che with desire, and in lieu of black legs he husked the cocoanuts that fell from the trees in the compound, kep

uch a terror did he make himself that Sheldon was forced to shut him up in the living room when, for any reason, strange natives were permitted in t

vitation (that would be delivered nobody knew when) to Tom

ou get to Sydney?" Sheldon

eceived information, by bush-telegraph, that that third assistant understrapper

was all. You see, with the loss of the schooner and . . and all the rest . . . you understand . . I was thinking that if-a-if-hang it all, until you could co

he regarded her irritabl

emanded, with a show of he

th battle, the curve of he

, man-god, superior fashion. Naturally it counted for nothing, my telling you that I had no idea

curiously, as though he were

it is no more than one white man should expect from another. Shipwrecked mariners are always helped along their wa

do you int

pe the indignity of being patroniz

ughed, but the strain in his voice destroyed the effect of sp

sir. And if it is impossible,

not continu

ere are at least four hundred acres, and every foot of it good for planting. Being an island, he says I won't have to bother about wild pigs destroying the young trees. All I'll have to do is to keep the weeds hoed until the trees come i

ours. I know more about cocoanut-planting than you do. You speak like a capitalist. I don't know how much money you have, but I don't fancy you are rolling in wealth, as you Americans say. But I do know what it costs to

he previous clash between them was already forgott

quite eight tho

need, as you said, at least fifty boys. Not counti

s fifteen a month,

red dollars. Very well. It will be seven years before your trees begin to bear. Seven times fifteen hundred is ten thousand five hundred dollars-mor

gravely. "You'll have

I'll buy in to the extent of my money as a small partn

such genuine dismay that sh

, only you are too polite to say so. Yet as you said yourself, it was impossible for me to go away, so I had to stay. You wouldn't let me go to Tulagi. You compelled me to force myself upon you. But I won't buy in

it in Sheldon's clenched hand and

. "Please don't mind me. I'm-I'm gett

l you how preposterously insane and

m with delibera

to be considered as a man. I didn't come down here to trail my woman's skirts over the Solomo

there lurk in her the insidious unhealthfulness of unwomanliness? Or

recruiting on Malaita is impossible for a w

our Admiralty charts. I am a navigator, and that is more than your Solomons captains are. Captain Young told me all about it. And I am a seaman-a better seaman than you, when it com

de a hopel

sh your hands of me. But as Von use

discussing it. Let

; but before the disc started, and while he

ll your life. That's why you don't understand me.

speaking, till he saw her take a rifle from the s

going?" he aske

be too terribly-er-indecent for you to tell me why I

, started toward the door after her, t

rom the veranda, and as she went down the steps her rippling