head of the gangway, 
 and the deck hand had at first stared, then grinned, 
 that he remembered his incognito and snatched it from 
 his face. He hung it on the same hook as the rush 
 basket of coral fronds, lay smiling through the port- 
 hole for a space, and slept.
 
 THE MASCOT 
 
 HE SAT in the sand, staring over his knees at a 
 tiny island that danced in the shimmering heat 
 haze. He was not beautiful, but then few mas- 
 cots are. His weak eyes were so puckered against the 
 glare as to be almost invisible; he was over-fat for his 
 years, which could not have been more than thirty, 
 and there was a vacuousness in his fixed gaze and 
 drooping jaw that was not healthy. He was trying 
 to think. 
 
 Now, a mascot has no business to think; it is not 
 expected of him. All he has to do is to sit back and 
 look wise, and accept what comes his way with be- 
 coming dignity. That is why the career so exactly 
 suited James Eustace Talbot. 
 
 It is not a joke. It is a serions business. Just as a 
 warship has its bulldog, a regiment its goat, or an 
 eminently respectable family its black cat, so a South 
 Sea tribe has its white man, when it can get him. If 
 he is of the right variety, he gives little trouble. His 
 wants are few a grass house, sufficient to eat and drink, 
 and an unlimited space of time in which to do nothing. 
 His habits are gentle, and he is, as a rule, easily domesti- 
 cated. Then there is always the mysterious element of 
 good fortune attaching to him. 
 
 It is as pleasant to render one's neighbours envious in 
 
 240
 
 THE MASCOT 241 
 
 the South Pacific as elsewhere. For instance, if a hur- 
 ricane misses your particular district by half a mile, you 
 will say with an air of quiet superiority: "We have a 
 white man," which will at once explain the phenomenon 
 and sow the necessary seeds of covetousness in the 
 breasts of your hearers. If, upon the other hand, the 
 hurricane happens to blow your possession into the sea, 
 you will say: "We have a white man, otherwise we 
 should undoubtedly have been blown into the sea also." 
 And if you are blown into the sea well, that ends 
 the matter, anyway. A mascot is a useful thing to 
 have about the place. 
 
 And, as has been said, it suited Talbot. Out of a 
 ruthless world he had come a world with which he was 
 utterly unsuited to do battle. The younger son of a 
 younger son, brought up in an atmosphere of hounds 
 and lawn tennis, he had one day awakened to the 
 distressing fact that it would be necessary for him to 
 work for a living. He had noticed that some people 
 did it, and it looked easy, if uninteresting. For the 
 most part it appeared to consist in departing by a 
 certain train to the City, writing a few letters at a roll- 
 top desk or dictating to a stenographer, and returning 
 by a certain other train, whereby, and in time, one ac- 
 cumulated sufficient pelf to discontinue the process. 
 
 Talbot did it. He did it for over a month, and at the 
 end of that time made his second illuminating discovery 
 namely that, as far as he was concerned, the thing 
 was impossible. There was not that in his head which 
 can be bartered for sufficient food, clothes, and lodging. 
 
 What of his hands? About this time he was fond
 
 242 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 of saying: "It's no use. I wasn't built for an office. 
 I'd sooner go out with a pick and shovel." And he 
 continued to say it until some unfeeling person made the 
 inevitable rejoinder: "Then why not go out with a pick 
 and shovel?" 
 
 Talbot did it. He went to Canada and did it for 
 nearly two months "it" consisting of digging post- 
 holes two feet deep by a foot square from sunrise to sun- 
 set, at five cents a hole. As the field he was helping to 
 construct was to be ten miles in circumference, and the 
 post-holes were four yards apart, and his record was 
 twenty in the day, his mind, when not disturbed by 
 bruised hands or mosquito bites, was occupied with the 
 mathematical problem of how long it would take to 
 finish the field, and what he would have earned by the 
 time it was finished. 
 
 He never reached a solution, because by the end of the 
 second month he was convinced that one more day of 
 post-hole digging would result in his mental collapse. 
 
 "Manual labour," he told himself at this time, "is 
 not for those of active mind. For them it is nothing 
 
 short of torture. I would sooner " And there his 
 
 soliloquy faded into silence because when both head and 
 hand fail there is not much left for a man. 
 
 Under the circumstances some would have taken to 
 drink, or married for money, or even worse, and it is all 
 to Talbot's credit that he did none of these things. 
 Instead, he ricocheted over the world like a bagatelle- 
 ball in search of its abiding-place, and finding it on the 
 island of Kau, in the South Pacific Ocean, promptly 
 sank to rest with a "click" of unutterable relief.
 
 THE MASCOT 243 
 
 He did not know that he was a mascot. All he knew, 
 or cared to know, was that, after long and painful ex- 
 perience, he had discovered an Elysium where it was 
 possible to live without money and without toil, where 
 his mere presence gave pleasure to others and harmed 
 no one except himself. This last in parenthesis, for 
 Talbot's mental and physical decline had been so grad- 
 ual that he was unaware of it. He had grown a beard, 
 but then many do in the tropics; it saves trouble. He 
 was fatter than when he came to Kau, which only 
 showed that the place agreed with him. His heart 
 appeared to indulge in acrobatics on occasion, but whose 
 does not? As for memory and powers of concentration, 
 he never pretended to have either, so they were no 
 loss. And his eyes and knees? Well, that was kava. 
 He frankly admitted it, and quite often after an ap- 
 parently inanimate object had performed some im- 
 possible evolution for his benefit, or he stumbled over 
 something which on investigation was found not to 
 exist, he told himself that he must "let up on the kava 
 a bit." 
 
 No, he had been in the Islands a year or was it two? 
 and, on the whole, he had nothing to reproach himself 
 with. Who can say more? 
 
 And now he was on the verge of spoiling it all by try- 
 ing to think. And it was an island, this toy island danc- 
 ing in the heat haze, that was responsible. It was called 
 Onioti; Talbot knew that. Also it was tabu, but in a 
 land where for no apparent reason every other rock, 
 glade, and sand spit is "sacred," the circumstance had 
 not interested him. All that troubled Talbot was that
 
 244 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 in the vicinity of that island he had either heard some- 
 thing that was physically incapable of emanating from 
 such a spot, or his hearing, as well as his sight, was be- 
 ginning to play him false. 
 
 Either contingency was sufficiently alarming to set 
 the rusty mechanism of his mind in motion. He re- 
 membered being paddled out to sea by his faithful at- 
 tendant for the purpose of fishing, and he remembered 
 that, while the canoe lay rising and falling on a gentle 
 swell, he had heard a voice, a high-pitched, unlovely 
 voice, singing something that at the time struck him 
 as unusual, and had rung in his head with maddening 
 persistence ever since. It was one of those great, sim- 
 ple airs that live, that bring back memories crowding, 
 crowding of cool rains, and lights reflected in wet 
 pavements; of theatre porticos and hurrying crowds; of 
 of Gilbert and Sullivan opera; of of "The Yeomen of 
 the Guard"; that was it a chorus from "The Yeomen 
 of the Guard ! " Talbot wriggled in the sand with sheer 
 pleasure at having recalled it. Who could say he had no 
 memory? And who could explain such a song pro- 
 ceeding from Onioti? 
 
 Talbot struggled to his feet without the customary 
 helping hand of his attendant, and shambled along the 
 sun-drenched beach. Joni saw him from afar, and came 
 running in alarm with the huge green-lined umbrella 
 specially imported for the mascot's benefit. 
 
 "I will go fishing," said Talbot. 
 
 Joni launched the canoe in silence. There was no 
 accounting for the whims of mascots, and they must be 
 humoured. If it were not for the kudos attaching to
 
 THE MASCOT 245 
 
 the post of attendant, he could have often wished that 
 he were of the common people. 
 
 "We will go where we went yesterday," he was 
 instructed now, and scarcely were the lines overboard 
 in the lee of Onioti than his charge burst into song. The 
 mascot's voice was not beautiful it sounded harsh 
 and discordant to Joni but it pleased the singer, 
 which was the main point. 
 
 Suddenly it ceased, and the sun-bathed silence closed 
 down. Then, as though a reluctant echo had been 
 awakened on the palm-fringed island, an answer came 
 faint but clear over the water. 
 
 Joni dipped his paddle, and the canoe moved slowly 
 seaward. 
 
 "Joni!" It was the mascot, leaning forward, tense 
 of face, trembling like a croton in the wind. "Joni, I 
 want to land on Onioti." 
 
 "Onioti tabu," muttered Joni, and bent to the pad- 
 dle. 
 
 "Joni, what you take to land me on Onioti?" The 
 mascot's voice had risen in a querulous crescendo. "I 
 give you plenty 'bacco, a knife wisiki ! " 
 
 Never for a moment did the rhythmical plash of the 
 paddle falter. 
 
 "Joni- 
 
 The attendant had more than half expected it. The 
 mascot was upon him, a large, soft, ineffectual man, 
 whom he forced gently back on to his pile of mats in the 
 bottom of the canoe like a refractory infant. 
 
 "Onioti tabu," he repeated soothingly, and resumed 
 his paddling. All was well. One must expect these
 
 246 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 sudden outbursts of passion. The mascot would have 
 forgotten all about it by the morrow. 
 
 But there Joni was wrong. 
 
 During the bout of fever that inevitably followed the 
 undue excitement in the canoe, Onioti danced before 
 Talbot's eyes to the accompaniment of "The Yeomen 
 of the Guard" chorus, and it was a changed mascot 
 that ultimately rose from its mat-strewn bed and tot- 
 tered into the sunshine. 
 
 Naked, pot-bellied children tugged at his sulu "for 
 luck," as they had been taught, and the elders as- 
 sembled in their doorways to congratulate him on his 
 recovery; but he made no response. He was still think- 
 ing. 
 
 The Turaga (Prince) of Kau, who suffered from over- 
 education at a distant seat of learning, found his mascot 
 dull. 
 
 "Fever is the deuce, old chap," he observed, tugging 
 a horny foot to his groin. 
 
 "It is," said Talbot. 
 
 "It takes it out of a fellow what?" 
 
 "It does," Talbot admitted. 
 
 "And as for quinine," continued the Turaga conver- 
 sationally, "it causes tunes to play in the head." 
 
 This also was the truth, as Talbot knew. 
 
 "Why is Onioti tabu?" he asked suddenly. 
 
 The Turaga's lethargic gaze turned in Talbot's direc- 
 tion with unexpected swiftness, then ascended to the 
 sinnet-bound rafters of the palace roof. 
 
 "Why is anywhere tabu?" he suggested mildly. 
 
 "That's what I was wondering," said Talbot.
 
 THE MASCOT 247 
 
 The Turaga smiled indulgently. There was no ac- 
 counting for a mascot's wonderings. 
 
 "Well," he explained patiently, "we have some queer 
 beliefs, 'relics of barbarism' they called them at college, 
 but they they survive; that is the word." 
 
 "I see," said Talbot. 
 
 "They survive," repeated the Turaga, moistening his 
 lips as though over a choice morsel, "and one of them is 
 that spirits sometimes come back to see that all is well 
 with the place where their bodies lie. We like to leave 
 them to it, so we make the place tabu. Quaint, is it 
 not, old chap?" 
 
 "Very," said Talbot. "Then there is someone 
 buried on Onioti?" 
 
 The Turaga's gaze left the palace rafters and fell on 
 Talbot. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "there is, as you say, someone buried 
 on Onioti. Also," he added irrelevantly, "there is a 
 council to-night." 
 
 "I will be there," said Talbot magnificently, but 
 rather marred his exit by stumbling over nothing what- 
 ever in the doorway. 
 
 The Turaga of Kau grinned and wagged his head. 
 Oh, but they were amusing, these mascots ! 
 
 The council dragged out its weary length. Talbot 
 sat next to the Turaga, as was the custom, and mechani- 
 cally sampled each cocoanut shell of kava as it was 
 dipped from the carved tanoa bowl. This was neces- 
 sary, because it was the time for planting taro, and all 
 men know that, unless the ceremony is faithfully car- 
 ried out, the crop will be a failure.
 
 248 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 Then they talked. Lord, how they talked! And 
 Talbot usually slept. Propped against one of the sup- 
 porting posts, he slept the sleep of kava and inanition, 
 while men expounded with a wealth of picturesque 
 detail what really remarkable fellows they were, and 
 their ancestors before them; while girls danced the 
 history of Kau from the dark ages to the present day of 
 enlightenment; while they ate pig roasted whole in 
 banana leaves and unbelievable quantities of turtle. 
 
 But for some reason he did not sleep on this occasion. 
 He sat looking on and thinking, and, when it was over, 
 lay on his mat-strewn bed, staring wide-eyed but un- 
 seeing at a chink in the reed wall, through which a soli- 
 tary and monstrous star winked invitingly. 
 
 The attendant, prone across the doorway, slept the 
 sleep of repletion, together with the rest of Kau, and 
 knew nothing of what passed. If he had seen, it is 
 doubtful if he would have believed, for he was ignor- 
 ant of the amazing, if temporary, effects on mascots of 
 large quantities of neat spirit. 
 
 Talbot made three successful journeys through the 
 enlarged chink in the reed wall, and finally launched the 
 canoe on a sea of inky shadows. There was a faint off- 
 shore breeze, so he hoisted the lugsail and sailed for 
 Onioti, a fairy islet of quivering palm fronds in the star- 
 light. 
 
 The canoe's prow kissed the sand, and Talbot scram- 
 bled almost nimbly ashore. He was feeling extraor- 
 dinarily buoyant. If only it would last! He patted 
 the pocket of his disreputable duck jacket to make sure 
 the elixir was still there, and with renewed confidence
 
 THE MASCOT 249 
 
 followed a narrow but well-defined track leading from 
 the beach through a tangle of tropical vegetation to the 
 door of a native hut. An old man lav sleeping peace- 
 fully on his bamboo pillow across the threshold, a very 
 old man by the ease with which Talbot rendered him in- 
 nocuous. Then he went inside and struck a match. 
 
 By its flickering light he saw enough to make him 
 thankful when it went out. Extraordinary noises were 
 proceeding from a pile of mats in a far corner. 
 
 "Speak English," snapped Talbot. "I heard you 
 singing Gilbert and Sullivan yesterday, so you can't 
 kid me." 
 
 "Who the devil are you?" issued out of the darkness 
 with startling clarity. 
 
 "That's better," said Talbot. 
 
 "Where's Tomati?" wailed the voice. 
 
 "Tomati is sleeping rather more soundly than usual," 
 said Talbot. 
 
 "You've killed him?" 
 
 "I don't think so." 
 
 "What do you want?" 
 
 "You," said Talbot. "Help yourself." 
 
 The elixir passed into the darkness and did not return. 
 Talbot involuntarily wiped the back of his hand on his 
 sulu. Something had touched it something that 
 should have felt like another hand. 
 
 "What are you doing on Kau?" inquired the un- 
 known, after a liquid pause. 
 
 "Nothing," said Talbot. 
 
 "You mean " 
 
 "Just that."
 
 250 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 There followed a cackle of laughter. 
 
 "This is really quite amusing," chuckled the un- 
 known; "the present er incumbent of Kau compares 
 notes with his predecessor. Ha, ha!" 
 
 "Don't laugh," snapped Talbot. "If you laugh, 
 I'll I'll finish the business." 
 
 "So that's the way it's taken you?" 
 
 "Yes; I've been thinking." 
 
 "You shouldn't." 
 
 "I know, but I have and " Talbot broke off and 
 
 shuddered. 
 
 "Great mistake," continued the unknown, who 
 showed signs of becoming garrulous. "All right if you 
 don't think. They look after you. But you should 
 have been with the old man. Never saw much of the 
 Turaga struck me as insipid. Those were the days! 
 Long-pig in my day, long-pig " 
 
 "Can you walk?" said Talbot. 
 
 "No. Why?" 
 
 "I was wondering how to get you down to the canoe." 
 
 " Canoe? What d'you mean? " 
 
 "I mean we're going to get out of here." 
 
 "I don't want to go." 
 
 "I can't help that," said Talbot. 
 
 "What's the use? You haven't seen me by daylight. 
 Besides " 
 
 "I can't help that, either. I'm not going to leave 
 you here." 
 
 A noise proceeded from the corner a noise that in 
 some respects resembled weeping. 
 
 " It'll kill me ! It's madness ! I tell you it'll kill me."
 
 THE MASCOT 251 
 
 "That's another thing I can't help," said Talbot, 
 between clenched teeth, and, grasping the topmost mat, 
 pulled with all his strength. 
 
