Evening star., 1923-04-29

he added, rolling the pearls to and
fro under his lean brown fingers.
First of all in the cutter. You get
to hate the way man hangs up his
hat IL you're alone with him long
enough. Heavens. how ! came to hate
that man, He was mean-dirty mean
in thought and action-and he was
one Of your oily sort until something
went wrong, then he was peevish as a
sick child. and with as much to back
it up. You couldn't hit him. You
felt You were up against a man
woman. or a womanman. whichever
way you like to put it-worst of both.
you know"
"Me know 'um.' Felisi thought fit
to interpolate.
"lt was after we got tothe lagoon"
the white man went on-"after the
third pearl. to be exact. The whole
lot weren't worth fifty pounds, hut
we were Floating over them on the
cabin table. Crane would pick 'eIn
up, then l would. We Were talking
some bosh about the biggest being
worth a possible fifty pounds. /
looked at Crane suddenly, and l saw
his eyes by lamplight They were
fastened on me, and they ha'ed me.
They hated me as much as ] hated
him. but for different reason. The
pearls were the reason for his case.
I laughed couldn't help it. It
struck me as so darned funny. us two
sitting in cabin twelve feet by ten.
hating one another"
Felisi laughed. too. 1t was white
mans joke.
"I think Crane must have mistaken
my laugh. Anyway, We both knew
what We thought of eacn other as
surely as though we had spoken. II
got worse. We did quite well, and
Cranes hate increased with the guam
tity and size of the pearls. Nine
couldn't get any worse than it had
been at the beginning, SO ] was out
of the running. But do you suppose
Not q. bit Of it. For sheer politcness
you couldn't have equaled us south "f
the line. 1t was an Hncommon'y
good day. Jim,' from Crane. and Good
enough and .Right-oh.' from me If
we 60 on like this from Crane and
Touch wood" from me. 1t cane TO
being polite at meals in the end. and
didn't laugh. [ must have lost my
sense of humor those days"
Felisi nodded her head under
standingly. The white man might
have been talking to the lady with the
gold hair in Levuka for all the diff
ference he seemed to find in his :ir,-
dience. Felisi took it as an uncon-
scious compliment, which indeed f..
was.
Then came what I'd been expect
ing. But I'd hidden the dinghy oars,
and hadn't given him credit for the
pluck of swimming a hundred yards
through sharks. He did it. It's won
derful what fifty frst-grade pearls
will do with man-woman. Luckily
lit was a mangrove country We were
miles of it before YOU could ge. 10
real solid earth. l tracked him as
easily as you would an elephant, and
just before nightfall something white
moved on the othter side of gully I
fired. and went over. 1t vas Crane,
lying on his face, with his fat legs
|sprawled. dead as meat; and the pearls
were in the corner of his beastly ban
danna handkerchief, that hadn't been
washed for months"
THE white man sat propped against
L the dilo trunk, staring out to sea
with a disgusted expression stin lin
Eering on his face.
Felfsi neither moved nor spoke. and
presently the white man went on,
though more slowly:
Its the first man I've killed. I'm
not used to shooting at men, much
less killing them. But I wasn't sorry.
1t rather surprised me how 1 took it
when I found him dead Somehow it
never struck me that I couldn't 70
out into the world and get on with
life as had before. 1t seemed to me
that I had rid the world Of some
thing dirty mean, and that was all
there was to 1t. The other came
later-in tho bush, and especially at
night, when the mist rises and the
tree fungus slows through 1t like a
lamp in a London fog. came to
know what it is TO have killed a man
even a man-woman-and what 1t is
to be the pet of a man hunt. Heav-
ens"-he glanced over his shoulder.
tken laughed nervously-"it's worse
than playing spooks with the lights
out! They haunt you all right. You
think you're done with thsm--thrown
them on-but you haven't: they bob
up again and come creeping on
through the bush. i dent know, bAt