Adventure, February 1917 — page 59: what you’re looking at

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

_Nobody’s Island - with ten armed. carriers and a Jemnigsar boy — for guide.” the sailor, looking — Murua could have sworn—a trifle disappointed. “She isn’t,” contradicted the young girl at once. “On the contrary, she is young and exceedingly loved.” The sailor. laughed a wide, white-toothed | laugh. © “Oh, I say, you know, you. shot awfully near the bull’s-eye there, if you only knew,” he said. “T know many things,’ ’ said Murua grave- ly. “If you are brought up as a son instead of a daughter, you learn with two minds at once; and when im Spice with Pups I count asa boy.” “A pretty boy you must make,” Campbell with the sailor’s gallantry. ” Murua flushed; it was the-first time any one had called her pretty—people admired her hair, or her figure, or her feet, but they had said so little about herself that she could. have found it in her heart to be jealous of those much-mentioned beauties. But now said a man had said that she, Murua, was pretty. - She felt a sudden flush of gratitude, and showed it by the light that came over her face. ~ “Why, it’s a gone little witch!” said Campbell to himself. “And what hair! That famous wig of Edith’s that they talked so much about couldn’t have been a paten on it.” Aloud he said— + “T have the Government launch Die. mond down below if she can be of any use in going after Mr. Slade.” “We shall accept her with the utmost gratitude,” said Murua. “Armed carriers are one thing, but the Government is an- other, and as we do know that they break their prisoners’ legs and put their eyes out with stieks, and that even the dogs get a taste of the horrid feast that ensues, one feels that no possible precaution should be omitted.” “By tose, no! said the naval officer. “May I smoke out here?”’ “Certainly,” said Murua. “If you will excuse me, I will go and see to the break- “fast; one must keep up a rigid superintend- ence, because they have been known to - clean the knives by spitting on them.” “Nasty beggars,” said. Campbell. “Is there a Mr. aa here?” Sere _* < - = . « - ~ 2 gul “Oh, she did, did she? She must be quite — an Amazon—regular suffragette type,” said ~ o7 “Harold Page? Oh, yes. If you listen, you will hear him having his bath.” “Having his bath?” “Yes; he always sings the ‘Cavatina’ out of ‘Il Barbiere’ while he’s bathing. When you hear him begin the ‘Carmen’ ‘Habanera’ you'll know that he’s out and getting dressed.” “By George, yes, I hear the beggar. How uncommonly odd!” said Campbell. The bath-house was outside, but no one with the usual number of ears could have missed the vivid clearness of Harold’s en- treaties to some unnamed person to “‘be- ware.’ “But that’s good singing!” he said as “Love will like a wild birdling fly,” began all over again. “Commander Campbell,” said Murua, pausing in the doorway, “‘if you had to live in the same house with Harold and his voice, . you would pray that you might never go to the same heaven with him am not at all sure that he will get there, but if he does, it makes me perfectly sick to’ - think of how he will show off on all the high notes and keep making attitudes with his harp Campbell laughed. “TI think I know other singers whom that might apply to—a few,” he said. “Imagine fat Margherita da Siena in a nightie and a palm leaf, trilling with her head on one side, and one eye on the chorus of saints—and little Pieta—you know her way of running on. to the stage.” “I know nothing,” said Murua, looking at him out of a pair of rather sad gray eyes. “T’ve been brought up in the bush of Papua and never seen or heard anything in all the world.’ “Lucky little beggar—I beg your pardon, lucky young lady. You’ve all the world to see, then. I’ve seen it all; had my cake and eaten it, and gobbled up the crums and- licked my fingers. All gone. No more.” “T hope I’ll have a cake too, some day,” said Murua with some wistfulness, and went off to unseen outer regions at the back. “Going off on a filibustering expedition with a pack of armed niggers doesn’t sound much like my cousin’s wife,” he said to him- self: “TI wonder, has that human grama- phone out in the bathroom brought me on a fool’s errand. Lord, he’s at it again. It + NOOLKS Of course, I — (ECO) COME