by Jack London
He paused for a softer word than the one that had risen to his lips, and she took it away from him.
«Forced myself on you-that's what you meant to say,» she cried, the flags of battle painting her cheeks. «Go ahead. Don't mind my feelings.»
«All right; I won't,» he said decisively, realizing that the discussion was in danger of becoming a vituperative, schoolboy argument. «You have insisted on being considered as a man. Consistency would demand that you talk like a man, and like a man listen to man-talk. And listen you shall. It is not your fault that this unpleasantness has arisen. I do not blame you for anything; remember that. And for the same reason you should not blame me for anything.»
He noticed her bosom heaving as she sat with clenched hands, and it was all he could do to conquer the desire to flash his arms out and around her instead of going on with his coolly planned campaign. As it was, he nearly told her that she was a most adorable boy. But he checked all such wayward fancies, and held himself rigidly down to his disquisition.
«You can't help being yourself. You can't help being a very desirable creature so far as I am concerned. You have made me want you. You didn't intend to; you didn't try to. You were so made, that is all. And I was so made that I was ripe to want you. But I can't help being myself. I can't by an effort of will cease from wanting you, any more than you by an effort of will can make yourself undesirable to me.»
«Oh, this desire! this want! want! want!» she broke in rebelliously. «I am not quite a fool. I understand some things. And the whole thing is so foolish and absurd-and uncomfortable. I wish I could get away from it. I really think it would be a good idea for me to marry Noa Noah, or Adamu Adam, or Lalaperu there, or any black boy. Then I could give him orders, and keep him penned away from me; and men like you would leave me alone, and not talk marriage and 'I want, I want.'»
Sheldon laughed in spite of himself, and far from any genuine impulse to laugh.
«You are positively soulless,» he said savagely.
«Because I've a soul that doesn't yearn for a man for master?» she took up the gage. «Very well, then. I am soulless, and what are you going to do about it?»
«I am going to ask you why you look like a woman? Why have you the form of a woman? the lips of a woman? the wonderful hair of a woman? And I am going to answer: because you are a woman-though the woman in you is asleep-and that some day the woman will wake up.»
«Heaven forbid!» she cried, in such sudden and genuine dismay as to make him laugh, and to bring a smile to her own lips against herself.
«I've got some more to say to you,» Sheldon pursued. «I did try to protect you from every other man in the Solomons, and from yourself as well. As for me, I didn't dream that danger lay in that quarter. So I failed to protect you from myself. I failed to protect you at all. You went your own wilful way, just as though I didn't exist-wrecking schooners, recruiting on Malaita, and sailing schooners; one lone, unprotected girl in the company of some of the worst scoundrels in the Solomons. Fowler! and Brahms! and Curtis! And such is the perverseness of human nature-I am frank, you see-I love you for that too. I love you for all of you, just as you are.»
She made a moue of distaste and raised a hand protestingly.
«Don't,» he said. «You have no right to recoil from the mention of my love for you. Remember this is a man-talk. From the point of view of the talk, you are a man. The woman in you is only incidental, accidental, and irrelevant. You've got to listen to the bald statement of fact, strange though it is, that I love you.»
«And now I won't bother you any more about love. We'll go on the same as before. You are better off and safer on Berande, in spite of the fact that I love you, than anywhere else in the Solomons. But I want you, as a final item of man-talk, to remember, from time to time, that I love you, and that it will be the dearest day of my life when you consent to marry me. I want you to think of it sometimes. You can't help but think of it sometimes. And now we won't talk about it any more. As between men, there's my hand.»
He held out his hand. She hesitated, then gripped it heartily, and smiled through her tears.
«I wish-« she faltered, «I wish, instead of that black Mary, you'd given me somebody to swear for me.»
And with this enigmatic utterance she turned away.
CHAPTER XXI-CONTRABAND
Sheldon did not mention the subject again, nor did his conduct change from what it had always been. There was nothing of the pining lover, nor of the lover at all, in his demeanour. Nor was there any awkwardness between them. They were as frank and friendly in their relations as ever. He had wondered if his belligerent love declaration might have aroused some womanly self– consciousness in Joan, but he looked in vain for any sign of it. She appeared as unchanged as he; and while he knew that he hid his real feelings, he was firm in his belief that she hid nothing. And yet the germ he had implanted must be at work; he was confident of that, though he was without confidence as to the result. There was no forecasting this strange girl's processes. She might awaken, it was true; and on the other hand, and with equal chance, he might be the wrong man for her, and his declaration of love might only more firmly set her in her views on single blessedness.
