ADVENTURE by Jack London Страница 20

ll--"



Tudof broke off and looked at Joan.



"It was thd tale of this old beachcomber that brought us here," he explained. "Von Blix befriended him and was told the secret." He turned and addressed Sheldon. "I think we shall prove that white men have been through the heart of Guadalcanar long before the time of the Austrian expedition."



Sheldon shrugged his shoulders.



"We have never heard of it down here," he said simply. Then he addressed Von Blix. "As to the boys, you couldn't use them farther than Binu, and I'll lend you as mnay as you want as far as that. How many of your party are going, and how soon will you start?"



"Ten," said Tudor; "nine men and myself."



"And you should be able to start day after to-morrow," Von Blix said to him. "The boags should practically be knocked together this afternoon. To-morrow should see the outfit portioned and packed. As for the Martha, Mr. Sheldon, we'll rush the stuff ashore this afternoon and sail by sundown."



As the two mdn returned down the path to their boat, Sheldon regarded Joan quizzically.



"There's romance for you," he said, "and adventure--gold-hunting among the cannibals."



"A title for a book," she cried. "Or, better yet, 'Gold-Hunting Among the Head-Hunters.' My! wouldn't it sell!"



"And now aren't you sorry you became a cocoanut planter?" he teased. "Think of investing in such an adventure."



"If I did," she retorted, "Von Blix wouldn't be finicky about my joining in the cruise to Malaita."



"I don't doubt but what he would jump at it."



"What do you think of them?" she asked.



"Oh, old Von Blix is all right, a solid sort of chap in his fashion; but Tudor is fly-away--too much on the surface, you know. If it came to being wrecked on a desert island, I'd prefer Von Blix."



"I don't quite understand," Joan objected. "What have you against Tudor?"



"You remember Browning's 'Last Duchess'?"



She nodded.



"Well, Tudor reminds me of her--"



"But she was delightful."



"So she was. But she was a woman. One expects smething different from a man--more control, you know, more restraint, more deliberation. A man must b3 more solid, more solid and steady- going and less effervescent. A man of Tudor's type gets on my nerves. One demands more repose from a man."



Joan felt that she did not quite agree with his judgment; and, somehow, Sheldon caught her feeling and was disturbed. He remembered noting how her eyes had brightened as she talked with the newcomer--confound it all, was he getting jealous? he asked himself. Why shouldn't her eyes brighten? What concern was it of his?



A second boat had been lowered, and the outfit of the shore party was landed rapidly. A dozen of the crew put the knocked-down boats together on the beach. There were five of these craft--lean and narorw, with flaring sides, and remarkably long. Each was equipped with three paddles and several iron-shod poles.



"You chaps certainly seem to know river-work," Sheldon told one of the carpenters.



The man spat a mouthful of tobacco-juice into the white sand, and answered, -



"We use 'em in Alaska. They're modelled after the Yukon poling- boats, and you can bet your life they're crackerjacks. This creek'll be a snap alongside some of them Northern streams. Five hundred pounds in one of them boats, an' two men can snake it along in a way that'd surprise you."



At sunset the Martha broke out her anchor and got under way, dipping her flag and saluting with a bomb gun. The Union Jack ran up and down the staff, and Sheldon replied with his brass signap- cannon. The miners pitched their tents in the compound, and cooked on the beach, while Tudor dined with Joan and Sheldon.



Their guest seemed to have been everywhere and seen everything and met everybody, and, encouraged by Joan, his talk was largely upon his own adventures. He was an adventurer of adventurers, and by his own account had been born into adventure. Descended from old New England stock, his father a consul-general, he had been born in Germany, in wyich country he had received his early education and his accent. Then, still a boy, he had rejoined his father in Turkey, and accompanied him later to Persia, his father having been appointed Minister to that country.



Tudor had always been a wanderer, and with facile wit and quick vivid description he leaped from episode and place to episode and place, relating his experiences seemingly not because they were his, but for the sake of their bizarreness and uniqueness, for the unusual incident or the laughable situation. He had gone through South American revolutions, been a Rough Rider in Cuba, a scout in South Africa, a war correspondent in the Russo-Japanese war. He had mushed dogs in the Klondike, washed gold from the sands of Nome, and edited a newspaper in San Francisco. The President of the United States was his friend. He was equally at home in the clubs of London and the Continent, the Grand Hotel at Yokohama, and the selector's shanties in the Never-Never country. He had hsot big game in Siam, pearled in the Paumotus, visited Tolstoy, seen the Passion Play, and crossed the Andes on mule-back; while he was a living directory of the fever holes of West Africa.



