THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 -
 
 GROCER GREATHEART
 
 NOVELS BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 A Romance for those who are fortunate 
 enough to wear spectacles 
 
 GALAHAD JONES : A Tragic Farce 
 With 16 Illustrations by Norman Lindsay
 
 GROCER :: :: 
 
 GREATHEART 
 
 :: :: A TROPICAL ROMANCE :: :: 
 BY ARTHUR ADAMS 
 
 LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD 
 NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY. MCMXV
 
 JAS. TRUSCOTT & SON, LTD., London.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGi 
 
 I THE FRAGRANCE - I 
 
 II THE RAFT - 25 
 
 III THE CLASP - 54 
 
 IV THE HANDKERCHIEF - 76 
 
 V THE FLAG - 10 I 
 
 VI THE TIGER - - 125 
 
 VII THE WOMAN - - 143 
 
 VIII THE SCHOONER - 165 
 
 IX THE STRANGERS - - 184 
 
 X THE BOUQUETS - 2O3 
 
 XI THE TORTURE - 224 
 
 XII THE SHOP - - 243 
 
 XIII THE GROCER - 266 
 
 XIV THE TREASURE - 285 
 XV THE PIRATE - - - 308 
 
 17343^8
 
 GROCER GREATHEART
 
 Grocer Greatheart 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE FR AGRANC E 
 
 THOUGH, of course, he must have 
 been on the ship when it left Sydney, 
 it was quite a week before I noticed 
 Mr. John Greatheart. But he was 
 the sort of man that you would only notice if he 
 stood on his head a feat, I feel sure, he would 
 never have contemplated. And even in that 
 contingency you would have merely wondered 
 why so ordinary a man should do so extra- 
 ordinary a thing. 
 
 But to me, a tired sub-editor, sent a trip to 
 Japan by my Sydney directors, more for the 
 health I needed to recapture than for the articles 
 on trade conditions in the Orient that I was 
 commissioned to write, all the passengers 
 on the Boomerang seemed, at least at first, 
 depressingly ordinary. As that morning of 
 departure from Sydney I surveyed the com- 
 pany in which I was compelled to spend three
 
 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 weeks, and made them out, in their travelling 
 clothes, as monotonously dull as an editorial 
 article, I said to myself with an air of desperate 
 bravado, " I shall have plenty of time for my 
 reading, anyhow." 
 
 And, when the "A. C. J." liner which, as 
 everybody in Australia knows, trades between 
 Australia, China and Japan plunged through 
 Sydney Heads into the illimitable tumult of the 
 Pacific, I with no bravado went below. For 
 several days and nights I had not even time for 
 my reading. But, once inside the calm waters 
 of the Great Barrier Reef, I ventured to leave 
 my bunk and climb wearily on deck. That day 
 was a sample of a number of days to come. 
 We were steaming in the current-swept highway 
 between the reef and the interminable coast. 
 On the right, were the scattered beacons and 
 the white breaking shoals of the coral reef ; and, 
 on the left, the great stretch of low coastline 
 unwound slowly like the ribbon of a titanic 
 type-writing machine. And now up on deck 
 dribbled the other pallid passengers and flopped 
 wearily into the nearest deck-chairs. By that 
 first afternoon of calm the passengers had begun 
 to put out hesitating tentacles towards each 
 other a glance at the men walking the decks, 
 an offer to fix a rug about a girl's chair, a casual 
 remark about the prospects of a fine trip, mutual
 
 THE FRAGRANCE 
 
 confidences as to personal degrees of sea- 
 sickness. People were beginning to sort 
 themselves out with humanity's quiet contempt 
 for those philosophers who assert that all men 
 are equal. The process of natural selection 
 is seen nowhere so swiftly and naturally at work 
 as on the deck of an ocean liner. 
 
 At dinner, the vacant chairs were filled by men 
 new shaven and women who had summoned up 
 their courage to drag from their trunks their new 
 dinner dresses ; and everybody evinced a tenta- 
 tive interest in food. That evening there was 
 music in the social hall, and four men sat down 
 at a table in the card room to play bridge all the 
 way to China. 
 
 Next day deck games were in full swing, and 
 little groups, after a game, stayed chatting, each 
 atom summing up the other atoms. The 
 drops of Life on the ship's deck had begun to 
 run together. Out of the original chaos Life 
 had been created. Society had formed itself 
 into tribes. 
 
 Unattached youngish man as I was, some- 
 what absorbed in what I then termed my own 
 individuality, I felt no desire to become absorbed 
 into one of those loose, colloidal groups. I 
 stood aloof and dispassionately noticed how 
 accurately the different layers of this chance- 
 collected humanity stratified themselves. 
 
 A 2
 
 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 At the top was the " society " layer, composed 
 of a group of haughty dames, most of whom were 
 convoying a highly groomed and becomingly 
 decorated daughter for the parade of the world's 
 matrimonial market. To this group flowed all 
 the young men in check caps and heavy rubber- 
 soled white deck shoes. I noticed a Rhodes 
 scholar going home to forget his own country 
 and become an Englishman, and an Oxford 
 youth completing the education he had never 
 begun by seeing what his mind would let him 
 see of a world that annoyingly wasn't like 
 England. I remember that he hurt me by 
 referring to the continent that was my birth- 
 place as a " colony." 
 
 Below this " Government House clique," or 
 the "click," as it was sarcastically, yet with a 
 quite obvious sincerity, labelled, was the larger, 
 looser aggregation composing the bulk of the 
 passengers. I noticed in it several Australian 
 professional and business men, one a helplessly 
 fat man with a commanding though fishy eye, 
 none of whom could be bothered " dressing the 
 part " for the " Government House set," and a 
 thin little lady who looked like a successful 
 boarding-house keeper this was merely my 
 guess, but I had had grim experience of 
 boarding-houses. This group subdivided 
 itself into conversational bridge fours, deck-
 
 THE FRAGRANCE 5 
 
 billiard sets, concert and sweep promoters, the 
 inevitable sports committee, clans of elderly 
 ladies who stitched little bits of scandal into 
 little bits of fancy work, and the pairs who had 
 already pre-empted all the dark corners of the 
 deck and would soon revolve, like binary stars, 
 round each other in orbits utterly removed from 
 the atmosphere of the ship. 
 
 Then there were the unused fragments left 
 over in the construction of this solid little world, 
 and people who filled some modest niche so 
 unobtrusively and so well that their presence 
 was not even noticed. In the left-over class I 
 enrolled myself with a foolish, defiant pride ; 
 and perhaps it was because I had not become, 
 nor had I indeed been asked to become, a 
 member of any particular group that my 
 attention was drawn to another stray similarly 
 situated. Thus it was that early in the voyage 
 I became vaguely conscious of the anonymous 
 entity that I subsequently learnt was Mr. John 
 Greatheart. 
 
 It was, however, much later before I really 
 took cognisance of John Greatheart, before he 
 grew, as it were, from a passenger into a 
 personality. He had a shy soul.
 
 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 True, we followed our first casual conversa- 
 tion, which I have quite forgotten, with the 
 usual non-committal morning and evening nods 
 and passing remarks of fellow-passengers. And 
 sometimes I caught sight of him lolling in a 
 deck-chair with a book on his lap, the place 
 carefully marked by a slip of paper. But I 
 cannot ever recall seeing him reading. He 
 used to lounge there, staring blankly out over 
 the sea with as much expression in his pale blue 
 eyes as there is in a pearl collar stud. I would 
 come upon him wandering about the boat, climb- 
 ing to the upper deck, gazing aimlessly at the 
 second saloon passengers, studying the winch, 
 poking about, always solitary, and, fascinated, 
 peering for hours down at the engine-room. 
 
 Sometimes, too, I became aware of a small 
 figure hunched in the cushions in the corner 
 bench of the card room, watching with childish 
 interest the absorption of the players and the 
 onlookers in a game he knew nothing about. 
 Once I glimpsed him taking a furtive drink at 
 the bar. At meals he had a seat in a far corner 
 of the saloon, where I noticed him always 
 conscientiously intent on the menu, going 
 stolidly through the whole gamut of courses. 
 He was evidently doing his feeble best to adapt 
 himself to this new life ; and I felt sure that if
 
 THE FRAGRANCE 
 
 he kept a diary he would have had much of 
 naive interest to fill it with. 
 
 One afternoon, idly reading, I had glanced 
 up at the empty deck the heat even beneath 
 the awning had driven the most energetic 
 passengers into drowsy deck-chairs I saw 
 him coming down the deck in his uncom- 
 fortably hot blue serge suit and his drab 
 cap. He paused irresolutely at a heap of 
 discarded deck quoits and stealthily picked one 
 up, poised it and threw it at the peg. It did not 
 even hit it. At once he passed on nervously, as 
 if he had not really meant to try his skill. Then 
 he deliberately set himself to imitate the men he 
 had seen briskly walking the deck for exercise. 
 But, after a couple of turns, he tired of this 
 foolish game, and shambled below, presumably 
 to his bunk. 
 
 The picture of him, clumsily and diffidently 
 trying to adapt himself to a life that came so 
 easily to us, remained in my mind. He had 
 arrived quite unprepared with the proper clothes 
 for a tropical voyage. He had no white ducks, 
 no soft shirt, no canvas shoes. But, so far, at 
 least, he did not seem to haye noticed his lack. 
 His little drab cap was the only concession he 
 had made to his new environment. And even 
 that had betrayed him. His pallid face had 
 become a rosy pink, and the sun had smitten his
 
 8 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 nose a nose so insignificant and deprecating 
 that the sun seemed guilty of an impertinence 
 in touching it. 
 
 Idly I began to become interested in him. 
 On an ocean voyage you can become interested 
 in anything. I began mentally to probe into 
 his past life. Some clerk in some obscure 
 office, perhaps, who lived in a dusty suburb and 
 kept a few thin fowls. Married certainly to 
 some large, matter-of-fact woman who went 
 about in the mornings in a blouse hanging loose 
 at the waist. And too many children. What- 
 ever he had been or whatever he had done, I 
 felt sure had been insignificant and common- 
 place. I supposed I should have passed him in 
 the street in Sydney, or sat next him on tram or 
 ferry-boat a dozen times without noticing him. 
 I put him down as the sort of precise man who 
 always doubles up his tram ticket and sticks it 
 through his buttonhole. 
 
 It was an event of supreme importance to 
 people on shipboard that led to us becoming 
 more fully acquainted. We had sighted land 
 the first land since we had left Australia hull 
 down to the south. 
 
