Adventure, February 1917 — page 102: what you’re looking at

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

is as => “Ben. if you’d sslfeat me that at first, I don’t ~ know but what I—but it’s different now.” “How different?” She was silent for cate a long time. “Well?” “Not now,” said Edith’s voice. The dark had come; he could not even see her face in the gloom of the orange trees. “TI can’t run any 1 more. I’m done, Ben. Let _ them have me.’ Slade ‘swore -soiaethigg beneath his breath, and his arm tightened - ‘round her till she gasped, : “It can’t be helped: ” she said. “You would fight the world, I know—but it’s the law—we can’t ‘save those we love. Send down and tell Captain Campbell tonight, and tomorrow—when did you say she was | to start?” “Six o’clock in the morning.”’ “No—not the morning. Notetill night. Take me away in the dark, and don’t let me see, when we go——”’ She broke from him and ran to the-house. XIV + THE island town of Samarai stands on a mere scrap of sixty acres of land, covered with plumy coconuts, laced with white coral walks, and surround- ed by the tumbling, tide-marked seas of China Straits. At night, when thefe is a moon, all Sama- rai turns out from its small tin houSes and walks round the island, under the giant ar- cade of old, old coco palms, where the moonbeams scarcely sift through; past Magazine Point, where the seas come beat- ing and roaring in from the rocky coasts of Basilisk and Sariba; along the open path where the moon turns the shallows to a plain of-silver; and back by the pretty cot- tages decked with coral and giant clams, to the jetty-side again—round and round and round, lovers and their lasses, lonely girls and solitary men, looking at each other under the teasing rays of t babies tucked up under the mosquito nets at home—round and round and round. All the island was out that white night when Slade’s launch was lying at Clunn’s jetty; when Slade and Edith were standing in the dusk of the great calophyllum by the stores, listening for something that should go floating out upon the night, away from ie moon; middle-- aged married couples who have ‘left the Adventure Samarai, across the islands and the seas. The Morinda was in, lying beside the Burns Philp Wharf. The passengers were ashore, walking round the island. All the place was white—white galvanized roofs of stores and cottages, looking as if snow had fallen upon them; white coral roads and paths; white shine of sea; white suits and dresses passing and passing by. - It was a merry night. The trade wind whistled in the palms and struck their vanes together with a sound like bursting waves; the steamer lights shone all in a row half down the little street; people, passing up and down, laughed, chattered, ran from one group to another. News had come by the steamer, friends had come by her, goods_ and parcels and letters, food and pretty clothes and pleasant people. She lay at the wharf, a very palace of light and splendor in the quiet town, and from her decks swung bales of goods, and along her gangways poured the people, passing in and out; and from her high masts went forth to the wide seas of all the world, a steady click-click- clicking. Samarai was sending its tele- grams. And Slade, who had had a year at a Mar- coni school in his earlier days, and had kept up what he learned—kept his knowledge to himself, too, since the man who learns and leaves is not much better liked by the clan of Marconi than is the postulant who de- serts her convent after trial. | Slade stood and listened. He heard much that was not his business, but that troubled him little. So long as the knowledge did not pass beyond him, what did it matter that he should hear that A. could not meet his liabilities, and begged for time; that Mrs. B. wanted her blue silk dress finished and sent up next boat; that Miss C. wished to know whether anything had happened to her fiancé, as she had not heard from him for two mails; that the D.’s were urging immediate sale of all the Blank Company shares they held? He scarcely heard; he was waiting for the message that he knew must come—Campbell’s. It was night now; the Queensland messages, relayed on to England, were always sent by night. “Tut-iutt, tut-tutt, tut-tut-tut-tutt. There was a pause. Some one was talk- ing to the Morinda. Slade waited. The wind struck the heads of the palms together. Past the houses, with their false look of snow on the roofs, over the coral sand that (€() Gomichbooks