Adventure Magazine, Mid-September 1917 — page 138: what you’re looking at

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

136 prayers to her shark god. The handle of the paddle became loose several times. Each time she was compelled to stop and rewrap the cord. Then the white blaze of noon came. The heat was horrible. It scorched her back and shoulders. Her arm pained so badly that she had to change the pad on the wound. It was a long while before she finally shot out into the sea and drove the canoe toward Suva. The sun was slipping behind the dark hill ranges when Kalputa climbed up on the damp green wharf at Suva and sped to- ward the tiny mission house standing in a clump of lemon bushes. On the cool palm- shaded verandas on either side of the long street Government officials and their fam- ilies sat in loose white duck at little tables, eating their evening meal and laughing in low voices. Kalputa ran swiftly, her breath coming in short broken gasps. She reached the mission house just as the vesper prayers were being said. | 49] NIGHT had come again to Flenga eee Island. Except for the humming “8 water on the coral reefs and the homeless wind beating in from the lonely sea, a dead calm was on all the island lying low and black like a whale asleep with its back out of the water. The yellow moon TLL MARL V Adventure came up. It looked like a lamp in the hand of the hurricane god who was coming back to see all the damage he and the “‘touch of death” had done. Suddenly the island calm was broken. Two long white objects shot into the lagoon and half-way across to the jetty. When they came to a stop, small boats began to skim shoreward. A few minutes later the beach was a- swarm with people. Some of the men lugged big bundles of burying mats, while others carried boxes and clothing. They followed a woman who ran swiftly ahead of them. “Capt’in Barker! Me here!” cried Kal- puta, rushing into the grove of paw-paw trees. ‘‘Me here!”’ At the sound of her old watchword, ‘‘Me herel’’—the watchword she had used in the trading station during the period they were so happy—Captain Barker opened his eyes and stared vaguely at her. She leaned over him in the yellow moon- light and slipped her thin arm beneath his head, raising it until it rested on her breast. The missionaries and the Government officials entered the grove. “Capt’in Barker!” Kalputa’s arm tight- ened about his huge back as a look of un- derstanding came into his eyes. ‘‘Capt’in Barker, Kalputa bling two boat an’ flenty help from Suva.” / << /\ f, COmicloo ©