 During the day the horizon had thickened 
 from a line to a faint blur, from a blur to a 
 mound, from a mound to a hill ; and now, in the 
 afternoon, we found ourselves close to a tropical
 
 THE FRAGRANCE 9 
 
 island. It loomed up with its rugged sky-line, 
 its creased folds of forest, its little headlands 
 laced with white beach. We all stood, vaguely 
 excited, watching this new world opening to our 
 gaze. This was not the low, bare coast of our 
 continent ; this was the wonder of the tropics. 
 
 Then, as the vessel swung nearer to the land 
 to round a headland, the wind seemed to change, 
 and to our nostrils came a waft of the most 
 wonderful of scents. 
 
 It was penetrating, strangely and pungently 
 sweet an odour of unimaginable delight, shot 
 through with a harshness that almost hurt. It 
 was compounded, perhaps, of the rotting of 
 tropical jungle, the sickly sweetness of strange 
 orchids, the perfume of brown oiled bodies, the 
 decay of monstrous leaves, the fragrarce of 
 crushed berries, the tang of monstrous sea- 
 weeds, the steam from sun-stricken swamps. 
 There it was with all its disconcerting challenge, 
 not sweet, not sickly, not so much pleasant as 
 provocative. It was the East. 
 
 " Smell that ? " said a voice at my side a 
 voice meek, yet enthusiastic. " What is it? " 
 
 I turned and found the thin little man. 
 
 " It's just the tropics," I said, for I had once 
 been a trip to the Islands. So, from the fullness 
 of my knowledge, I added, " They always smell 
 like that."
 
 io GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 "So wonderful as this?" he said sniffing. 
 " I never knew there was a perfume like this. 
 It's upsetting, isn't it ? " 
 
 All the passengers were sniffing, too, in a 
 perplexed, expectant way. The Oxford youth, 
 who was leaning over the rail with the most 
 marriageable of the Australian girls beside him, 
 looked into her pretty, foolish face ques- 
 tioningly. The strange fragrance seemed to 
 have stripped his elegance from him. I caught a 
 glimpse of something human and strong beneath 
 his affectations of clothes and accent. And in 
 the girl's eyes there was a strange, wild fear- 
 as if in the dark her hand had touched a naked 
 body. 
 
 Her managing mother, beside her, put out 
 her hand as if to steady herself, to grasp some- 
 thing solid, to protect her child from she knew 
 not what disintegrating influence. It was not 
 proper that such nude perfumes should touch 
 a maiden's nostrils. 
 
 The most magnificent of the business 
 magnates on board was standing next her. 
 Suddenly annoyed, he forgot to pull at his fat 
 cigar. His puffy face and his waistcoat of 
 magnificent distances seemed to shrink. His 
 dead eyes stared as if to frown down this 
 audacious visitant. Frankly he was offended, 
 almost insulted.
 
 THE FRAGRANCE n 
 
 The little lady who looked like a boarding- 
 house keeper hurriedly put her silly handkerchief 
 to her bright little eyes. And when surrep- 
 titiously she removed it her eyes had moist 
 memories in them. She made a valiant 
 pretence of having merely blown her eager 
 little nose. 
 
 I was promptly recalled by the voice of the 
 little man at my side. 
 
 " I say," he whispered in his excitement, " this 
 is it's Life, eh? Fancy living all your life 
 and not knowing what Life is! It's glorious! 
 I've never felt like this before so turned inside 
 out, have you ? " 
 
 He seemed actually tall as he spoke. His thin 
 frame seemed to expand. I felt that he was 
 inflating his stuffy lungs, striving to gulp down 
 that whiff of pungent fragrance, trying to get 
 its subtle exhilaration into his blood. 
 
 And, I should say, his suburban blood needed 
 it. 
 
 Then, just as magically as the spell had come 
 upon the ship, it was broken. The fragrance, 
 which a moment before had enchanted us, 
 vanished. People looked round, dazed, as if to 
 catch a sight of its vanishing ghost. The magic 
 had gone. 
 
 It seemed to me that everybody looked 
 ashamed. They glanced askance at each other.
 
 12 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 Something had betrayed them. They felt 
 angry, they knew not at what. The soft, lan- 
 guorous fingers of the East had caressed them. 
 They resented the impertinence. The East 
 has no right to take liberties with tourists. 
 
 Eagerly, feverishly, they turned to occupy 
 themselves, to shake off the strange languor 
 that oppressed them, to shudder away from that 
 contaminating touch. Deck games were 
 noisily arranged. Frail laughter filled the ship. 
 Several of the men stealthily moved toward 
 the bar. Restlessly I wandered over and 
 looked into the card room. 
 
 There, in 'the corner occupied by the four 
 bridge-fiends since luncheon, one man, whose 
 partner had declared an original spades, put 
 down four aces. 
 
 If any whiff of the mysterious fragrance had 
 penetrated into this smoke-thickened atmos- 
 phere, it had not been noticed. The magic of 
 the East has its limits. 
 
 Late that evening I was standing smoking the 
 best pipe of the twenty-four hours, looking out 
 at the dark bulk of the looming land. Almost 
 abeam of us a volcanic peak glowed inter- 
 mittently, like the red ashes of a giant's cigar.
 
 THE FRAGRANCE 13 
 
 I felt an unseen presence at my side. It was 
 the little man. He edged closer to me, and, as 
 I turned a little impatiently to him, his face 
 seemed to have taken on a new quality of 
 wistfulness, like the wonder of a child over the 
 ever-opening complexity of his world. 
 
 He looked out at the distant blackness of an 
 island. 
 
 " I wonder," he diffidently began, then 
 relapsed into his pre-occupation. After a, 
 pause he ventured again, " I wonder what is 
 going on over there ? " 
 
 ' l That's an island," I said curtly, indisposed to 
 this interruption to my tobacco-shrouded peace. 
 
 " Yes, I know. But what's going on there? " 
 
 "I suppose what's going on everywhere. 
 Life." 
 
 " Yes," he eagerly clutched my platitude. 
 " That's so wonderful. People are living there, 
 people we know nothing about. Living their 
 lives just as we are living ours, and knowing 
 as little about us and our lives as we do about 
 them. There they are, mysterious, secretive, 
 in that dark little island, loving and hating, 
 living and having children and dying. All that 
 going on and going on, for centuries. And all 
 of it so important to them tremendously im- 
 portant just as things are to us. For centuries. 
 For ever. It upsets you, doesn't it? They
 
 14 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 might be in another world. They are in another 
 world, as far as we are concerned. Life's so 
 big, so broad ; and we're so suburban. I never 
 had the remotest idea so much was going on 
 outside." 
 
 He paused over his vague, childish wonder, 
 deliberately savouring it. I smoked, but my 
 tobacco had lost its balm. I was relieved when 
 he meandered on. 
 
 : ' That smell, this afternoon it was like 
 a touch of the hand from them. It was like 
 fingers in your hair. It's upset me. I didn't 
 enjoy my dinner at all. The soup seemed oily. 
 Did you notice it? I've felt restless ever since. 
 Can't settle to my book. I feel I want to go 
 there, just drop over into this quiet, warm sea 
 and swim and swim." 
 
 " The sharks would be delighted," I laughed. 
 
 Evidently he had not thought of the sharks. 
 His enthusiasm seemed to chill. We stood 
 there staring out, a long time silent. His 
 babyish wonder had aroused in me, too, a desire 
 to know the heart of those strange lands, to 
 explore these shrouded islands, to break through 
 matted jungles on to strange desolate beaches. 
 I was becoming childish. 
 
 " Oh," he broke out again, " it's wonderful 
 seeing all this." 
 
 " But you haven't seen anything," I checked
 
 15 
 
 him, angry at the mood he had induced in me. 
 !< To-morrow we may pass close enough to one 
 of the shores the mate was showing me the 
 chart this morning to see the natives on the 
 beach, running along and shouting at the ship." 
 
 He was exalted. " Shouting what?" 
 
 " How can we tell? Just shouting." 
 
 :< Yes," he eagerly took me up. " Calling to 
 us and wondering about us just as we are 
 wondering about them. But we'll go past, and 
 they'll go back to their lonely lives, and nobody 
 will ever know. Strange peoples - " 
 
 !t That you wouldn't like. Savages." 
 
 "Well, we were savages once. Primitive 
 man." 
 
 He looked in his prim, precise littleness so 
 unlike a primitive man that I almost laughed. 
 I had to change the subject. 
 
 "Where are you bound for? " I asked. 
 
 "Round the world." 
 
 " A pleasure trip ? " 
 
 :t Yes. But I never imagined it would be 
 like this. In the pamphlets I looked at the 
 world seemed all hotels." 
 
 " Haven't you been out of Australia before ? " 
 
 " I've never been on the ocean before never 
 outside Sydney Heads." 
 
 This was becoming interesting. I waited 
 and got my reward.
 
 16 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 " You see," he ventured, " it's like this. I'm 
 a grocer." 
 
 He said it modestly. I encouraged him with 
 a questioning " Yes ? " 
 
 "You know Sydney? yes. I suppose you 
 know Woolloomooloo ? " 
 
 I had not an intimate acquaintance with that 
 well-known suburb lying close to the heart of the 
 city. I had met its name chiefly in the shipping 
 reports and the police news. 
 
 " Ever heard of Greatheart's Grocery Store ? 
 It's in High Street." 
 
 I regretfully assured him that I had not had 
 that pleasure. 
 
 " No, I suppose not," he quickly assented. 
 " You wouldn't unless you lived in Wool- 
 loomooloo. My name is Greatheart, John 
 Greatheart. I've built that shop up from a tiny 
 window. It's probably the best known grocer's 
 shop in Woolloomooloo." 
 
 I congratulated John Greatheart, and gave 
 him my name with my hand. He took the latter 
 diffidently a cold slide of fingers in mine. If 
 grocers ever shook hands I knew instinctively 
 that was the grocer's shake. 
 
 "And you've retired, and are taking a well- 
 earned holiday ? " 
 
 "Yes," he said. " I've never had a holiday
 
 THE FRAGRANCE 17 
 
 in my life. The grocery business takes all a 
 man's time absorbs you." 
 
 " What made you chuck it up ? " I asked. 
 
 " Well " He hesitated a moment, then, 
 
 apparently reassured by my genuine interest, 
 he took the plunge. ; ' You see, eight months 
 ago my wife died; and I felt at a loose end. 
 She was more than a wife to me ; she was part 
 of the business. It was a terrible loss to me. 
 I felt the lack of somebody to talk about the 
 business with. We used to discuss everything 
 together. She had a great head for the grocery 
 business. I depended on her advice very much. 
 And my children " 
 
 :( You have a son ? " 
 
 "No; two girls. We wanted a son to 
 leave the business to. But nobody can say 
 that my two girls aren't capable girls. I say 
 so myself." 
 
