by OMNICAdmin
The next instant, as though determined to
low. He dropped the stones back into the
search every house, Captain Barker walked
bag, then turned his head to listen. Some
into the yard and stopped at the foot of the one was treading heavily through the ladder.
tinkling gravel of the village street. The
Breathing heavily, Kalputa saw
next moment Old Lu was down the ladder
Captain Barker begin climbing the ladder.
into the yard.
She now knew that she was doomed—that
When Kalputa crawled to the there was no way of escape. And, like an window beside the doorway and looked
animal at bay, she was prepared to fight
over the edge of it, she saw Captain Barker against going back to the trading station.
standing in the center of the white street
Suddenly she heard a fearful crash.
with Old Lu the sorcerer. At the sight of
She looked hurriedly and saw Captain
Captain Barker she felt repulsion and fear, Barker’s heavy bulk spilling across the
and wanted to turn away—to drag herself
sand. The lower portion of the frail-ladder back into the corner and hide in the deep
had given away with him.
shadow. But she continued to watch him.
Captain Barker did not attempt to
Adventure
6
climb the ladder again, but hurried into the A purl of wind, black and ominous,
street, swearing in the language of a salt-
was hurling itself in from the wide expanse water captain. He surveyed the houses once
of the open sea. It drove straight across the more, and noted leaning against each one a
lagoon into the village. Other puffs of wind ladder as flimsy as the one which had just
followed, each one being stronger than the
broken with him.
preceding. The sky turned lead-colored,
Kalputa heard Old Lu the sorcerer
then storm-black. The sea broke into a
interrupt Captain Barker.
sickening swell, its spiteful waves-
“Kalputa hide in forest,” said Old
snapping and biting at the lip of the beach.
Lu.
In the lagoon the three schooners
“Old Lu show Cap’n Barker place
took off their light sails and shortened
Kalputa hide. First give Old Lu ten stick’
down to storm canvas. Suddenly, with a
tobac’o an’ flenty salt.”
hiss like the “touch of death,” the rain
Captain Barker regarded the came, blotting out the canefields and the sorcerer for a moment, and looked again at
lagoon until they were a dark smear.
the houses with their frail laddese. Then he
“Squall!” cried Kalputa. She groped
motioned Old Lu to follow him back to the
under the house, listening to the crash of
trading station.
the rain on the roof. She heard it beat down Her brown bosom heaving with the big leaves of the palm-trees in front of relief, Kalputa watched them pass out of
the houses and, with the wind continuing to the village and strike across the canefields.
grow harder, fling the drinking-coconuts
She kept her eyes on them until they angrily to the ground. “Squall all night disappeared. Then she climbed down the
maybe!” Kalputa exclaimed, groping
ladder and hid in the deep-shadow pool
farther under the house.
beneath the house.
Within half an hour the squall was a
When sundown came to the island,
monstrous screaming thing. It was
with the smoke of the pleasant supper fires impossible for Kalputa to hear the roar of
curling thin and blue above the deep the menacing surf; but between the thatched roofs of the village, Kalputa was
lightning sheets which illuminated the
still hiding beneath the house, waiting for island she saw the tremendous insane
night to come when all the island would be
waves pounding upon the beach.
scarcely visible. It was very warm beneath
The wind frightened her most. She
the lonely house, and the wound above
never dreamed that it could blow so hard. It Kalputa’s armpit pained again.
blew from all parts of the island at the same Her people had not yet returned to
time, she thought. It shook and tore on the the house. Neither had Old Lu the sorcerer
long-legged house of her people, appalling
nor Captain Barker. As she looked across
her until she threw her thin arms about one the lagoon at a trading schooner which
of the house piles and clung in the dark,
would sail early the next- morning, Kalputa shivering in every limb. It screamed
told herself that Old Lu was either through the palm-tree heads and on across demanding more salt and tobacco or was
the fields, beating the long stalks of sugar-leading Captain Barker cunningly about the
cane to the ground. There was nothing she
forest before bringing him back to the could compare this wind with.
village.
Suddenly she gave a low
No longer was it a squall. It was a
shocked cry.
hurricane.
