only one white man, a third assistant understrapper and ex-sailor – a common sailor. He is in charge of the government of the Solomons, to say nothing of a hundred or so niggers – prisoners. Besides, he is such a fool that he would fine you five pounds for not having entered at Tulagi, which is the port of entry, you know. He is not a nice man, and, I repeat, it is impossible.”
“There is Guvutu,” she suggested.
He shook his head.
“There’s nothing there but fever and five white men who are drinking themselves to death. I couldn’t permit it.”
“Oh thank you,” she said quietly. “I guess I’ll start to-day. – Viaburi! You go along Noa Noah, speak ’m come along me.”
Noa Noah was her head sailor, who had been boatswain of the Miélé.
“Where are you going?” Sheldon asked in surprise. – “Vlaburi! You stop.”
“To Guvutu – immediately,” was her reply.
“But I won’t permit it.”
“That is why I am going. You said it once before, and it is something I cannot brook.”
“What?” He was bewildered by her sudden anger. “If I have offended in any way – ”
“Viaburi, you fetch ’m one fella Noa Noah along me,” she commanded.
The black boy started to obey.
“Viaburi! You no stop I break ’m head belong you. And now, Miss Lackland, I insist – you must explain. What have I said or done to merit this?”
“You have presumed, you have dared – ”
She choked and swallowed, and could not go on.
Sheldon looked the picture of despair.
“I confess my head is going around with it all,” he said. “If you could only be explicit.”
“As explicit as you were when you told me that you would not permit me to go to Guvutu?”
“But what’s wrong with that?”
“But you have no right – no man has the right – to tell me what he will permit or not permit. I’m too old to have a guardian, nor did I sail all the way to the Solomons to find one.”
“A gentleman is every woman’s guardian.”
“Well, I’m not every woman – that’s all. Will you kindly allow me to send your boy for Noa Noah? I wish him to launch the whale-boat. Or shall I go myself for him?”
Both were now on their feet, she with flushed cheeks and angry eyes, he, puzzled, vexed, and alarmed. The black boy stood like a statue – a plum-black statue – taking no interest in the transactions of these incomprehensible whites, but dreaming with calm eyes of a certain bush village high on the jungle slopes of Malaita, with blue smoke curling up from the grass houses against the gray background of an oncoming mountain-squall.
“But you won’t do anything so foolish – ” he began.
“There you go again,” she cried.
“I didn’t mean it that way, and you know I didn’t.” He was speaking slowly and gravely. “And that other thing, that not permitting – it is only a manner of speaking. Of course I am not your guardian. You know you can go to Guvutu if you want to” – “or to the devil,” he was almost tempted to add. “Only, I should deeply regret it, that is all. And I am very sorry that I should have said anything that hurt you. Remember, I am an Englishman.”
Joan smiled and sat down again.
“Perhaps I have been hasty,” she admitted. “You see, I am intolerant of restraint. If you only knew how I have been compelled to fight for my freedom. It is a sore point with me, this being told what I am to do or not do by you self-constituted lords of creation. – Viaburi I You stop along kitchen. No bring ’m Noa Noah. – And now, Mr. Sheldon, what am I to do? You don’t want me here, and there doesn’t seem to be any place for me to go.”
“That is unfair. Your being wrecked here has been a godsend to me. I was very lonely and very sick. I really am not certain whether or not I should have pulled through had you not happened along. But that is not the point. Personally, purely selfishly personally, I should be sorry to see you go. But I am not considering myself. I am considering you. It – it is hardly the proper thing, you know. If I were married – if there were some woman of your own race here – but as it is – ”
She threw up her hands in mock despair.
“I cannot follow you,” she said. “In one breath you tell me I must go, and in the next breath you tell me there is no place to go and that you will not permit me to go. What is a poor girl to do?”
“That’s the trouble,” he said helplessly.
“And the situation annoys you.”
“Only for your sake.”
“Then let me save your feelings by telling you that it does not annoy me at all – except for the row you are making about it. I never allow what can’t be changed to annoy me. There is no use in fighting the inevitable. Here is the situation. You are here. I am here. I can’t go elsewhere, by your own account. You certainly can’t go elsewhere and leave me here alone with a whole plantation and two hundred woolly cannibals on my hands. Therefore you stay, and I stay. It is very simple. Also, it is adventure. And furthermore, you needn’t worry for yourself. I am not matrimonially inclined. I came to the Solomons for a plantation, not a husband.”
Sheldon flushed, but remained silent.
“I know what you are thinking,” she laughed gaily. “That if I were a man you’d wring my neck for me. And I deserve it, too. I’m so sorry. I ought not to keep on hurting your feelings.”
“I’m afraid I rather invite it,” he said, relieved by the signs of the tempest subsiding.
“I have it,” she announced. “Lend me a gang of your boys for to-day. I’ll build a grass house for myself over in the far corner of the compound – on piles, of course. I can move in to-night. I’ll be comfortable and safe. The Tahitians can keep an anchor watch just as aboard ship. And then I’ll study cocoanut planting. In return, I’ll run the kitchen end of your household and give you some decent food to eat. And finally, I won’t listen to any of your protests. I know all that you are going to say and offer – your giving the bungalow up to me and building a grass house for yourself. And I won’t have it. You may as well consider everything settled. On the other hand, if you don’t agree, I will go across the river, beyond your jurisdiction, and build a village for myself and my sailors, whom I shall send in the whale-boat to Guvutu for provisions. And now I want you to teach me billiards.”
CHAPTER VII – A HARD-BITTEN GANG
Joan took hold of the household with no uncertain grip, revolutionizing things till Sheldon hardly recognized the place. For the first time the bungalow was clean and orderly. No longer the house-boys loafed and did as little as they could; while the cook complained that “head belong him walk about too much,” from the strenuous course in cookery which she put him through. Nor did Sheldon escape being roundly lectured for his laziness in eating nothing but
