Part 15 (2/2)

On the thirty-sixth day froreen wall that built up slowly across the west

Once fairly under its headlands, Karaki ed a certain triuth of the Solomons, some six hundred miles But to have fetched the broadside of theh storm and current, without instruation Karaki, however, did no celebrating Instead, he stared long and anxiously over his shoulder into the east

The wind had been fitful sinceBy noon it was dead calm on a restless, oily sea A barouessed theered forward and unstepped the little o securely under the thwarts and put all his re for a small outpost island where a line of white showed beach They had been very lucky thus far, but they were still two ht them

Karaki himself was reduced to a rattle of bones in a dried skin, and Pellett could scarce lift a hand But Karaki fought for Pellett a the waves that leaped up like sheets of fire on the reef Why or how they got through neither could have said Perhaps because it ritten that after drink, illness, madness, and starvation the white ain and a last ti waters

When they came ashore on the islet they were both nearly flayed, but they were alive, and Karaki still gripped Pellett's shi+rt

For a week they stayed while Pellett fattened on unlimited coconut and Karaki tinkered the proa It had landed in a water-logged tangle, but Karaki's treasures were safe He got his bearings fro native fisherman, and then he knew that _all_ his treasures were safe His hoainville Strait, the stretch of water just beyond

”Balbi over there?” asked Pellett

”Yes,” said Karaki

”And atoo,” cried Pellett heartily ”This is the li Beretani stop'o that side”

Karaki was quite aware of it If he feared one thing in the world, he feared the Fiji High Court and its Resident Commissioner for the Southern Soloressed in its jurisdiction Once beyond the Strait he oods and the broken contract But never--this was the point--never could he be punished for anything he ainville

So Karaki was content

And so was Christopher Alexander Pellett His body had been wrung and swept and scoured, and he had downed his devils Sweet air and sunshi+ne were on his lips and in his heart His bones were sweet in hioon or helped Karaki at the proa He would spend hours hugging the war in the delicate tracery of soround swell hushed along the beach, savoring life as he never had done

”Oh, this is good--good!” he said

Karaki puzzled hi wonder at everything, alht of this taciturn savage, how he had capped thankless service with rarest sacrifice

And now that he could consider soberly, the why of it eluded him Why?

Affection? Friendshi+p? It must be so, and he warmed toward the silent little man with the sunken eyes and the expressionless face from which he could never raise a wink

”Hy, you, Karaki, what na that fella stuff you steal? Forget it, you old black scamp

If they ever trouble you, I'll square thee, I'll say I stole it runted and sat down to clean his Winchester with a bit of rag and some drops of oil he had crushed from a dried coconut

”No, that don't reach him either,”on under that topknot of yours, old chap You're like Kipling's cat, that walks by hirateful

I wish I could show you--”