 It was surprising how easily it followed him over the 
 floor, down the bush track and on to the beach. But 
 there was not much on it. What there was he contrived 
 to bundle into the canoe, and with the dawn Kau was 
 a blue smudge on the eastern horizon. 
 
 An outrigger is hard to beat "full-and-by," and the 
 wind held as only a "trade" knows how. For a day and 
 a night and part of yet another day Talbot sat at the 
 steering paddle, speeding he knew not whither, provided 
 it was away from Kau. And during that time, and for 
 many days to follow, he was a man possessed. A single 
 motive shone before him like a flame. It was all that 
 gave him strength. 
 
 The unknown gave little trouble he was incapable 
 of it and except when supplying him with food and 
 drink, Talbot kept his eyes averted. He found it best. 
 Finally, and with the lashed steering paddle still under 
 his arm, he slept. 
 
 He was awakened by sounds coming from the bow 
 of the canoe. The unknown was sitting bolt upright, 
 his sightless eyes staring fixedly at the moon. 
 
 "I say," he muttered "I say!" 
 
 "Yes?" answered Talbot. 
 
 "I'm dying!" announced the unknown. 
 
 Talbot did not answer. What was there to be said 
 in face of this perfectly natural, if belated, occurrence? 
 
 "I tell you I'm dying," repeated the unknown, as 
 though hurt that the information had not created a
 
 252 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 deeper impression. "Said it would kill me," he added 
 bitterly. "What was the use?" 
 
 "Is there anything I can do?" he asked. "Any 
 message. . . ." 
 
 "Message!" repeated the unknown and laughed, 
 and, laughing, died. 
 
 At the first blaze of dawn Talbot looked over the 
 side, down, down into the crystal-clear depths. 
 
 "It's clean," he said aloud. And even as he spoke, a 
 dark shadow passed under the canoe and was gone. 
 
 On the starboard bow there was land, big land, by 
 the cloud-capped hills, range on range. Talbot headed 
 for it, and in a few hours landed on a powdered coral 
 beach. He buried the unknown above high- water 
 mark, and plunged into the bush. 
 
 He walked, and continued to walk. It seemed very 
 desirable to keep moving, until he could sleep from 
 sheer exhaustion. He lived on fish caught by hand 
 in the rock-pools crabs, shell fish, and wild fruit. He 
 trudged like an automaton through mangrove swamps 
 and blazing sand and primeval jungle. He did this 
 for two weeks, and still lived. He was a man who 
 knew what he wanted, and was after it, that was all. 
 He had landed on Tannau, though he had no notion 
 of it, and he had walked and slept and eaten his way 
 half round the island before he came to the Company 
 sugar estates at Laneka. 
 
 For a while he stood at the edge of the clearing, a 
 lean, dishevelled figure, his sulu in ribbons, his shirt 
 little better. He was dazed. He must get used to 
 seeing alert white men in pith helmets, hurrying about
 
 THE MASCOT 253 
 
 their affairs, lines of neat white bungalows with mos- 
 quito doors, and mammoth sheds of throbbing ma- 
 chinery. He squatted native fashion in the sand, 
 watching it all with an awful loneliness in his soul. 
 
 He marked the superintendent's bungalow on the hill, 
 and when night fell made his way toward it. A yellow, 
 homely light filtered through the drawn blinds. The 
 superintendent was smoking an after-dinner cigar 
 on the veranda. 
 
 "What do you want?" he demanded, not unkindly, 
 when the first shock of the encounter had passed. 
 
 "Work," said James Eustace Talbot.
 
 THE HABIT OF THE SEA 
 
 IT'S Harriott!" exclaimed someone with binoculars 
 to his eyes. 
 "Of course it is," was the prompt rejoinder. 
 "Herriott doesn't let others see to that sort of thing 
 in a race. She's pitching, too, by the look of it." 
 
 The wide terrace and green lawns of a Sydney yacht 
 club were thronged with an enthusiastic multitude and 
 every eye was on Stella, the leader in the race for the 
 challenge cup. Something was amiss with her gaff 
 topsail. It fluttered impotently while every other sail 
 strained and bellied to a stiff nor'easter. 
 
 Then a pigmy figure was seen to creep for'ard to the 
 mast, up it by the hoops to the shrouds, and still up and 
 outward along the gaff. Twice it paused, clinging like 
 a fly to the jolting, swaying spar as the yacht buried 
 her aquiline nose in the muss of a lumpy sea. It 
 reached the peak, a glinting white speck against the 
 intense blue background of the sky, there was a brief 
 struggle that could be better imagined than seen by the 
 spectators, and the topsail was sheeted home, true and 
 clean as a piece of cardboard. 
 
 A murmur of discreet applause went up from the club 
 grounds. While jibing at the last mark, Stella's jack- 
 yard had fouled the peak halyards, and Herriott had 
 cleared it. The race was his. 
 
 Indeed, it would be difficult to mention anything that 
 
 254
 
 THE HABIT OF THE SEA 255 
 
 was not Jack Herriott's. Abounding health, sufficient 
 means, and a charming wife were his, not to mention a 
 seeming inability to do anything otherwise than bril- 
 liantly. 
 
 A blond and smiling giant, picturesquely dishevelled, 
 he came ashore in one of the launches, to be inundated 
 by members and friends. They congratulated him on 
 winning the cup, but no mention was made of his feat 
 in clearing the jackyard under sail. That was no more 
 than a piece of ordinary good seamanship that would 
 be expected from a man like Herriott, and he knew his 
 kind far too well to refer to it himself. 
 
 Behind him, and in almost glaring contrast as they 
 threaded their way up the lawn, limped Tony Landon, 
 Herriott's mate on the Stella, and oldest friend. Phys- 
 ically he was sufficiently unattractive to be remark- 
 able rather than insignificant, and the wound in his 
 foot, received in France, had not added to his charm. 
 Also a certain gaucherie made him anything but a 
 social ornament, but in his good-natured, open-hearted 
 way Herriott had clung to his old friend even after 
 marriage, which was admitted to be a trifle unusual. 
 
 Stella Herriott met her husband on the terrace, 
 smiled her congratulations, and allowed him to pass 
 on into the club, where he sprawled at length in a deep 
 leather chair and listened to divergent views on the 
 race with a sufficient showing of boredom. 
 
 "Splendid, wasn't it?" said Landon, during a brief 
 moment with Stella at the end of the terrace. 
 
 She nodded and smiled. "And you," she added 
 swiftly.
 
 256 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "I?" Landon's unlovely face creased into a frown 
 of perplexity. 
 
 "You were at the wheel while he was aloft, weren't 
 you?" 
 
 "Oh, that!" 
 
 "Yes," said Stella gravely. "You'll dine to-night?" 
 
 Landon inclined his head and retreated precipitately 
 before the onrush of a nautical dowager. As a matter 
 of fact, he needed no invitation to the Herriotts'. His 
 status as a friend of the family was of the "dropping 
 in " variety which made it all the more difficult to keep 
 away. 
 
 In the lounge hall he found Herriott contemplating 
 the cup he had won that afternoon. 
 
 "Conning the spoils, eh?" Landon commented. 
 
 Herriott turned and smiled. "Yes," he said, "and 
 thinking." 
 
 "Mistake," grunted Landon. 
 
 "As a rule, perhaps, but not this time." Herriott's 
 eyes shone with enthusiasm. He held aloft the cup. 
 "This empty bauble has filled me with horrid ambi- 
 tion " 
 
 "America Cup or anything like that?" 
 
 "Something as far from cups as I can get. I'm sick 
 of 'em." 
 
 Landon nodded. 
 
 "And of racing, and racing machines, and white 
 flannels, and club dinners, and claptrap. I want the 
 sea." 
 
 "Rather a large order, isn't it?" 
 
 "You ought to know."
 
 THE HABIT OF THE SEA 257 
 
 Landon did know. There were few things he had 
 not done in a somewhat hectic youth, from brass polish- 
 ing to sailoring before the mast. 
 
 "I've never had a chance really to get out," com- 
 plained Herriott "family and that sort of thing but 
 I'm going to, now, that's all. Stella agrees that it 
 would do us both good." 
 
 "Both?" 
 
 "Yes, you don't imagine she'd be left out of anything 
 like that, do you?" 
 
 Landon did not answer. 
 
 "I don't believe Lan approves," Herriott com- 
 municated to his wife in mock confidence during dinner. 
 "Thinks the sea's altogether too much for us. We'll 
 teach him ! " 
 
 And they did over coffee in the lounge. 
 
 "Elucidate the mystery," suggested Landon, stirring 
 his cup thoughtfully. 
 
 "Certainly," beamed Herriott. "Our idea is no paid 
 hands, salt junk, four hours on and eight off, and a 
 passage and perhaps a bucketing in a boat, instead of a 
 slithering match in a racing machine." 
 
 "Whereto?" 
 
 "The Islands, for choice." 
 
 "I see," said Landon, after a pause. 
 
 "Drat the man!" Herriott broke out, with a char- 
 acteristic touch of impatience. "What's the matter? 
 Think Stella's not up to it? " 
 
 Landon's slow glance travelled from his coffee cup to 
 the delicate profile of the woman at his side. 
 
 "Because I may tell you she's the best hand I ever
 
 258 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 had aboard," Herriott defended loyally. "If you think 
 the briny's too much for Stella, you ought to have been 
 with us in the sailing dinghy when " 
 
 "I wasn't thinking anything of the sort," said Lan- 
 don quietly. 
 
 "Then perhaps you're frightened of me," suggested 
 Herriott, with an incredulous but slightly nettled laugh. 
 
 Landon laughed also. The occasion called for it. 
 Stella saw fit to come to the rescue. 
 
 "When you've quite done discussing me like a 
 pound of pork," she said, "may I suggest that we're 
 giving poor Lan rather an uncomfortable evening?" 
 
 "I hope so," grinned Herriott. 
 
 "And do you expect him to enthuse over anything? 
 Because I don't." 
 
 "He needn't," complained Herriott; "but that's no 
 reason why he should sit like an owl when his skipper 
 his skipper, mark you suggests getting out of sight of 
 the club house for once." 
 
 "And all this," sighed Landon resignedly, "because 
 I don't leap to my feet and wave my arms in ecstasy 
 at the notion of you good people facing salt junk for a 
 month!" 
 
 "Then you'll come?" 
 
 "I?" 
 
 "Listen to him!" wailed Herriott. "He's just tum- 
 bled to it that he's wanted." 
 
 Landon stared at his injured foot after a fashion of 
 his. "As to navigation," he suggested irrelevantly, 
 "my mathematics are the memory of an ugly dream 
 these days. How are yours?"
 
 THE HABIT OF THE SEA 259 
 
 "Worse. I thought of taking old Owen. He has a 
 yachting ticket, and juggling with sights and figures is 
 about all he's fit for." 
 
 Landon stirred in his chair, then rose abruptly. "All 
 right," he said, "I'll go I mean- 
 
 "We know what you mean," laughed Herriott 
 "that you will be delighted to accompany my wife and 
 myself on a unique cruise to the Islands." 
 
 "Something like that," said Landon. "Good-night." 
 
 When he had gone, Herriott fell to discussing plans 
 with the ardour of a schoolboy. He was intense, virile, 
 over anything that took his fancy, and it was so that 
 Stella loved to see him. They had been married a 
 contented year, and it was their mutual taste for yacht- 
 ing that had brought them together. Stella would 
 never forget that. Born of seafaring stock, and 
 reared within sight and sound of the Pacific's infinite 
 moods, her own love of the sea and ships was innate. 
 Unconsciously, perhaps, her standards were set by 
 them. There are some women like that. 
 
 "There's no fathoming old Lan," Herriott called 
 through to her from the dressing room that night. "I 
 wonder if we're dragging him into this thing against 
 his will?" 
 
 "I don't think any one could do that," she answered. 
 
 "I suppose not, but : The rest was smothered 
 
 in a yawn, and Herriott fell to whistling a chanty be- 
 tween his teeth. 
 
 Stella awoke suddenly, completely, as one gets into the 
 habit of doing at sea. The Pioneer, a snub-nosed, es-
 
 260 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 sentially sea-worthy pilot cutter of fifteen tons register, 
 converted into a luxurious cruiser with tremendous en- 
 thusiasm by Herriott, was rolling idly, her canvas 
 fluttering, the boom straining at the main sheet with 
 every lurch of the ship. 
 
 Stella concluded they were becalmed, and instinc- 
 tively pitying the unfortunate on watch, settled down 
 again to make the most of the few hours' sleep at her 
 disposal. From the first she had insisted on being 
 treated as one of the crew, nothing more nor less, and 
 she had been taken at her word. In consequence, since 
 leaving port four days ago she had been happier than at 
 any time since, as a girl, she had navigated her own small 
 craft amongst the rocky bays and islands of her 
 home. 
 
 The same sea sense that had told her the Pioneer was 
 becalmed now informed her that such a thing could not 
 be. There was a breeze; she could hear it. Was it 
 possible that the yacht had come up into the wind, that 
 the helmsman had succumbed to the terrible drowsiness 
 that often assails him through staring overlong at the 
 swaying compass card? She slipped from the bunk of 
 her minute cabin and passed through to where a slid- 
 ing hatch aft afforded a glimpse of the helmsman in the 
 steering well. There was none. The wheel was de- 
 serted and locked amidships. The Pioneer was hove- to. 
 
 Through a porthole in the hatch combing it was also 
 possible to command a view of the deck for'ard, and here 
 with face pressed close to the glass Stella stood as one 
 hypnotized. In the searching moonlight all was clear. 
 Her husband and Landon were on deck, barefooted
 
 THE HABIT OF THE SEA 261 
 
 as always but standing with bowed heads beside an in- 
 distinct shape that lay in shadow. Landon's lips were 
 moving. 
 
 At the moment Stella was impelled to rush on deck. 
 What had happened? Why had they not told her? 
 Was this treating her as one of the crew ? But something 
 restrained her, perhaps the age-old discipline of the sea- 
 farer that was in her blood. The captain, even if he 
 were her own husband, had not seen fit to summon her. 
 Perhaps he was right. Her presence might have made 
 things more difficult. In any case it was enough. 
 
 Landon's lips had ceased to move. The two men 
 stooped, raised the burden at their feet, and gently 
 lowered it over the side. When they straightened 
 themselves, their hands were empty. They came aft, 
 talking in low tones, but when seated on the sliding 
 hatch every word was audible. 
 
 ". . . and what on earth do we do now?" de- 
 manded her husband in a voice that was new to her. 
 
 "Hush!" whispered Landon. "She still sleeps, 
 thank God!" 
 
 "Hush nothing!" said Herriott petulantly. "She 
 would be the first to want to be told." 
 
 There was a short pause. 
 
 "I know," said Landon. "Of course you must do 
 as you think best my mistake." 
 
 The matter seemed to pass from Herriott's mind. 
 
 "We must turn back," he stated firmly; "that goes 
 without saying. But what I don't know is how we're 
 going to get there. Do you?" 
 
 It was the voice of a lost child.
 
 262 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "We have yesterday's noon position on the chart, 
 and we've got a log. It's dead reckoning, and I can 
 do that. If the present wind holds " 
 
 "Ah, the wind!" muttered Herriott. "I was just 
 thinking ' ' 
 
 "I shouldn't do too much of that. It isn't always 
 good." 
 
 "What d'you mean?" The tone was truculent. 
 
 "I mean," came Landon's level response, "that we're 
 on a different lay to racing now. We're at sea. We've 
 been playing at things; now we're up against 'em. 
 What's more, we're * hands' not bad 'hands,' as they 
 go but we can't navigate." 
 
 "Is that what made you so infernally chary of joining 
 us?" 
 
 "Partly." 
 
 "And the rest?" 
 
 "There's something coming up from the nor'east," 
 said Landon. "How's the barometer?" 
 
 Stella heard him creep for'ard, down the fo'castle 
 companion, and into the saloon. There was the brief 
 flash of an electric torch, again darkness, and the soft 
 patter of his returning footfall. 
 
 "How is it?" came Herriott's anxious question. 
 
 "Fallen, and still at it." 
 
 "And what does that mean here?" 
 
 "Haven't a notion till it gets us," said Landon, "but 
 we're all right hove-to. Look here, this thing has got 
 on our nerves, and small wonder. I suggest you turn 
 in until dawn." 
 
 "And you?"
 
 THE HABIT OF THE SEA 263 
 
 "I'm as comfortable here as anywhere." 
 