 He said it hotly, almost defiantly. 
 
 " After my wife's death they they took 
 charge. Oh, they know all about the grocery 
 business. They know more than I could have 
 ever taught them. They look on their father 
 as out-of-date. I daresay they're right, the 
 younger generation, you know. They say I've 
 been too long in the business got into a rut. 
 But how could I help that? I've lived groceries 
 all my life they're my only inspiration. Not 
 
 B
 
 1 8 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 that I regret it," he said bravely. " It takes a 
 man's whole soul to appreciate the grocery 
 business. Astonishing how much there is in it, 
 how absorbing it becomes. Well, gradually 
 my daughters began to take things out of 
 my hands. Little things that I didn't at first 
 notice. And when I spoke about it, they said 
 it was their duty to help me now that their mother 
 had died. Reasonable way of putting it, wasn't 
 it, after all? But in a few months, before I 
 realised it, they had taken charge of the shop. 
 There was hardly anything left for me to 
 do. And I will say it for them that they kept 
 the business together, and I think this 
 year will show a record profit. Oh, they're 
 capable ! " 
 
 This time there was a note of exasperation 
 in the word a futile sort of exasperation, 
 like a foolish buzzing fly against the window- 
 pane. 
 
 " And another thing," he went on with 
 pride, " it's much easier to carry on an 
 established business than to build one up out 
 of nothing. As I've so often told them, that 
 takes genius." 
 
 John Greatheart evidently had his modest 
 pride. 
 
 " But," he went on, with a sigh, " I began to 
 find the evenings hanging heavy on my hands.
 
 THE FRAGRANCE 19 
 
 I was always a busy man you have to be spry 
 in the grocery business. You wouldn't guess 
 the tricks you've got to look out for. Competi- 
 tion : the big city shops, with their advertised 
 price-lists and their branches all over the place. 
 And I could not talk to my girls as their mother 
 and I used to talk of an evening. My girls had 
 settled everything before I mentioned it. They 
 listened to me, of course ; but I could see them 
 glance at each other knowingly. They didn't 
 want me. And grocery had got into my blood. 
 It was my life work But it was only when they 
 pushed me out of it that I found how much it 
 meant to me. It was like my wife's death all 
 over again, you know. But I couldn't complain. 
 I told myself that it was only my vanity. They 
 were doing things, really, better than me. Well, 
 it made me restless." 
 
 " Everybody wants a change sometimes," I 
 threw him the old platitude. 
 
 He jumped at it. Evidently there had been 
 heart-searchings before he made up his mind to 
 pack up. 
 
 " I think what begun it was the pictures," he 
 ventured. 
 
 "The pictures?" 
 
 :< The moving pictures, you know the cine- 
 matograph. There was nothing to keep me 
 home in the evenings. I seemed in the way. 
 
 B 2
 
 20 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 My girls seemed to take up so much room. 
 They're fine, big, upstanding girls, you know. 
 So I drifted into the habit of slipping out 
 to the photo-picture shows. There was one 
 just opposite my shop. Good for business, 
 bringing people past the shop. And it opened 
 my eyes." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " Those what they call ' scenics,' sir." 
 
 The " sir " had slipped out at last. Once or 
 twice before I had detected him in the heroic 
 effort to prevent its utterance. He had been 
 so long behind the counter. 
 
 " It was like this. They showed you places 
 you had never seen. Places you might have 
 heard of in a vague way, but these were the 
 places themselves. Castles on hills and streets 
 full of foreign people. And jungles, with 
 natives in them, and the branches of the trees 
 waving in the wind. That's real, isn't it? I 
 used to get watching for the wind. I liked the 
 ones where there was a real stiff breeze. I could 
 feel the swish of it. And gradually all this life 
 made me a little dissatisfied with Woolloomooloo 
 and Greatheart's Grocery Store. I seemed to 
 have missed so much in my life. It seemed I 
 had not been alive. Big things! Bigger than 
 groceries. After them my corner shop in High 
 Street seemed a little bit mean and ordinary.
 
 THE FRAGRANCE 21 
 
 It was a new thought to me disturbing. I was 
 ashamed. But I went back to the pictures. 
 They had got me. And then I found myself 
 becoming irritable, restless. My daughters 
 both noticed it. They spoke to me about it. 
 They put it down to my age. They said straight 
 out that I was too old I'm only forty-six 
 and at last they hinted that I was in the 
 way." 
 
 He sighed. 
 
 " I daresay they were right," he continued 
 more brightly, " from their point of view. Ever 
 noticed that everybody is right, from his point 
 of view ? And I suppose I was too old, not for 
 business, but to appreciate their point of view. 
 Certainly the pictures had upset me. I began 
 to lose interest in the grocery. Then I thought 
 to myself, ' Why shouldn't I see these places 
 for myself ? Why shouldn't I take a trip ? ' 
 The girls said it would be the very thing for me, 
 set me up. I could go and see how the grocery 
 trade was conducted in the other world centres. 
 After all, Woolloomooloo isn't such a big place. 
 There must be some magnificent grocers' shops 
 in London and New York, and perhaps I could 
 learn some new dodges in window-dressing and 
 all that. It was my girls who suggested that 
 idea. But I put my foot down. I wanted a
 
 22 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 holiday. It wasn't shops I wanted to see, but 
 jungles." 
 
 " So you came here ? " 
 
 " No, not at first. It took time. The place 
 I first thought of was Melbourne. I had never 
 been to Melbourne. But when I went to the 
 railway office to get my ticket I noticed a lot of 
 booklets that told you about all sorts of out- 
 landish places. I started reading them, then I 
 took them home and studied them. And that 
 night I made up my mind to travel, to see all 
 there was in the world. I've given myself nine 
 months ; but I'm not so sure now that I shouldn't 
 have allowed myself more time. I don't want 
 to rush it, do I ? And I've washed my hands of 
 the grocery business. I've given the girls full 
 control of the shop. And now I wouldn't look at 
 another grocery shop, not even if I was 
 dying!" 
 
 I had never seen a look so inflexible. 
 
 " And when you've seen all the world ? " I 
 asked. 
 
 : ' That depends. I expected that I'd be back 
 in Woolloomooloo within nine months, but " 
 
 He broke off, momentarily puzzled, waiting 
 for this new ferment within him to clarify. 
 
 ' This afternoon, you know," he went 
 valiantly on, "when we smelt that curious smell 
 that settled it. Something's got into my
 
 THE FRAGRANCE 23 
 
 blood. I'm different, somehow. Like as if I'd 
 been born again, if you understand me. I don't 
 think I understand myself." 
 
 He paused to contemplate the wonder of a 
 change in so stable a personality. He turned 
 to me with a puzzled face. 
 
 " For instance, this," he tried to explain. 
 
 "This?" 
 
 :< Yes, me talking to you like this. I can't 
 make it out. I don't know what made me tell 
 you all these things. I just felt I had to tell 
 some one." 
 
 " And what made you choose me ? " I confi- 
 dently laughed. 
 
 " Because you happened to be here, I 
 suppose." 
 
 The naivety of his explanation precluded any 
 possibility of his offending me. I found the 
 poor, little, mildewed soul strangely interesting. 
 He was a discovery. I felt like a butterfly 
 collector with a new brown moth in his net. It 
 wasn't much to look at, perhaps ; but it was a 
 new species at any rate in my net. 
 
 In my aloofness I did not pause to reflect that 
 there must be millions of other specimens similar 
 to this. Considering the terrifying number of 
 grocers' shops, the grocer's soul must be quite 
 common. My delight and curiosity must be 
 put down to the fact that even the most typical
 
 24 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 of grocers' souls was a new discovery to me. I 
 had not gone out before collecting grocers' souls. 
 I determined in my superior way to cultivate the 
 little fellow. 
 
 I did not guess then, how soon my whole 
 future, my life, even, would depend on Mr. John 
 Greatheart, of Greatheart's Grocery Store, 
 Woolloomooloo.
 
 THE RAFT 25 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE RAFT 
 
 I DO not know at what hour of the night I 
 was so suddenly awakened. All I was 
 conscious of, as I staggered out of my 
 bunk and steadied myself against the 
 cabin door, was that it was pitch dark and that 
 the vessel was full of strange mutterings. And 
 beneath those mutterings I heard a deeper and 
 more ominous one a steady crunching as if 
 the ship were sliding over a rock. 
 
 Of course, I guessed that we had struck some- 
 thing. And at once an unreasonable terror 
 seized me. I pictured a jagged peak of rock 
 protruding through the cabin wall, imperturbably 
 crushing me to death. I daresay I had read 
 of some such horror. 
 
 A woman's shriek restored me to sanity. 
 Obviously the first thing to do was to get on 
 deck and see what was the matter. All I had 
 to do was to open the cabin door. I flung my
 
 26 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 overcoat round my shoulders and reached for 
 the door latch. At that moment the electric 
 light in the alley- way went out ; and once again 
 a blind horror overcame me. I was to be shut 
 up in the dark to be drowned in the dark. 
 But fumblingly I found the door latch one of 
 those hooks that fit into a brass socket. But my 
 trembling fingers refused to perform the simple 
 task of unhooking it. It seemed hours before 
 I managed it, pulled the door open, and plunged 
 into the dark alley-way. 
 
 Others were there before me. I found myself 
 in a crowd of almost demented human beings. 
 We struggled up the companion-way in a tangled 
 mass, women crying and men cursing, all with 
 one object to get out of this death-trap, to die, 
 if need be, in the open. And, at last, more by 
 the momentum of the crowd than by my own 
 efforts, I was flung on to the deck. 
 
 I picked myself up, put my overcoat on and 
 looked around. The sea was as calm as the 
 night. The engine-room bells were clanging, 
 and there seemed, away forward, to be a medley 
 of shoutings and commands. I made my way 
 to the taffrail and looked down. A white foam 
 bubbled beside the ship's side, surging toward 
 the bow. I recognised that the screws had been 
 reversed, and that the vessel was gathering way, 
 stern first.
 
 THE RAFT 27 
 
 I could see no land, no rocks, no breakers. 
 What had we struck ? 
 
 A babel of questions broke out behind me. 
 I made out women in white garments clinging 
 to men, children crying, men running to and fro . 
 Everybody was asking what had happened. 
 Nobody answered. Nobody knew. 
 
