Part 1 (1/2)
The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton
by Louis Becke
CHAPTER I
The night was close and stifling, and the dulled bellowing of the surf on the weather side of the island told me that the calm was about to break at last, and in another hour or so the thirsty, sandy soil would be drenched with the long-expected rain, and the drooping palms and pandanus trees wave their wearied branches to the cooling trade-wind once h bed of cane-work andmyself on a canoe, looked out upon the wide expanse of ocean, heaving under a dark and lowering sky, and wondered e of a trading station on such a God-forsaken place as Tarawa Island in the Gilbert Group
My house--or rather the collection of thatched huts which for station--stood quite apart froe, but not so far that I could not hear the uttural tongue, and see, ures of women and children sent out to see that the fleet of canoes lying on the beach was safe beyond the reach of the waves which the co, endless lines across the outer reef to the foot of the coco-pal, monotonous shore
The day had been aone withdays for the last four months First of all, ever since I had landed on the island, nearly half a year before, I had suffered froloomy, rain-soaked forests of New Ireland and New Britain, had poisoned my blood, soured my temper, and all but e Violent attacks of ague, recurring with persistent and diabolical regularity every week for h I was able to attend to my business and do justice to my employers, I felt that I should never live to see the end of ement unless I either shook off the fever or was enabled to leave the torrid regions of the Equatorial Pacific for a cooler climate--such as Sae, moreover, of the fact that the fever was slowly but surely killingrelieved by my employers and sent elsewhere--for I had neither money, friends, nor influence--was an additional factor towards sending me into such a morbid condition of mind that I had often conte the island alone insail for Fiji or Samoa, more than a thousand miles distant
Most people may, perhaps, think that such an idea could only es had been done, tie in the Pacific, and as the fever racked my bones and tortured my brain, and the fear of death upon this lonely island assailedand sweltering, or shaking with ague upon ht of the whale-boat so constantly recurred to me even in my more cheerful moments, when I was free from pain, that eventually I half formed a resolution to make the attempt
For at the root of the despondency that ever overpowered ue there was a potent and never dor me to action which kept me alive; and that was uish myself before I died, or when I died
For ten years I had sailed in the South Seas, and had hadas I was, as befell those who, in the ”sixties” and ”seventies,” ranged the Western and North-Western Pacific But though I had been thrice through the murderous Solomon Group as ”recruiter” for a Fijian labour vessel--”blackbirders” or ”slavers” these craft are designated by good people who know nothing of the subject, and judge the Pacific Islands labour trade by two or three dreadful lish”
And to have ”done so about, soive amen who had spent nearly all their lives in the South Seas Little Barney Watt, the chief engineer of the _Ripple_, when the captain and ers of Bougainville Island, had shut himself up in the deck-house, and, wounded badly as he was, shot seventeen of them dead with his Winchester, and cleared the steamer's decks Then, with no other whitethe _Ripple_ to Sydney; Cameron, the shark-fisher, after his crew mutinied at Wake Island, escaped with his native wife in a dinghy, and e of fifteen hundred miles to the Marshall Group; Collier, of Tahiti, when the barque of which he was ers off Peru Island and every white man of the crew but himself was murdered, blew up the vessel's es Then, with but three native seairls to assist him, he sailed the barque back safely to Tahiti And wherever ether in the South Seas--in Levuka, in Apia, in Honolulu, in Papeite--you would hear them talk of ”Barney Watt,” and ”Cameron,” and ”Jack Collier”
Should I, ”Ji siivemy fellows, but to make my name known to that outside world fro severed myself?
As I sat on the mat-covered canoe,shoreward fro skin was drenched and cooled from head to foot
Heedless of the stor, phosphorescent breakers tu of pleasure to the rush and seethe of the rain squalls as they swept through the dense groves of coco-pal over to my boat-shed, which was but a few yards distant, I endeavoured to close the rough wooden doors so as to prevent the rain froth was not equal to the task, for a puff of more than usual violence not only tore the handle of the door frothe boat's side, I reached her stern, where I was sheltered, and searched my saturated pockets to see if by any chance I had a box of ht my boat's lantern and have a look round the shed I found a few loose ones, but so wetted as to be useless, and was just about to return to ust, when I heard my name called softly, and a hand touched reatly startled that any one should be in the boat-shed at such a tiirl; and Teround near me His master hath beaten him so that he is near to death
And we have come to seek aid from thee”
I knew the speaker, but did not question her any further at the ti her if he whom she called Tematau could rise and walk to the house She replied in the affirirl and I had to support hirope our way over to the house in face of the furious wind and driving rain The moment ere inside we laid the injured man down, and I struck a match and lit a laainst any possible intruders, but to keep out the rain and wind Then, before doing anything else, I went into the store-rooh, ready-own such as the native wo for thegrass, and then, changing ave our attention to her companion
The poor fellow had been fearfully beaten The whole of his back, arhs were in a dreadful state, and the rain had caused the wounds to bleed afresh But the worst injury was a deep cut on the face, extending fro the bone My surgery was none of the best, but I succeeded at last in sewing up the wound satisfactorily, the patient bearing the pain without flinching, and pressing ratitude when I told hiirl assured me that she herself would apply proper native re how very clever these natives are in such lass or two of grog and a tin of sardines and soirl, whose face was stern and set, ”thou, too, must eat and then lie on my conch and sleep I will sit here and read my book and watch the sick ht and I cannot sleep So eat and rest”
She shook her head ”Nay, I feel no hunger, Simi,{} and I would sit here with thee if it offend not And then when the cold seizeth thee at the tiht I can boil thee thy coffee”
Jim--pronounced Seemee
I was somewhat surprised that she knew that at dawn I usually had an attack of ague, for she lived ten miles away, and seldoe where I was stationed, though she ell known to them by reputation However, I was too ill and wearied at the ti her for her offer to sit up and attend the unfortunate Tee in the rooarette
”Shall I fill thy pipe, Simi?” she asked me as she approached nified, that physically and mentally exhausted as I was I could not but feel astonished For tomore--as far as her appearance went--than an ordinary native woh I had quite often heard her nas with the spirits and who had supernatural protection, and all that sort of stuff