 "You'll call me if anything happens?" 
 
 "Double quick." 
 
 By the time Herriott had reached the saloon Stella 
 was in her bunk. She heard a cupboard opened softly, 
 the faintest clink of glass, and a sigh as her husband 
 settled down on one of the settees. She lay motionless, 
 staring wide-eyed at the white-enamelled timber over- 
 head. 
 
 With the dawn a gray nor'easter bore down upon the 
 Pioneer, and quickly strengthened to a gale. Hove-to 
 under double-reefed mainsail, the little yacht took it 
 without flinching, as she had been built to do, and Stella 
 busied herself with preparing hot drinks for the men 
 when they should come below. 
 
 In passing through the saloon to the galley she found 
 her husband still outstretched on the cushions. 
 
 "Stella," he said, "I have something horrible to tell 
 you. Owen died last night." 
 
 She did not attempt to simulate surprise, but sat on 
 the settee beside him without speaking. 
 
 "He just petered out at the wheel," Herriott went on 
 in a strained voice. "It was my relief, and I found him 
 sitting there dead. Heart failure, I suppose. We 
 we made quite sure, and then buried him." 
 
 "Why didn't you tell me?" said Stella gently. 
 
 "Lan we both thought it best not to. We should 
 never have brought him. It's my fault. I feel terrible 
 about it." 
 
 "Why?" said Stella. "You needn't. It was no 
 one's fault. He knew what he was in for, and still
 
 264 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 wanted to come." She paused. "It's the way I 
 should like to go when I do," she added quietly. 
 
 Herriott looked at her. There was something in his 
 eyes that she had not seen there before. 
 
 "You take it well," he said. 
 
 "How else would you have me take it?" she asked 
 him. 
 
 "It's this awful feeling of responsibility for every- 
 thing everything." muttered Herriott. " It weighs me 
 down. I must share it with someone." 
 
 "Why not with me?" said Stella. 
 
 "Lan doesn't approve " 
 
 "Pouf for Lan!" said Stella. "He's not captain." 
 
 "I suppose that's it. But he ought to be." 
 
 Stella gave him a quick almost startled look. 
 
 "He ought to be," repeated Herriott. "I feel it. 
 He has this infernal sea knack of doing things without 
 talking about them. He's a born seaman. I'm dis- 
 covering that I'm not." 
 
 Stella put a finger to his lips. "Never say that," she 
 said. "I can't believe it." 
 
 "You mean you don't want to." 
 
 "I mean I don't want to, and I can't." 
 
 A wave crest smote the Pioneer a resounding thwack 
 on her snub nose and swept the deck, dying with a gur- 
 gle in the scuppers. 
 
 Herriott swung his feet from the settee. 
 
 "Listen," he said. "You may as well know. We're 
 hove-to in a gale that may last a week and drift us any- 
 where. There's nothing between us and the South Pole 
 but the sea, and neither Lan nor I can navigate. I
 
 THE HABIT OF THE SEA 265 
 
 think that's all oh, except that there are only fifteen 
 gallons in the fresh- water tank. You see the position? " 
 
 "Yes," she said, "and thanks I like to know. I'll 
 have breakfast ready in ten minutes." 
 
 Herriott caught her at the galley door. "No, by 
 thunder, you don't!" he roared, thrusting her aside, and 
 commenced wrestling with the kettle in the reeling 
 galley. 
 
 Stella left him to it, and went on deck in oilskins. 
 Landon, soaked through, was limping about the deck 
 seeing to lashings. 
 
 "Better go below!" he shouted at her above the 
 turmoil of wind and sea. 
 
 She did not answer, but returned him look for look, 
 and proceeded to help. Soon they had finished. The 
 Pioneer rode like a cork. Gray, wind-swept hills of 
 water bore down on her out of the angry murk ahead, 
 but she soared to their summit and down their reverse 
 slopes with the agility of an acrobat. 
 
 "She's snug!" shouted Landon, grinning through 
 rivulets of water. "Staunch little packet." 
 
 Stella nodded and smiled. He looked aft and waved 
 an arm. 
 
 "Sea room, that's all we want," he said, "and we've 
 got it. She's all right; come below." 
 
 Stella was following him toward the companion when 
 he turned in the lee of the hatch. 
 
 "Jack's told you?" he said. 
 
 "Yes," she answered, and they went below. 
 
 Herriott was fuming over the inadequacies of oil 
 stoves in anything of a sea, and when the meal was
 
 266 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 served he sat silent and morose. He was a changed 
 man, and he knew it. There is nothing quite like a 
 prolonged bucketing in small craft to give the best of 
 us a glimpse of himself. Herriott felt vaguely that the 
 sea had found him wanting, and the knowledge alter- 
 nately surprised and tortured him. 
 
 Neither Stella nor Landon addressed him, but talked 
 of the habits of sea birds during storm, of the formation 
 and action of waves, and such -like trivialities that ir- 
 ritated Herriott beyond expression. Was it possible 
 that they were blind to their position? Or were their 
 verbal banalities a mask? In any case they were treat- 
 ing him as a child, he felt. It was a conspiracy between 
 this friend of his and his own wife to humiliate and 
 nullify him. There was a bond between them, too. 
 It was the first time he had noticed it. How long had 
 it been? What was it? He must be careful, very 
 careful, but he was not to be fooled. Suspicion smoul- 
 dered in his eyes. 
 
 He left the table abruptly and went on deck, to cling 
 to the shrouds and stare stonily over the tossing, wind- 
 swept waste. In that hour it seemed to Herriott that 
 the sea was imbued with personality. He had wanted 
 it as his servant. It was here his master. It was 
 sapping him of his manhood, discovering him to his 
 wife and to his friend. It was a mighty, unknown 
 enemy that he hated and feared. 
 
 "Jack's out of sorts," said Stella, when he had gone. 
 
 "I know," Landon answered, without meeting her 
 steady gaze. "You must remember I've known him a 
 long time longer than you." She waited for him to
 
 THE HABIT OF THE SEA 267 
 
 go on, and he did he had to. "Salt junk, and one 
 thing and another. He'll be all right in a day or two." 
 
 That was all they said. It was all they needed to 
 say. 
 
 For three days and three nights the Pioneer rode and 
 drifted, and with the dawn of the fourth the wind 
 veered, without slackening strength, to the opposite 
 quarter. Landon noted the change. 
 
 "It's fair," he said. They were the first words he 
 had uttered to Herriott in two days. "We ought to 
 make all the northing we can." 
 
 "Fire ahead," returned Herriott; "you're in charge." 
 
 "Since when?" 
 
 "Now." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because I choose." 
 
 The two men faced one another on the lurching deck. 
 They had known each other as well as it is possible for 
 one man to know another under normal present-day 
 circumstances, yet now each looked into the eyes of a 
 stranger. Landon turned on his heel. 
 
 "All right," he said. "Stand by to hoist the square- 
 sail." 
 
 Herriott obeyed with compressed lips, and presently 
 the Pioneer was racing homeward before a following 
 gale. At the wheel it was soul-racking work. The 
 gray hills of water had grown to mountains, up which 
 the little craft was lifted as by a giant hand and flung 
 reeling into the valley beyond. Combers, seemingly 
 out of the sky, hung over her and broke as by a miracle, 
 astern. It was fatal for the helmsman to look behind
 
 268 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 him. In the history of the sea more than one has been 
 shot for so doing. The sight causes the breath to catch, 
 the body to flinch for just that fraction of time that it 
 takes to broach-to and founder. 
 
 And Stella enjoyed it! Herriott made the amazing 
 discovery that night while his wife was on watch, and 
 her small, finely chiselled face came into the searching 
 radius of the binnacle lights. It was the face of a 
 thoroughbred engaged in combat that it loved. The 
 thing was inexplicable to Herriott. He dreaded his 
 trick at the wheel with an intensity of which he had 
 never dreamed himself capable. 
 
 At midnight, through the sliding hatch, he watched 
 Landon relieve Stella. They talked, Herriott caught 
 wind-blown snatches of it 
 
 ". . . must be doing ten at least. . . . Plumb 
 on our course, as far as I can make out. If this lasts. . ." 
 
 "She answers well." 
 
 "Like a bird. . . . Ah, here they come!" The 
 hissing thunder of a breaker drowned the rest. The 
 Pioneer was hurled into a pit that appeared bottomless, 
 until at long last she brought up with a soul-sickening 
 jolt. Landon's set face, with its protruding jaw, relaxed 
 into a grin of triumph. 
 
 "Like a bird!" he repeated admiringly. 
 
 Herriott staggered to his bunk, gripped the creaking 
 white-enamelled timber overhead in his two hands, and 
 laughed if it could be called a laugh. " 'Like a bird' ! " 
 he mimicked inanely between clenched teeth, and 
 laughed again. The bond this was the bond between 
 them, their inborn love of the sea that he had thought
 
 THE HABIT OF THE SEA 269 
 
 his also until the soul-revealing nightmare of the last 
 two weeks. And now he found himself an outsider 
 aboard his own ship with his own wife! He was an 
 intruder, a mountebank. Herriott still hated the sea, 
 but quite suddenly he no longer feared it. It was his 
 enemy, and he would fight. 
 
 At four o'clock he went to relieve Landon. 
 
 "How's she going?" he asked. 
 
 "Bit tricky," said Landon, without taking his eyes 
 from the swaying compass card. 
 
 Herriott waited, but Landon made no move. 
 
 "It's my watch," said Herriott. 
 
 "Do you think " 
 
 "I've given up thinking on your advice. It's my 
 watch." 
 
 The Pioneer fell corkscrewing into an inky trough. 
 Landon righted her with an effort. 
 
 "Stella's below," he said shortly. "You put me in 
 charge. I'm going to carry on." 
 
 A white rage seized on Herriott, but he controlled it. 
 
 "I was sick," he said steadily. "I'm all right now, 
 and I'll take over." 
 
 He waited for an answer, but there was none. 
 
 "If you don't hand over, I'll make you," said Herriott. 
 
 "Don't be a fool as well," muttered Landon. 
 
 Herriott took him in his powerful hands, flung him on 
 deck, and seized the wheel. 
 
 " Go below," he ordered, and Landon went. 
 
 Outside Stella's cabin he paused. 
 
 "You heard? "he said. 
 
 "Yes," she answered.
 
 270 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "He took me by the scruff of the neck and pitched me 
 on deck like a dog," he whispered gleefully. "He's at 
 the wheel, with a face like thunder. Jack's found him- 
 self." 
 
 "Thank you, Lan," said Stella. 
 
 That was an interview between his wife and his friend 
 that Herriott never heard about, but when the Pioneer, 
 after as evil a night as she had yet encountered, ran into 
 fair weather and finally picked up her mooring off the 
 club-house, he took Landon aside. 
 
 "Is an apology any good, old man?" he asked. 
 
 "Not a bit," snapped Landon. "You ought to have 
 brained me."
 
 BARTER 
 
 BSLLAIRS crushed a mosquito on his left cheek 
 with the precision of an expert, and addressed 
 the Pacific Ocean dispassionately: 
 
 "Do you mind telling me the fascination or is it the 
 lure? of these storied isles of the Equator? " 
 
 The Pacific, except for flinging another lazy ripple up 
 the wet sand, did not answer. Neither did Tritton. 
 
 "You are uncommunicative, my friend," observed 
 Bellairs. 
 
 "What's the good of talking?" grumbled Tritton, 
 who carried throughout life the air of one nursing a 
 grievance. 
 
 "Talking is a recognized medium of intercourse," 
 explained Bellairs sententiously. "It is one of the few 
 proofs we possess that we are in any way removed above 
 the beasts of the field. You surely wouldn't deprive us 
 of our little conceit?" 
 
 "Then talk sense." 
 
 Bellairs sighed, and drew his knees closer to his 
 chin. 
 
 "I will," he said. "Now that we are on Ono, what 
 do we do?" 
 
 "I've got my trade," asserted Tritton with a touch of 
 pride. 
 
 271
 
 272 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "Why, of course," said Bellairs hopefully. "I had 
 forgotten in fact, I have forgotten. What did you 
 say- -" 
 
 "Bartender." 
 
 "Ah, yes." 
 
 "I can make a 'twelve-colour rainbow' with any 
 man." 
 
 "Really," mused Bellairs. "What a thing it is to 
 carry at one's finger tips, as it were, an accomplishment 
 that can be converted into hard cash at any moment. 
 As for me I wonder if they want a potman on Ono." 
 
 "Thought you was the educated sort," sneered Trit- 
 ton. 
 
 "I am," admitted Bellairs, "very highly educated, I 
 believe. Hence my colossal ignorance." 
 
 It was this sort of remark that annoyed Tritton. It 
 left nothing to be said. He considered Bellairs a fool, 
 and Bellairs was the first to admit it, which rather takes 
 the wind out of one's sails. But there was reason to 
 believe that he had money, which in itself was quite 
 enough to quell any outward signs of dislike on Tritton's 
 part. 
 
 The two men, as strangely assorted a pair as ever 
 drifted across one another's path, had been stewards 
 aboard the Manara for the last month, and by some 
 freak of fate had both seen fit to desert at Ono, in the 
 Lau Group. They had come from heaven knows 
 where; they were bound they knew not whither. They 
 belonged to that restless band of world-wanderers who 
 appear for a space in the utmost corners of the earth 
 and are gone, unmourned and unsung.
 
 BARTER 273 
 
 "If a steward, why not a potman!" persisted Bellairs. 
 "I believe I could be a potman; in fact, I will be a pot- 
 man." 
 
 He rose deliberately and shook the sand from his 
 shapeless ducks. He was a large man, inclining to 
 corpulence, and of an age as uncertain as a woman's. 
 But there was an air about him that in some subtle way 
 demanded, and usually elicited, respect. 
 
 "There is a great deal in will power, friend Tritton," 
 he remarked, as they trudged through the sand toward 
 the settlement. "I have heard one can think oneself 
 into almost anything. Potman!" he added, with 
 closed eyes. 
 
 The settlement proved to be the usual semi-circle of 
 weather-board stores and bungalows facing the beach. 
 Elephantine native women in gaudy wrappers drifted 
 aimlessly about the thoroughfare, and dogs, with their 
 inevitable Island heart disease, lay sleeping at inter- 
 vals along the wooden sidewalk. Apart from these 
 signs of animation, Ono's metropolis apparently con- 
 tained nothing but yellow sunlight and the boom of 
 surf. 
 
 "Looks lively, don't it?" observed Tritton. 
 
 Bellairs mopped his face with an already soaking 
 handkerchief. 
 
 "Never go by outward appearances," he urged hope- 
 fully. "Who knows ?" 
 
 But Tritton had left him and vanished through the 
 swinging doors of the Polynesian Hotel. Bellairs seated 
 himself in a weather-beaten cane chair under a screw- 
 pine. In a surprisingly short time Tritton emerged.
 
 274 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "Nothing doing," he said. "Whisky neat with 
 chaser." 
 
 "But how nice," murmured Bellairs. 
 
 "If you can pay for it. But where's the chance for a 
 real live wire with a nigger woman dispenser and noth- 
 ing to dispense? This is what they call 'steamer day' 
 in these parts, and as far as I can see the whole of 
 Ono lives at the Polynesian until the shipment runs 
 dry." 
 
 "Then a potman 
 
 "Oh, dry up!" snapped Tritton. 
 
 "I am," returned the imperturbable Bellairs, moisten- 
 ing his lips. "Let us mingle with the giddy throng and 
 trust to something eventuating. I can feel the lure of 
 these blessed islands stealing over me already." 
 
 After something like an hour's contact with every 
 known species of the human race south of the Line 
 Tritton insinuated himself through a medley of planters, 
 traders, and what-not to where Bellairs was carrying on 
 a dignified conversation with the local magistrate. In 
 answer to a nudged elbow, Bellairs excused himself 
 with an old-world courtesy that left the magistrate 
 agape, and followed his companion upstairs. 
 
 "I've happened on to something," said Tritton, turn- 
 ing suddenly at the end of a murky passage and 
 speaking in a tense undertone. "Have you got any 
 money?" 
 
 Bellairs regarded him speculatively for a moment, and 
 Tritton's eyes fell. He was physically incapable of sus- 
 taining a direct gaze, and he knew it, which always 
 makes an affliction the harder to bear.
 
 BARTER 275 
 
 "A plain question deserves a plain question," said 
 Bellairs ponderously. "Do I look as if I had 
 money?" 
 
