Adventure, August 1917 — page 136: what you’re looking at

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

134 Loudon looked in surprise at the widow who had stated that she could not hit a barn. “T’m no good with a rifle,” said Mrs. Gower. ‘The recoil is too heavy. But I used to get my share of partridges and grouse when I was younger and I believe my eyesight is still good.” It was. She got her doubles with a pre- cision that astonished Loudon and awed the natives who went before them to flush the birds and behind to pick up the bag. The doves seemed loath to leave their up- land home, flying straight and hard from rim to rim, going or coming like feathered rockets. Whenever they could they firedinto the mass to save cartridges for there were nearly one hundred and thirty to feed, to say nothing of Rotorua, to whom a dove would be barely a mouthful. They shot until their barrels were blistering and the pile of doves made a feathered pyramid. And Mrs. Gower was high gun, with Loudon a bad third. An oven had been built and heated with stones. Jz leaves were wrapped about the plucked birds while a force gathered fruit. When the pits were opened every one frankly ate until they could hold no more. After the meal, Mrs. Gower dozed off, gently at first, then with asnoring cres- cendo. Loudon sat beside the girl watching the king drill his men in the use of their new weapons. Bristol’s meal had been taken to him at the notch. A dozen men busied themselves in piling up brushwood for fires in the crater and a beacon to be placed at the foot of the little cliff below the notch and provide against a night surprise. The girl seemed wrapped in her own thoughts and Loudon drifted into a half- sleep, ineffably tired, yet too excited for oblivion. There were dark circles under the girl’s eyes, he noticed, and her finely cut features seemed drawn and tired. Her lashes lay long on her cheeks, her breast rose and fell softly. One hand lay upward, its fingers gently curved, the same fingers that had been so flexible and sensitive on the piano keys, and so crisp upon the trig- ger. The bands of her pale gold hair re- vealed a tiny ear, rose-tinted and delicately carven as a Shell. She was an enigma to Loudon. For the moment she seemed very girlish in her ex- Adventure haustion, there was perhaps a tender kernel beneath that shell of her self-sufficiency that forbade his feeling sorry for her. It might be the aristocracy of breeding that leavened girl and aunt with the calm pluck they exhibited. The whole affair might have been a picnic instead of the desperate hazard that it was. Aristocracy was not played out, after all, he reflected dreamily. There were thousands of Sere- na’s class and caste who had died and were doomed to die in the trenches at the other side of the world. Probably few were left of her own imme- diate line. Her father was barely cold in his grave and she faced the world and what she considered her responsibilities un- dauntedly. He wondered if she would soften in different circumstances -or if all British girls were cast in her mold. He almost felt himself as much alien to her as if they had not shared a common language. Indeed, they did not use it alike. And, idly picturing her in pleasanter surroundings, he fell asleep. It was very quiet in the crater save for the guttural commands of Rotorua and the occasional answers of his men. The song of blackbirds came sweetly shrill from the valleys, the rainbowed fall sounded in low harmony to the sough of the overhead trade, the hum of insects and the perfume of flowers were plain to the languid senses bound in the languor of the tropic afternoon. Great butterflies wafted by. It was hard to realize the place beleaguered by death. Bristol’s rifle rang out, the startled doves once more whirred upward and Loudon jumped to his feet, grasping his rifle. The girl opened startled eyes and followed his action. Rotorua led his racing men to the notch. The sergeant was still peering along his sights, the thin smoke trailing off. CHAPTER XII THE GHOST LIGHTS “THAT'S where they were,” said the sergeant, ““down there where the ridge dips to the woods hin that bit hof a gap. I thought I saw some kanakas slipping through the trees. Then a man come hout hinto the hopen for a second hand I takes a shot hat ’im, hoff-’anded. White man, dressed hup hin white ducks. Heasy mark hif my sights ’ad bin right. Hand I saw CoOMmiclsoo C© S|