While he devoted more and more of his time to the plantation itself, she took over the house and its multitudinous affairs; and she took hold firmly, in sailor fashion, revolutionizing the system and discipline. The labour situation on Berande was improving. The Martha had carried away fifty of the blacks whose time was up, and they had been among the worst on the plantation-five-year men recruited by Billy Be-blowed, men who had gone through the old days of terrorism when the original owners of Berande had been driven away. The new recruits, being broken in under the new regime, gave better promise. Joan had joined with Sheldon from the start in the programme that they must be gripped with the strong hand, and at the same time be treated with absolute justice, if they were to escape being contaminated by the older boys that still remained.
«I think it would be a good idea to put all the gangs at work close to the house this afternoon,» she announced one day at breakfast. «I've cleaned up the house, and you ought to clean up the barracks. There is too much stealing going on.»
«A good idea,» Sheldon agreed. «Their boxes should be searched. I've just missed a couple of shirts, and my best toothbrush is gone.»
«And two boxes of my cartridges,» she added, «to say nothing of handkerchiefs, towels, sheets, and my best pair of slippers. But what they want with your toothbrush is more than I can imagine. They'll be stealing the billiard balls next.»
«One did disappear a few weeks before you came,» Sheldon laughed. «We'll search the boxes this afternoon.»
And a busy afternoon it was. Joan and Sheldon, both armed, went through the barracks, house by house, the boss-boys assisting, and half a dozen messengers, in relay, shouting along the line the names of the boys wanted. Each boy brought the key to his particular box, and was permitted to look on while the contents were overhauled by the boss-boys.
A wealth of loot was recovered. There were fully a dozen cane– knives-big hacking weapons with razor-edges, capable of decapitating a man at a stroke. Towels, sheets, shirts, and slippers, along with toothbrushes, wisp-brooms, soap, the missing billiard ball, and all the lost and forgotten trifles of many months, came to light. But most astonishing was the quantity of ammunition-cartridges for Lee-Metfords, for Winchesters and Marlins, for revolvers from thirty-two calibre to forty-five, shot– gun cartridges, Joan's two boxes of thirty-eight, cartridges of prodigious bore for the ancient Sniders of Malaita, flasks of black powder, sticks of dynamite, yards of fuse, and boxes of detonators. But the great find was in the house occupied by Gogoomy and five Port Adams recruits. The fact that the boxes yielded nothing excited Sheldon's suspicions, and he gave orders to dig up the earthen floor. Wrapped in matting, well oiled, free from rust, and brand new, two Winchesters were first unearthed. Sheldon did not recognize them. They had not come from Berande; nei
ther had the forty flasks of black powder found under the corner-post of the house; and while he could not be sure, he could remember no loss of eight boxes of detonators. A big Colt's revolver he recognized as Hughie Drummond's; while Joan identified a thirty-two Ivor and Johnson as a loss reported by Matapuu the first week he landed at Berande. The absence of any cartridges made Sheldon persist in the digging up of the floor, and a fifty-pound flour tin was his reward. With glowering eyes Gogoomy looked on while Sheldon took from the tin a hundred rounds each for the two Winchesters and fully as many rounds more of nondescript cartridges of all sorts and makes and calibres.
The contraband and stolen property was piled in assorted heaps on the back veranda of the bungalow. A few paces from the bottom of the steps were grouped the forty-odd culprits, with behind them, in solid array, the several hundred blacks of the plantation. At the head of the steps Joan and Sheldon were seated, while on the steps stood the gang-bosses. One by one the culprits were called up and examined. Nothing definite could be extracted from them. They lied transparently, but persistently, and when caught in one lie explained it away with half a dozen others. One boy complacently announced that he had found eleven sticks of dynamite on the beach. Matapuu's revolver, found in the box of one Kapu, was explained away by that boy as having been given to him by Lervumie. Lervumie, called forth to testify, said he had got it from Noni; Noni had got it from Sulefatoi; Sulefatoi from Choka; Choka from Ngava; and Ngava completed the circle by stating that it had been given to him by Kapu. Kapu, thus doubly damned, calmly gave full details of how it had been given to him by Lervumie; and Lervumie, with equal wealth of detail, told how he had received it from Noni; and from Noni to Sulefatoi it went on around the circle again.