 An officer appeared at the saloon doorway. 
 We rushed at him. 
 
 " She's struck something no, not a rock. 
 There aren't any reefs hereabout. Must be 
 some wreckage a derelict, perhaps. There's 
 no danger." 
 
 Yet as he ceased speaking the ship gave a 
 slow, deliberate lurch. The stars shook side- 
 ways, and remained sideways. The whole 
 firmament had slanted over. Hanging on to 
 the doorway I looked at the deck. It slanted at 
 what seemed to my terrified eyes a dangerous 
 angle. And, what was worse, it stayed at that 
 angle. 
 
 Several people slid with it, and on top of them 
 came a deluge of deck chairs broken loose from 
 their fastenings. Through the saloon door I 
 could hear the sound of breaking glass, the 
 bumping of heavy articles thrown down, and, far 
 in the interior of the vessel, a smothered shriek. 
 Some forgotten woman! 
 
 The impulse tugged at me to go down and
 
 28 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 rescue her ; but I was, simply and starkly, afraid. 
 Afraid to grope my way down there in the dark- 
 ness and perhaps never be able to find my way 
 out. If I was going to be drowned, every 
 instinct in me called out that I would drown in 
 the open air. I stayed where I was, clinging, 
 an abject figure, to the slanted doorway. 
 
 Perhaps I may be permitted to make my 
 excuses, though I know I would not allow any- 
 body else to make his. I had been too long 
 a sub-editor. For years I had spent my 
 days, or most of them, in bed, my nights in the 
 sub-editor's chair of a big Sydney daily. And 
 the sub-editor's chair is the chair of indigestion, 
 and ultimately, nerves. I was a worn-out wreck 
 of the blue pencil. But, all the same Any- 
 how, I didn't go. 
 
 But a figure that was just beyond me near 
 the door turned and pushed past me into the 
 blackened, sideways saloon. The man had his 
 coat on. He paused at the top of the companion- 
 way and struck a match. He, at least, was a hero. 
 It seemed to me that his courage absolved me 
 from cowardice. One out of all that huddled 
 mass of humanity had heard that shriek and had 
 not hesitated to go down to the depths. One out 
 of all that cowardly mob was a man. 
 
 He had, at least, that insignificant ugliness 
 that marks public heroes the sort of face you
 
 THE RAFT 29 
 
 see with a shock when some great man who has 
 rescued another under heroic circumstances 
 comes up for the public presentation of his 
 medal. It was John Greatheart ! I had never 
 given him credit for the quality of courage. 
 I was grateful that there were grocers in the 
 world. But not for anything could I, at that 
 dreadful moment, have gone down into the 
 slanted alley-ways of the stricken ship. 
 
 His little figure, with the death of the match, 
 disappeared. I listened again, in an agony, to 
 hear that shriek. There came up from the 
 darkness only the ominous noises that had 
 awakened me. 
 
 And then, after a long time, during which the 
 ship seemed to cant slowly further over, the figure 
 of a woman emerged from the darkness of the 
 stairway alone. 
 
 He had missed her. It was the woman whom 
 I was sure was a boarding-house keeper, 
 absurdly clutching a folded parasol. 
 
 " What on earth's the matter ? " she chirruped 
 brightly. 
 
 I told her that there was no immediate danger, 
 and asked her if she had seen her would-be 
 rescuer. She shook her head. 
 
 "He came down for me?" she repeated. 
 ;c Yes, I did call out. It was so dreadfully dark 
 down there. And he'll be down there now,
 
 30 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 looking everywhere for me. Hadn't you better 
 try and find him ? " 
 
 The way she so casually put it made it seem 
 so obvious a suggestion that I was simply 
 shamed into action. 
 
 Somebody on deck shouted, " The boats ! 
 They're launching the boats ! " 
 
 I cast one look at the stars and groped my 
 way to the head of the companion-way. At the 
 bottom of them, struggling up, with a lighted 
 match in his hand, I saw Greatheart. In my 
 relief I almost embraced a grocer. Together we 
 got to the doorway; but the woman with the 
 parasol had disappeared. 
 
 " She's found," I shouted above the creaking 
 noises. 
 
 "Who? "he asked blandly. 
 
 I noticed that he had, while down below, 
 managed to put on his trousers and an overcoat. 
 
 'The woman who shrieked. She found her 
 way up by herself." 
 
 " I didn't see any woman down there. Was 
 there a woman ? " 
 
 " Didn't you hear her calling out ? Didn't 
 you go down to rescue her ? " 
 
 " No," he said almost irritably. 
 
 " What did you go down there for then ? " I 
 asked, exasperated.
 
 THE RAFT 31 
 
 He said something that the shouting on the 
 deck drowned. " What? " I shouted. 
 
 "My teeth," he cried. "False teeth," he 
 explained at the top of his voice. " I left them 
 in a glass of water on the wash-stand. I always 
 take them out when I go to bed. Might swallow 
 them and choke myself, you know. I had 
 forgotten them." 
 
 So he wasn't a hero after all. I felt better, 
 rehabilitated in my self-respect. A sudden 
 absurd liking for him surged through me. 
 
 " Come on to the other side of the saloon," I 
 shouted. " It'll be safer there. If there comes 
 another lurch we are done for here." 
 
 " Right-o," he replied ; and we clambered 
 through the saloon and out of the other doorway. 
 This side of the deck was quite deserted. 
 
 "Wait," he said. "They'll be getting the 
 boats out." 
 
 We waited. Indeed, it would have been a 
 hazardous venture to crawl along the deck, so 
 slippery it was at that angle. 
 
 " I say," said Greatheart, " are we wrecked ? " 
 
 " Looks like it," I muttered. 
 
 "Sinking?" 
 
 The answer came from the ship. It was like 
 the sudden descent of a lift. 
 
 " Ooh ! " he said, with a shudder, " to be ship-
 
 32 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 wrecked, really shipwrecked! Isn't it an 
 experience ? " 
 
 I thought that fear had driven him mad. But 
 the wild tone was not fear : it was excitement 
 the poignant thrill of adventure. Didn't the 
 fool know that we should both be drowned ? 
 
 After that I have some difficulty in recalling 
 the exact duration of time or the sequence of 
 events. I cannot tell how soon or how long 
 afterwards we climbed the deck to the taffrail and 
 saw two boats rowing clumsily off. I know we 
 waved and shouted desperately at them ; and a 
 strange gibbering came faintly up to us. And 
 then we guessed what had happened. 
 
 The men in the boats were Chinese. The 
 Chinese crew and the Chinese stewards had 
 rushed the boats probably the only boats that 
 there had been time to launch in the confusion 
 and had got in them. I cursed the folly that 
 had led me to ship in a vessel manned by any 
 but white men. 
 
 And, in the middle of my imprecations, I felt 
 the deck lurch and leap up, and I heard a great 
 roar in my ears. 
 
 The next thing I became conscious of was 
 that I was in the water, struggling vainly against
 
 THE RAFT 33 
 
 the whirlpool that was sucking me down. After 
 an eternity of blackness I found myself, gasping, 
 on the surface. The sea was like a fierce tide- 
 rip, with nasty little waves spitefully leaping at 
 each other and spitting at me. No swimmer 
 could live in such a tumult. I went under 
 again . 
 
 But, even as I sank, my hand touched and 
 clutched something. I found afterwards that 
 it was a deck-chair. With its slight buoyancy 
 this time I did not go under so far; and once 
 again I saw the stars infinitely far above me . I 
 lay spluttering, clinging to the deck-chair, with 
 the vindictive little waves taking advantage of 
 my efforts to take breath. 
 
 It must have been some minutes later before 
 I caught sight of a white structure close to me. 
 And on it, I made joyfully out, was a dark figure. 
 I tried to call out, but got a mouthful of water 
 instead. Then I flung out a hand and found a 
 trailing rope. As I grasped it the figure 
 clinging to the structure saw me, bent quickly 
 down and reached my arm. No words were 
 wasted as silently the man braced himself to 
 lift me to him. I had little strength left to aid 
 him, but at last he succeeded in dragging me to 
 safety. I found myself on a raft, one of those 
 things made of planking supported by two big 
 drums of air.
 
 34 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 In the starlight I made out the figure of my 
 rescuer. It was the grocer. 
 
 I began to mumble my gratitude, but he 
 stopped me. 
 
 " Don't lose that deck-chair," he said. " We 
 may want it." 
 
 It was slipping past us, but I managed to catch 
 it. I could not at that moment see any con- 
 ceivable use for a deck-chair for shipwrecked 
 people on a flimsy raft. 
 
 " I say," he said ruefully, as we got the chair 
 on to the raft, " I didn't know it would be like 
 this." He shivered. " Dead people drifting 
 by, women drowning, and no chance to save 
 them." He shook off his horror. " Anyway, 
 it's the real thing, isn't it? " He said it almost 
 brightly. 
 
 Had I as companion on a raft in mid-ocean 
 a man who rejoiced in being shipwrecked? It 
 sounded almost as if he were delighted. 
 
 " Hold on," he cried, as something thudded 
 beneath the raft. I desperately clutched the 
 rocking planks. Something that may have been 
 part of a yard-arm rose slantingly beside us, with 
 a dreadful scraping along the bottom of the raft, 
 and, falling 'back, slid off in a swirl of broken 
 water. And drawn by the current of its wake a 
 white body shot straight to us, exactly as if swim- 
 ming strongly. I tried to grab it, but Greatheart
 
 THE RAFT 35 
 
 was the quicker. He pulled it to the side of the 
 raft. 
 
 " Dead, I suppose," he said, " like that other 
 one." 
 
 It was the figure of a woman. Together we 
 removed it to the raft. I recognised her then 
 as the most marriageable of the daughters of the 
 most managing mother of the mothers on board. 
 That, perhaps, is not the right way to put it. 
 All I saw then, by peering closely, was the 
 remembered face of a noticeably pretty girl, 
 probably drowned. The memory of her 
 managing mother came afterwards. 
 
 I had some vague idea of the art of resusci- 
 tating the apparently drowned; and with 
 Greatheart we tried it. To our clumsy, cold 
 hands there was warmth in the beautiful body 
 clothed only in a thin " nightie " a thing now of 
 piteously drabbled lace and cotton. To my 
 delight and considerable surprise for my 
 methods were painfully amateurish she revived 
 and opened her big eyes. 
 
 " Oh," she murmured vaguely and sleepily, 
 " where's mother ? " 
 
 " She's been picked up by one of the boats. 
 I recognised her," Greatheart said quickly. 
 