The Hurricane
7
Kalputa now knew that Captain wind went down for several minutes. Then Barker had refused to give the salt and
she clasped the trunk of the tree with her
tobacco to Old Lu the sorcerer and that Old hands, pressed the soles of her feet against Lu in his anger had let loose the “touch of the bark and, being a Melanesian woman,
death.” She also knew that the “touch of
perilously began to walk up the tree. At the death” had called to the hurricane god.
top she tied herself securely among the
Kalputa tried hard to think what to
windage.
do, but the wind nearly maddened her.
When the wind again hit her tree,
Suddenly the house gave a wild the tree did not sway or bend backward and lurch. The next moment the roof went forward, but stood almost stationary, crashing through the wet air. Kalputa vibrating like a piece of wire. The vibration sprang to her feet and ran staggering into
made Kalputa dizzy, then sick. She
the street.
expected the tree to snap at any moment. A
The village was illuminated with
tree across the street had just gone that
lightning and the villagers were tumbling
way, throwing its occupants, two men and
fearfully out of their houses. The wind a woman, to the ground like ripe coconuts.
caught some of them and whirled them
Few trees could stand the strain of that
away like tufts of cane-grass. Those who
hurricane very long.
were quick enough climbed into the palm-
Late that night, the wind was
trees. They tied themselves securely among
unbelievable. It was a screaming fury.
the big leaves with long pieces of rope.
Kalputa’s tree was loosening at the roots.
Many of the villagers were on the
There was no telling how much longer it
ground, holding to the bases of the trees
could stand the strain.
and panting for breath. On either side of the When the rain again struck the
street several houses had been torn from
village, Kalputa thought that the wind had
&
nbsp; their foundations and whirled away.
dipped up all the water in the lagoon and
Kalputa could snatch only one look
hurled it across the canefields. The rain hit with her wide-open frightened eyes. The
her back and shoulders like leaden pellets.
next instant some one crashed into her,
The tree swayed perilously as one
knocking her down. With great effort she
of the roots tore loose. Kalputa doubled her buried her hands deeply in the coral gravel body at the waist and clung tighter to the
and clung with her face close to the ground, beaten-down leaves, sobbing. Again she
fighting to hold her own.
wished something terrible would happen to
Her eyes smarted and the wind the “touch of death” and Old Lu the almost strangled her. Her ears drummed so
sorcerer. For she was weakening like the
that she did not hear the crash of the trees tree. Her strength was running from her
and the wails of human despair about her.
faster than she had ever imagined it could.
Suddenly she lost her hold. When
It was the wind that was exhausting
she again tried to bury her hands in the
her. She could not endure its unceasing
gravel, she felt a native writhing and impact much longer.
squirming beside her. In one of his hands
And the rain ... It would be a night-
were several pieces of rope.
long tumbling, wall of water. It would sink Kalputa snatched the ropes and to the very roots of the tree and tear them to sprawled, across the street toward the base pieces. Surely her tree would fall in a few of a coconut-tree. She clung there until the minutes.
Adventure
8
But the tree did not fall. By and miserable. There was but little midnight the hurricane lay with its wreckage of the houses. The fingers of the backbone broken. Only a stiff breeze was
wind had hurled practically all of it in to blowing. The water wall lay crumbled in
the canefields or down upon the beach
the village and the canefields. Except for
where it was sucked into the lagoon by the
the harsh animal-like groans of the undertow. But one palm-tree out of every villagers and the low crying of the sea, all ten was spared. Two of these were wrecks,
was quiet.
their windages shorn and their long trunks
Kalputa stirred uneasily among the
split half-way down.
leaves. She was weak, and weary. Both
body and brain ached. She began to cry,
THE sun was not yet up over the island
then stopped suddenly to see if she was
when Kalputa found herself on the edge of
hurt. Her arm and shoulder were swollen
a flooded field, looking for a way down to
considerably from the wound above the
the jetty. The field was draining slowly. It armpit. As she listened to the sounds of
would be several hours, maybe evening,
grief about her, she felt very lonely. Once before the field would be passable.
she thought of Captain Barker, wondering
She remembered suddenly that
what the hurricane had done to him and the
there was another way. There was one big
trading station and the village in the rear of obstacle in it, however; it would take her
it. She quickly dismissed him from her
too close to the trading station.
mind.