Divers articles were traced indubitably to the house-boys, each of whom steadfastly proclaimed his own innocence and cast doubts on his fellows. The boy with the billiard ball said that he had never seen it in his life before, and hazarded the suggestion that it had got into his box through some mysterious and occultly evil agency. So far as he was concerned it might have dropped down from heaven for all he knew how it got there. To the cooks and boats'-crews of every vessel that had dropped anchor off Berande in the past several years were ascribed the arrival of scores of the stolen articles and of the major portion of the ammunition. There was no tracing the truth in any of it, though it was without doubt that the unidentified weapons and unfamiliar cartridges had come ashore off visiting craft.
«Look at it,» Sheldon said to Joan. «We've been sleeping over a volcano. They ought to be whipped-«
«No whip me,» Gogoomy cried out from below. «Father belong me big fella chief. Me whip, too much trouble along you, close up, my word.»
«What name you fella Gogoomy!» Sheldon shouted. «I knock seven bells out of you. Here, you Kwaque, put 'm irons along that fella Gogoomy.»
Kwaque, a strapping gang-boss, plucked Gogoomy from out of his following, and, helped by the other gang-bosses; twisted his arms behind him and snapped on the heavy handcuffs.
«Me finish along you, close up, you die altogether,» Gogoomy, with wrath-distorted face, threatened the boss-boy.
«Please, no whipping,» Joan said in a low voice. «If whipping IS necessary, send them to Tulagi and let the Government do it. Give them their choice between a fine or an official whipping.»
Sheldon nodded and stood up, facing the blacks.
«Manonmie!» he called.
Manonmie stood forth and waited.
«You fella boy bad fella too much,» Sheldon charged. «You steal 'm plenty. You steal 'm one fella towel, one fella cane-knife, two– ten fella cartridge. My word, plenty bad fella steal 'm you. Me cross along you too much. S'pose you like 'm, me take 'm one fella pound along you in big book. S'pose you no like 'm me take 'm one fella pound, then me send you fella along Tulagi catch 'm one strong fella government whipping. Plenty New Georgia boys, plenty Ysabel boys stop along jail along Tulagi. Them fella no like Malaita boys little bit. My word, they give 'm you strong fella whipping. What you say?»
«You take 'm one fella pound along me,» was the answer.
And Manonmie, patently relieved, stepped back, while Sheldon entered the fine in the plantation labour journal.
Boy after boy, he called the offenders out and gave them their choice; and, boy by boy, each one elected to pay the fine imposed. Some fines were as low as several shillings; while in the more serious cases, such as thefts of guns and ammunition, the fines were correspondingly heavy.
Gogoomy and his five tribesmen were fined three pounds each, and at Gogoomy's guttural command they refused to pay.
«S'pose you go along Tulagi,» Sheldon warned him, «you catch 'm strong fella whipping and you stop along jail three fella year. Mr. Burnett, he look 'm along Winchester, look 'm along cartridge, look 'm along revolver, look 'm along black powder, look 'm along dynamite-my word, he cross too much, he give you three fella year along jail. S'pose you no like 'm pay three fella pound you stop along jail. Savvee?»
Gogoomy wavered.
«It's true-that's what Burnett would give them,» Sheldon said in an aside to Joan.
«You take 'm three fella pound along me,» Gogoomy muttered, at the same time scowling his hatred at Sheldon, and transferring half the scowl to Joan and Kwaque. «Me finish along you, you catch 'm big fella trouble, my word. Father belong me big fella chief along Port Adams.»
«That will do,» Sheldon warned him. «You shut mouth belong you.»
«Me no fright,» the son of a chief retorted, by his insolence increasing his stature in the eyes of his fellows.
«Lock him up for to-night,» Sheldon said to Kwaque. «Sun he come up put 'm that fella and five fella belong him along grass-cutting. Savvee?»