 Tritton was on the point of turning away in disgust. 
 There was no getting nearer to this fool of a man. But 
 he remembered himself in time. 
 
 "You're mighty cheerful for any one who hasn't," he 
 said, with a feeble attempt at banter. 
 
 "Thank you for those kind words," beamed Bellairs. 
 "And what if I have?" 
 
 "I know how you can multiply it by a hundred in two 
 months." 
 
 "Really? How?" 
 
 Tritton's glance roamed the dim interior of the Poly- 
 nesian for a space, and, by the time it had reached his 
 feet, where it usually rested, he had gained control of 
 himself. 
 
 "See here," he said patiently, "if I told you how this 
 thing is to be done you could do it without me, couldn't 
 
 you?" 
 
 "I very much doubt it," said Bellairs. 
 
 "Well, that's how most people would look at it. I 
 have the scheme, you have the money. What about 
 it?" 
 
 "A partnership?" suggested Bellairs, with the light of 
 inspiration in his rather weak eyes. 
 
 Tritton nodded. 
 
 "Lead on, partner," said Bellairs. 
 
 A doubtful-looking individual in soiled ducks and a 
 battered pith helmet awaited them on the veranda over- 
 looking the sun-soaked beach. Bellairs bowed grace-
 
 276 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 fully and ordered three glasses of the Polynesian's in- 
 variable from a Solomon Island houseboy. 
 
 "It's like this," said the individual, in unnecessarily 
 subdued tones, when the three heads were well over the 
 wicker table: "Ono's no good to any man." 
 
 "I suspected as much," said Bellairs brightly. "In 
 fact, it's a case of 'Oh, no' ! " 
 
 The individual regarded him blankly until Tritton's 
 foot came into contact with his own, when he contrived 
 to laugh. 
 
 "Exactly," he said. "But to return to business: 
 you mustn't judge the Laus by Ono, any more than you 
 can judge the last place on the map. It's the outlying 
 islands that count. I've just come in from Taneba 
 had to, fever, and " He stopped abruptly, pro- 
 duced a dirty bandana handkerchief, and, untying a 
 knot in one corner, rolled on to the table three fair- 
 sized pearls. 
 
 "Two hundred," he added shortly; "just had 'em 
 priced; and all for a dud safety-razor and three coloured 
 prints of a defunct monarch in medals. Fact is, they 
 don't know. The Laus are not like the Paumotus or 
 any recognized pearling-grounds, where every Kanaka 
 is a born judge of stones. Here they find them some- 
 times, and just don't know what they've got. These 
 were in a baby's rattle. . . ." 
 
 He said a great deal more, and the brief tropical 
 twilight had descended on Ono when the partners 
 emerged from the Polynesian. 
 
 "A most informative person," was Bellairs's verdict 
 as he strolled along the beach toward the harbour with
 
 BARTER 277 
 
 Tritton in anxious attendance. "I wonder what it was 
 all about?" 
 
 "Can't you see?" wailed Tritton. "There's money 
 in this thing." 
 
 "Quite," agreed Bellairs. "I was merely wondering 
 where our obliging friend comes in." 
 
 "He has a trading cutter open to charter. It's only 
 a pound a day, and 
 
 "Ah," murmured Bellairs. 
 
 This brief utterance had an extraordinary effect on 
 Tritton. His thin mouth twitched at the corners, and 
 a glint came into his furtive eye. 
 
 "You're not going to let me down," he accused in a 
 tone half whine, half threat "not after me telling you? 
 Because 
 
 For no apparent reason he stopped. Bellairs re- 
 garded him with the air of one studying the writhings of 
 an insect. 
 
 "Because what?" he said, and, receiving no answer, 
 resumed his way toward the harbour. "Try and re- 
 member that confidence is the foundation of successful 
 partnership, friend Tritton," he remarked airily. "My 
 innocent observation was intended to convey that I 
 had discerned the reason of our friend's magnanimity; 
 and why should we, the firm of Bellairs & Tritton, pay 
 
 one pound a day for a craft when Now, how would 
 
 that snub-nosed atrocity suit us? " 
 
 They had stopped at the harbour wall of coralite 
 boulders and stood looking down on the Ono trading 
 fleet, which reflected the characteristics of its owners to 
 a halyard. The particular craft Bellairs had pointed
 
 278 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 out was a decrepit cutter of about ten tons register, 
 with the name Moana on her quarter and a board lashed 
 to the port shrouds marked "For Sale." 
 
 "I didn't know you meant to buy," said Tritton in 
 surly apology. 
 
 " That is where you have to be so exceedingly careful," 
 returned Bellairs. 
 
 "Can you sail a ship?" 
 
 Bellairs closed his eyes. 
 
 "I seem to remember a following sea off Finisterre 
 when to look astern was to be lost. And haven't I 
 yes, surely some recollection of the Mediterranean 
 when Lady Sibyl inadvertently dropped her 'pom' over- 
 board, and I failed to retrieve . . . ?" 
 
 "Then that's all right," said Tritton with dawning 
 hope in his voice. "We shall only want some grub 
 and a bit of barter." 
 
 "A bit of what?" 
 
 "Barter." Tritton winked knowingly. "You leave 
 that to me." 
 
 "I will," said Bellairs; "barter shall be your special 
 care. I'll see about the ship. I suggest that we meet 
 here about eleven o'clock to-night." 
 
 Tritton nodded almost cheerfully, and departed on 
 his mysterious quest. 
 
 He received something of a surprise about 11.30 that 
 same night, when, raising his head from the task of 
 stowing barter in the Moana's fo'cstle locker, he dis- 
 tinctly heard the ripple of water past the ship's side. 
 
 On reaching deck he was still more astonished to find 
 the decrepit cutter slipping quietly out to sea under
 
 BARTER 279 
 
 mainsail and jib, with his partner in the steering well 
 humming a contented little tune as he fondled the tiller. 
 
 The lights of Ono, mostly issuing from the Polynesian 
 Hotel, grew fainter astern, and presently they were 
 alone with the sea and the stars and a light southeast 
 "trade." 
 
 It affected Tritton strangely. He had never done 
 anything of the sort before, and he was vaguely awed 
 by the mystery of it all awed for the first time in his 
 life by something other than money and brute force. 
 He went aft for company. 
 
 "This is all right," he said, staring up at the towering 
 mainsail. "What's it worth?" 
 
 "That is impossible to say," said Bellairs, "until 
 we've tried her; as impossible as in the case of a horse or 
 a wife." 
 
 "And how d'you know where you're going?" 
 
 "I don't," admitted Bellairs, "except that by the 
 Cross and a pocket compass we're heading for Taneba." 
 
 "The Cross?" 
 
 "Yes; some of those curious little twinkling fellers 
 up there. Ever noticed them, friend Tritton?" 
 
 Tritton remained silent. He was thinking, wonder- 
 ing, if Bellairs were quite the sort of fool he seemed. 
 
 He was wondering much the same thing the next 
 morning, when the Moana was bowling comfortably 
 along with lashed tiller, and Bellairs came below to 
 consult the chart. 
 
 "As this was lent me by my particular friend the 
 magistrate, I should be obliged if you would refrain 
 from sitting on it," he said, smoothing out the parch-
 
 280 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 ment on the fo'castle table, and studying its strange 
 hieroglyphics with apparent understanding. 
 
 Undoubtedly Bellairs knew what he was about at sea. 
 Tritton reached this conclusion on the second day, and 
 when on the third Bellairs pointed out a blue smudge 
 on the starboard bow, and laconically intimated that 
 it was Taneba, Tritton found himself holding his partner 
 
 in much the same esteem 
 as a child might a conjurer 
 who produces a rabbit from 
 a hat. 
 
 "According to direction," 
 ^ said Bellairs, when six fath- 
 oms of the Moana's rusty cable had run into Taneba 
 lagoon, "this is where" we await developments." 
 
 It was not long before canoes put out from shore, 
 and, following a parley which neither side understood 
 in the least, the Moanas decks were soon crowded 
 with Kanakas and their wares. These consisted for 
 the most part of taro root, chickens suffering from mal- 
 nutrition, and bunches of bananas swarming with white 
 ants. 
 
 "Punk," said Tritton, after a cursory inspection. 
 "We'd better show 'em what we do want, eh, Bel- 
 lairs?" 
 
 "I leave the commercial side entirely in your hands," 
 replied Bellairs, seating himself on the stern horse and 
 peeling a banana. 
 
 In impressive silence Tritton produced his "barter" 
 and arranged it with the tender care of a window- 
 dresser on the aft hatch. There were three papier
 
 BARTER 281 
 
 mdche belts, six Jew's harps, a packet of fish hooks, and, 
 in strict accordance with instructions, several coloured 
 prints of someone or other in whiskers and a red cum- 
 merbund. Tritton then passed on to the gem of his 
 collection a few synthetic pearls of the curio-store 
 variety, which he held cupped in his unclean palm and 
 submitted for inspection with an interrogative rais- 
 ing of the eyebrows. Beyond a few nods and duckings 
 of recognition the audience remained unimpressed. 
 
 "He's right," Tritton told Bellairs excitedly when 
 the last of the visitors had taken to their canoes and 
 were paddling shoreward. "They just don't know." 
 
 It was late that night, and the partners were asleep, 
 when a gentle rasping on the Moana's side brought 
 Bellairs on deck. 
 
 "Missi Turaga (gentleman)!" came a plaintive voice 
 out of the darkness, and looking over the side, Bellairs 
 saw an outrigger canoe made fast to the Moana's rail, 
 with a diminutive dark person sitting patiently on a 
 stern thwart. 
 
 "Good mornin', Missi Turaga," droned the voice. 
 "Urn Bull (chief) of Niama say me go all along Turaga 
 plenty quick. Me go." 
 
 "Madam," said Bellairs gravely, "I greet you. My 
 beche-de-mer is faulty but sincere. Come aboard plenty 
 quick." 
 
 The visitor swung herself up the Moana's side with the 
 agility of a cat, and stood on deck revealed as a native 
 girl of perhaps twelve, with a mass of raven-black hair, 
 a spotless sulu, and soft brown eyes. 
 
 The reason for her visit was an engaging mystery to
 
 282 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 Bellairs for upward of half an hour, during which she 
 inspected the Moana from stem to stern with duckings 
 of admiration and delight. Then, happening on to the 
 locker containing some of the remaining items of Trit- 
 ton's "barter," it became apparent that she had paid 
 a midnight call for no other purpose than to curl her 
 legs under her and twang a Jew's harp. 
 
 Bellairs laughed. Tritton did not. 
 
 "Kick her out," he growled from his bunk, and 
 turned his yellow face to the wall. 
 
 He may have slept, though it is doubtful. At any 
 rate, when next he turned and opened his eyes he lay for 
 a moment rigid with astonishment. The child was on 
 Bellairs's knee, industriously curling an end of his rag- 
 ged moustache to the accompaniment of a crooned meke 
 air. It was a homely little scene under the yellow 
 light of the swinging lamp; but Tritton hardly noticed 
 it his eyes feasted on the table, where lay ten fair- 
 sized pearls. 
 
 "Urn Buli of Niama say Turaga like um plenty all 
 right, "the child was babbling between twirls of Bellairs's 
 moustache. "Um say Turaga pay plenty all right." 
 
 "Um Turaga, um maybe," said. Bellairs, with an 
 air of splendid indifference. 
 
 It was too much for Tritton. He moved, and the 
 child looked up. Instinctively she shrank closer to 
 Bellairs and uttered something in her unintelligble 
 jargon. Bellairs smiled. 
 
 "Pray don't disturb yourself, partner," he said; 
 "the lady tells me she is not taken with you." 
 
 "Keep her talking," snapped Tritton; "that's all
 
 BARTER 283 
 
 you've got to do." His hand went under the pillow for 
 a moment; then he swung from the bunk, carefully strik- 
 ing the table with his foot so that the pearls rolled to the 
 floor. 
 
 "With a startled cry the child sprang after them, but 
 Tritton was before her. 
 
 "There," he said, rising after a protracted hunt and 
 studiously counting ten pearls into the waiting brown 
 palm. "Now are you more taken with your Uncle 
 Tritton?" 
 
 "You no want um?" inquired the visitor perplexedly. 
 "Urn Bull of Niama say Turaga like um plenty all 
 right." 
 
 "Not this time, thank you," grinned Tritton. 
 "Good-night, and mind the step." 
 
 A few minutes later a bewildered child of nature 
 paddled off into the darkness. 
 
 Bellairs stood at the ship's rail for some time after 
 the rhythmic plash of the canoe paddles had died away; 
 then he sighed unaccountably and went below. 
 
 Tritton was hunched over the table examining the 
 pearls as Bellairs came down the companion. 
 
 "Can you beat it?" he exploded. "Ten-ten! I 
 don't know much about 'em, but they look as good as 
 his, and at the same price it means a thousand a 
 thousand," he added in an awed whisper. 
 
 Bellairs put the coffee-pot on the stove, and stood re- 
 garding it awhile in silence. 
 
 "I confess to a misspent life," he said at last deliber- 
 ately, "but in this case I am not sure that I like it, 
 friend Tritton."
 
 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 Tritton turned in a flash. 
 
 "If you don't like it, you know what to do!" he 
 jerked out. 
 
 "I was wondering," mused Bellairs. "In a way it 
 was excusable the true commercial instinct can be 
 held to account for much but don't you think this 
 particular transaction rather savours of robbing the 
 Jdd's money-box?" 
 
 Tritton sprang to his feet impatiently. 
 
 "You make me tired," he stuttered. "We came out 
 after pearls, didn't we? Well, we've got 'em. If 
 they don't know what a pearl is, why shouldn't they be 
 as satisfied with the curio-store brand as the real thing? 
 Exchange is no robbery. If you want to pay for 'em 
 into the bargain, you can, but leave me out of it." 
 
 Bellairs poured the coffee into a tin mug, drank it, 
 and climbed into his bunk. 
 
 "There is something in what you say," he admitted, 
 staring up at the Moana's dingy timbers. " To-morrow 
 we will visit the Bull of Niama that I may relieve my 
 pesky conscience and you spy out the land for further 
 consignments." 
 
 After which enigmatic utterance he slept. 
 
 But Tritton did not. There was too much to think 
 about. "A thousand!" He repeated the magic words 
 many times before it occurred to him with something of 
 a shock that his own share would be precisely half that 
 amount. There was certainly a good deal to be thought 
 about. 
 
 The pilgrimage to Niama was not the pleasant ex- 
 cursion that it had promised to be. According to
 
 BARTER 285 
 
 beche-de-mer directions and copious gesticulations, it 
 lay "all along beach plenty far too much," and the 
 beach led in turn through ankle-deep mangrove swamp,, 
 through primeval jungle, and over a perfect switchback 
 of red earth hills. 
 
 Even Bellairs had little to say, and Tritton trudged 
 at his side in stony silence. He had ceased to speculate 
 on things in general, because he had long since decided 
 in his own mind what must be done to equalize the 
 deficit in his calculations of the previous evening. Op- 
 portunity was all that he lacked, and toward noon it 
 looked remarkably like coming his way. 
 
 They had reached a village of sorts, and Bellairs un- 
 expectedly collapsed on the mats of the guest house, 
 shivering convulsively. 
 
 "Not to p-put too fine a p-point on it," he stuttered 
 between chattering teeth, " I feel rotten." 
 
 Those were the last words Tritton heard him utter. 
 The last sight of him was a bulky figure under a pyra- 
 mid of mats that shook as with an earthquake. Then 
 he ran. There was no need to, because fever always 
 takes large men first and leaves them last, but for some 
 reason Tritton ran. He boarded the Moana and con- 
 trived to set sail, and it was not until Taneba was a 
 smudge on the horizon that his peace of mind was fully 
 restored, which for Tritton was probably a record. 
 
 Perhaps even then his satisfaction was premature. 
 Cities and men and women he knew how to mould to 
 his own ends, but toward night, alone on a waste of 
 waters, with no sense of direction, less knowledge of 
 a ship, and some unhealthy looking clouds banking up
 
 286 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 on the horizon, Tritton was compelled to admit that 
 there was something baffling about the sea. The same 
 distressing sensation of awe that had assailed him on 
 sailing from Ono crept over him now. He dispelled it 
 by a glance at the pearls. They were all there, all 
 ten a thousand pounds' worth! The mere sight of 
 them revived him like an elixir. During the next few 
 hours he inspected them not less than twenty times. It 
 was necessary. The Moana was tearing through a 
 jet-black sea, mountains high, before a hurricane, or so 
 it seemed to Tritton. In reality, she was probably doing 
 a lumbering eight knots before half a gale; but ignor- 
 ance has an unpleasant knack of magnifying. It was 
 only possible to think of the pearls now; Tritton was too 
 occupied with the tiller to do anything else, and even 
 that was difficult. Seas were coming aboard cold, 
 unpleasant seas that lashed the face and chilled to the 
 marrow. Where was he going? He did not know, 
 except that it must be away from Taneba. This was 
 the Pacific Ocean; he did know that; and there should 
 have been blue sea and sunshine and islands many 
 islands, where one could land at will and barter with 
 fools of Kanakas. There was something radically amiss 
 with Tritton's universe. It was wrong, all wrong ex- 
 cept for the pearls. . . . 
 