 The poor girl seemed satisfied, or perhaps it 
 was that her physical exhaustion was too great 
 for grief. She sank back on the planking and 
 
 C 2
 
 36 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 closed her eyes. Greatheart gently put his 
 greatcoat over her. 
 
 I looked up to see a floating piece of deck 
 hamper to which some figures were clinging. 
 We shouted to them, and one of the figures I 
 saw now there were three made desperate 
 attempts by means of a board to steer the clumsy 
 thing towards us. It was not his efforts, 
 however, but the current that, probably half an 
 hour later, brought the two floating masses close 
 enough for us to grasp the structure and pull the 
 forlorn castaways to the comparatively greater 
 safety of the raft. 
 
 The first of the three was a woman whom in 
 the starlight I did not at first identify. The 
 second was the Oxford youth, who, I remem- 
 bered, had offended me by calling Australia a 
 " colony." Even in a shipwreck he preserved 
 the eccentricities of attire that had made him 
 distasteful to me on board the vessel. He was 
 now clad in a striped dressing-gown and flam- 
 boyant pyjamas. But it was he who had so 
 strenuously persevered with the plank to reach 
 us. The third was a man of great bulk so 
 heavy, indeed, did he feel, and so helpless was 
 this mass of fat, that we had the greatest 
 difficulty in raising him to the deck of the raft. 
 
 Once, as we struggled with this flabby, inert 
 mass in its enormous pyjamas, Greatheart looked
 
 THE RAFT 3; 
 
 keenly at me with a question in his eyes. I 
 interpreted that glance. It meant, " He's so 
 heavy that with his weight on the raft it won't 
 be safe for the rest of us. Hadn't we better let 
 him go ? " 
 
 I felt that the grocer, from a common-sense 
 point of view, was right ; but I couldn't 
 deliberately do it. If only he had slipped out 
 of our hands and thus solved the question ! 
 
 But we had him by this time half-way levered 
 up on to the tipping raft. Greatheart nodded 
 resignedly ; and at last we got him out of the 
 water and carefully shoved and pulled him to the 
 centre of the raft. Any other position with so 
 much dead weight was dangerous to navigation. 
 
 " I don't know," said the grocer, breathless but 
 cheerful, as we settled the fat man into his place, 
 " he'll be a sort of keel, won't he ? " 
 
 " As long as he keeps in the centre," I replied. 
 
 " I'll see that he does," cheerfully the grocer 
 assured me, with a new accent of decision that 
 surprised me. Then, anxiously, as I was about 
 to throw the bit of broken planking overboard, 
 " Stop! Don't let go of that! " 
 
 He took the board carefully from me and 
 placed it beside the deck-chair. He seemed to 
 me to have a mania for collecting useless things 
 at inconvenient times. I put it down to his 
 grocerism .
 
 38 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 We turned to look after the rescued. The 
 woman was exhausted, but able weakly to thank 
 us. She turned out to be the lady who, I was 
 sure, was a boarding-house keeper. And in her 
 hand she still tightly held that incongruous red 
 parasol. 
 
 The first thing the Oxford youth noticed when 
 we persuaded him to sit up was the Australian 
 girl, now sitting up, too. Their glances met. 
 With a gesture superb in its naivety he reached 
 over, without a word, and put his arms about 
 her. She seemed to find some species of comfort 
 in them. I thought, even at that moment, how 
 pleased her mother drowned by now, poor lady 
 would have been. 
 
 The fat man was our next concern. Instinc- 
 tively we had left his enormous bulk for the last. 
 He was, we found, more frightened than hurt. 
 By the time we could attend to him, for there 
 had to be kept a sharp look out, he was lying in 
 the place where we had deposited him, softly 
 blubbering. He did not even thank us for 
 having rescued him. The mountainous mass 
 heaved with his sobs, until his indignation found 
 words. 
 
 " Disgraceful ! Shocking ! " he ejaculated 
 pettishly. " There'll be a public scandal about 
 this. The captain ought to be hanged. The 
 first thing I'll do when we're picked up will be to
 
 THE RAFT 39 
 
 despatch a wire to the Sydney papers. I'll have 
 no mercy on anyone. The whole ship's crew 
 ought to be tried for manslaughter. That's 
 what this careless navigation is. Risking 
 valuable people's lives, to say nothing of the 
 luggage I've lost. I'll get damages, heavy 
 damages. They'll be sorry they ever had me 
 for a passenger." 
 
 I reminded this lump of childish anger that 
 the captain and most of the officers of the vessel 
 were in all surety drowned, and that our fate, 
 adrift on a frail, overloaded raft, would have been 
 kinder had it been as mercifully swift. 
 
 He looked frenziedly around into the mild 
 darkness that the hemisphere of tropical stars 
 made, and relapsed, whimpering. I recalled 
 him, then, as the fattest and the most magnificent 
 of the business magnates on board. He spent 
 most of his time on board in a specially braced 
 deck chair, with a dead cigar, by its girth some- 
 what resembling himself, erect in the corner of 
 his sleeping mouth. Not exactly the sort of 
 personage that one would choose to be ship- 
 wrecked with. 
 
 But there was no time to bestow upon him. 
 Greatheart softly called my attention to a body 
 drifting close beside the raft. And behind it, 
 bobbing eerily, came another. 
 
 By the time we had got the first almost out of
 
 40 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 the water we saw that there was no possibility 
 of life in it. Though the face was slightly dis- 
 figured I thought it was that of the mother of the 
 poor girl we had saved. Mercifully she was 
 sound asleep in the youth's arms. 
 
 And when we pulled up the other body, part 
 of one arm was missing and there was a dreadful 
 wound in the thigh. 
 
 " Sharks ! " the grocer whispered, with a 
 shudder. 
 
 I was grateful to him for being a coward, too. 
 " No," I said, " that was the explosion. You 
 remember something blew up, the boilers, most 
 likely." 
 
 " Perhaps," he muttered doubtfully, with a 
 shiver of repulsion. "And these?" He indi- 
 cated the dead bodies. 
 
 "Overboard," I whispered. "The women 
 won't notice." 
 
 There was no need for our caution. The 
 little boarding-house keeper was huddled with 
 her back to us. We pushed the things away. 
 They bobbed beside the raft, one seeming to us 
 to stretch a despairing arm to clutch it. But it 
 was only the suck of the waves caused by their 
 sudden immersion. 
 
 Greatheart got the broken plank which was 
 worth saving, after all and pushed them under 
 and away. They floated in sight for a long
 
 THE RAFT 41 
 
 time. We had to watch them, fascinated, till 
 they disappeared. 
 
 And then, for the first time, I looked around 
 to see if there was any succour in the world. 
 There was no sign of the ship, nor the loom of 
 any land. We lay in the midst of a calm sea 
 beneath a night of wonderful stars, six futile 
 specimens of half-drowned humanity, an ill- 
 assorted company indeed, without any food, 
 insufficiently clad, adrift on a flimsy raft a few 
 inches above the surface of the water: two 
 women, a foolish youth, a whimpering fat man, 
 a grocer, and myself a coward. Not one 
 capable man among us, not a leader who could 
 deliver the rest of us from our desperate plight. 
 
 I was near to whimpering, too. 
 
 What I did was much simpler. I went to 
 sleep. 
 
 I woke to find the dawn greying the sky. I 
 sat up stiffly, feeling that I was in for one of my 
 usual attacks of rheumatism. The women and 
 the youth were stretched out on the raft, still 
 asleep, and in the middle I saw the looming bulk 
 of the fat man. But he had not gone to sleep 
 on the discomfort of the bare boards. After I 
 had sunk exhausted he must have discovered
 
 42 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 and set up the deck-chair. At any rate, there 
 he was, comfortably sunk in it, just as if he had 
 dropped off for his usual doze on the shady side 
 of the deck after lunch. 
 
 I felt absurdly angry with him; though, of 
 course, as the chair was there he had done the 
 most sensible thing in making use of it. Still, 
 he might have had the politeness to have offered 
 it to one of the women. 
 
 The grocer had evidently awakened before 
 me, for he was standing up behind me, staring 
 at the swift-coming dawn. He looked, in that 
 strange light, and with the lack of background, 
 something larger than a man, something more 
 significant than a grocer. There was in his 
 unconscious keyed-up pose a suggestion of the 
 heroic. I had never expected to find a grocer 
 heroic. 
 
 " Awake ? " he hailed me cheerily. " I've 
 been feeling a little bit lonely." 
 
 " You haven't been to sleep ? " 
 
 " Don't speak so loud ; you'll wake the ladies, 
 poor things. Of course I haven't. Somebody 
 had to keep watch. One of the boats might 
 have come along, or a ship might have passed 
 us." 
 
 "You must be dead tired." 
 
 " That's right, I am. But I wouldn't have 
 gone to sleep for anything. It's been such an
 
 THE RAFT 43 
 
 experience. Wouldn't have missed it for 
 anything. I never passed such an interesting 
 night. Full of strange sounds fish jumping 
 out of the water, I suppose and the stars were 
 splendid. Can't remember when I looked at 
 the stars last. And I'm glad I remained awake 
 for another thing. Look." 
 
 He pointed to the deck at his feet. I saw 
 that the grocer had been pursuing his hobby of 
 collecting things while we slept. There was a 
 small wooden box, a tin pannikin, a knife and a 
 tomahawk. 
 
 " Where did you get hold of these ? " I asked 
 in my surprise. 
 
 " Oh, some came floating past, like those dead 
 bodies, and I grabbed them." 
 
 : ' Tomahaw r ks don't float," I reminded him. 
 
 " No ; that was my greatest find, and my 
 greatest disappointment. Actually a boat a 
 little boat came in sight, drifting, without any 
 sign of life. Just then there was a little breeze, 
 and it came towards us sideways, till at last I 
 managed to reach it. Nearly fell in, though." 
 
 " But where is it? " I broke in. 
 
 " It was waterlogged when I got it, right down 
 to the gunwale or whatever you call the edge. 
 There was a big hole in the bottom, I think. I 
 saw that it was no use to us. But I felt over 
 in the dark and groped about in the stern of it.
 
 44 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 There was a little locker. That's where I got 
 that knife and the tomahawk. I thought they 
 might be useful if ever we got ashore." 
 
 " But the boat couldn't we have patched it 
 up?" 
 
 "We're safer here. We might have got it 
 seaworthy, of course, in time ; but I didn't see 
 how we could have got it on the raft, and if we 
 did it would have sunk the raft. I tried to wake 
 you up, but you only grunted. And I couldn't 
 reach the others. I hung on as long as I could, 
 and then I had to let go." 
 
