Adventure Magazine Cover, June 18, 1921 — page 103: what you’re looking at

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

A Tropic Idyl ’ave collapsed, and the lass picked you up and packed you out.” Roper stopped talking and puffed at a cigaret. Apparently he considered he had said everything there was to say, and he now awaited the other’s comments. But Bruce lay quiet for a time, with closed eyes, trying to puzzle out the situation. He felt it was a farce, sheer nonsense; and yet the fat man’s demeanor convinced him it was very serious business. He had taken Stort’s woman. Unwit- tingly, but, if Roper spoke truly, none the less effectively, he had captured and bound to him by force of arms a fuzzy-headed, savage native woman. He had assumed Stort’s place in Marua’s cosmos; in her eyes, and in the eyes of her people—yes, and in Roper’s eyes, and in the eyes of all his kind—she had become his property, his light-o’-love, his ‘‘Mary!”’ Sheer nonsense, of course! But the mere thought brought the fever-flush out upon his skin, and caused his stanch Presby- terlan conscience to rise and rebuke him. Indeed, he censured himself pitilessly for his past actions. It was quite true, he had looked upon the comely brown girl with a warmth in his eyes that was not wholly pity. He had thought of her as a woman, and not as a native. He could excuse her acts, but not his own thoughts. Silly nonsense! And here he was, a plighted man, with trustful Mazie awaiting his homecoming, and on Moorabal Island a New Guinea savage was his Mary! Bruce felt like weeping, but he achieved a quavering laugh. “Of course, it won’t do,” he addressed Roper. “It’s silly rot. I can’t have a native woman around me. I don’t believe in that sort of thing—and besides I’m en- gaged. If what you say is true, I’ll have to get rid of her.” Roper regarded him in none too friendly fashion. “Look ’ere, m’lad, do you realize as ’ow Marua has kept you alive this last week?” he exclaimed suddenly. ‘“I was sure I’d plant you. I couldn’t do anything for you except fill you full of gin and quinin, and I’ve seen too many cases o’ backwater to ’ave much faith in that. You’d ’ave gone sure, if it ’adn’t been for the girl. “She went out in the scrub and got roots and leaves, and brewed up the mess that pulled you through. She ’asn’t slept more 93 than a couple o’ hours since you’ve been lying there. All I could do was sit outside, and shoo Stort away whenever he come around to cut your ’eart out. I took ’is guns and scrub-’atchet away from him, but of course there’s lots o’ things he can use to be nasty with. But Marua ’as stayed in here by your side, day and night, nursing you.” “I’m just as grateful to her as I can be,”’ said Bruce. “‘I’ll tell her so. ~But—what shall I do?”’ 3 “You seem blurry anxious to be shut of the best all-around lass between ’ere and Moresby,” observed Roper. ‘‘A queer way to be grateful, I’m thinking. If you want to be rid of her so bad, you might turn ’er back to Stort—but, of course, ’e’!] kill her if you do. Or you might give her to me. I’d take ’er in a minute; my oath, I would! “But you ’ad better wait and see her before you make any decision; unless you don’t care ’ow cruel you are to her, I tell you, lad, she ’asn’t been nursing you this way just because she feels you are her owner. It’s something more with ’er. These native girls ’ave got feelings, you know, even if most white men say they ’aven’t. It’s her ’eart you’ve got to think of. My oath, what wouldn’t I give to ’ave a lass look at me the way that Mary looks at you!” “But, good Heavens, man—you don’t understand—Mazie—I can not " Bruce, invested with a sudden, nervous strength, sat bolt upright and ejaculated in a hysterical voice. The pearler grunted with astonishment, and swore, and forced the other to lie down again. “Not a word more!” he_ exclaimed. “You'll be balmy again if you keep this up, ’Ere now, you stow the guff, and goto sleep!” V lat than seven days, and, as always hap- W@W pened when his drunkenness ran over a week’s time, he was hearing things and sometimes seeing them. Last night, as he sat in his empty house, brooding over his great loss, Carter had come in from his grave and mocked and reviled him, and railed at him for a poltroon for not having already avenged himself upon his enemy. At times, when the maggots in his mind bit extra sharply, Stort could see Carter seated at the other side of the table. COmicloo STORT had been on spree for more | oN ) ©