Adventure, February 1917 — page 101: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“The launch will be ready at six o’clock tomorrow,” he said. Campbell found himself shaking hands, and taking leave. “So he is going to telegraph,” thought Slade, as the smart white back went down the path. “Well, now to have it out with Edith.” e . SLADE went back to the garden; it was growing dusk very quickly, but Edith could see and read his face. Glance met glance. He sat down be- side her. Murua, with her unfailing tact, glided away to the house. She knew that i in New Guinea no two who sit ina garden together wish for the presence of a third. Every pri- vate interview has to be carried on out- doors, since not a house in the country, from Mamba to the Fly, but is built like one gigantic sounding-board. In the dusk of the garden, with the ghost- ; ly flying-foxes wheeling past, and the great white stars of the tropic world lighting crys- tal lamps among the orange-bloom, they two sat and talked who had come to an end of Paradise. “‘Joan, you’ve got to be brave again,’ said Slade, his hand on a small smooth hand. “Y’m very, very tired of being brave,” said Edith. There was a pause. She did not imme- diately ask him what she was to do. “I suppose,” said Slade, with one of the smiles he kept for her only, ‘“‘she—the little peasant girl of the fields—got very, very tired, too. Only she went on.” “Have we got to—go on?” asked Edith, turning round to face him. It was really dusk now; the fire-flies were making emerald sparks among the boughs, and-there was nothing to be seen of Edith but a blur of white dress and a spot of white face, with something dark for eyes. There were night-owls crying in the forest. Far below them the sea mourned on the sands of Silence Bay. “He means to telegraph from Samarai. He could-get authority for an arrest pend- ing inquiries. He wants you to come down to Samarai. Says it isn’t safe to leave you and Murua.” “What does he know about it?” “What do you think? It doesn't matter anyhow; that’s only an excuse.’ ‘““So—it’s come,”’ said Edith in a tone dic N obody’s Island 99 vested of all expression. ize it. I can’t, somehow.” She was breathing rather more quickly than usual. She held onto the firm manly hand at her side. “T’m quite cool,” she said. “I just want to—realize—and look it in the face.” “There is not,” said Slade, “the slightest need for doing anything of the kind. As I said before, there are other things to do.” _ “You don’t mean——” “No. Tl allow I thought of it at first. TI wouldn’t stop at anything; neither would any other man in my place, if he was a man at all. But it would be no use. I can see that now. No, there’s another way.” “What way?” “The world is wide,” said Slade, and — 4 _t—want to real- made his arms say that which his tongue — could not. : “You have me,” they said: “You have me and my love, wherever we go.” Edith shook:a little in his embrace. “Oh, Ben, Ben!”’ she said, drawing away so that she could look into the white blur that was his face. ‘‘Where now?” “T have thought,” said Slade deliberate- ly, “of two places. Timor is one. It’s a ~ great island between Australia and Java and the end of Dutch New Guinea—a long way from here. It’s owned by Portugal, and it’s rather a wild sort of place; not much law, and something like Uncle-Tom’s-Cab- in slavery as regards the natives. But Por- tugal is the only European country that re- fuses to allow extradition for offenses carry- ing the death penalty, and “Why did we not go to Portugal then?” “Because, dear girl, like Owen Wister’s drake, they have ‘means of their own,’ in Portugal. ‘There are frontiers, and there are ways of inducing people to go across them and not give trouble on the spot. But a Portuguese colony ‘s “T don’t like the sound of the place,” said Edith. ‘It sounds criminal, somehow.” “They say odd things about Timor, it’s true. There’s another choice.” “What?” “‘There are large tracts of Arctic and Ant- arctic regions, some with Esquimaux, some without, not owned by any power in the - world.” Edith shivered a little. “‘An igloo with you—a snow hut,” she said. “Hunting walrus by moonlight with spears, crossing frozen seas in a kaiak— ft eboo ‘GOm Ss (EC) -