 They were his last thought before the boom swung out 
 of the night with a shriek of tackle and struck him on 
 the side of the head. 
 
 The long-suffering Moana had gibed, and gibing 
 before half a gale was rather more than she had bar- 
 gained for. Her ancient mast went at the deck, and
 
 BARTER 287 
 
 when Tritton opened his eyes the ship wallowed a dis- 
 mantled wreck. 
 
 There followed days and nights which to Tritton 
 were now vague memories of an ugly dream. He re- 
 membered that the storm had spent itself and that a 
 stark calm had followed, accompanied by a brazen, wilt- 
 ing heat. He remembered the awful discovery that in 
 his haste to leave Taneba he had omitted to fill the 
 water-beakers, and that half-ripe bananas held mad- 
 deningly little moisture. But over all a mist now 
 seemed to hover, a mist that slowly grew more opaque, 
 obliterating all things except the pearls. They were 
 all that had kept Tritton alive. 
 
 So the crew of a trading cutter found him, babbling 
 quietly to himself in the fo'castle, with a chewed ba- 
 nana skin in one hand and something in the other that 
 he thrust from sight at their approach. 
 
 The Bull of Niama tugged a horny foot closer to his 
 groin. 
 
 "I do not savvy, Mr. Bellairs," he said in his precise 
 mission English, and with a perplexed wrinkling of the 
 brow. "I send my daughter to sell you pearls because 
 I run a curio store in Levuka for many year, and know 
 how the white man loves them. I learn many things at 
 my curio store in the great city; but what I do not 
 learn is why, when I send you pearls, you will not buy 
 but send me other pearls in exchange. Now that the 
 fever is better maybe you will tell me." 
 
 "Certainly, Buli" said Bellairs, with the utmost 
 suavity. "I could not pay you for the pearls because
 
 288 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 I have no money. My worthy partner was under the 
 impression that I had, and is now paying the penalty 
 by being afloat somewhere on the Pacific in a ship that 
 is neither his nor mine. But that is beside the point. 
 Now that he has seen fit to abscond, I see nothing 
 against giving you the facts, as a slight token of grati- 
 tude for all you have done for me." 
 
 "That is well said," commented the Bull judicially. 
 
 "I'm glad you like it," said Bellairs. "Must say I'm 
 rather taken with it myself. But here's the rub. You 
 who have owned a curio store in a great city like Levuka 
 should know that there are two kinds of pearls real 
 and imitation." 
 
 "I have heard so," admitted the Bull. 
 
 "Well, not to put too fine a point to it, we took your 
 pearls and sent you ours, which were imitation." 
 
 The Bull of Niama glanced up at the high rafters of 
 the guest house, then at Bellairs. 
 
 "So were mine!" he said.
 
 THE LAUGH 
 
 CROWTHER was waiting. He had no notion 
 of it. He thought he was enjoying the cool of 
 the morning with a pipe on the veranda, as 
 he had been in the habit of doing for seven years past. 
 But in reality he was waiting. 
 
 And presently it appeared the peak of a lugsail glid- 
 ing slowly along the far side of the reef. He picked up 
 a battered telescope and trained it on the moving scrap 
 of canvas. Nothing more could be seen until of a 
 sudden, and with surprising completeness, the rest of 
 the sail burst into view, together with the dark bulk 
 of an outrigger canoe. It had turned into the boat 
 passage, and was now scudding through it on the 
 eight-knot current that converted Rahiti pass into a 
 mill race at the turn of the tide. 
 
 Here there were pale green shallows beset with coral 
 fangs, and rocks rearing a vicious head out of the swirl 
 in midchannel, yet through them the canoe threaded a 
 headlong course, steered with unerring skill by the quick 
 eye and practised hand of a slight figure in a fluttering 
 blue wrapper that crouched alert in the stern. 
 
 With the telescope resting on the veranda rail, 
 Crowther punctuated the performance with grunts of 
 
 approval: "Ah! Good! Umph! Now He had 
 
 taught Mata how to take Rahiti pass at the turn of the 
 
 289
 
 290 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 tide, as he had taught her all that she knew, and his was 
 the intense pride of the tutor in an accomplished pupil. 
 It was natural. 
 
 The canoe had now reached the untroubled waters of 
 the lagoon, and before its prow had slid to rest on the 
 beach in front of the bungalow the girl leapt into the 
 knee-deep water and held aloft a gleaming fish. 
 
 "Sanqua!" she cried, and hurried up the coral path- 
 way to the house. 
 
 A discreet clapping of hands proceeded from the 
 veranda where Crowther sprawled in a cane chair. 
 
 "Is that all?" she demanded, standing before him 
 like a crestfallen child. "And for a sanqua, too?" 
 
 "What more do you want?" grinned Crowther. 
 
 For answer she bent down and kissed him, then sank 
 to the mats native fashion and launched into a detailed 
 account of the capture of Crowther's favourite fish. 
 
 "He was lying half under the reef for shade, I 
 suppose with his tail and a bit sticking out. For a 
 long time I couldn't make up my mind what to do " 
 
 "And the tail and a bit waited while you did it?" 
 interpolated Crowther. 
 
 "Yes. He must have been asleep. Do fish sleep, 
 Uncle?" 
 
 "No," said Crowther at a hazard. 
 
 "Well, then, I must have kept very still I did keep 
 very still and thought and thought. The line would 
 have been the safest, but somehow the spear seemed 
 more more " i 
 
 "Sporting," suggested Crowther. 
 
 "Yes. So I tried to remember what you told me
 
 THE LAUGH 291 
 
 about illusory reflection and all that, and it came out 
 right." 
 
 Crowther inclined his head in mock recognition of the 
 doubtful compliment, but it passed unheeded. Mata 
 babbled on in growing excitement, using indescribable 
 little gestures to illustrate her meaning. 
 
 "I aimed a good three inches to the left of him, and it 
 was queer to feel the spear stick into something that 
 didn't look as if it was there. But it was there, and 
 didn't he wriggle! And here he is, and and it's my 
 birthday, Uncle." 
 
 "Really?" said Crowther, with studied unconcern. 
 "Well, if you'll run along and get into something dry, 
 we'll have breakfast." 
 
 While she was gone, he took his seat at the head of the 
 table, laid as usual on the veranda, and pretended to 
 read a book propped against the milk jug. But again 
 he was waiting, and not for long. Mata slipped into 
 her customary chair, and was in the act of adding the 
 three well-known lumps of sugar to his comprehensive 
 cup of tea, when the exclamation came, half word, half 
 gasp: "Uncle!" 
 
 A moment later she was on his knee, one hand at his 
 shoulder, the other upheld, the better to display a pretty 
 little pearl necklace. 
 
 "But they're real," she cried, with dancing eyes, 
 "really real!" 
 
 "Oh, no," muttered Crowther. "I went to great 
 trouble about that necklet chartered a schooner to 
 bring the dud article all the way from Sydney." 
 
 But she was not listening to his heavy badinage that
 
 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 she knew so well. Her head sank to his shoulder, and 
 there was the hint of a woman's inexplicable tears in her 
 eyes. 
 
 "Uncle," she said, playing with the middle button 
 of his drill jacket, "you're too good to me." 
 
 "Much," he admitted promptly. "I often marvel 
 at my own generosity, forbearance, and all the rest of it. 
 It would be different if you gave any cause for it if you 
 
 were a good girl, for instance but as it is " He 
 
 sighed heavily and lapsed into silence. 
 
 Mata slid from his knee and contemplated him 
 gravely. 
 
 "You're laughing at me," she accused. "You're 
 always laughing at me. I wonder if you ever won't?" 
 
 The whimsical smile died of a sudden from Crowth- 
 er's face. He leant forward and, taking her two small 
 arms in his hands, stood her before him like a doll. 
 
 "You mustn't mind, Mata," he said in a voice that 
 was new to her. " I have to laugh. If I didn't I should 
 do something that you wouldn't like half as much. You 
 understand? I must laugh." 
 
 Mata stared at him wide-eyed, and nodded, though 
 she did not understand in the least. 
 
 "Many, many happy returns of the day, little girl," 
 his strange, almost frightening voice went on, "and 
 don't ever again dare to remind me when it's your birth- 
 day. There, run along my tea's getting cold." 
 
 For once Mata failed to obey. She did not run, 
 but walked, very slowly for her, down the veranda 
 steps and along the beach, with the pearl necklet for- 
 gotten in her hand. Against the bole of a wind-bent
 
 THE LAUGH 293 
 
 palm she leant at last, staring over the sea. She was 
 trying to understand. But out of her groping thoughts 
 only the old, immutable truths emerged. This large 
 man with the kindly eyes and tickling moustache was 
 the most wonderful being in the world, the only being 
 in the world. He knew everything and could do any- 
 thing. What else was there to understand? She an- 
 swered the question by turning her attention to the neck- 
 lace, and in rather less than five minutes was flaunting 
 its glories before the goggling eyes of her brown-skinned 
 playmates of the beach. Mata was sixteen. 
 
 On the veranda, with his chair pushed back from the 
 debris of breakfast, Crowther was engaged in the rather 
 more protracted and infinitely less accommodating re- 
 flections of middle age. Mata was sixteen. Sixteen 
 was a fairly advanced age for a child, wasn't it? And 
 what was it that he had sworn to himself should occur 
 on her sixteenth birthday and on her fifteenth, and 
 fourteenth, for the matter of that? He pretended that 
 it was an effort to remember, though, as a fact the thing 
 had hovered over him like a cloud for some time past. 
 It was a pretty little game for a grown man to be playing 
 with himself, this juggling with an evil hour by putting 
 back the clock. It is popular, too, but, like most games, 
 it comes to an end. Mata was sixteen. Mata must 
 go "outside." 
 
 Having decided so much, irrefutably this time, 
 Crowther's musings led him back to the beginning of it 
 all that awful dawn ten years ago, when, on the tail 
 end of a hurricane, a fine three-masted schooner loomed 
 out of the murk to wind'ard, running under bare poles
 
 294 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 and head-on for Rahiti. The thing was clear to him 
 now it always would be clear as on the day that it 
 happened. He remembered summoning the "boys" 
 and buffeting his way along the wind-whipped beach 
 shouting shouting a warning to a ship in a hurricane 
 a cable's length from the rocks ! It was a sample of the 
 inane things one is apt to do on occasion. Then the 
 crash, almost drowned in the roar of surf, yet sickeningly 
 distinct, and the hurtling of fragments across the beach. 
 A splintered spar, he remembered, missed his head by 
 a few feet; a strip of canvas encircled his legs, almost 
 lifting him from his feet. Something tinkled on the 
 rocks behind him, probably metal. Something else was 
 swept into a rock pool and left there by the receding 
 wave, a bundle by the look of it, that spun like a top in 
 the swirl. But it was a movement of its own that 
 claimed Crowther's sudden attention. Either it was 
 alive, or he had gone mad. In any case, he clambered 
 down to the pool, despite the warning cries of the 
 "boys, " and made his escape with the bundle under one 
 arm and a breaker seething about his waist. 
 
 It was alive. It was Mata, and a "boy" bore her, 
 howling lustily, to the house. 
 
 Crowther stayed. He saw the schooner pounded 
 into the semblance of a broken eggshell against the reef 
 and the battered remains sucked back into the turmoil, 
 only to be hurled aloft on a mighty comber and pitched 
 headlong into unknown depths. Nothing was left 
 nothing but the eternal surf breaking on Rahiti so 
 Crowther went home. 
 
 He found the living room, his sacred living room, in
 
 THE LAUGH 295 
 
 the possession of a minute person attired in a blanket, 
 meditatively munching a banana. 
 
 "Take it away," he told his Kanaka cook, and, going 
 into his bedroom, shut the door. He could not wrench 
 from his mind the awful picture of that ship, a home of 
 warmth and light, buried buried alive. 
 
 It was not until the evening that he could bring him- 
 self to endure an interview with the sole survivor, who 
 stared at him with wide, inquiring eyes, and answered 
 his questions, or failed to answer them, according to the 
 whim of the moment. Crowther elicited the following: 
 it was a female child of six. It rather wanted its father, 
 though it seemed more perturbed over the loss of a kit- 
 ten named Zip, or something like it. It could not re- 
 member its mother. It had no notion how it came to 
 be in a rock pool on Rahiti, but, by the miracle of hur- 
 ricanes that can pulverize an iron winch into a thousand 
 fragments and leave a lamp chimney intact, it was un- 
 scathed. It had come a long way, from a big house in 
 an immense city by the sea, probably one of the Pacific 
 Coast towns, where it had a dog called Peter, and a 
 horse that bucked when you squeezed a ball on the end 
 of a string. Oh, and its name was Mata, which, being 
 interpreted, undoubtedly meant Martha. That was all. 
 
 For several days Crowther wondered what he ought 
 to do about it, and ended, as usual in the Islands, by 
 doing nothing nothing, that is, but letting the child 
 play in the sun and sea with the other juveniles of its 
 species, that appeared to emanate from the labour lines 
 in ever-increasing swarms. 
 
 It was a visit to the scene of the wreck that brought
 
 296 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 Crowther up with a round turn. He stood looking 
 down into the unfathomable depths, thinking of the 
 ship the ship down there and suddenly he said: "I 
 promise." He became aware that he had spoken aloud, 
 that he had given his word to someone or something. 
 It frightened him. From that hour his attitude 
 toward the child changed. It seemed to dawn on him 
 that she was something more than a diverting pet. 
 
 So, out of the ensuing years and his own efforts, had 
 emerged the wondrous product that was Mata of the 
 present day. She was tall, lithe like a boy, and amaz- 
 ingly beautiful. She knew all that Crowther could 
 teach her how to handle a boat, swim without effort, 
 look upon deceit of any sort as a species of cowardice 
 and therefore beneath her, read a book, and have ideas 
 of her own on a subject. Crowther looked upon her as 
 the work of his hands, and never ceased to marvel at 
 its excellence. 
 
 Yes, it might be said that he had kept his promise 
 so far. But what of the future? There were things 
 that he could not teach her, things that she must know. 
 Of late he had stumbled on the distressing truth that he 
 had brought her up as a boy, and, in spite of him, she 
 had grown into a woman an annoying trick of Nature. 
 He approached the painful subject with characteristic 
 bluntness that evening of her sixteenth birthday, as they 
 sat reading by lamplight. 
 
 "Mata," he said, "you know these advertisements of 
 schools in the magazines academies, they seem to call 
 'em with pictures of girls dancing, and paddling canoes, 
 and camping out, and what not?"
 
 THE LAUGH 297 
 
 Mata looked up and nodded. 
 
 "Well, how would you like to go to one?" 
 
 "Not a bit, thanks, Uncle," said Mata. 
 
 "They learn other things, you know," he struggled 
 on "things I can't teach you." 
 
 Mata's frank gray eyes conveyed her disbelief. 
 
 So through endless ramifications the discussion waxed 
 and waned. 
 
 "You mean," said Mata at last, closing her book with 
 a snap of finality "you mean you want me to go, 
 Uncle?" 
 
 And Crowther stared up at the ceiling before answer- 
 ing, and down at the mat-strewn floor. 
 
 "Yes," he lied. 
 
 She went to her room, and Crowther, feeling nothing 
 short of despicable, listened outside her door. She 
 was weeping. Something swept over him like a wave. 
 He knocked and entered. She was lying face downward 
 on the counterpane. 
 
 "Mata Mata!" he muttered stupidly. 
 
 She turned and drew him toward her. 
 
 "Uncle, you'll come, too, won't you?" she pleaded. 
 
 Crowther took a grip of himself and sat on the edge 
 of the bed. 
 
