Adventure, February 1917 — page 84: what you’re looking at

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

give them a chance. $2 of hers knows—and I would bet my African medals he does—he must be ready to eat me without salt now.” Then, at the word “‘salt’’, he suddenly re- membered how he had cut Harold Page with the lash of his scorn, even while he used him, for taking the hospitality of the Slades, and at the same time plotting against them.. He himself. “Oh, tommyrot!” ran his thought. CA slice of pork and a tin.of tea in the wilder- ness! Was I to sit like a mummy and de- cline to eat? “But all the same,” he thought again, “old superstitions hit you hard when you I suppose I ought to have some ill luck due to me through the ‘handsome gal,’ to make up for having trodden on the toes of the fates. Well, _ she’s good-looking enough to bring a fair share of ill luck in her train. They mostly do. If a man wanted to marry now, a taking little thing like this alongside might be safer. But all the same the sulky fellow’s a lucky dog, however he got her or keeps her.” Slade proposed a game of cards, but the mosquitoes were too troublesome. ‘They broke up soon. The tents had been stand- ing ready since sundown. | Every one hastened to get under the nets as soon as possible. And the night closed down on.a peaceful scene of grouped white roofs, clear moon, and dying fire, with wild scents blowing in from the jungle, and birds of the night beginning their strange music. Something fluted, silverly and clear; something cried at regular intervals “Chit- terit-chit!”’ as if it were ‘wound up; something imitated a cuckoo-clock, bell-stroke and all, “Tang-Cuckool T: ang-Cuckool” The wood- chopper was silent; it was not late enough for his steady “Chop-chip” to begin, nor for the whip-cracking bird that keeps him com- pany in the dead hours of the night. But volleys of almost articulate curses from the flying foxes burst now and then, high up in a wild mango-tree, and some little, plaintive thing whistled sadly as if it were lonely and shut out from home. Campbell and Murua sat at the opening of their tents for a while and looked out, beating away the mosquitoes with a spray of palm. The wonder and the beauty of the moon-filled glade made the girl silent and rather sad. What the sailor was think- | Adventure ing of, as he smoked a cigar before turning in, only he could have told. “That is the Marconi locust beginning,” said Murua at last. “It must be time to go to bed.” “Marconi locust?” asked Campbell. “T don’t think——” “Oh, Captain Campbell, that’s not the scientific name. I’m afraid I don’t know what itis. It’s only my name for it. If you listen, you'll understand.” “By Jove, I do! Yes—yes, for all the world like the wireless of a steamer sending out messages. Why, you could hardly tell them apart.” “Do you hear the longs and shorts—Tuit- tutt-tut-tut-tuit-tut-tut-tutt-tut, like the Burns Philip steamer when she’s lying off Sama- rai? Well, there’s only one locust that wirelesses as well as that, though some of the others do it more or less. This one al- ways begins after ten o’clock, and I never stay up when he starts. Good night, Cap- tain Campbell.” “Good night,” said the sailor, rising to his feet. ‘Pleasant dreams.” And to him- self, as the little girl with the figure dived under the flap of her tent, “I’m blessed if mine are likely tobe.” » AT THE other side of the clearing, 4. in the tent that held the two net- 8508 ted camp-beds, two people, reckless of mosquitoes, were sitting on the edges of the beds talking. The hurricane lamp, swung from the ridge-pole of the tent, threw an ugly orange light on Edith’s face, casting shadows that whispered premature hints of her coming thirtieth year. She had grown older in that day, and there was a tired look on her face for which no preci- pice tracks, no long, muscle-straining down- ward plunges of the march since dawn, could be held accountable. “Oh,” she said, leaning forward as one weary. “I wonder if we did right—after all? I wonder could anything—anything at all be worse than this cat-and-mouse business—creeping away and thinking one is free, avoiding one pounce of Fate, and avoiding another, and then—pounce again —it has you! Life’s not worth keeping on at some prices.” Slade said nothing. It was best to let her free her mind. By and by was time enough for anything he might have to say. And in the meantime a firm warm hold of (EOL MUG NOOLS (C@