been consigned by her disappointed parents to the cooking-pot. When
Captain Van Horn first encountered her had been when she was the

central figure in a lugubrious procession on the banks of the
Balebuli River.

Anything but a beauty--had been his appraisal when he halted the
procession for a pow-wow. Lean from sickness, her skin mangy with

the dry scales of the disease called bukua, she was tied hand and
foot and, like a pig, slung from a stout pole that rested on the

shoulders of the bearers, who intended to dine off of her. Too
hopeless to expect mercy, she made no appeal for help, though the

horrible fear that possessed her was eloquent in her wild-staring
eyes.

In the universal beche-de-mer English, Captain Van Horn had learned
that she was not regarded with relish by her companions, and that

they were on their way to stake her out up to her neck in the
running water of the Balebuli. But first, before they staked her,

their plan was to dislocate her joints and break the big bones of
the arms and legs. This was no religious rite, no placation of the

brutish jungle gods. Merely was it a matter of gastronomy. Living
meat, so treated, was made tender and tasty, and, as her companions

pointed out, she certainly needed to be put through such a process.
Two days in the water, they told the captain, ought to do the

business. Then they would kill her, build the fire, and invite in a
few friends.

After half an hour of bargaining, during which Captain Van Horn had
insisted on the worthlessness of the parcel, he had bought a fat pig

worth five dollars and exchanged it for her. Thus, since he had
paid for the pig in trade goods, and since trade goods were rated at

a hundred per cent. profit, the girl had actually cost him two
dollars and fifty cents.

And then Captain Van Horn's troubles had begun. He could not get
rid of the girl. Too well he knew the natives of Malaita to turn

her over to them anywhere on the island. Chief Ishikola of Su'u had
offered five twenties of drinking coconuts for her, and Bau, a bush

chief, had offered two chickens on the beach at Malu. But this last
offer had been accompanied by a sneer, and had tokened the old

rascal's scorn of the girl's scrawniness. Failing to connect with
the missionary brig, the Western Cross, on which she would not have

been eaten, Captain Van Horn had been compelled to keep her in the
cramped quarters of the Arangi against a problematical future time

when he would be able to turn her over to the missionaries.
But toward him the girl had no heart of gratitude because she had no

brain of understanding. She, who had been sold for a fat pig,
considered her pitiful role in the world to be unchanged. Eatee she

had been. Eatee she remained. Her destination merely had been
changed, and this big fella white marster of the Arangi would

undoubtedly be her destination when she had sufficiently fattened.
His designs on her had been transparent from the first, when he had

tried to feed her up. And she had outwitted him by resolutely
eating no more than would barely keep her alive.

As a result, she, who had lived in the bush all her days and never
so much as set foot in a canoe, rocked and rolled unendingly over

the broad ocean in a perpetualnightmare of fear. In the beche-de-
mer that was current among the blacks of a thousand islands and ten

thousand dialects, the Arangi's procession of passengers assured her
of her fate. "My word, you fella Mary," one would say to her,

"short time little bit that big fella white marster kai-kai along
you." Or, another: "Big fella white marster kai-kai along you, my

word, belly belong him walk about too much."
Kai-kai was the beche-de-mer for "eat." Even Jerry knew that.

"Eat" did not obtain in his vocabulary; but kai-kai did, and it
meant all and more than "eat," for it served for both noun and verb.

But the girl never replied to the jeering of the blacks. For that
matter, she never spoke at all, not even to Captain Van Horn, who

did not so much as know her name.
It was late afternoon, after discovering the girl in the lazarette,

when Jerry again came on deck. Scarcely had Skipper, who had
carried him up the steep ladder, dropped him on deck than Jerry made

a new discovery--land. He did not see it, but he smelled it. His
nose went up in the air and quested to windward along the wind that

brought the message, and he read the air with his nose as a man
might read a newspaper--the salt smells of the seashore and of the

dank muck of mangrove swamps at low tide, the spicy fragrances of
tropic vegetation, and the faint, most faint, acrid tingle of smoke

from smudgy fires.
The trade, which had laid the Arangi well up under the lee of this

outjutting point of Malaita, was now failing, so that she began to
roll in the easy swells with crashings of sheets and tackles and

thunderous flappings of her sails. Jerry no more than cocked a
contemptuous quizzical eye at the mainsail anticking above him. He

knew already the empty windiness of its threats, but he was careful
of the mainsheet blocks, and walked around the traveller instead of

over it.
While Captain Van Horn, takingadvantage of the calm to exercise the

boat's crew with the fire-arms and to limber up the weapons, was
passing out the Lee-Enfields from their place on top the cabin

skylight, Jerry suddenly crouched and began to stalk stiff-legged.
But the wild-dog, three feet from his lair under the trade-boxes,

was not unobservant. He watched and snarled threateningly. It was
not a nice snarl. In fact, it was as nasty and savage a snarl as

all his life had been nasty and savage. Most small creatures were
afraid of that snarl, but it had no deterrent effect on Jerry, who

continued his steady stalking. When the wild-dog sprang for the
hole under the boxes, Jerry sprang after, missing his enemy by

inches. Tossing overboard bits of wood, bottles and empty tins,
Captain Van Horn ordered the eight eager boat's crew with rifles to

turn loose. Jerry was excited and delighted with the fusillade, and
added his puppy yelpings to the noise. As the empty brass

cartridges were ejected, the return boys scrambled on the deck for
them, esteeming them as very precious objects and thrusting them,

still warm, into the empty holes in their ears. Their ears were
perforated with many of these holes, the smallest capable of

receiving a cartridge, while the larger ones contained-clay pipes,
sticks of tobacco, and even boxes of matches. Some of the holes in

the ear-lobes were so huge that they were plugged with carved wooden
cylinders three inches in diameter.

Mate and captain carried automatics in their belts, and with these
they turned loose, shooting away clip after clip to the breathless

admiration of the blacks for such marvellous rapidity of fire. The
boat's crew were not even fair shots, but Van Horn, like every

captain in the Solomons, knew that the bush natives and salt-water
men were so much worse shots, and knew that the shooting of his

boat's crew could be depended upon--if the boat's crew itself did
not turn against the ship in a pinch.

At first, Borckman's automatic jammed, and he received a caution
from Van Horn for his carelessness in not keeping it clean and thin-

oiled. Also, Borckman was twittingly asked how many drinks he had
taken, and if that was what accounted for his shooting being under

his average. Borckman explained that he had a touch of fever, and
Van Horn deferred stating his doubts until a few minutes later,

squatting in the shade of the spanker with Jerry in his arms, he
told Jerry all about it.

"The trouble with him is the schnapps, Jerry," he explained. "Gott-
fer-dang, it makes me keep all my watches and half of his. And he

says it's the fever. Never believe it, Jerry. It's the schnapps--