 "Why, of course," he said huskily. "I'll come dis- 
 guised as a gargoyle or something. And we'll have a 
 miniature Rahiti in the playground I beg its pardon, 
 'campus' and at night I'll climb down from my perch 
 on the imitation battlements and we'll spear goldfish 
 with a pickle fork by candlelight, and " 
 
 And again Crowther had contrived to laugh.
 
 298 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 So Mata went "outside" to acquire such additional 
 frills as an enlightened age deems indispensable to 
 budding womanhood, and Crowther settled down to 
 wait once more, this time for two mortal years. 
 
 It was a dreary business, as dreary as Mata appeared 
 to find her end of the contract. Crowther had been 
 under the impression that no feminine mind was proof 
 against the lures of "outside," yet after eighteen 
 months of them, and with only another six to go, she 
 was still, according to her unfailing letters, "longing for 
 Jiome," which meant Rahiti, and yes himself. The 
 thought sent the blood to his head. He tried to laugh 
 at it, but found the process increasingly difficult as time 
 passed. Why should he always have to laugh? By 
 heavens, he would laugh no more! He would make of 
 Hahiti a home a real home worth "longing for"! 
 He would 
 
 As a matter of fact, what Crowther did the next 
 morning was to subject his reflection in the looking glass 
 to an unsmiling survey, and with equal gravity extract 
 four gray hairs from his head. After which he set to 
 work with newborn zest, planning certain additions to 
 the bungalow. 
 
 It was about this time that the monthly schooner 
 brought a youth named Owen to Rahiti seeking em- 
 ployment. Crowther gave it him, partly for company 
 and partly because there was plenty to be done. He 
 was of the reserved, earnest type, with a shock of blond 
 hair, unbelievably pink cheeks, and a habit of blushing 
 which in itself is a refreshing phenomenon south of the 
 Line. Crowther took to him on the instant.
 
 THE LAUGH 299 
 
 "I want you to take the copra entirely off my hands," 
 he told him in the mosquito-proof office with its bat- 
 tered, ill-kept ledger and litter of island specimens. 
 
 "I'm sick of the sight and smell and feel of it. I er 
 have other things to do." 
 
 Owen gravely inclined his head. 
 
 "Sit down," said Crowther; "have a cigar. We'd 
 better try and understand one another as soon as possi- 
 ble. What brought you to these outrageous parts?" 
 
 Owen seated himself, and blushed. 
 
 "Don't tell me if you don't want to," Crowther 
 added. "It's only vulgar curiosity on my part." 
 
 "I was in a bank," blurted Owen. 
 
 "Good," said Crowther, and pushed the disreputable 
 ledger across the writing table. "You'd better take 
 this over as well." 
 
 "I have been going through it," said Owen with 
 professional gravity. "The system is bad, if you don't 
 mind my saying so." 
 
 "Haven't a doubt of it," beamed Crowther, "and if 
 you can put it right, and keep up the level of produc- 
 tion 
 
 "Don't you mean increase production?" corrected 
 Owen. 
 
 Crowther laughed. 
 
 "I suppose so," he admitted, "though, as a business, 
 I'm afraid I've lost my enthusiasm for Rahiti. I look 
 upon it more in the light of a home." 
 
 "Quite," agreed Owen, with his quaint air of 
 punctiliousness. "A very beautiful home," he added 
 thoughtfully.
 
 300 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 Crowther's glance wandered to the window with its 
 sectional view, like a framed and glowing water colour, 
 of beach and palm and sea. 
 
 "Not bad," he muttered. "But nothing to what I'm 
 
 going to make it " He turned in his chair with an 
 
 abrupt reversion to the subject in hand. "So if you'll 
 look after your end of things, Mr. er Owen, I'll look 
 after mine, and we'll see what happens." 
 
 What happened during the next few months was 
 considerable. A wing was added to the bungalow 
 containing rooms such rooms! There were y oka- 
 wood panelling, a standard lamp, mats as finely woven 
 as a Panama hat, and imported furniture of unsur- 
 passed luxury and elegance. Crowther was in the 
 habit of musing amidst these splendours as in a palace 
 of dreams. There was only a month now only a 
 month 
 
 As for Owen, he appeared incapable of anything but 
 work. A day with copra, followed by an evening with 
 a new and immaculate ledger, seemed the acme of his 
 desires. Undoubtedly there was some powerful incen- 
 tive behind the boy's efforts. His innate earnestness 
 had developed into a fervour that Crowther welcomed 
 as unique in his experience of overseers but was at a 
 loss, to understand. 
 
 At a loss, that is, until late one evening he visited the 
 boy's quarters and found him, head on arms, and arms 
 on open ledger, sound asleep. 
 
 Crowther shook him gently. 
 
 "Hi, this won't do," he said. "Sling that thing in 
 the corner, and turn in, and be a bit late to-morrow if
 
 THE LAUGH 301 
 
 you can manage it. I'm not going to have overseers 
 killing themselves on the premises." 
 
 Owen looked up, the habitual flush mounting to his 
 cheeks. His folded arms slid from the ledger, and with 
 them a square of pasteboard that fluttered to the floor 
 at Crowther's feet. He picked it up mechanically, and 
 was returning to the table when the action was arrested 
 in mid air. For a moment he stood motionless, star- 
 ing slack-jawed at a photograph of Mata, then placed 
 it on the table and drew back into the shadow. 
 
 "So you know my niece," he said evenly, yet in a 
 voice that he failed to recognize as his own. 
 
 Owen pushed back his chair and stood before Crow- 
 ther. There was no confusion in the movement, only 
 the supreme self -consciousness of youth. 
 
 "I've been meaning to tell you," he began. 
 
 "But you didn't," Crowther interpolated sweetly, 
 "so why should you now? Because I happen to have 
 blundered on to your secret?" 
 
 "There should have been no secret there is no 
 secret," Owen corrected himself; "We met at a friend's 
 house during the holidays. I we " 
 
 "You can cut the details, if you don't mind," said 
 Crowther. 
 
 "Very well, then," Owen's head went up as though 
 in answer to a challenge. "I love her." 
 
 "Naturally," said Crowther. "And as you're so 
 bent on unburdening yourself, what then?" 
 
 "I am working for her," answered the boy simply. 
 "I came here because I knew it was her home, and that 
 she would be returning soon. I was afraid, if I told
 
 302 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 you of our acquaintance, it might influence you 
 against me." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "I knew how fond you must be of her." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "Naturally," mimicked Owen, with a hint of apology. 
 
 There was neither question nor answer to that. 
 Crowther remained silent, his face mercifully in shadow, 
 watching the antics of this pink-cheeked destroyer of 
 dreams. They had "met at a friend's house . . . 
 during the holidays ! " What more was needed? What 
 could be more natural, in the most natural of worlds? 
 Crowther asked himself this assiduously as a curb to 
 the insane desire to take this same pink-cheeked head 
 and dash it against the wall. It was still saying some- 
 thing. . . . 
 
 "I wanted you to form an unbiassed opinion of me, 
 Mr. Crowther. Are you satisfied?" 
 
 "I?" Crowther advanced out of the gloom. The 
 mask of a smile was on this face. "Satisfied?" He 
 had intended to say something else heaven knew what ! 
 but instead he laughed. 
 
 "You find it amusing," Owen accused, with a ludi- 
 crous air of offended dignity. 
 
 "You must excuse me," Crowther apologized. "It's 
 an unfortunate habit of mine. No, I don't find it in 
 the least amusing, only satisfactory entirely satis- 
 factory, Mr. er Owen. Good -night." 
 
 The next morning Owen was down with his first 
 bout of fever, and three days later Mata arrived. 
 
 Crowther saw the schooner creeping down from the
 
 THE LAUGH 303 
 
 horizon, and Mata, a slim, unmistakable figure in the 
 bows, waving a handkerchief far out to sea because she 
 knew that he would be watching for her through the 
 telescope. 
 
 It seemed to Crowther that the "outside" had made 
 surprisingly little difference, or was it the fashion of the 
 moment for young ladies in bewilderingly dainty mus- 
 lins, and their hair "up," to welcome their alleged 
 uncles by nearly strangling them? He did not know. 
 He did not care. 
 
 "Oh, it's good good!" she cried, clinging to his arm 
 and glancing bright-eyed about her as they passed along 
 the landing and up the powdered coral pathway to the 
 house. 
 
 With the mock ceremony of a flunkey, Crowther 
 bowed her into the palace of dreams. She sampled 
 its splendours, from the white-enamelled bedstead to 
 the standard lamp, with little gasps of delight. 
 
 "Tea will be served on the veranda in ten minutes, 
 your ladyship," Crowther announced, and withdrew. 
 
 Whereupon Mata took a step toward the door, and 
 paused. Something seemed to have come upon her of 
 a sudden, out of nowhere, a mantle of thought that en- 
 veloped her until she found herself pouring out tea 
 from the same old pot, into the same comprehensive 
 cup with its three lumps of sugar. They talked, 
 talked and listened, each to the beloved voice of the 
 other, until Crowther consulted his watch. 
 
 "Time!" he called. "I've had you for the first 
 hour, my lady. More than my share. What about 
 him?"
 
 304 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "Him?" Mata looked up in frank perplexity. 
 
 "Thought that would fetch you," beamed Crowther. 
 
 "More surprises?" she questioned. 
 
 For answer, he took her by the arm, across the com- 
 pound to Owen's quarters, and, thrusting her gently in- 
 side, closed the door. 
 
 Then he went down to the beach, and walked and 
 walked until he came to the scene of the wreck, where 
 he sat staring into the depths. 
 
 There was nothing he desired so much as solitude 
 during that hour, yet presently he became aware of a 
 figure flitting swiftly along the beach. It wore a faded 
 blue wrapper, and its hair streamed in the wind. It 
 sank at Crowther's side. 
 
 "Uncle," it panted, "help me!" 
 
 "All I can," said Crowther, "but it's quite simple. 
 He's the best overseer I ever had. He gets more out 
 of Rahiti in six months than I used to in a year, and it's 
 about my turn for the * outside.' I'm going to live 
 with a capital L. I'm going to " 
 
 Mata was not listening, or failed to understand. 
 
 "He made a mistake," she said dully, "a terrible, 
 terrible mistake." 
 
 "Impossible," said Crowther. "I'm certain he never 
 made a mistake in his life." 
 
 "He did," Mata persisted. "Oh, Uncle, if you laugh 
 at me, I think I shall die. We met " 
 
 "At a friend's house during the holidays," prompted 
 Crowther. 
 
 "And he thought I don't know what he thought, 
 but I never gave him any cause to think it."
 
 THE LAUGH 305 
 
 "You'd better cut that part out," advised Crowther. 
 "He had some difficulty over it himself. He polished 
 it off in the end by telling me that he loved you. Why 
 not try that way, Mata?" 
 
 Mata sighed. 
 
 "Did he tell you that I loved him?" 
 
 "No, but " 
 
 "Well, then " said Mata. 
 
 Crowther turned slowly and looked at her. 
 
 "You see," she went on, staring out to sea, "there 
 happens to be someone else." 
 
 "That's unfortunate," admitted Crowther, "but he 
 can be imported by the next schooner." 
 
 "He doesn't need importing," said Mata, her eyes 
 still turned toward the crimsoning horizon. 
 
 There was silence for a space. 
 
 "I tell you what it is, little girl," said Crowther un- 
 steadily. "We'd better defeat all these complications 
 by marrying each other. Not such a bad idea when 
 you come to think of it, eh? " 
 
 Mata looked at him with the eyes of understanding. 
 
 "Then you have come to think of it," she said, 
 "without without the laugh?"
 
 THE INEVITABLE INGRAM 
 
 THERE was something going on out there to the 
 westward. The sunset was the same miracle of 
 beauty that it usually is near the Equator, but 
 below and beyond them there hovered a gray -green void 
 that slowly spread like some disfiguring disease over the 
 fair face of the sky. And the heat! It was slow as- 
 phyxiation. 
 
 Ingram had seen and felt all this before. Once, in 
 his overseeing days, it had heralded the wiping of a vast 
 estate from the face of the earth. 
 And again, only six years earlier, 
 it had spelt the mowing of a neat 
 swathe through three bungalows, 
 a medley of "labour lines," and 
 five hundred acres of young rub- 
 ber. It had not meant very much 
 to him in those days; the devastated properties were 
 not his, and as a spectacle it had been magnificent. 
 
 But now 
 
 He leant out over the veranda railing, a gaunt, 
 anxious figure in the encroaching gloom. Twice he 
 looked back over his shoulder before speaking. Through 
 the mosquito door streamed a flood of homely yellow 
 light. His wife sat beside the wicker table, sewing. 
 Ingram's grip of the veranda railing tightened. 
 
 306
 
 THE INEVITABLE INGRAM 307 
 
 "Olive!" he called softly. 
 
 She came, a pale wisp of a woman in the loose, flowing 
 wrapper of the Islands, and stood beside him at the rail. 
 
 "Yes?" she said. 
 
 "There's something coming up," said Ingram, star- 
 ing over the sea. "It may be something, and it may be 
 nothing, but it's the season, and we ought to be ready." 
 
 "What had I better do?" she asked him in a low, 
 colourless voice. 
 
 "Take whatever you value on to the hill," he told 
 her "Roko, the sewing-machine, anything. I'll be 
 there in a few minutes." 
 
 She went into the living room and stood for a moment 
 looking about her. "Anything she valued!" She 
 smiled. It was so like Bob to imagine there was any- 
 thing on Tahao. 
 
 Roko, the fox terrier sybarite, was engaged in leth- 
 argic fly-catching operations on his favourite mat. The 
 sewing-machine in its intensely varnished case with 
 gold lettering reflected the lamplight with customary 
 brilliance. A dog and a sewing-machine! She took 
 them to the "hill" as directed, and sat in the sand with 
 her alleged valuables on either hand, waiting. 
 
 Tahao was an atoll, and what Bob persisted with 
 ludicrous gravity in calling the "hill" was the highest 
 point on it, at least ten feet above the level of the sea. 
 From its summit one commanded a view of perhaps a 
 mile more ocean than could be seen from the beach. 
 Also it afforded a refuge for those who wished to cling 
 to the last delectable moments of life if the sea saw fit to 
 inundate Tahao, which was entirely probable.
 
 308 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 Through the stagnant darkness sounds filtered up to 
 the "hill" Bob's deep-toned exhortations to the two 
 "boys," their jabbered response, the methodical thud 
 of a maul, the crackle and scrape of corrugated iron. 
 Olive knew precisely what was going on. They were 
 driving pegs deep into the ground at the four corners 
 of the house, and passing wires over the roof to hold it 
 down. This, their home, must be anchored to Tahao 
 at all costs. Bob would see to that. He invariably 
 saw to everything. Life, even on Tahao, was of such 
 immense importance to him. 
 
 Olive sat with hands clasped about her knees. She 
 had thought her mind long since numb, but to-night, in 
 face of the omnipotent threat hovering on the horizon, 
 she found herself piecing together the twisted fragments 
 of her married life like an ineffectual puzzle. 
 
 No one could have faced heavy odds with more 
 fortitude, more thoroughness, and less avail than Bob 
 Ingram. As incapable of recognizing defeat as of ac- 
 complishing victory, he staggered to his feet after each 
 reverse and fought on with an ox-like stolidity that 
 Olive knew to be heroic and blamed herself for finding 
 exasperating. 
 
 For three years he had striven to make a home for the 
 woman he loved. It was here on Tahao. Then had 
 come the vanilla boom. According to Bob, there was 
 nothing like vanilla. The demand was unlimited. In 
 five years, or less, they would be in a position to install 
 a manager, and live in God's country. Well, either va- 
 nilla did not like Tahao, or Tahao did not like vanilla.
 
 THE INEVITABLE INGRAM 309 
 
 After eighteen months of precarious existence, as wear- 
 ing to the nerves of its attendants as that of an exacting 
 invalid, it died. 
 
 But what of that? A trading cutter was the thing! 
 Freight rates were fantastic. The vessel would pay for 
 herself in a year, and then - These were the days when 
 Bob's enthusiasms were infectious. With considerable 
 pomp the cutter was christened Olive and reduced to 
 matchwood a month later on a neighbouring reef. 
 
 This was a calamity. There was no denying it. For 
 a whole day Bob patrolled the veranda in subdued 
 fashion, but at breakfast the next morning he returned 
 to the attack with redoubled vigour. It appeared that 
 he had explored Tahao lagoon as never before, and there 
 was beche-de-mer there, quantities of it. He explained, 
 with the rekindled light of enthusiasm in his pale eyes, 
 that beche-de-mer was rapidly coming into favour as 
 the most nutritious of table delicacies, fetching untold 
 wealth per ton delivered in Papeete. He had figured 
 it out, and if he worked with the "boys," there was a 
 fortune in it within two years or was it three? He 
 consulted an old envelope, disfigured with pencilled 
 calculations, and found it to be three. 
 
