Adventure Magazine, Mid-September 1917 — page 137: what you’re looking at

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

The Hurricane She remembered suddenly that there was another way. ‘There was one big obstacle in it, however; it would take her too close to the trading station. Back by the forest a path ran around to the other side of the island. She could follow this until she was almost directly be- hind the trading station. Then by walking along the dry edges of the field which lay perpendicular to the path she would reach the jetty. Her chances of getting there were one out - of a hundred. If Captain Barker or even any of the natives were to see her it would be absurd for her to think of reaching the mis- sion house at Suva. After a short hesita- tion, she decided to take the risk. It was while she was running along the dank weedy path that she suddenly screamed and jumped into the low shrub- bery of the forest. As her fear was dis- pelled, she parted the rain-wet leaves and looked at the native lying in the path. His ugly brown body was battered into formless flesh, and his face was laid open to the bone. For the first time since running away from Captain Barker Kalputa laughed. She laughed because the dead native, after dig- ging and clawing with his raw bleeding hands to keep from being whirled away, had lost ig his struggle against the “touch of death” and the hurricane. Then she fled with swallow-swiftness, laughing at Old Lu the sorcerer lying in the path behind her. Présently she stopped laughing. She began wondering what had happened to Captain Barker. Did he, like Old Lu, also lie on the edge of the wind-torn forest? She desired to know definitely. Why she wanted to know she could not have ex- plained if she had tried. When she left the path, stepping warily along the dry edges of the field, the sun was climbing up over the leaves of the paw- paw trees, shooting green and gold lights through them. She looked toward the grove and saw that the hurricane had demolished the trading station. All that remained of it was a section of a wall and a portion of the veranda. Al- most nothing was left of the village which had stood in the rear of the station, and only a few natives were alive. Most of the paw- paw trees had been blown away. As Kalputa was turning to go, she saw 135 Captain Barker’s huge body lying in the grove. : Intuitively she knew that Captain Barker - had been injured. How badly hurt he was she had no idea, but immediately wanted to know. If he was injured badly she need have no more fear of not succeeding in run- ning away from Flenga Island that day, she assured herself. It was because of her de- sire to know definitely the extent of his injuries that she stood several minutes later looking at him. Captain Barker lay on an improvised mat of palm leaves close to the grave of their little man-child, with a shattered bone protruding above the elbow of his left arm. The blood was running from a gash on the side of his thick neck. His puffed slits of eyes were closed and his lips were partly open. He was breathing with the greatest difficulty. Kalputa studied him uneasily, then shifted her eyes to the little grave. When she again looked at him, his eyes were wide open, staring up at her piteously. He could not speak. Kalputa looked at the lagoon, scanning it hurriedly. Out where the cream-white spray was leaping on the circling rim of coral four masts of a submerged schooner projected above the water. She saw noth- ing of the other vessels. The next instant she did something which she did not wholly understand. She leaned over her husband and, with tears on her face, tenderly laid his broken arm across his chest. With a strip of her wind-torn skirt she bandaged his neck. Then she lowered her face until it was on his and kissed him. A moment later she gave a high metallic scream and fled down to the beach. At the coral stone jetty she found a tiny outrigger canoe flung high up on the sand. She dragged it into the water, its outrigger keeping it upright. Then she looked about her for a paddle. She finally found one, a makeshift paddle, half buried in the sand. A few minutes later she began paddling toward the wide expanse of the open sea. Crossing the lagoon was difficult. .The water persisted in flinging the wreckage and corpses against the outrigger of the canoe. With the makeshift paddle she pushed away the wreckage. The blood sharks frightened her. They tore and devoured the corpses, causing her to breathe long COmicloo C©