Chapter 16 - Page 2

are bound for Marau, and that you said
yourself that in two hours you are getting under way again."

"But may I not see you safely across?" Tudor asked, a pleading note
in his voice that rasped on Sheldon's nerves.

"No, no, and again no," she cried. "You've all got your work to
do, and so have I. I came to the Solomons to work, not to be
escorted about like a doll. For that matter, here's my escort, and
there are seven more like him."

Adamu Adam stood beside her, towering above her, as he towered
above the three white men. The clinging cotton undershirt he wore
could not hide the bulge of his tremendous muscles.

"Look at his fist," said Tudor. "I'd hate to receive a punch from
it."

"I don't blame you." Joan laughed reminiscently. "I saw him hit
the captain of a Swedish bark on the beach at Levuka, in the Fijis.
It was the captain's fault. I saw it all myself, and it was
splendid. Adamu only hit him once, and he broke the man's arm.
You remember, Adamu?"

The big Tahitian smiled and nodded, his black eyes, soft and deer-
like, seeming to give the lie to so belligerent a nature.

"We start in an hour in the whale-boat for Guvutu, big brother,"
Joan said to him. "Tell your brothers, all of them, so that they
can get ready. We catch the Upolu for Sydney. You will all come
along, and sail back to the Solomons in the new schooner. Take
your extra shirts and dungarees along. Plenty cold weather down
there. Now run along, and tell them to hurry. Leave the guns
behind. Turn them over to Mr. Sheldon. We won't need them."

"If you are really bent upon going--" Sheldon began.

"That's settled long ago," she answered shortly. "I'm going to
pack now. But I'll tell you what you can do for me--issue some
tobacco and other stuff they want to my men."

An hour later the three men had shaken hands with Joan down on the
beach. She gave the signal, and the boat shoved off, six men at
the oars, the seventh man for'ard, and Adamu Adam at the steering-
sweep. Joan was standing up in the stern-sheets, reiterating her
good-byes--a slim figure of a woman in the tight-fitting jacket she
had worn ashore from the wreck, the long-barrelled Colt's revolver
hanging from the loose belt around her waist, her clear-cut face
like a boy's under the Stetson hat that failed to conceal the heavy
masses of hair beneath.

"You'd better get into shelter," she called to them. "There's a
big squall coming. And I hope you've got plenty of chain out,
Captain Young. Good-bye! Good-bye, everybody!"

Her last words came out of the darkness, which wrapped itself
solidly about the boat. Yet they continued to stare into the
blackness in the direction in which the boat had