 He showed me his fingers. They were 
 bruised and bleeding. 
 
 " It jobbled against the raft, you know. I 
 stood it as long as I could, and let go. It 
 seemed to sink." 
 
 He nursed his hurt fingers for a while, then, 
 with a start, looked around. " I wish the sun 
 would come up. I've been thinking ever since 
 there was any sort of light that there may be 
 land over there." 
 
 I looked where he indicated, but I could not 
 make out anything. " Better lie down for a 
 while," I suggested. :< You must be tired out. 
 I'll keep watch." 
 
 " Go to sleep now, when the day's coming ? " 
 he smiled. "No, no; I'll wait till the sun 
 rises."
 
 THE RAFT 45 
 
 " What made you keep awake? " I asked. I 
 knew that it would have been physically impos- 
 sible for me to have done so. 
 
 " I was afraid to go to sleep. And yet, I had 
 my reward." 
 
 " The things you salvaged," I agreed. 
 
 " Oh, no. The wonderful night, the loneli- 
 ness, the strange thoughts. It seemed to me 
 that I had cast off everything that belonged to 
 my old life, and had come out, fresh, to the 
 beginning of a new existence. Everything 
 seems new to me ; I feel just as if I'd had a 
 Turkish bath." 
 
 " I feel precious hungry," was my comment. 
 
 "Hungry? No; I don't feel that. There 
 was something sacred in that long night. 
 Hungry? Yes, perhaps, hungry for the new 
 life." He lifted himself to his toes. " Look! " 
 he cried, thrilling, " there's the new sun ! " 
 
 We stared at the new world that had flashed 
 open around us with the rim of the sun above 
 the horizon. The open sea, an horizon broken 
 only by the edge of the sun, except 
 
 Together we whispered, " Land ! " 
 
 It seemed miraculously close to us, a peaked 
 island, perhaps a peninsula, covered with thick 
 bush. We took it in, gladly, gratefully, hushed 
 by the miracle of its nearness. Probably it was 
 ten or twenty miles away. Our landsmen's
 
 46 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 eyes were of little use to us in judging 
 distances. 
 
 " But how are we going to get there ? " Great- 
 heart muttered. 
 
 " Perhaps there's a current," I suggested 
 dismally. Now the island had an air of 
 mockery. We were helpless, at the mercy of 
 the captious ocean. 
 
 " That land wasn't there when the ship struck," 
 Greatheart broke quickly in, " so we must have 
 drifted in the night a long way. So we're 
 probably drifting still. The question is whether 
 we are approaching the land or whether we will 
 pass it." 
 
 We tried to estimate whether we were 
 moving or not in reference to the shore ; but 
 after some minutes we gave up the attempt. It 
 would take time to tell. 
 
 " Better rouse the others," Greatheart sug- 
 gested. 
 
 I began with the boarding-house keeper. 
 She sat up briskly with a matter-of-fact, " Oh, 
 good morning," and then, with a dismayed glance 
 at her attire, patted her limp, thin hair. The 
 fat man, after a fusillade of indignantly protesting 
 grunts, heaved himself to a sitting position. 
 Even though he still occupied the centre in his 
 deck-chair, the raft rocked with his struggles. 
 Briefly I indicated the land.
 
 THE RAFT 47 
 
 The woman, after one quick, bird-like glance, 
 turned again to the raft. At her feet the Oxford 
 youth and the Australian girl were quietly 
 sleeping in each other's arms. 
 
 " Poor dears," the little lady sighed. " It 
 would be a pity to wake them before we must." 
 
 " Now," the grocer spoke sharply. " We'll 
 need everybody's help." 
 
 " Let me, then," the little woman said gently ; 
 and, to my surprise, she did it with a light kiss 
 on the girl's cheek. 
 
 The girl stirred, like a sleeping child, found 
 the man's arms around her, and shamefacedly 
 sat up. Daylight had brought Mrs. Grundy to 
 the raft. 
 
 The youth was equally sheepish. The two 
 did not look at each other again after that first 
 swift, confused glance. The girl moved to the 
 other woman's side and felt the comfort of the 
 other woman's arm about her. 
 
 I looked again at the land. To me it seemed 
 just as far off as at my first sight of it. The 
 fat man stared, too, a grotesque figure in his 
 tight, clammy pyjamas. He frowned, but no 
 words came. But it was apparent that he quite 
 disapproved of being shipwrecked and was 
 inclined to put the blame on the rest of us. The 
 others stared, too, blankly, fearing to give voice
 
 48 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 to their hopes. Instinctively we waited to hear 
 Greatheart's decision. At last it came. 
 
 "We're getting nearer, I almost think- 
 no, I'm sure. But we're also drifting towards 
 that point. It looks as if the current will take 
 us clean past it." 
 
 " Then we can't get on shore ? " the fat man 
 demanded from his deck-chair. It was evident 
 that he thought he had good grounds for com- 
 plaint. 
 
 " How are we going to ? " the grocer asked 
 with a puzzled frown. 
 
 " My good man," the fat man expostulated, 
 " I didn't get cast away on a raft to answer 
 conundrums. You persuaded us to leave the 
 safety of our wreckage for the uncomfortable 
 close quarters of your raft. The least you can 
 do is to allow us to step off it." 
 
 " Ah," muttered the grocer, who hadn't heard 
 a word of the fat man's complaint, " I've got it. 
 There's a chance just a bare chance." 
 
 He picked up the broken plank he had so 
 carefully saved. " We might be able to paddle 
 nearer with this." 
 
 The Oxford youth, more perhaps to show off 
 before the girl than with any hope of helping, 
 seized the board and began clumsily to use it as 
 a paddle. The result, of course, was merely
 
 THE RAFT 49 
 
 to set the raft slowly revolving. The island 
 swam quietly round the horizon. 
 
 It did not take Greatheart long before he 
 found a means to prevent this silly motion. 
 " Give me that chair," he said to the fat man, 
 who had by this time sunk down in disgust into 
 its comfortable canvas. 
 
 "Why?" he querulously muttered. It was 
 bad enough to be compelled to spend a night 
 on a raft without being allowed to make himself 
 comfortable. 
 
 " Because I want it and at once," was the 
 grocer's sharp reply. 
 
 The fat man, with one slow, astonished frown 
 at the little man, heaved himself up with a 
 grunt. 
 
 "Careful!" Greatheart cried. "Now you 
 stay there, in the centre. Sit down. If you 
 grunt again you'll capsize the raft." 
 
 Greatheart reached for the tomahawk, and, 
 with my clumsy assistance, he succeeded in 
 making with the sticks and canvas a couple of 
 scoops, very inefficient makeshifts for broad- 
 bladed paddles. He took one and I the other, 
 and, putting the youth at one end of the raft 
 with his board as a rude sort of rudder, we set 
 to work on our apparently hopeless job of pro- 
 pelling the clumsy raft toward the shore. 
 
 To my surprise it appeared that we were 
 
 D
 
 50 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 actually making some progress, helped, of 
 course, as we were, by the current which was 
 driving us diagonally toward the land. But 
 to wield these clumsy paddles for long under a 
 hot tropical sun was not the sort of work a 
 sub-editor was particularly fitted for, and at 
 length physical exhaustion compelled me to 
 change places with the Oxford young man at 
 the rudder. Greatheart kept stolidly on at his 
 paddle. And when, after a while, I insisted 
 on Greatheart giving up his oar to me, the little 
 boarding-house lady asked to try her hand, 
 with a not very serious diminution of the 
 progress of the raft. Even the girl took a turn 
 at the rudder. The fat man slept, saved from 
 toil by his mere avoirdupois. 
 
 So the dreadful day dragged on. The un- 
 challenged sun smote our uncovered heads. 
 I felt that I was painfully sunburnt through my 
 thinning hair. We were all famished; but so 
 absorbed were we in our desperate struggle that 
 we had little thought of our distress. Every- 
 thing else could wait. We simply must get 
 ashore. 
 
 Once, when it was my turn to rest, before I 
 cast myself down on the raft I noticed the little 
 box which the careful grocer had saved from 
 the waterlogged boat. Blaming myself for my 
 stupidity, I felt certain that here was food and
 
 THE RAFT 51 
 
 perhaps drink. Eagerly I prised the box open 
 with the tomahawk. 
 
 It was a box of soap the kind that floats. 
 
 The fat man roused himself from his lethargy 
 sufficiently to turn savagely on Greatheart, a 
 sweating galley slave chained to his absurd 
 oar. 
 
 " Nice sort of thing to save ! " he snarled . 
 "Soap! Who wants soap here?" He seized 
 the box to fling it overboard, but the Oxford 
 youth prevented him. 
 
 " When we get ashore," he remarked, " I 
 should certainly like a wash. My hands are 
 in a positively filthy state." 
 
 It was plain now that our efforts had certainly 
 brought us nearer the shore, along which, distant 
 now only a mile or so, the strong current was 
 pushing us. But the truth was in our quick 
 glances at each other. We had a bare chance : 
 that was all. Unless before we reached that 
 projecting point ahead we could get closer in, 
 we would be carried past the island. 
 
 We said nothing, but bent the more des- 
 perately to our work. The fat man, with, I 
 fancy, no suspicion how close the race with 
 death was going to be, had found the red silk 
 parasol, opened it and held it above his blistered 
 bald head. 
 
 Suddenly Greatheart stopped paddling, lifted 
 
 D 2
 
 52 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 his hand and waited. Instinctively we all 
 paused, anxiously wondering. 
 
 " Yes," he whispered excitedly, " there's a 
 breeze, and in the right direction ! " 
 
 Yes, we all felt it now the steady impulse 
 of a breeze blowing shoreward. 
 
 Greatheart's growing glance fastened on to 
 the red parasol. He reached over, grabbed 
 it from the indignant fat man, and held it to 
 the wind. The Oxford youth, and I, without 
 waiting to be told, held on to the ribs. A 
 moment of suspense, and then we felt the raft 
 thrill to this new impulse. We were moving, 
 slowly, hardly perceptibly yet, inshore. And 
 the breeze was freshening. The eddies in its 
 wake told us of the raft's quickening progress. 
 
 " Everybody stand up," our captain com- 
 manded. " Yes, you," he added, as the big 
 man hesitated. " You'll be better than a 
 mainsail." 
 
 So, driven by the rising breeze, and under 
 full sail a red silk parasol and the wind area of 
 a fat man the little, light raft with its company 
 of castaways forged ahead, straight for the last 
 sandy cove this side of the cape. 
 