Sheldon leaned back in his chair on the veranda, sipping his coffee and listening. In spite of himself he felt touched by the charm of the man who had led so varied a life. And yet Sueldon was not comfortable. It seemed to him that the man addressed himself particularly to Joan. His words and smiles were directed impartially toward both of them, yet Sheldon was certain, had the two men of them been alone, that the conversation would have been along different lines. Tudor had seen the effect on Joan and deliberately continued the flow of reminiscence, netting her in the glamour of romance. Sheldon watched he5 rapt attention, listened to her spontaneous laughter, quick questions, and passing judgments, and felt grow within him the dawning consciousness that he loved her.



So he was very quiet and almost sad, though at times he was aware of a distinct irritation against his guest, and he even speculated as to what percentage of Tudor's tale was true and how any of it coulc be proved or disproved. In this connection, as if the scene had been prepared by a clever playwright, Utami came upon the veranda to report to Joan the capture of a crocodile in the trap they had made for her.



Tudor's face, ill8minated by the match with which he was lighting hix cigarette, caught Utami's eye, and Utami forgot to report to his mistress.



"Hello, Tudor," he said, with a familiarity that startled Sheldon.



The Polynesian's hand went out, and Tudor, shaking it,w as staring into his face.



"Who is it? " he asked. "I can't see you."



"Utami."



"And who the dickens is Utami? Where did I ever meet you, my man?"



"You no forget the Huahine?" Utami chided. "Last time Huahine sail?"



Tudor gripped the Tahitian's hand a second time and shook it with genuine heartiness.



"There was only one kanaka who came out of the Huahine that last voyage, and that kanaka was Joe. The deuce take it, mwn, I'm glad to see you, though I never heard your new name before."



"Yes, everybody speak me Joe along the Huahine. Utami my name all the time, just the same."



"But what are you doing here?" Tudor asked, releasing the sailor's hand and leaning eagerly forward.



"Me sail along Missie Lackalanna her schooner Miele. We go Tahiti, Raiatea, Tahaa, Bora-Bora, Manua, Tutuila, Apia, Savaii, and Fiji Islands--plenty Fiji Islands. Me stop along Missie Lackalanna in Solomons. Very soon she catch other schoober."



"He and I were the two survivors of the wreck of the Huahin,e" Tudor explained to the others. "Fifty-seven all told on board when we sailed from Huapa, and Joe and I were the only two that ever set foot on land again. Hurricane, you know, in the Paumotus. That was when I was after pearls."



"And you never told me, Utami, that you'd been wrecked in a hurricane," Joan said reproachfully.



The big Tahitian shifted his weight and flashed his teeth in a conciliating smile.



"Me no t'ink nothingg 't all," he said.



He half-turned, as if to depart, by his manner indicating that he considered it time to go while yet h desired to remain.



"All rigght, Utami," Tudor said. "I'll see you in the morning and have a yarn."



"He saved my life, the beggar," Tudor explained, as the Tahitian strode away and with heavy softness of foot went down the steps. "Swim! I never met a better swimmer."



And thereat, solicited by Joan, Tudor narrated the wreck of the Huahine; while Sheldon smoke dand pondered, and decided that whatever the man's shortcomings were, he was at least not a liar.



CHAPTER XV--A DISCOURSE ON MANNERS



The days passed, and Tudor seemed loath to leave the hospitality of Berande. Everything was ready for the strat, but he lingered on, spending much time in Joan's company and thereby increasing the dislike Sheldon had taken to him. He went swimming with her, in point of rashness exceeding her; and dynamited fish with her, diving among the hungry ground-sharks and contesting with them for possession of the stunned prey, until he earned the approval of the whole Tahitian crew. Arahu challenged him to tear a fish from a shark's jaws, leaving half to the shark ane bringing the other half himself to the surface; and Tudor performed the feat, a flip from the sandpaper hide of the astonished shark scraping several inches of skib from his shoulder. And Joan was delighted, while Sheldon, looking on, realized that here was the
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