 Olive watched them set out in the whale boat, saw 
 through the telescope their pigmy figures splashing 
 through the lagoon shallows or clambering over the 
 reef, and toward evening the return of the heavily laden 
 whale boat. Then, after a hasty meal, smoke boxes 
 were erected on the beach, and the task of curing the 
 beche-de-mer was carried on into the night. 
 
 When the day's work was done, Bob flung himself,
 
 310 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 exhausted, unspeakably begrimed, but happy, into a 
 cane chair on the veranda. 
 
 "We're on to it now, little woman," he grinned. And 
 Olive smiled back, wondering, as she did so, why it was 
 so impossible for her to share his faith. 
 
 She could not watch him for long and remain inactive. 
 On the third evening she donned a work-worn overall 
 and plunged her hands into the revolting mess. It was 
 necessary to impale each sea slug on a little stick before 
 placing it in the smoke box. Surely she could do this ! 
 But no. Bob seized her wrist on the instant and con- 
 ducted her to the house like a wayward child. It was 
 the first time she had seen him really angry. 
 
 "I won't have it!" he stormed. "Whoever heard of 
 such a thing?" 
 
 Argument she knew to be worse than useless. It 
 worried him, and that was the last thing Olive wished 
 to do. 
 
 "Don't you see?" he pleaded later. "If I can't keep 
 my end of things going, I'm no good. The house is 
 yours." 
 
 And with the house, and its predominating features 
 of a dog and a sewing-machine, Olive was forced to be 
 content. 
 
 "Ten tons ! " he informed her triumphantly at the end 
 of the month. "At this rate 
 
 At this rate, and by recourse to the mathematical 
 envelope, he was able to prove that the length of time 
 required to make a fortune had been over-estimated. 
 It was two years, after all, not three. In the meantime, 
 he had reduced himself to the resemblance of a skeleton,
 
 THE INEVITABLE INGRAM 311 
 
 and there was a feverish light in his eyes that Olive 
 recognized with secret dread. 
 
 The arrival of the schooner that condescended to call 
 at Tahao every three months was always the event that 
 may be imagined, but on the next occasion, and after 
 two months' intimacy with beche-de-mer, it was noth- 
 ing short of thrilling. 
 
 The captain, a hard-headed, soft-hearted Scot, came 
 ashore in the whale boat with his customary contribu- 
 tions of rum and cigars, and settled down on the ve- 
 randa to make his brief visit the pleasant thing that 
 it invariably was. Papeete was booming, it appeared. 
 There was talk of a tramway a tramway in Papeete! 
 Copra was soaring; shell was rocketing 
 
 "Ye hae nothing for me this trip?" he suggested at 
 last. It was the invariable signal that he must be going. 
 He always said it, and always with the tactful addition 
 of "this trip," though he knew that not on this trip, nor 
 on any other, would Tahao supply his schooner with a 
 cargo. 
 
 And it was here that Bob sprang his child-like sur- 
 prise on the visitor. Without a word, and labouring 
 under intense excitement, he led the captain to the 
 stores shed and flung wide the doors. 
 
 From earthen floor to corrugated iron roof the place 
 was stacked with beche-de-mer, representing a work com- 
 parable with the pyramids. Had he anything "this 
 trip"? Well, he had, that was all. 
 
 The captain advanced into the gloom, selected an 
 immaculately cured slug from the pile, and turned it 
 slowly on a horny palm.
 
 312 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "Is it all like this?" he inquired shortly. He was 
 talking business now. 
 
 "All," stammered Bob. 
 
 The captain shook his head sadly. 
 
 " Too bad, too bad," he muttered absently. " They're 
 'chalk fish', ye ken. Wouldn't pay freight these days. 
 Now, if they'd been 'deep-water blacks'. . . ." 
 
 At this juncture he stopped, because it was necessary 
 to lift Bob Ingram from the ground and carry him to 
 his bed, where he remained, in a state of alternate coma 
 and delirium, for upward of a week. 
 
 This surely was the end, Olive told herself, with a 
 secret and guilty joy. There was nothing more on 
 Tahao to be undertaken, persisted in, and failed 
 over. It was her turn now. She would nurse him 
 back to health and, in the subtle ways known only to 
 a woman, persuade him to abandon ambition for the 
 less harried paths of content. A new interest had 
 come into her life. Her manner changed, and Bob 
 noticed it. 
 
 "Olive," he said one evening, during his conva- 
 lescence on the veranda, "Olive, I've been thinking." 
 
 "You mustn't yet," she said. "Try and rest. 
 There's plenty of time." 
 
 He turned in his chair and looked into her eyes. "But 
 that's just it," he said; "there isn't. I've been thinking 
 about you." 
 
 "About me?" 
 
 "Yes. I haven't thought enough about you. You 
 you've been splendid." 
 
 "Good gracious, is that all?"
 
 THE INEVITABLE INGRAM 313 
 
 "Not quite. You need a change. Tahao is no place 
 for a woman." 
 
 So he realized that. After three years Bob realized 
 that much. Olive's head bent lower over the needle- 
 work in her lap. 
 
 "What's the matter with clearing out for a while?" 
 he droned on. "Sydney, San Francisco, anywhere you 
 like?" 
 
 "Nothing that I can see," said Olive in a carefully 
 controlled voice. "It would set us up." 
 
 "Ah, I didn't mean that," he objected gently. "I 
 can't very well get away just now. Later, perhaps, 
 when when I've really got things going here." He 
 stirred uneasily. "I've been thinking about that, 
 too," he went on absently. "I see now where I've 
 been going wrong. Too much of a hurry. Too much 
 get-rich-quick. It can't be done outside of a city office, 
 and we're on an atoll. When you come down to bed- 
 rock, there's only one thing copra." 
 
 He paused. Olive made no comment, and presently 
 he went on. 
 
 "Listen!" And she listened, with the old, prophetic 
 instinct of fatal futility, to the praises of the cocoanut 
 palm. There was no doubt about the dried kernel of 
 the cocoanut. It was currency, and it was indigenous 
 to Tahao. He was a fool for not having planted up 
 the island with it at the outset. Nothing could hap- 
 pen to copra. . . . And at the end of it all she 
 said: 
 
 "But doesn't it take seven years for the trees to bear?" 
 
 He admitted it admitted it with a smile on his lips
 
 314 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 and the lust of battle in his eyes. But this was not what 
 they had started out to discuss. What of the proposed 
 holiday for Olive? 
 
 She went down to the beach and stood staring across 
 the waste of waters at her feet. She knew that if she 
 once left Tahao, she could not bring herself to return. 
 She knew that she should never have married a pioneer, 
 even loving him as she loved Bob. She was not of the 
 type to thrive on adversity, to find each obstacle a spur 
 to fresh endeavour. Equally, she was not of the type to 
 abandon a ship in distress. 
 
 And so she stayed, while Bob feverishly planted 
 cocoanuts, and raved of their rapid growth, and made 
 calculations on envelopes, and one brazen day succeeded 
 another until Tahao was transformed from a glaring 
 strip of coral sand into a promising plantation of three- 
 year-old palms, and Olive sat on the "hill" with Roko 
 and the sewing-machine, waiting. . . ,. 
 
 They had finished fastening the house to Tahao, and 
 silence closed down until there filtered through it a 
 sound, faint, yet seeming to fill the world. Roko whined 
 and snuffed the air suspiciously. The sound grew in 
 volume, and far off the darkness was slashed with a 
 thin ribbon of phosphorescent light. The sound was 
 wind, the light was a wave, and with sudden, demoniac 
 violence the awful pair descended on Tahao. 
 
 The roof of the bungalow snapped its puny fastenings 
 in the first gust, and Olive heard it rattling off into the 
 darkness like ineffectual stage thunder. Then she 
 felt Bob's arm dragging her down to the sand. Water
 
 THE INEVITABLE INGRAM 315 
 
 enveloped her. It was cool and quiet after the turmoil 
 overhead. She hoped that it would remain. She prayed 
 that it would remain . . . But no. Bob saw to 
 that. He invariably saw to everything. He clung 
 to a pandanus root with one hand, and his wife 
 with the other, and after an eternity dragged her to 
 her feet. 
 
 They stood on the summit of the "hill," waist-deep 
 in swirling water. There was nothing else in all the 
 world. Tahao was gone. Olive swept the hair from 
 her eyes and laughed, and Bob did his best to calm her 
 hysteria. But it was not hysteria. It was just that 
 Tahao was gone ! 
 
 Tahao was gone for little more than an hour. There- 
 after Olive watched it reappear as the sea fell, inch by 
 inch, foot by foot, under the paling sky. First the 
 summit of the "hill " on which they stood, and a few bat- 
 tered treetops, then the beach with its chaos of debris 
 that had once been a plantation of three-year-old 
 palms. The eternal sun shone. The Pacific sub- 
 sided into a drowsy swell. 
 
 By noon the "boys" had returned in the whale boat, 
 to which they had clung all night, and already Bob was 
 superintending the erection of a pandanus lean-to. 
 
 "You've been properly through it, little woman," he 
 said, preparing her palm frond bed for the night. "Try 
 and sleep." 
 
 "I'm not tired," she said, raising herself on to an 
 elbow. "And, Bob " 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "What are we going to do? "
 
 316 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "Do?" He stared at her dully. His face was lined 
 with exhaustion. "Wait for the schooner." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 It was torture to question him now. Olive knew it, 
 and persisted. She felt that she must know, or never 
 sleep again. "Then you're going to get out of here, if 
 I know anything," he answered her shortly. 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 He stretched himself at length on his rough couch, 
 and stared at the crazy roof, through which glimmered 
 the stars. 
 
 "I hardly know," he said, "yet. Haven't had time 
 to think." He swept the lank hair from his forehead 
 with a weary gesture. "Pretty heart-breaking, isn't 
 it?" 
 
 Olive did not answer. 
 
 "It hasn't done for the lot, though," he went on 
 presently. " Somewhere about half, I should think " 
 
 "Ah, about half," repeated Olive mechanically. 
 "And if it had 'done for the lot', it would have been the 
 end." 
 
 "The end of what?" 
 
 "Of Tahao." 
 
 He stared at the roof for a space. "I suppose so," 
 he said slowly, with the air of one to whom such a con- 
 tingency had never presented itself. "There's nothing 
 I hate like a quitter, but I'm getting on a bit to wait 
 another another seven years." 
 
 "It's a long time," said Olive. 
 
 Then she saw that he was asleep. And she had been 
 going to tell him, persuade him into seeing what manner
 
 THE INEVITABLE INGRAM 317 
 
 of man he was, destined, inevitable. That there are 
 men like that, and that it is better for such to leave the 
 scene of their failures and start at the bottom of the 
 ladder, if need be, so long as the chain of fatal futility 
 be broken. But it was too late now. He was asleep. 
 To-morrow he would wake with a fresh store of his 
 inexhaustible, bull-headed pertinacity. He would agree 
 that she must go, but he must stay. "There was noth- 
 ing he hated like a quitter." Would she have him lie 
 down and admit he was no good? 
 
 And so Olive said nothing the next morning, but 
 watched him and the "boys" scouring the lagoon 
 shallows for oddments of salvage. He was as pleased 
 as a child when they found two sheets of the bungalow's 
 corrugated iron roof, the sewing-machine less ornate 
 but intact, and a promiscuous assortment of tinned 
 provisions. 
 
 So the sun-drenched days came and went as of old. 
 Olive found it increasingly difficult to sleep, and of a 
 night she had taken to creeping from the lean-to, past 
 the "boys," sleeping soundly beside the dying embers 
 of the campfire, and up to the "hill." 
 
 From here, under a vivid moon, it seemed to her that 
 Tahao lay outspread like a grinning skeleton, with 
 flesh, in the form of the surviving palms and tangle of 
 brush-wood banked against them, still clinging to the 
 bones. ... 
 
 Tahao was a bonfire, ready laid! The thought 
 sprang at her one night like a beast of prey. Here was 
 an end ! Even he had said so. She thrust it from her, 
 but it returned with the force of irrefutable logic. It
 
 318 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 would be better for him in the end. She was certain 
 of that. A flame, a mere spark, with the trade wind 
 behind it, and the thing was done. It could so easily 
 happen . . . the campfire ... no one would 
 guess . . . and after a time, when he had found his 
 niche back there in the world, she would tell him she 
 would have to tell him and he would laugh. They 
 would laugh together over Tahao. 
 
 What was it that made her pause for a single instant? 
 She did not know. But neither did she move from the 
 summit of the "hill." 
 
 And it was while she sat there, her hair streaming in 
 the wind, her eyes transfixed on space, that the miracle 
 happened, though in reality it was no miracle, but the 
 most natural occurrence in the world. A gust caught 
 the embers of the campfire and scattered them wide. 
 Olive did not see it. All she saw was a light on 
 the beach. For a moment she stared at it spellbound, 
 incredulous, the next she had sped down the slope 
 with a warning cry and was trampling on a ser- 
 pent of fire that writhed ahead of her through the 
 tangle of brush, always ahead, always just beyond 
 reach. 
 
 How long the battle lasted she had no notion, but this 
 she knew that it was Bob, Bob himself, who first cried 
 a halt. Sweating, begrimed, he burst through the 
 smoke and bore her out of the inferno. 
 
 "Olive," he kept muttering, "Olive!" 
 
 Tahao was a semicircle of leaping flame. He took 
 her to the "hill" and together they watched it burn 
 itself out.
 
 THE INEVITABLE INGRAM 319 
 
 "There's nothing to be done," he said, "nothing. 
 This is the end." 
 
 And he spoke truth. 
 
 He left with his wife by the schooner, and has long 
 since ceased to be the Inevitable Ingram.
 
 THE SPELL 
 
 IF FENNER had thrown away that absurd wreath 
 of flowers, things might have turned out differ- 
 ently. I even I admit that now, because I 
 know. 
 
 Jimmy Fenner enjoyed a huge popularity on Miatu, 
 and it was not of the "grog" variety, either. I don't 
 believe he had ever given a nigger alcohol in his life. 
 He had the right temperament, that was all; and, as 
 surely as a dog or a child knows its friend, so surely does 
 the South Sea Kanaka recognize and appreciate a kin- 
 dred spirit. 
 
 There were those "at home" who deplored Jimmy 
 Fenner. They said there was nothing in him, and 
 neither was there of evil. For all his six feet of good- 
 looking, powerfully built manhood, backed by an in- 
 come that would have been the ruination of most men, 
 he was a child pleasure-loving, irresponsible, simple of 
 soul. 
 
 But to return to the absurd wreath of flowers. It 
 was made of crimson drala blossoms and thrown to him 
 from one of the canoes that swarmed round the schooner 
 like a flock of sea birds. Fenner was standing at the 
 rail, and when he slipped the wreath over his head, 
 and stood there like a six-foot, twentieth-century Dryad, 
 a great shout went up. 
 
 320
 
 THE SPELL 321 
 
 "Ah, of course," he muttered, and smiled whim- 
 sically. He had learnt something of Island custom in 
 the last six months and knew that if a man did this, it 
 meant that he would return. "What a liar I am," he 
 added guiltily. 
 
 "Samoce, Samoce!" he called over the water as the 
 schooner headed for the channel in the barrier reef, then 
 turned abruptly from the rail and lit a cigar. 
 
 "It's been a great time, Clem," he said with a catch 
 in his voice that I attributed to smoke. 
 
 "Great," I agreed. 
 
 "There's nothing quite like it, " he added after a pause. 
 
 "No, nothing," I answered. 
 
 He glanced at me with a certain disappointment, 
 walked aft, and stood looking out over our wake to 
 where a green dot that was Miatu danced in the shim- 
 mering heat haze. 
 
 There was cause for his disappointment. I should 
 have enthused over these fairy isles and their child-like 
 people. I should have met his mood, and capped com- 
 parative with superlative, for it would all have been 
 genuine, but I was thinking of Lady Fenner, already 
 wondering how I should account for our long-delayed 
 return to civilization and things practical. Fenner's 
 mother was methodical, and after the fashion of such 
 people, demanded method in others. "Why had I not 
 returned on the date specified?" I could hear her ask- 
 ing the question in her incisive falsetto. "Because 
 Fenner wouldn't leave ! " It sounded weak on my part, 
 and savoured of betrayal. "Because the tropics are 
 demoralizing, and But that was worse.
 
