Adventure Magazine Cover, April 1916 — page 84: what you’re looking at

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

82 for her especial benefit. Poz and dried fish appealed less at every meal. The storm burst on the fifth day. Jimmy was struggling with his third canvas in which the ever-troublesome sand persisted on looking more like snow, or powdered sugar. Fuatina was broiling some mullet they had speared together, and two bottles of beer were safely moored in the lagoon close by. The skipper’s lady, ploughing through the sand far faster than the lines of her build intended she should, received the whiffs of the savofy fish in her nostrils as the kneeling camel does the last straw. Two tears started from her eyes and rolled slowly down her flushed cheeks. “Oh Jimmy,” she gasped. drunk.” “Who’s drunk?” asked Jimmy, glancing involuntarily toward the beer. ‘The queens. All of the women, for all I know. They’ve been brewing some of that awful stuff all morning—l/ava, I think.” “Kawa,” amended Jimmy. ‘‘Whatever it is,” said the lady, more tears following the first. ‘‘And—and they said I was only a hapa-fahine (half-woman) because—because I had no babies!”’ Jimmy was standing by this time and Mrs. Boyle literally fell into his arms, a proceeding that—as she outweighed the little Cockney by some seventy pounds— was trying to the latter’s balance and dig- nity. ** Ere now,” he said, bracing himself with wide planted legs. ‘‘’Ere now, you sit down hand ’ave a bit hof mullet wiv me. Hand a bottle hof beer,”’ he added generous- ly. ‘‘Fuatina, you cut halong hand find hout what’s hup. Then come back to the storehouse. Hi’ll paddle the lydy hover.” The astonished Fuatina, hungry despite her lovesickness, cast a reluctant glance at the mullet and sped on the errand of her heart’s lord. It was dusk, and an hour later before she came back, her eyes circling with news. “I tell you, Kimo,” she announced breathlessly. “My word, plenty pirikia walkabout quick along her. Pretty soon they too drunk, get plenty mad. They speak fahine papalangt no good. They speak she tahunga (witch). I think, soon they come along find her.”’ “Hi s’y, you know, this his a bit hof a muck,” said Jimmy. ‘You go back, Fua- ‘“‘They’re Adventure tina, and all same watch out. Suppose trouble he start walk along you come back here plenty quick. ‘““You’re safe ’ere’m’”’, he assured the frightened woman. ‘“There’s a ’igh fence hon three sides hand we can put some barbed wire halong the front to keep h’em hout, hif they start to get fresh. Hi wish Hi ’ad a gun!” “You don’t think they really mean any harm, do you?” asked the now alarmed lady. Jimmy was humane—as his sharing of his fish and beer testified—but he was also human, and the recollection of his treat- ment by his skipper’s wife during the voy- age still held it’s smart. He had no idea that there was any real danger and he decided that he might help, as his skipper had suggested, apply the remedy. “Carn’t s’y,” he said. ‘No tellin’ w’ot they’ll do w’en they get properly tight.” “‘They aren’t’”—the voice of the militant faltered—‘“‘they aren’t cannibals, are they?” “Not lytely, not has Hi’ve ’eard hof. Hof course they was hall kai-kanaks once.” “Jimmy, do you know where Captain Boyle is?” “W’y—” The conversation was broken abruptly by howls from the direction of the Queen- House. Mrs. Boyle shuddered and shrank back as Fuatina darted around the fence. “They walk along plenty quick,” she panted. “Pretty soon all kawa gone, they come.” “What you think they do?” asked Jimmy. “T think they try kill um fahine papa- langi,”’ said the girl, in evident earnest. Another burst of yells added sincerity to her statement and spurred the little super- cargo to instant action. ‘Ere,’ hesaid. ‘Fuatina, you catch wire back there on /anat.. Mrs. Boyle you scare hup the ’ammer hand staples. You know where to find h’em?”’ “Yes, thank God!’’ tremulously replied the disavowed leader. “T’ll get them.” Swiftly a barrier was thrown across from fence to fence and stapled to the flag-poles beneath the discredited banner. They ran strand after strand across, the women feverishly helping with bleeding hands while the supercargo plied the hammer. “They'll ’ave one ’ell hof a time gettin’ through that,”’ he announced at last. “Did they s’y w’ot they laid hout to do, Fua- tina?” 9,9) CoOMmicboooks CO