and take. And going about! Well, you don't have to baby her,
starting head-sheets, flattening mainsail, and gentling her with

the wheel. Put your wheel down, and around she comes, like a colt
with the bit in its teeth. And you can back her like a steamer. I

did it at Langa-Langa, between that shoal patch and the shore-reef.
It was wonderful.

"But you don't love boats like I do, and I know you think I'm
making a fool of myself. But some day I'm going to sail the Martha

again. I know it. I know it."
In reply, and quite without premeditation, his hand went out to

hers, covering it as it lay on the railing. But he knew, beyond
the shadow of a doubt, that it was the boy that returned the

pressure he gave, the boy sorrowing over the lost toy. The thought
chilled him. Never had he been actually nearer to her, and never

had she been more convincingly remote. She was certainly not
acutely aware that his hand was touching hers. In her grief at the

departure of the Martha it was, to her, anybody's hand--at the
best, a friend's hand.

He withdrew his hand and walked perturbedly away.
"Why hasn't he got that big fisherman's staysail on her?" she

demanded irritably. "It would make the old girl just walk along in
this breeze. I know the sort old Kinross is. He's the skipper

that lies three days under double-reefed topsails waiting for a
gale that doesn't come. Safe? Oh, yes, he's safe--dangerously

safe."
Sheldon retraced his steps.

"Never mind," he said. "You can go sailing on the Martha any time
you please--recruiting on Malaita if you want to."

It was a great concession he was making, and he felt that he did it
against his better judgment. Her reception of it was a surprise to

him.
"With old Kinross in command?" she queried. "No, thank you. He'd

drive me to suicide. I couldn't stand his handling of her. It
would give me nervous prostration. I'll never step on the Martha

again, unless it is to take charge of her. I'm a sailor, like my
father, and he could never bear to see a vessel mishandled. Did

you see the way Kinross got under way? It was disgraceful. And
the noise he made about it! Old Noah did better with the Ark."

"But we manage to get somewhere just the same," he smiled.
"So did Noah."

"That was the main thing."
"For an antediluvian."

She took another lingering look at the Martha, then turned to
Sheldon.

"You are a slovenly lot down here when it comes to boats--most of
you are, any way. Christian Young is all right though, Munster has

a slap-dash style about him, and they do say old Nielsen was a
crackerjack. But with the rest I've seen, there's no dash, no go,

no cleverness, no real sailor's pride. It's all hum-drum, and
podgy, and slow-going, any going so long as you get there heaven

knows when. But some day I'll show you how the Martha should be
handled. I'll break out anchor and get under way in a speed and

style that will make your head hum; and I'll bring her alongside
the wharf at Guvutu without dropping anchor and running a line."

She came to a breathless pause, and then broke into laughter,
directed, he could see, against herself.

"Old Kinross is setting that fisherman's staysail," he remarked
quietly.

"No!" she cried incredulously, swiftly looking, then running for
the telescope.

She regarded the manoeuvresteadily through the glass, and Sheldon,
watching her face, could see that the skipper was not making a

success of it.
She finally lowered the glass with a groan.

"He's made a mess of it," she said, "and now he's trying it over
again. And a man like that is put in charge of a fairy like the

Martha! Well, it's a good argument against marriage, that's all.
No, I won't look any more. Come on in and play a steady,

conservative game of billiards with me. And after that I'm going
to saddle up and go after pigeons. Will you come along?"

An hour later, just as they were riding out of the compound, Joan
turned in the saddle for a last look at the Martha, a distant speck

well over toward the Florida coast.
"Won't Tudor be surprised when he finds we own the Martha?" she

laughed. "Think of it! If he doesn't strike pay-dirt he'll have
to buy a steamer-passage to get away from the Solomons."

Still laughing gaily, she rode through the gate. But suddenly her
laughter broke flatly and she reined in the mare. Sheldon glanced

at her sharply, and noted her face mottling, even as he looked, and
turning orange and green.

"It's the fever," she said. "I'll have to turn back."
By the time they were in the compound she was shivering and

shaking, and he had to help her from her horse.
"Funny, isn't it?" she said with chattering teeth. "Like

seasickness--not serious, but horriblymiserable while it lasts.
I'm going to bed. Send Noa Noah and Viaburi to me. Tell Ornfiri

to make hot water. I'll be out of my head in fifteen minutes. But
I'll be all right by evening. Short and sharp is the way it takes

me. Too bad to lose the shooting. Thank you, I'm all right."
Sheldon obeyed her instructions, rushed hot-water bottles along to

her, and then sat on the verandavainlytrying to interest himself
in a two-months-old file of Sydney newspapers. He kept glancing up

and across the compound to the grass house. Yes, he decided, the
contention of every white man in the islands was right; the

Solomons was no place for a woman.
He clapped his hands, and Lalaperu came running.

"Here, you!" he ordered; "go along barracks, bring 'm black fella
Mary, plenty too much, altogether."

A few minutes later the dozen black women of Berande were ranged
before him. He looked them over critically, finally selecting one

that was young, comely as such creatures went, and whose body bore
no signs of skin-disease.

"What name, you?" he demanded. "Sangui?"
"Me Mahua," was the answer.

"All right, you fella Mahua. You finish cook along boys. You stop
along white Mary. All the time you stop along. You savvee?"

"Me savvee," she grunted, and obeyed his gesture to go to the grass
house immediately.

"What name?" he asked Viaburi, who had just come out of the grass
house.

"Big fella sick," was the answer. "White fella Mary talk 'm too
much allee time. Allee time talk 'm big fella schooner."

Sheldon nodded. He understood. It was the loss of the Martha that
had brought on the fever. The fever would have come sooner or

later, he knew; but her disappointment had precipitated it. He
lighted a cigarette, and in the curling smoke of it caught visions

of his English mother, and wondered if she would understand how her
son could love a woman who cried because she could not be skipper

of a schooner in the cannibal isles.
CHAPTER XX--A MAN-TALK

The most patient man in the world is prone to impatience in love--
and Sheldon was in love. He called himself an ass a score of times

a day, and strove to contain himself by directing his mind in other
channels, but more than a score of times each day his thoughts

roved back and dwelt on Joan. It was a pretty problem she
presented, and he was continually debating with himself as to what

was the best way to approach her.
He was not an adept at love-making. He had had but one experience

in the gentle art (in which he had been more wooed than wooing),