 322 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 Between Miatu and Levuka, Fenner spent most of 
 his time hunched on the deck, staring over his knees. 
 
 "Whew!" I exclaimed, strolling past him for the third 
 time without being noticed. "You've still got those 
 flowers round your neck. They're getting high." 
 
 He looked down at them, then at me. 
 
 "Yes," he answered absently. 
 
 "Heigh ho for a few theatres," I sighed presently, 
 looking for'ard. 
 
 "Don't," he snapped, still staring aft. 
 
 I left him. It would wear off, I decided. There was 
 plenty of time. 
 
 At lunch fish, turtle steak, taro, and pineapples 
 he became more communicative. 
 
 "With another three months' practice Pope would 
 make a really fine bat, " he observed, apropos of nothing. 
 Then again: "A year's sound coaching for the whole 
 team and they'd give the average county club a run for 
 its money." Or: "I can just see Miatu with a res- 
 ident's bungalow on Beritania Hill; white, of course, 
 with an avenue of coral and pandanus. They've got 
 the secret, Clem; there's no getting away from that." 
 
 "Secret of what?" I demanded brusquely. It is a 
 dangerous sign when a healthy, normal young man be- 
 gins to talk about houses on hills with pandanus ave- 
 nues. 
 
 "Life," said Fenner. 
 
 "That isn't life," I told him, waving a dramatic hand 
 in the wrong direction; "it's a dream, a pleasant one 
 I'll grant, but you'll wake up the minute you rub shoul- 
 ders with your own world. "
 
 THE SPELL 323 
 
 "I wonder," he mused. And, to tell the truth, so 
 did I until we reached Levuka, where four cablegrams 
 from Lady Fenner persuaded me that I had spoken 
 nothing but the truth. 
 
 I think Fenner was "wondering" most of the way to 
 London. He kept very much to himself, and spent 
 most of his time in a deck chair, smoking, and looking 
 out to sea, with his hands interlocked behind his 
 head. 
 
 He was to stand for Parliament, and marry a Miss 
 Strickland, Lady Fenner informed me on our return to 
 Craigmoor. 
 
 "Oh, yes, " I murmured, or something equally absurd. 
 
 Lady Fenner fixed me with the penetrating gray eyes 
 that had haunted me from Levuka to London. 
 
 "The tour was a mistake," she announced with her 
 usual abruptness. "It was badly managed." 
 
 I wanted to ask her how she would have ordered the 
 movements of a twenty-five-year-old child of independ- 
 ent means and nature during a year's world wanderings, 
 but refrained. She would have told me. 
 
 "Rex was to have seen the world," she accused. 
 "But from what I can learn he has seen nothing but 
 some islands somewhere or other. What was the 
 attraction?" 
 
 My eye wandered through the bay window over 
 Craigmoor's well-ordered acres, then conjured a vision 
 of Miatu on a moonlit night with brown-skinned men 
 and women dancing a meke. 
 
 "I really can't say," I admitted, "except " 
 
 "Yes?"
 
 324 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "Except that they were very beautiful, and we stayed 
 there some time. " 
 
 Lady Fenner frowned. From boyhood I remembered 
 that frown, and still feared it. 
 
 "There was nothing else? No feminine attrac- 
 tion?" Lady Fenner leant forward. "Remember, 
 Clem, you are Rex's oldest only friend; I relied on 
 
 you." 
 
 "No, no, certainly not," I stammered. "It was, 
 well, just the place. I can't define its attractions ex- 
 actly no one has been able to from Stevenson down- 
 ward but, there it was. " 
 
 "And here it is still apparently," snapped Lady Fen- 
 ner. "Rex is not the same. I hoped I always 
 thought that extensive travel only proved that there 
 is no place like home. " 
 
 We talked a great deal more about Rex, Craigmoor, 
 and the future, but I left with a vague presentiment 
 that in " those islands, somewhere or other, " Lady Fen- 
 ner had found her match, if not her master. 
 
 "I can't stand this," Fenner told me one day in town. 
 "Just look at it!" 
 
 I looked, and saw Hyde Park on a May morning. 
 
 "Well?" I demanded. "What's the matter with 
 it?" 
 
 "I don't mean this exactly," he answered, indicating 
 the Row with a flick of his stick, "although it's futile 
 enough in its own way liver brigade, clothes, pretence, 
 pretence, pretence but everything. They're trying to 
 make me stand for Parliament. " 
 
 "It doesn't appeal to you?"
 
 THE SPELL 325 
 
 "Appeal?" He struck savagely at a pebble, and 
 sent it hurtling into the wheels of a passing perambu- 
 lator. "Look at the finished article!" 
 
 "You'd sooner umpire at Miatu," I sneered. 
 
 He stopped in his stride and confronted me. His 
 face was transfigured. 
 
 "Just that!" he said; and the trouble was I could 
 entirely sympathize. 
 
 "Went to a theatre and supper the other night," 
 he mumbled presently. "Such drivel! Such belly 
 worship!" 
 
 "Perhaps you'd prefer a meke and a fish feast?" I 
 suggested. 
 
 He looked at me, but did not answer with his lips. 
 
 In the circumstances I was hardly surprised at re- 
 ceiving an urgent wire from Lady Fenner toward the 
 end of June. 
 
 "He's gone," she said as soon as the drawing-room 
 door had closed. "Vanished!" 
 
 I had never seen Lady Fenner so I was going to say 
 "human." She was agitated, and showed it. 
 
 "Good gracious!" I exclaimed, with as much aston- 
 ishment as I could muster. 
 
 "And in the midst of everything!" she wailed. "He 
 left me this. Read it, and tell me what it means." 
 
 I read: 
 
 MY DEAR MATER: 
 
 It's no go; I can't stand it. I avoided farewells because they 
 would mean explanations that I couldn't give, and you wouldn't 
 understand. Ask Clem; I think he has an inkling. 
 
 I'm sorry to have upset all your arrangements, but, after all, what 
 does it matter? If you are as annoyed over this as I expect you
 
 326 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 will be, keep saying that "What does it matter?" and you'll get as 
 near to my reasons for cutting it all as I could ever take you. 
 
 Your affectionate son, 
 
 REX. 
 
 I pretended to be reading for several seconds after 
 I had finished. I could feel an outraged mother's eyes 
 riveted upon me. What, in Heaven's name, was I to 
 tell her? What I suspected that because he had 
 worn an absurd wreath of drala blossoms when he left 
 Miatu he was bound to return there? Yes, even at 
 that time I had begun to wonder. . . . But the 
 mere thought of offering such a preposterous suggestion 
 to Lady Fenner in the drawing room of Craigmoor 
 must have brought a shadow of a smirk to my lips. I 
 heard Lady Fenner speaking. 
 
 " Is this a practical joke ? " Her tone was almost eager. 
 
 I looked up at that. 
 
 "No," I said. "It's not a joke. He has gone back 
 to Miatu." 
 
 "Miatu?" 
 
 "Yes; an island in the Lau group, west of Fiji. " 
 
 "But " Lady Fenner swallowed something, and 
 
 looked about the room. 
 
 "We may as well face it," I went on with a sudden 
 access of candour. "He has gone back to the Islands 
 because he likes the life there better than here. It's 
 quite possible, you know. What's more, I doubt if he 
 means to come back. " 
 
 Then it was that Lady Fenner rallied her forces- 
 such forces! and for a solid hour I was attacked, 
 propitiated, flattered, argued into pledging myself to 
 do my utmost to bring back her son.
 
 THE SPELL 327 
 
 "I relied on you," was her parting shot, and two 
 weeks later I sailed for the South Seas, primed to the 
 brim with every argument, every appeal, calculated to 
 swell the heart if not the mind of man. 
 
 I was sick to death of them by the time I reached 
 Colombo, not altogether sure of them at Sydney, and 
 at Miatu the last vestige of them was wiped from my 
 mind like a drawing from a slate. I was still frenziedly 
 groping for them as I walked up the powdered coral 
 pathway to the guest house. What was it in this in- 
 fernal paradise of a place that made one forget? 
 
 Red earth paths, vivid greensward, shady cocoanut 
 palms, and yellow sunlight all was the same, except for 
 a wooded hill behind and above the village. Here a 
 score of natives were leisurely felling trees or squatting 
 in circles, alternately rolling banana-leaf salukas and 
 scraping bamboos with their copra knives. 
 
 I found Fenner entertaining the Buli at afternoon tea. 
 
 " Well, well, well, " he drawled, and pushed me into a 
 wicker chair. "Kavaortea?" 
 
 "Whisky-and-soda, thanks," I replied. 
 
 He shook his head and dropped one eyelid. 
 
 "'Fraid we can't do it. But I can recommend the 
 tea; it's Miatu." 
 
 The Buli grinned from ear to ear. 
 
 "Vinaka, vinaka Miatu!" he chuckled, and waddled 
 out into the sunlight. 
 
 Fenner stretched his legs and yawned, then went 
 over to a cupboard in the corner and produced a whisky 
 tantalus. 
 
 "You ought to have seen my welcome," he said,
 
 328 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 pushing it across the table. "I thought the old Buli 
 would have a fit. And the others nothing would do 
 them but they must build me a house you remember 
 my house on the hill behind the village; they're at it 
 now. " 
 
 For a while he sat watching me at my whisky-and- 
 soda. Suddenly he laughed, and I think it was that 
 riling laugh that brought back to me in a flood all 
 Lady Fenner's arguments. 
 
 "Fire ahead," he jeered. "You're aching to get it 
 off your chest, and I'm ready now; I'm on my native 
 heath." 
 
 "I'm going to try to persuade you to come home." 
 "Back to England, you mean?" 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Of course you are; fire ahead." 
 "You owe it to your mother to Craigmoor. 
 Think- 
 
 "Do you suppose I haven't thought, Clem?" He 
 was serious now, and leant forward, tapping the 
 wicker table with a strong brown finger. "Do you 
 suppose I didn't cudgel my brains almost to bits before 
 taking this step? I owe the mater nothing except the 
 accident of birth. As for Craigmoor, I'm on the credit 
 side there. " 
 
 "Your mother wants you." 
 
 "Does she? It's funny she's never shown it before. 
 But, yes, I admit she may want me for Parliament or 
 some equally futile career, so that she can hear people 
 say of her son : ' He's getting on,' or * He's a coming man.' 
 Getting on toward what?"
 
 THE SPELL 329 
 
 "Work of some kind is necessary for every man." 
 I remembered that very distinctly. It had sounded 
 well in the drawing room at Craigmoor. 
 
 "It all depends what you call work. A lover of birds 
 is ' working' when he studies their habits. A botanist 
 a naturalist " 
 
 "Work is doing something that one doesn't particu- 
 larly care about," I ventured. "We need it as a dis- 
 cipline, restraint. It's the curse of Adam, but somehow 
 it still holds good. " 
 
 Fenner smiled his exasperating smile. 
 
 "Well, all I can say is that we're out of the cursed 
 area here," he drawled. "I don't feel as if I ought to 
 be doing something I don't particularly care about. 
 What's more, I don't do it, and behold a man ! " He 
 protruded his deep chest and thumped it triumphantly. 
 
 "You'll 'go native,'" I suggested. 
 
 "Not at all," he answered suavely. "I wear seven 
 duck suits a week, and live as you see. Besides, 
 although I don't work according to your standards, I 
 have interests plenty to occupy me. We're planning 
 a polo ground. I'm getting in some Tongan ponies. 
 Then there's the tea; that was my idea." 
 
 I felt that we were straying from the point. 
 
 "Look here," I blurted desperately, "you have an 
 income of fifteen thousand pounds a year. Is it going 
 to lie idle?" 
 
 "Ah," mused Fenner, "I never thought of that. I 
 see your point I'm receiving without giving. Quite 
 good! Would you like it? I don't want it. " 
 
 "I?"
 
 330 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 "Yes; it's you or a charity. Which shall it be?" 
 
 "Good heavens!" I gasped. "You're not all there, 
 Rex. Think, man think what it means. " 
 
 "I've done all the money thinking I'm going to do," 
 said Fenner. "Have a cigarette." 
 
 "But " 
 
 "Have a cigarette." 
 
 I took one and lit it mechanically. 
 
 "You're under a spell, Rex that's it," I muttered, 
 looking at him across the table. 
 
 "Perhaps," he admitted, emitting smoke with the 
 words. "It's very pleasant. I see nothing against 
 it." 
 
 He levered himself out of his chair and came round to 
 me. 
 
 "It's no good, Clem," he said; "they've discovered 
 the secret of life on Miatu, and I'm going to share it 
 with them. " 
 
 "And the secret?" I suggested, with a poor effort 
 at superiority. I must have looked foolish as I said it, 
 for he laughed his deep, riling laugh. 
 
 "Do you mean to say you don't know?" he queried. 
 "Happiness, you old fathead! Come and have a look 
 at the tea. " 
 
 During the sun-bathed days that followed I was torn 
 between the growing conviction that Fenner was right 
 and my pledge to his mother. How was the man to be 
 moved? For hours I would sit thinking out crushing 
 arguments that Fenner dispersed as though they had 
 been smoke. 
 
 His obstinacy annoyed me intensely, but, had I
 
 THE SPELL 331 
 
 known it, his annoyance was far greater than mine. It 
 found vent with startling unexpectedness. 
 
 We were walking along the beach road with .22 rifles 
 on the off chance of pigeon, and, as usual, I was im- 
 proving or trying to improve the occasion with my 
 half-hearted appeals to his better judgment, when he 
 turned on me with a swiftness of which I had never 
 dreamt him capable. I had never seen Fenner angry 
 in my life, but I did now, and it was not pleasant. 
 
 "Look here," he said evenly, but his teeth were 
 bared, "I'm sick of this sick of you. When are you 
 going?" 
 
 "When you come with me," I managed to jerk out. 
 
 "Well, you'll die and rot here before that," he 
 answered, still with a terrible restraint. "And I don't 
 want a man who has been my friend doing that on 
 Miatu. You leave here to-morrow, or I won't be an- 
 swerable for the consequences. " 
 
 "What on earth do you mean by that?" I demanded, 
 aghast. 
 
 "What I say." 
 
 "You must be mad." 
 
 "Perhaps a homicidal maniac. But there it is: 
 you leave here to-morrow, or you'll be shot." 
 
 "And who will do the shooting?" 
 
 "I will." 
 
 He meant it. In that instant I realized that he 
 actually meant it. We spoke no more that day. 
 
 After my bath the next morning I found all my 
 belongings packed and piled outside the guest house, 
 and Fenner sitting in the doorway with a rifle across
 
 332 SOUTH OF THE LINE 
 
 his knees. There was nothing for it but to follow the 
 porters down to the waiting cutter. I never felt so small 
 in my life, but what was the use of coming to violence? 
 
 I had already stepped aboard when Fenner strolled 
 down the landing. 
 
 " Good-bye, Clem, " he said. 
 
 I think I grunted. 
 
 "I shall be glad to see you back any time when 
 you've changed your views. At present they're boring, 
 and we're not cultivating boredom on Miatu. By the 
 way," he added, as the boys began hauling on the 
 main sheet, "about that fifteen thou' a year: it's going 
 to Charing Cross Hospital unless I hear from you to 
 the contrary inside of two months. Think it over." 
 
 I leant over the gunwale. 
 
 "Go to the devil!" I exploded. Lord, how he 
 annoyed me! 
 
 " 'Fraid we don't cultivate him, either, on Miatu, " 
 said Fenner, and smiled his exasperating, self-satisfied 
 smile. Suddenly it was blotted out. Something had 
 hurtled between us, and fell in a jumble about my neck. 
 A great shout went up from the natives on the wharf 
 when it was seen to be a wreath of scarlet drala blossoms. 
 
 For an instant I fought with the desire to tear it from 
 me and fling it into the sea. Then it occurred to me that 
 this would be rather a childish thing to do, so I left it 
 where it was as the cutter slid from the wharf and 
 headed for the channel in the barrier reef. 
 
 "I've failed," I told Lady Fenner, "That's all I 
 can say I've failed. "
 
 THE SPELL 333 
 
 I've no idea now what she said to me; I was thinking 
 of other things. 
 
 At the end of a month I had booked my passage, and 
 in two more I was walking up a coral and pandanus 
 avenue to a white house on the hill behind the village 
 at Miatu. 
 
 "I've changed my views," I said. 
 
 "Come in," said Fenner. 
 
 THE END
 
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