Adventure Magazine Cover — page 91: what you’re looking at

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

One Lone White Man the Marquesan and a few curious terns, and a mocking-bird as an appreciative audience. Ayia) THE first attack had been made by ® a Karea’s men. Lu’s men made the —~* next attempt on the trader and on the wealth of rifles that lay in the store-shed. The second attack was not so openly carried out. Whereas Karea had honored the white man by sending fifty warriors against him, Lu committed the indiscretion of send- ing three picked men to dispose of him while another party of two hundred waited in the jungle for the call that would tell them to come in and collect the loot, The trader spent the time after dark and until the moon rose walking around the house with Maru, and after moonrise he re- tired to the veranda to doze a little, while the Marquesan kept a sleepy watch from the vantage-post among the rafters. In spite of appearances the trader was not careless of his defense that he chose to sleep so. He had a system of alarms rigged that could not fail to wake him, and secure in that knowledge he dozed peacefully on. The moon had been up nearly two hours before Lu’s three men made a serious move. They went entirely round the house and came up from the seaward side. Standing about fifty yards from the house, a fringe of palms, the last of the grove, protected the house on this side from any wind or storm that might race up the little harbor. Im- mediately beyond the fringe the naked beach commenced, dazzling white beneath the moon. Against the sand the three dark bodies showed plainly. Unseen, however, they reached the palm-fringe, and from there the cover was more or less plentiful. Palms straggled inland, past-the house and store, until the denser grove was reached. No sooner had the first native wriggled clear of the fringe than he became tangled up in a trip-line. With a staccato report a shot-gun went off, then another and another. One of the natives must have got in the way of a charge for he leaped upright with a scream, and with his back burning like fire he ran for dear life back to the beach again. The other scared men hastily fol- lowed him. Maru, awakened from his half-slumber, clambered over the rafters to the beach side of the house, where from his loophole he had a splendid view of the three figures running 85 along the beach. He nestled comfortably down to his gun-butt.and took aim. He missed the first. two shots and wondered why. Then he decided the moonlight was deceptive and shifted his muzzle a little higher. His next shot brought down the leading ‘native, evidently hit in the leg, for he jumped up again and limped on. The three men were now moving parallel with the house, and making for the brush that shouldered out on the beach nearly two hundred yards away. The trader was on the veranda but could not fire because of the fringe of palms that hindered his view. He caught glimpses of the white beach through the trunks as he moved, and occasional flickers of the running figures. Maru commenced to fire again, aiming still higher. He was using the sporting-rifle and the range was a little short, for the shots went a trifle low, while the moonlight made the target appear very near. His first shot however brought down the limping man, the second missed, so did the third. The fourth caught the two survivors in line and bowled them both over, the one on the far side get- ting up immediately and running on. Maru picked him off at leisure, and the beach was deserted once more, except for three huddled heaps that stained the virgin whiteness. Later the crabs found the bodies, and the heaps appeared to writhe and lift and move. Back in the jungle Lu’s two hundred men waited and waited for the call to loot. They waited till the false dawn paled the sky and then they followed their chief, Furii, to see what was the matter. It so happened that Karea, hearing how badly his band had been defeated, and being aroused from sleep to be told the news, had gathered his army in mighty wrath and started to march in person on the trader’s house and store. For long the king had coveted the rich goods in the store, and for much Jonger the cases of rifles and ammunition that meant the balance of power in northern New Ire- land for whoever possessed them in sufficient quantity. Wherefore it was with some such dreams as the little Corsican must have had that Karea jog-trotted at the head of his warriors to crush the single white man who had for so long defied him. Lu’s two hundred men, creeping through the grove, were suddenly aware of a mighty rustling on their flank, and of a dull mur- muring from many lips. One of their COMmMiCoooks Cc C©