Adventure, February 1917 — page 37: what you’re looking at

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

Nobody’s Island ever with a woman; made a little patrol offi- cer of by her father, as innocent of the world as the butterflies she chases—what do you think she does with them?” Puts them in a box, I suppose? Sells them?” 7 “By no means. She trims her hats and clothes with them and, as the trimming doesn’t wear extremely well, Murua is kept busy replenishing the supply. I’ve seen her at a dance in Port Moresby with all that hair of hers loose—you should see it—and a wreath of the big metallic blue butterflies, the ones as large as a swallow, right round her head. It looked fine. “But I remember one occasion that wasn’t so fine, when she had some kind of a pretty dead beetle in rows fastening up her skirts, and its mate, which smells like bad oil touched with rotten eggs, saw the show, and came along by the dozen, to in- vestigate. Murua had to fly, and burn the _ dress afterward, I believe. She’s a’ queer little case, but all right—very much all right.” “She’s got her streak of tragedy, like all the rest of us,” said Edith. ‘‘Murua has just missed being a beautiful woman.” “Murua? Oh, rats!” “VYou’re accustomed to her. She has glorious hair, feet that ought to be on a Dresden china shepherdess, and a figure— did you look at her figure?” “Well, she’s mostly in boy’s clothes, you know.” | “‘A woman can see through clothes. If a man could, half of you’d be bachelors. Murua is made like a little Greek goddess.” ‘And yet——” ‘“‘And yet—she has not exactly pretty features; too high and sharp. But you may take my word for it, Ben, that little girl will have a lover of her own as soon as any pink- and-pretty little Gladys from a finishing school. Beauty’s not necessary to happi- ness; and she’ll never know she just missed the biggest thing a woman can have. The next biggest is a loving heart, and Murua has that.” “Sounds like it,”’ observed Slade. _ Murua’s voice was now audible on the track below, quarreling violently with some one. “You are a treacherous individual!” she cried in a shrill high voice. “You are defy- ing God, and causing great inconvenience.” Somebody shrieked once, twice. The * “35 musical character of the cry, even though uttered in anguish, was unmistakable. Slade ‘leaped from his chair. Edith heard him in another moment, down on the track. “Murua! Murua! I’m ashamed of you. Put down that blacksnake—you’re not be- having like a lady.” “Let me give him just one more, Mr. Slade, please,” came the precise voice of » Murua. “Certainly not. Is it dead?’ “Tt is, Mr. Slade. I killed it myself by fracturing the lesser vertebre with a stick.” “Then be satisfied with that, and don’t try to fracture Page’s vertebrae, too. He may not be very valuable, but we don’t want to lose him just now. po raaes: his skin would be no good to you.” “No, Mr. Slade, none at all, and in any case I had no intention of doing him serious mischief. I only thought he deserved cor- rection.” “The little vixen lost her temper and lam- med into“me with her filthy snake,’ came Page’s musical tones. “Of course I would have given her two black eyes if she’d been a boy.” “T wonder,” said Slade, ‘‘what’s it all about.” “That untrustworthy wight,’ said Mu- rua, “told his father and mine—I mean Captain Page and Mr. Alfred Jennifer, for we have not the same father—that you and Mrs. Slade had pressed him also to stay, and that he had put his things ready in the boat in case you did. And as he selected a moment when I was out of hearing, he car- ried through the fell design. For when I saw him behind me on the track——”’ “Saw behind you?” put in Page with a sudden, scornful trill, “Mr. Slade, you will remember that the track turns about on its own axis. I saw him behind me on the track, and asked for an explanation, and when he told me, I re- monstrated——”’ “With the blacksnake,” interpolated Slade. “But it was no use. And now you can decide if he is to reap the reward of treach- ery or not. The boat’s out of sight.” “Why,” said Slade kindly, ‘‘since the youngster’s so anxious to come and stop with us for a while let him, by all means, He’ll be company for you.” “Tf he is going to be company for me, I COMME OOO S (C@)