Adventure Magazine Cover, December 10, 1922 — page 100: what you’re looking at

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

94 in Boston? Why didn’t I stay in Boston? If you loved me you would never have brought me on'‘such a terrible trip.” “The weather’s all right now—dear.”’ He said the “dear” awkwardly; it just wouldn’t seem to flow the way he wanted it. “Come on out on deck, and we'll take a couple of chairs.” “T certainly will not come out looking like this. It will take me a week to look normal again. Don’t you realize that I nearly died? How heartless you are! Do you want me to think you are a brute?” At length Dockery gave it up and adopted the policy of letting her have her way in everything, and for a while this worked beautifully, but naturally it only made it worse in the end. It got so, finally, that he must always be at her side—get her this and get her that. Couldn’t go to the bar; couldn’t play cards; couldn’t play any deck games; because, of course, Charlotte couldn’t play them. When they reached Papeete another crash came. Charlotte stayed aboard and watched from her deck-chair while Dockery walked up to the Annex to engage lodging during the time they waited for the boat to ‘Tongatabu. It wasn’t Dockery’s fault that - blondes are a rarity in the South Pacific, or that the natives have a habit of following them on the street. “Such an insult I’ve never known! The idea, you picking up girls on the street. You, just married and in plain sight of your wife! You aren’t single any more, don’t you know that?” Dockery knew it, all right. However—— Mr. and Mrs. John Dockery continued their journey. On the whole, there have been pleasanter trips made through the South Seas. Some tourists have even dis- ~ covered a little color there, in the scenery and in the lives of the happiest and friend- liest people on earth. But one must open one’s eyes to see and one’s ears to hear, and not have one’s entire mental organization wrapped up in the aforementioned country houses and silver foxes. In the mean time, Charlotte cried for “civilization” and the wonderful mush- rooms sous cloche at Heywood’s, and Dockery became glum and vexed by spells, though finally decided on glumness as more diplomatic, and remained that way. They did, at last, reach Tongatabu. Tongatabu, you remember, is one hundred and fifty-odd Adventure miles north and east of Pylstaart, and Pylstaart Dockery rented a yawl, a fifty-footer, with his last money and away they started. It was because it was his last money that Charlotte consented to go at all. And of course it had to blow. It did blow, too, there’s no doubt of that; and Charlotte was really sick. She didn’t.even whine, because, perhaps, she had to have that breath to live. It takes a man to handle a fifty-foot yawl by himself, in just a fairly stiff breeze, and ~ to handle one in a bad blow takes more than that. But Dockery got her through and made the blue lagoon. Charlotte said nothing, but as soon as the yawl’s forefoot scraped sand, she ordered herself carried ashore and refused to budge. The fact that this delightful cove is far from habitation on a large island made no dif- ference. So Dockery did the best he could. He threw together a dwelling of some sort and assured her that there were no snakes or animals or cannibals and that the worst thing that she could suffer was loneliness. She took nearly all the food there was aboard and his rifle and revolver, though she couldn’t use either. Then she asked for his knife. Dockery balked, and Charlotte raved and said many things. Still Dockery balked. He tried to explain, but it was no go. Knife or nothing. So he gave her the knife. A moment later she slashed her hand on its razor edge and flung it down in the sand, but she wouldn’t relinquish it. Dockery sailed away, after the storm, with little more than the bare yawl and his clothes. He promised to be back in a week at the longest, and probably much sooner, but he wanted to allow time to find his bearings on the reefs. Charlotte whined and said please to hurry. Sy THERE was a light, steady breeze, and Dockery was Dockery again. Things were in tune. Two gulls, scudding along, matched the whiteness of the flying sail. The blue water, seething alongside, looked a thousand miles deep, and the bluer, cloudless sky, seemed only a foot above the main peak. The world was wide and open and clean and beautiful. And Dockery was Dockery again when the yawl found the hidden reefs, for he located the object of his journey in twenty- four hours. There was the little coral Eomichoo S, (eC)