 The breeze held. We saw the beach, the 
 tropical vegetation. The land grew around 
 us. We sailed bravely on with the last of the 
 failing- breeze It had been only a puff, but
 
 THE RAFT 53 
 
 it was sufficient. A long, light-hearted struggle 
 with our paddles, and the raft grounded on the 
 yellow sand. 
 
 And Mr. John Greatheart, the grocer, stood 
 erect on the resting raft, his head back, 
 sniffing. 
 
 ; ' That smell ! That glorious smell again ! " 
 he exulted.
 
 54 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE CLASP 
 
 THE very full accounts published in the 
 Australian Press of our first hardships 
 on arrival at the island are probably 
 sufficiently familiar to you to render 
 it unnecessary for me to weary you with them 
 here. For reasons which will be apparent, I 
 decided in writing those articles to omit all 
 mention of the really sensational incidents that 
 marked our stay on the island. My articles for 
 the Press were what I might term the official 
 account of our adventure. That sufficed the 
 public and my paper. It was an honest account 
 of the shifts and expedients that we, in common 
 with all castaways, had to make in order to 
 survive. 
 
 Naturally, the true story of our experiences 
 strongly tempted me ; but I felt that I could not 
 tell it in the space my editor would grant me ;
 
 THE CLASP 55 
 
 and the opportunity of writing a true story that, 
 I hoped, would read like fiction, prevented me 
 from giving to the public what I may call the 
 inside view of our adventure. I could have 
 done it baldly, but then I felt that I should not 
 have done full justice to the two protagonists 
 of the drama. And perhaps I may be excused 
 if I claim this as my chief reason for my 
 un-journalistic reticence in fairness to those 
 two actors in the events that followed I knew I 
 could not, in the Australian slang, "give them 
 away." 
 
 There would have been a public outcry, an 
 outbreak of that acid and wizened form of 
 aggressive piety known in Australia as 
 " Wowserism." I felt that a broader morality 
 would not condemn the action of those two 
 persons. I respected their wishes and kept silent. 
 
 Now two years later I have the permission 
 of both of them to give the full facts to the public 
 in whatever form I choose. They have every 
 confidence that I understand their motives and 
 will write of them as they are, with, I hope, 
 sympathy and fairness. 
 
 There was, perhaps, another reason why I 
 reserved this account for a book. I have some 
 standing as the sub-editor of that Sydney daily. 
 I have a certain reputation for verity. I felt that
 
 56 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 the adventures I have to relate were so astoun- 
 ding, so romantic, that, if I had ventured to 
 include them in my Press articles, frankly I 
 should not have been believed. I should not 
 have minded that, personally, so much ; but the 
 credit of the paper I represented would have un- 
 fairly suffered. I may mention that on my return 
 to Sydney I told the full story, in confidence, to 
 the editor ; and he supported me in my view. 
 
 So, for the newspaper public, I purposely 
 " skipped " much that would, I doubt not, have 
 been eagerly read, but with, I fear, a knowing 
 smile. Thus my record of the doings on the 
 raft omitted all reference to the red silk parasol. 
 To my sub-editorial mind a red silk parasol 
 seemed out of place on a raft. And even the 
 fatness of the fat man, and the value it was to 
 us, were but lightly touched on out of con- 
 sideration for the position he occupied in 
 business circles in Sydney. 
 
 In short, the story I am, as I fear, but 
 haltingly trying to tell was too true to print. 
 If you prefer you can take it as fiction. As a 
 fiction writer I have no reputation to lose. 
 
 How, after our arrival at that sandy beach, 
 we secured the raft and made our way inland 
 till we discovered a small stream ; how we drank 
 and drank, and even, with the help of the
 
 THE CLASP 57 
 
 salvaged soap, had a good wash ; how we found 
 the shell-fish a sort of periwinkle among the 
 rocks, and very unwisely ate them raw, with 
 painful results ; how we came to a grove of 
 cocoa-nut palms and chopped one down with 
 the invaluable tomahawk; how we feasted on 
 the green cocoa-nuts ; how we sank exhausted 
 in the scrub and slept that night, and toward 
 morning were severally ill all these, and other 
 details, are too well known for me to clog my 
 recital with them. 
 
 But though the way we made our fire formed 
 one of the features of my Press articles, as it 
 sheds some needed light on the characters of our 
 nondescript company, I shall give it here. But, 
 before that, it will be necessary for me to picture 
 to you our forlorn appearance that first sorry 
 morning on the island. 
 
 The girl her name was Jean Liddicoat 
 had, perhaps you remember, only what had been 
 originally a dainty " nightie," now a piece of 
 torn and draggled linen and lace. While the 
 men were away that day, however, she and Miss 
 Rice, the boarding-house keeper I was right 
 in my guess must have got to work on it with 
 the soap, for that evening, beneath the overcoat 
 I had given her, the edges of her attire were 
 quite clean. 
 
 Miss Rice's nightdress was built more for
 
 58 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 wear than for adornment, and over it she now 
 wore Greatheart's overcoat. The fat man, 
 Mr. Podmore, who was, he informed us, the 
 leading partner in a big wholesale importing 
 agency in Sydney, had his voluminous pyjamas. 
 
 The Oxford youth his name was naturally 
 Aubrey Bisscop was almost comfortable in 
 his dainty pink dressing-gown, made of some 
 broad striped towelling material and pyjamas 
 so loud that it was a wonder how he ever got to 
 sleep. Greatheart had his coat and trousers 
 over his nightshirt, and also his false teeth ; 
 while I had my modest sleeping suit. 
 
 A grotesque and miserable crew, as we stood 
 up in the dawn, after our miserable night, and 
 stretched ourselves. To my surprise, despite 
 the exposure in wet clothing, I found that I 
 had, so far, escaped my threatened attack of 
 rheumatism. 
 
 The first problem was to make a fire. We 
 were shivering. After our night's experience, 
 it was impossible to rely on shell-fish, raw, as 
 an article of diet. If we were to survive we 
 must have a fire. 
 
 We had between us very few pockets to turn 
 out for matches ; and the hope I had had that 
 Greatheart might possess a match-box was 
 disappointed. 
 
 Into the disconsolate pause that ensued Miss
 
 THE CLASP 59 
 
 Rice threw the brilliant squib of a suggestion. 
 " Couldn't we make a fire by rubbing two sticks 
 together ? " 
 
 We had all heard of the idea. Even Aubrey 
 Bisscop stated that he had read of it when 
 he was a boy. It was one of the few things 
 he had read that had stuck. He became 
 enthusiastic. 
 
 We set to work to select sticks. There were 
 plenty, of every kind. We tried for probably 
 an hour. We never got a hint of smoke. 
 
 Bisscop could not understand it. " I've read 
 about it. I believed in it," he said gloomily. 
 An illusion had been shattered. 
 
 One result we did get from our efforts. 
 There was a perceptible warmth in our bodies. 
 Podmore oozed. 
 
 Miss Rice, who had been indefatigably 
 gathering sticks for us, sat wearily down 
 apparently on something hard. She stood up 
 in surprise, and found no sharp rock on the 
 smooth sand. Quickly she dived her hand 
 into the pocket of Greatheart's overcoat that 
 she was enveloped in, and produced a little 
 polished metal box. 
 
 The grocer, with an exclamation, reached 
 across for it. He pressed a button, the cap 
 flew up, and before our incredulous eyes we 
 saw a tiny flame. It was one of those cheap
 
 60 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 pipe-lighters a German invention, I fancy- 
 that the tobacconists sell as a novelty. After- 
 wards I learnt that it was called a ferro-cerium 
 lighter. Luckily the box was watertight. I 
 daresay the inventor of this little toy never 
 imagined that one day it would save six 
 lives. 
 
 I looked round for something to light, but 
 the grocer forestalled me. He pulled from his 
 coat-pocket a pocket-book and flung it to me. 
 I snatched from it some papers and held one to 
 the flame. 
 
 To my surprise he jerked the lighter away. 
 "Not that!" he anxiously cried. "Not that 
 paper! It's too valuable. There's others." 
 
 The flame had been extinguished by Great- 
 heart's violent action. But by shutting the 
 box and letting the cap fly up again he had a 
 flame ready for the old envelope I had selected 
 from my handful of papers. With it I set 
 alight a few dry leaves, and soon the fire was 
 roaring with driftwood. 
 
 The grocer put the pipe-lighter carefully 
 away, took the pocket-book, delicately folded 
 the valuable paper within it, and returned it 
 to his pocket. 
 
 " Somebody will have to stay and look after 
 the fire," Greatheart remarked. "We must 
 keep it alight day and night. We can't afford
 
 THE CLASP 61 
 
 to take any risks with this little lighter. I 
 don't know how long the stuff in it lasts. 
 Now, who'll watch the fire to-day?" 
 
 Podmore ponderously volunteered. 
 
 But Greatheart had other work for him. 
 " The ladies," he said, " can do that. There's 
 plenty of things for us men to do. We must 
 get together a stock of food. Shell-fish and 
 fruit. And there might be some wreckage to 
 pick up. And we must get a better place to 
 camp, and build some sort of shelter. And 
 we ought to try and see if the island is inhabited 
 there might be cannibals, you know or 
 whether it is an island or not. But that'll have 
 to wait. Now, we'll divide forces. Mr. 
 Podmore, you had better go down to the beach 
 and gather periwinkles." 
 
 The fat man straightway objected. " I didn't 
 get shipwrecked," he petulantly said, " to cut 
 my feet to pieces climbing over sharp rocks for 
 oysters." 
 
 " But you'll love 'em when I've cooked 'em," 
 Miss Rice murmured. " I'll come along with 
 you and see if there's any shells I could use for 
 a frying-pan." 
 
 "He won't have any unless he gathers 'em," 
 said the grocer. 
 
 It was only then that I noticed a strange 
 thing. Mr. John Greatheart, of Greatheart's
 
 62 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 Grocery Store, Woolloomooloo, had elected 
 himself our leader. Well, somebody had to 
 take charge, and neither I nor the women could 
 put forward any claim to the captaincy of our 
 crew. Bisscop's glum face betrayed no eager- 
 ness for the honour. But Podmore, it was 
 apparent, was a man of influence in his city, 
 accustomed to obeisances in the importing 
 trade. To be ordered about by an insignificant 
 grocer was an insult. At Greatheart he glared, 
 a bulgy offended moroseness in pyjamas. 
 
 " I'll do no such thing," he growled. 
 