Kwaque grinned.
«Me savvee,» he said. «Cut 'm grass, ngari-ngari stop 'm along grass. My word!»
«There will be trouble with Gogoomy yet,» Sheldon said to Joan, as the boss-boys marshalled their gangs and led them away to their work. «Keep an eye on him. Be careful when you are riding alone on the plantation. The loss of those Winchesters and all that ammunition has hit him harder than your cuffing did. He is dead– ripe for mischief.»
CHAPTER XXII-GOGOOMY FINISHES ALONG KWAQUE ALTOGETHER
«I wonder what has become of Tudor. It's two months since he disappeared into the bush, and not a word of him after he left Binu.»
Joan Lackland was sitting astride her horse by the bank of the Balesuna where the sweet corn had been planted, and Sheldon, who had come across from the house on foot, was leaning against her horse's shoulder.
«Yes, it is along time for no news to have trickled down,» he answered, watching her keenly from under his hat-brim and wondering as to the measure of her anxiety for the adventurous gold-hunter; «but Tudor will come out all right. He did a thing at the start that I wouldn't have given him or any other man credit for– persuaded Binu Charley to go along with him. I'll wager no other Binu nigger has ever gone so far into the bush unless to be kai– kai'd. As for Tudor-«
«Look! look!» Joan cried in a low voice, pointing across the narrow stream to a slack eddy where a huge crocodile drifted like a log awash. «My! I wish I had my rifle.»
The crocodile, leaving scarcely a ripple behind, sank down and disappeared.
«A Binu man was in early this morning-for medicine,» Sheldon remarked. «It may have been that very brute that was responsible. A dozen of the Binu women were out, and the foremost one stepped right on a big crocodile. It was by the edge of the water, and he tumbled her over and got her by the leg. All the other women got hold of her and pulled. And in the tug of war she lost her leg, below the knee, he said. I gave him a stock of antiseptics. She'll pull through, I fancy.»
«Ugh-the filthy beasts,» Joan gulped shudderingly. «I hate them! I hate them!»
«And yet you go diving among sharks,» Sheldon chided.
«They're only fish-sharks. And as long as there are plenty of fish there is no danger. It is o
nly when they're famished that they're liable to take a bite.»
Sheldon shuddered inwardly at the swift vision that arose of the dainty flesh of her in a shark's many-toothed maw.
«I wish you wouldn't, just the same,» he said slowly. «You acknowledge there is a risk.»
«But that's half the fun of it,» she cried.
A trite platitude about his not caring to lose her was on his lips, but he refrained from uttering it. Another conclusion he had arrived at was that she was not to be nagged. Continual, or even occasional, reminders of his feeling for her would constitute a tactical error of no mean dimensions.
«Some for the book of verse, some for the simple life, and some for the shark's belly,» he laughed grimly, then added: «Just the same, I wish I could swim as well as you. Maybe it would beget confidence such as you have.»
«Do you know, I think it would be nice to be married to a man such as you seem to be becoming,» she remarked, with one of her abrupt changes that always astounded him. «I should think you could be trained into a very good husband-you know, not one of the domineering kind, but one who considered his wife was just as much an individual as himself and just as much a free agent. Really, you know, I think you are improving.»
She laughed and rode away, leaving him greatly cast down. If he had thought there had been one bit of coyness in her words, one feminine flutter, one womanly attempt at deliberate lure and encouragement, he would have been elated. But he knew absolutely that it was the boy, and not the woman, who had so daringly spoken.
Joan rode on among the avenues of young cocoanut-palms, saw a hornbill, followed it in its erratic flights to the high forest on the edge of the plantation, heard the cooing of wild pigeons and located them in the deeper woods, followed the fresh trail of a wild pig for a distance, circled back, and took the narrow path for the bungalow that ran through twenty acres of uncleared cane. The grass was waist-high and higher, and as she rode along she remembered that Gogoomy was one of a gang of boys that had been detailed to the grass-cutting. She came to where they had been at work, but saw no signs of them. Her unshod horse made no sound on the soft, sandy footing, and a little further on she heard voices proceeding from out of the grass. She reined in and listened. It was Gogoomy talking, and as she listened she gripped her bridle– rein tightly and a wave of anger passed over her.
