enough for me, or perhaps salving another Martha; but the bushmen

of Guadalcanar need never worry for fear that I shall visit them
again. I shall have nightmares for months to come, I know I shall.

Ugh!--the horrid beasts!"
That night found them back in camp with Tudor, who, while improved,

would still have to be carried down on a stretcher. The swelling
of the Poonga-Poonga man's shoulder was going down slowly, but

Arahu still limped on his thorn-poisoned foot.
Two days later they rejoined the boats at Carli; and at high noon

of the third day, travelling with the current and shooting the
rapids, the expedition arrived at Berande. Joan, with a sigh,

unbuckled her revolver-belt and hung it on the nail in the living-
room, while Sheldon, who had been lurking about for the sheer joy

of seeing her perform that particular home-coming act, sighed, too,
with satisfaction. But the home-coming was not all joy to him, for

Joan set about nursing Tudor, and spent much time on the veranda
where he lay in the hammock under the mosquito-netting.

CHAPTER XXVI--BURNING DAYLIGHT
The ten days of Tudor's convalescence that followed were peaceful

days on Berande. The work of the plantation went on like clock-
work. With the crushing of the premature outbreak of Gogoomy and

his following, all insubordination seemed to have vanished. Twenty
more of the old-time boys, their term of service up, were carried

away by the Martha, and the fresh stock of labour, treated fairly,
was proving of excellent quality. As Sheldon rode about the

plantation, acknowledging to himself the comfort and convenience of
a horse and wondering why he had not thought of getting one

himself, he pondered the various improvements for which Joan was
responsible--the splendid Poonga-Poonga recruits; the fruits and

vegetables; the Martha herself, snatched from the sea for a song
and earning money hand over fist despite old Kinross's slow and

safe method of running her; and Berande, once more financially
secure, approaching each day nearer the dividend-paying time, and

growing each day as the black toilers cleared the bush, cut the
cane-grass, and planted more cocoanut palms.

In these and a thousand ways Sheldon was made aware of how much he
was indebted for material prosperity to Joan--to the slender,

level-browed girl with romance shining out of her gray eyes and
adventure shouting from the long-barrelled Colt's on her hip, who

had landed on the beach that piping gale, along with her stalwart
Tahitian crew, and who had entered his bungalow to hang with boy's

hands her revolver-belt and Baden-Powell hat on the nail by the
billiard table. He forgot all the early exasperations, remembering

only her charms and sweetnesses and glorying much in the traits he
at first had disliked most--her boyishness and adventurousness, her

delight to swim and risk the sharks, her desire to go recruiting,
her love of the sea and ships, her sharp authoritative words when

she launched the whale-boat and, with firestick in one hand and
dynamite-stick in the other, departed with her picturesque crew to

shoot fish in the Balesuna; her super-innocent disdain for the
commonest conventions, her juvenile joy in argument, her

fluttering, wild-bird love of freedom and mad passion for
independence. All this he now loved, and he no longer desired to

tame and hold her, though the paradox was the winning of her
without the taming and the holding.

There were times when he was dizzy with thought of her and love of
her, when he would stop his horse and with closed eyes picture her

as he had seen her that first day, in the stern-sheets of the
whale-boat, dashing madly in to shore and marching belligerently

along his veranda to remark that it was pretty hospitality this
letting strangers sink or swim in his front yard. And as he opened

his eyes and urged his horse onward, he would ponder for the ten
thousandth time how possibly he was ever to hold her when she was

so wild and bird-like that she was bound to flutter out and away
from under his hand.

It was patent to Sheldon that Tudor had become interested in Joan.
That convalescent visitor practically lived on the veranda, though,

while preposterously weak and shaky in the legs, he had for some
time insisted on coming in to join them at the table at meals. The

first warning Sheldon had of the other's growing interest in the
girl was when Tudor eased down and finally ceased pricking him with

his habitual sharpness of quip and speech. This cessation of
verbal sparring was like the breaking off of diplomatic relations

between countries at the beginning of war, and, once Sheldon's
suspicions were aroused, he was not long in finding other

confirmations. Tudor too obviously joyed in Joan's presence, too
obviously laid himself out to amuse and fascinate her with his own

glorious and adventurouspersonality. Often, after his morning
ride over the plantation, or coming in from the store or from

inspection of the copra-drying, Sheldon found the pair of them
together on the veranda, Joan listening, intent and excited, and

Tudor deep in some recital of personal adventure at the ends of the
earth.

Sheldon noticed, too, the way Tudor looked at her and followed her
about with his eyes, and in those eyes he noted a certain hungry

look, and on the face a certain wistful expression; and he wondered
if on his own face he carried a similar involuntary advertisement.

He was sure of several things: first, that Tudor was not the right
man for Joan and could not possibly make her permanently happy;

next, that Joan was too sensible a girl really to fall in love with
a man of such superficial stamp; and, finally, that Tudor would

blunder his love-making somehow. And at the same time, with true
lover's anxiety, Sheldon feared that the other might somehow fail

to blunder, and win the girl with purely fortuitous and successful
meretricious show. But of the one thing Sheldon was sure: Tudor

had no intimate knowledge of her and was unaware of how vital in
her was her wildness and love of independence. That was where he

would blunder--in the catching and the holding of her. And then,
in spite of all his certitude, Sheldon could not forbear wondering

if his theories of Joan might not be wrong, and if Tudor was not
going the right way about after all.

The situation was very unsatisfactory and perplexing. Sheldon
played the difficult part of waiting and looking on, while his

rival devoted himself energetically to reaching out and grasping at
the fluttering prize. Then, again, Tudor had such an irritating

way about him. It had become quite elusive and intangible, now
that he had tacitly severed diplomatic relations; but Sheldon

sensed what he deemed a growing antagonism and promptly magnified
it through the jealous lenses of his own lover's eyes. The other

was an interloper. He did not belong to Berande, and now that he
was well and strong again it was time for him to go. Instead of

which, and despite the calling in of the mail steamer bound for
Sydney, Tudor had settled himself down comfortably, resumed

swimming, went dynamiting fish with Joan, spent hours with her
hunting pigeons, trapping crocodiles, and at target practice with

rifle and revolver.
But there were certain traditions of hospitality that prevented

Sheldon from breathing a hint that it was time for his guest to
take himself off. And in similar fashion, feeling that it was not

playing the game, he fought down the temptation to warn Joan. Had
he known anything, not too serious, to Tudor's detriment, he would

have been unable to utter it; but the worst of it was that he knew
nothing at all against the man. That was the confounded part of

it, and sometimes he was so baffled and overwrought by his feelings
that he assumed a super-judicial calm and assured himself that his

dislike of Tudor was a matter of unsubstantial prejudice and
jealousy.

Outwardly, he maintained a calm and smiling aspect. The work of
the plantation went on. The Martha and the Flibberty-Gibbet came

and went, as did all the miscellany of coasting craft that dropped
in to wait for a breeze and have a gossip, a drink or two, and a

game of billiards. Satan kept the compound free of niggers.
Boucher came down regularly in his whale-boat to pass Sunday.

Twice a day, at breakfast and dinner, Joan and Sheldon and Tudor
met amicably at table, and the evenings were as amicably spent on

the veranda.
And then it happened. Tudor made his blunder. Never divining