Adventure Magazine Cover, June 18, 1921 — page 108: what you’re looking at

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

98 ' stomach to reject the food. She lifted. him bodily in her muscular brown arms and held him close while with one bare foot she ironed out the creases in his bed. She squatted be- side the cot and fanned him with a leaf, lightening somewhat the heavy heat and keeping him free of the annoyance of flies. She crooned a guttural and not unmusical lullaby into his ear. In her every act and attitude she was a woman caring for a thing possessed and cherished, caring for her own man. In her every glance she declared this. Bruce turned his head away that he might not see her face. He could not endure the dumb, dog-like devotion in her big soft eyes. So Bruce tossed and fretted and slept not at all. As the day waned, his blood grew hot again. The “bugs” were “‘scoffing,”’ as Roper foretold. When the afternoon shad- Ows came into the room, he began to see unsubstantial, unformed things lurking in the corners. He promptly sat up in bed to observe them more closely. Then it was that Marua, whose face had shown growing concern for some time, called peremptorily to Roper. The latter wad- dled in from the veranda, where he had dozed away the day. “No good; bin go balmy,” she explained succinctly. ‘You stop along; me go catch sleep bush, come back close up.” She slipped noiselessly from the room; and though Bruce did not see her departure, he immediately sensed her absence. It was as if a weight were lifted from his chest. It was a tremendous relief to feel no longer her eyes upon him. To the pearler’s sur- prize, he was docile and lay back with closed eyes and rested. Only once during the hour of the girl’s absence did he speak. ‘‘She makes me nervous,” he said. ‘‘When she is in the room, I can’t rest, I can’t sleep. She makes me light-headed . ‘Tush, tush; stow that gab!’ commanded Roper with good-natured gruffness. ‘She'll put you to sleep, right enough. She’s gone to get some Paggara juice, from that shrub the black-fellows use to poison fish. You know, ‘wild dynamite!’ Up Moresby way, where she ’ails from, the nigs use it like the Chinks use opium. I’ve taken it in fever. It ’asn’t no taste, and it’ll put you to sleep dead-O.”’ | Bruce was too weary to argue, and he felt it was hopeless to attempt to make Roper Adventure see his view-point. The man was too coarse-fibered. : “If she would only go away!” he ex- claimed. Then, when he thought of the debt he owed the brown girl, he felt mean and small-souled. “But she’s _ splendid, Roper, and I’m deeply grateful to her,” he added. After a long silence he heard Roper stir, and opening his eyes, he saw Marua in the room. She had returned as noiselessly as she had gone. The room was full of sunset shadow, and she was lighting the lamp. When it burned, Bruce saw she held in her hand a bottle, a common trade-gin bottle. Roper crossed to her side, and she held the bottle against the light. It contained a spoonful or two of milky fluid which, Bruce knew, was the sap of the Paggara shrub. Roper got a glass of water from the crock filter in the corner, and the girl, with great care, measured a few drops of the narcotic into the glass. She brought it to the bed- side, touched Bruce’s brow with her cool soft hand and lifted him that he might drink comfortably. He quaffed the draft — eagerly. Anything for sleep, for oblivion, for forgetfulness of this horrid problem that faced him! Anything to forget this un- wanted woman who smothered him with love! He lay back, and felt a delicious tingle start from his stomach and journey all over his body to the very ends of his various members. It was succeeded by a lethargy equally delicious. He drowsed and felt himself drifting down a river which flowed slow and ever slower. His ears were filled with murmurings. He heard Marua’s voice from a great distance; she talked excitedly, rapidly, but he could not distinguish words. It was not worth while to try. Nothing was worth while. The current of the river was checked. He stopped—and slept. Vil m “ME WALK about beach,” ex- ma plained Marua. ‘Come along that fella, Billycan. My word, him flash fella, plenty drunk, sit down dead-O. Pick up bottle.” Roper held the bottle in his hand and squinted at it pensively. “It’s a Q-T bottle, sure,” he said. ‘Some o’ Stort’s gin. Now where the blurry did the nig get it?” COMmiclboo oN ) CO