Back by the forest a path ran around
Presently she began to think of to the other side of the island. She could some one else. It was not about the “touch
follow this until she was almost directly
of death” or Old Lu the sorcerer. She was
behind the trading station. Then by walking thinking of her thin little brown baby all
along the dry edges of the field which lay, alone in the grove of paw-paw trees in the
perpendicular to the path she would reach
rear of the station. She wished she could go the jetty.
to him. Again she started to cry.
Her chances of getting there were
Soon the breeze went down. one out of a hundred. If Captain Barker or Everything became dead calm. The stars
even any of the natives were to see her it
came out. They looked like big pearls would be absurd for her to think of pinned to a piece of blue cloth. Somewhere
reaching the mission house at Suva. After a down the street a dog splashed in the water, short hesitation, she decided to take the
howling mournfully. Kalputa dropped her
risk.
head to her arms until the first shimmer of It was while she was running along
dawn crept up over the island.
the dank, weedy path that she suddenly
When she climbed down from the
screamed and jumped into the low
tree, she looked about her bewildered. The
shrubbery of the forest. As her fear was
rain-filled street was cluttered with corpses.
dispelled, she parted the rain-wet leaves
Some of the bodies lay half in the water
and looked at the native lying in the path.
and half out, battered and broken. Not a
His ugly brown body was battered
house was standing. Even the house of Old
into formless flesh, and his face was laid
Lu, with all of its sorcery, was gone.
open to the bone.
Some of the house piles remained
For the first time since running
upright, with natives clinging to them, wet away from Captain Barker Kalputa,
The Hurricane
9
laughed. She laughed because the dead of his left arm. The blood was running native, after digging and clawing with his
from a gash on the side of his thick neck.
raw bleeding hands to keep from being
His puffed slits of eyes were closed and his whirled away, had lost in his struggle lips were partly open. He was breathing against the “touch of death” and the with the greatest difficulty.
hurricane, Then she fled with swallow-
Kalputa studied him uneasily, then
swiftness, laughing at Old Lu the sorcerer
shifted her eyes to the little grave. When
lying in the path behind her.
she again looked at him, his eyes were
Presently she stopped laughing. She
wide open, staring up at her piteously. He
began wondering what had happened to
could not speak.
Captain Barker. Did he, like Old Lu, also
Kalputa looked at the lagoon,
lie on the edge of the wind-torn forest? She scanning it hurriedly. Out where the cream-desired to know definitely. Why she white spray was leaping on the circling run wanted to know she could not have of coral four masts of a submerged explained if she had tried.
schooner projected above the water. She
When she left the path, stepping
saw nothing of the other vessels.
warily along the dry edges of the field, the The next instant she did something
sun was climbing up over the leaves of the
which she did not wholly understand. She
paw-paw trees, shooting green and gold
leaned over her husband and, with tears on
lights through them. She looked toward the
her face, tenderly laid his broken arm
grove and saw that the hurricane had across his chest. With a strip of her wind-demolished the trading station.
torn skirt she bandaged his neck. Then she
A
ll that remained of it was a section
lowered her face until it was on his and
of a wall and apportion of the veranda.
kissed him. A moment later she gave a high
Almost nothing, was left of the village metallic scream and fled down to the which had stood in the rear of the station, beach.
and only a few natives were alive. Most of
At the coral stone jetty she found a
the paw-paw trees had been blown away.
tiny outrigger canoe flung high up on the
As Kalputa was turning to go, she saw
sand. She dragged it into the water, its
Captain Barker’s huge body lying in the
outrigger keeping it upright. Then she
grove.
looked about her for a paddle. She finally
Intuitively she knew that Captain
found one, a makeshift paddle, half buried
Barker had been injured. How badly hurt
in the sand; A few minutes later she began
he was; she had no idea, but immediately
paddling toward the wide expanse of the
wanted to know. If he was injured badly
open sea.
she need have no more fear of not
Crossing the lagoon was difficult.
succeeding in running away from Flenga
The water persisted in flinging the
Island that day, she assured herself. It was wreckage and corpses against the outrigger
because of her desire to know definitely the of the canoe. With the makeshift paddle she extent of his injuries that she stood several pushed away the wreckage. The blood
minutes later looking at him.
sharks frightened her. They tore and
Captain Barker lay on an devoured the corpses, causing her to improvised mat of palm leaves close to the
breathe long prayers to her shark god. The
grave of their little man-child, with a handle of the paddle became loose several shattered bone protruding above the elbow
