Adventure Magazine Cover — page 87: what you’re looking at

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

Pearl-Hunger toward the anchorage used by ships that did not care to risk the lagoon’s narrow entrance. a nies vw away from other houses, in a spot MaS that had something like shade under two or three coconuts that had been planted there, Stockton had built himself a small two-roomed house. This was hardly two rooms, being a one-room shanty with a cooking-shed in back. He lived alone ex- A HALF-MILE up the beach, well cept for a Solomon Island boy who could: burn bacon and boil tea, and who had-all the tobacco and sugar that he wanted. His negroid lips usually had a white granulated stippling for he ate sugar out of a cup by sticking his lips into it. As Heddon came up to the house he saw no one about, no signs of any one. Before the doorway was a small box of geraniums, the bed outlined with chunks of coral. Stockton had paid for sacks of soil brought to him, and he had planted red geraniums to have'a bit of fragrant green by him. He caught rain-water to keep them alive. They were wilted now. ‘Their leaves looked scorched. Of a sudden the black boy appeared on the run from around the house. All in a breath he said: | : - “Who your. Go way—go clear —— way. Misi’ Toktoni no want see you fella. Go way.” : Heddon came on and the native drew back, wiping at his mouth with a forearm and licking at the sugar crusted on his lips. “Who you? What you fella want? Unh?”’ He walked backward as he spoke, keeping well away from Heddon who came on as if about to walk right over him, as one walks over a shadow. 7 Heddon knocked on the closed door and called. There was no answer. — “Ts he there?”’ The native nodded as he backed still farther off, afraid of Heddon’s scowl and size. . Heddon tried the door. It was fastened. He knocked loudly. The sound was as if he pounded on an empty box. With a lunge of shoulder he easily forced the door. It swung back on an interior of solid black- ness, cut only by the vivid light that now crossed the threshold. He stooped through the doorway and stood uncertainly, half-blinded in darkness. ‘hen the interior of the room took shape 77 and exposed itself. It was more like an anchorite’s shelter than the home of a wordly man. There was not even a mat on the floor. A ship’s hammock was slung across a corner. Against one wall was a box with shelves. In this were old newspapers badly worn with much re-reading. In this box cupboard were a half-dozen books, their backs scarred with use: A Bible, “Religio Medici,” Pascal’s ‘“Thoughts,” Donne’s “Poems,” “The Anatomy of Melancholy.” Strange books for the Kulicos. The table in the center of the room was merely a large box on pine-board legs. On the table was a lantern with a roughly made blue shade, which he had fashioned to keep the light from hurting his eyes. Stockton sat,at the table, elbow on the table, chin against the wrist of the hand that lay across his right shoulder. It was as if he had fallen asleep, but a revolver on the floor below the extended left hand dis- closed into what sort of sleep he had thrown himself. Spread before him on the table were four photographs, all women. Unable longer to sacrifice himself for them, he had laid their pictures before his sightless eyes, and died. His eyes were still covered with the large dark glasses. His long gray hair was stroked back as if his fingers had just run through it. His mouth was only slightly a-droop. He had shot himself in the heart, and had been dead for hours. The property he left, the stock of goods, was worth a little something, but had he gone through the trouble to dispose of this he would have been cheated until nothing was left. _He knew the ways of business on the Kulicos. It had been hard enough when he had his eyes. So he had given himself to death, hurrying out of the world. The picture-faces of the women looked up with what now seemed inane pleasant- ness; but at that, their inanimate expression was as much touched by the tragedy before them as their lives had been by the greater tragedy of his long sacrifice that they might smile pleasantly above folds of lace and silk. | Heddon suddenly felt angered that they, though in all innocence and affection, had plucked this man of peace and life. His tor- ture had not been less than if they had been wanton and faithless. He had given all he had and died when he could give no more. Heddon bent and scowled searchingly at the pictures. All of them were fair, touched EO DOOK 1 @)