 The grocer did not seem to notice his 
 defiance. " Now, look here," he said briskly, 
 "we're here through no fault of our own, and 
 we've got to make the best of it. I didn't 
 choose my companions, though I'm sure if I 
 had had the choice I wouldn't have been without 
 one of you. But if we're going to get out of 
 this mess there must be some sort of give and 
 take. In my business there must always be 
 give and take. If you give too much you lose 
 money, and if you take too much you lose your 
 customers. It's the same in everything." 
 
 "What I'd suggest is this," I found myself, 
 to my surprise, actually butting into the dis- 
 cussion. But 1 was, despite my experiences, 
 feeling so strangely well, that I could not help 
 asserting myself. "If there is any disagree-
 
 THE CLASP 63 
 
 ment between us, we'll put it to the vote, and 
 the majority rules. That's fair, isn't it? " 
 
 Podmore merely glared and grunted, 
 " Socialism! " But the others were with me. 
 
 " Well then, Mr. Podmore," I said, " you're 
 in a minority. I suggest that for to-day Mr. 
 Greatheart, who seems the only one of us with 
 any idea of what to do, should allot us our 
 jobs." 
 
 " I second that," Miss Rice bashfully mur- 
 mured, with a soft, almost reverential glance at 
 the thin little figure of the grocer. It set me 
 thinking. 
 
 Thereupon Greatheart sketched out his 
 campaign. Bisscop and I were to explore the 
 coast-line to find if possible a better location 
 for our camp, and at the same time to keep a 
 sharp look out for any signs of wreckage. 
 Podmore was to get a supply of the shell-fish 
 and, later on, see what he could find in the way 
 of tropical fruits. Greatheart would try to 
 climb the steep hill behind us to discover if 
 possible any signs of life on the island. 
 Finally he offered to change duties with any 
 one who was dissatisfied. 
 
 Podmore sulkily glared, glanced up at the 
 densely covered hill, and then heaved himself 
 deliberately down. He said he was too tired 
 to do anything that day.
 
 64 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 " Leave him to me," I said, with my new 
 confidence ; and I asked him to come along the 
 beach for a stroll. This, at length, he con- 
 sented to do. 
 
 Then I enlightened him. I told him of the 
 difficulty we had had in dragging and levering 
 his body on to the raft, and I did not forget to 
 add that at one moment I had considered the 
 advisability of letting him sink. I gave him 
 the plain reasons. Then I let him know that 
 it was the grocer who, at considerable risk to 
 ourselves and the others on the raft, had decided 
 to save his life. 
 
 " And on the whole," I concluded, cheerfully 
 meeting his speechless glare, " I'm glad we did. 
 It was chiefly owing to the very stoutness we 
 objected to that we sailed in so comfortably. 
 But don't forget that you owe your life not to 
 that but to Greatheart. So do we all.'* 
 
 " So you wanted to drown me, young man? " 
 he spluttered. "When we get back to 
 civilisation I'll have you up for attempted 
 manslaughter." 
 
 " Unless you get those periwinkles," I retorted 
 with a new firmness that surprised me, " you'll 
 never get back to civilisation." 
 
 There was nothing for him to do but to set 
 to work.
 
 THE CLASP 65 
 
 It was Greatheart's theory that as the current 
 had carried the raft toward the promontory of 
 the island, it was possible that some wreckage 
 would follow our almost unaided course. At 
 the point we might pick up something of value. 
 He particularly impressed me with the necessity 
 of picking up anything at all, whether valueless 
 or not. So, after an unsatisfactory breakfast 
 of strange fruits and the cocoa-nuts we had 
 saved, Aubrey Bisscop and I set off along the 
 beach. 
 
 Curiously enough I felt a strange exhilaration 
 as we trudged barefoot down the sand. There 
 was a freshness in the air, a feeling of hope in 
 my heart, and an unexpected conviction of 
 physical well-being that I had not felt for many 
 years. I was at the outset of a new adventure. 
 After my monotonous life on the Press, this 
 experience appealed to me, quite incongruously, 
 as almost a " lark." I understood then some- 
 thing of the exaltation that had lifted the grocer 
 above the material discomforts of our situation. 
 All the world was before us. And it was a 
 wholly new, a quite unexplored, world. What, 
 for instance, I caught myself delightedly 
 wondering, waited for us round that first 
 projecting point? 
 
 Actually I found myself whistling a thing
 
 66 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 I had never done since my boyhood, save under 
 the cold shower of the bath. And I could not 
 recall when I had done that last. 
 
 And, remember, I ought to have been 
 depressed and disconsolate, worn out with 
 exhaustion, despairing of our chances of 
 survival. Possibly I was experiencing what 
 medical men prescribe when they suggest a 
 " change of air." 
 
 Soon we had traversed the stretch of sand 
 and found ourselves compelled to make our 
 way over the rocks. With our bare feet this 
 was not easy travelling, and Bisscop, after 
 severely scratching his sole, broke his customary 
 vacant silence. 
 
 " Fve read of shipwrecks and all that rot," he 
 began glumly, " but I never thought it would 
 be like this. Thought it would be rather 
 ripping to be shipwrecked, you know. Like 
 camping out. Aren't there any natives here? 
 I always thought there were natives on tropical 
 islands. You see picture postcards of them, 
 don't you ? And then you build a big fire and 
 a ship full of photographers and reporters comes 
 along and takes you off. Gives a fellow a sort 
 of standing to be a survivor of a shipwreck, you 
 know." 
 
 " I'm afraid we're not likely to be rescued for
 
 THE CLASP 6; 
 
 a while," I informed him. ; ' There is little 
 traffic on this line ; and I heard from one of the 
 officers that we were calling at a new port this 
 trip that would take us a long way out of the 
 usual track. But, of course, if anybody escapes 
 those Chinese probably will they'll send a 
 search steamer along by and by. And, any- 
 how, after we've been a week overdue they'll 
 do the same. But I know it takes time to get 
 a steamer for a search and there's such a lot 
 of islands they'll have to search. The chart 
 showed that the ocean here is peppered with 
 islands. At the earliest I reckon it will be a 
 month." 
 
 " But surely there's a depot for shipwrecked 
 sailors? " Bisscop asked. 
 
 " Not much chance here. They put them on 
 the islands of the South Pacific ; but I've never 
 heard of any on these islands. Oh, we'll get 
 off some time if we can only manage to keep 
 ourselves alive till then." 
 
 He sank, as it were, into the turbid depths 
 of his habitual glumness. His face in repose 
 had that clear vacuity of the English public 
 school man the ideal smoothness of vacancy 
 toward which all the elaborate ritual of the 
 English training tends. It is the mask behind 
 which England has won most of her battles and 
 made most of her bluffs. 
 
 E 2
 
 68 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 " That fellow, Greatheart," he said at last, 
 as we paused before a pile of huge boulders 
 blocking our way, " he's some sort of beastly 
 shopkeeper, isn't he ? " 
 
 " Was," I corrected him. " He's a castaway 
 now." 
 
 " Seems a bally bounder." 
 
 I thought for a moment. Perhaps he was. 
 But, since the sinking of the ship, it had never 
 occurred to me to sum him up. 
 
 " He may have been a bounder in 
 Woolloomooloo," I qualified. " But here, I'm 
 not so sure that a bounder isn't the sort of man 
 who is wanted. Politeness is no use when 
 you're fighting for your life. And the fellow 
 you're fighting here is Nature, and she has no 
 time to be polite. Look at us. You're an 
 Oxford man therefore presumably educated." 
 You see, I had not been to Oxford. " I'm a 
 trained journalist. Yet your education and my 
 training isn't much use to us here, is it ? Great- 
 heart is a grocer, but he's a successful grocer; 
 and you can't be a successful grocer without 
 having acquired a tankful of common grocer 
 sense. The sort of education he's picked up 
 over the counter would be of no use in Oxford 
 or on a daily paper. But it's just the sort 
 of education common grocer sense that is 
 wanted here now."
 
 THE CLASP 69 
 
 " Do I understand you to say that he, this 
 grocer fellow, is the better man ? " he incredu- 
 lously asked. 
 
 " Infinitely. Why he's at home here. 
 Actually enjoying himself." 
 
 "Enjoying this?" Aubrey Bisscop ex- 
 pressed his amazement and disgust by the only 
 means his armour-plate features allowed. He 
 slightly lifted the eyebrows that had been glued 
 to his unwrinkled and unwrinkable forehead. 
 
 " Thoroughly. He's got the simple mind of 
 the child. He's not astonished at anything. 
 He demands nothing of life except that it goes 
 on. To a child's mind this would be the most 
 thrilling of adventures. And he's sufficiently a 
 child to believe that thrilling adventures happen. 
 The only thing he's perplexed about is that they 
 didn't happen before. He's pretending, with 
 all the thorough ' make-believe ' of the boy. 
 He's playing at being shipwrecked." 
 
 " Without his boots," said Bisscop, ruefully 
 inspecting his scarred feet. 
 
 " Don't children just love to go without their 
 boots, even if they cut their feet? Don't you 
 see that this grocer has been a grocer all his life 
 by mistake? What he was cut out for was a 
 pirate. And now he's going buccaneering. 
 He's going back." 
 
 " To savagery."
 
 ;o GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 14 Yes, to the primitive. In his heart, I fancy, 
 the grocer is a prehistoric man. Perhaps," I 
 wondered, "all grocers are prehistoric men. 
 Perhaps we all are, though I don't see how 
 prehistoric man got on without tobacco. Did 
 you see how he threw his little head back when 
 he smelt that tropical smell? He remembered 
 it." 
 
 " It probably reminded him of the beastly 
 smells of his little grocery shop spices and 
 cheese and things." 
 
 I was checked. My delightful theory wilted 
 and I had grown quite fond of it. I admitted 
 that there might be something in Bisscop's 
 suggestion. 
 
 ~" Even if he likes it at present," that youth 
 went confidently on, " he'll be as glad as the 
 rest of us to get back to civilisation. In his 
 case it will be to his grocery store." 
 
 I agreed with him. This, considered, even 
 with its inconveniences, as an experience, might 
 be something to look back upon in comfortable 
 slippers with the tobacco jar at one's elbow. 
 But I confess that at that moment my vista of 
 the future always rested on the arm-chair, the 
 after-dinner pipe, and the blest knowledge that 
 it was Saturday night at home. For the 
 nagging ache of tobacco was asserting itself.
 
 THE CLASP 71 
 
 I would have given the whole island for a well- 
 filled pipe. 
 
 We set off again, rounding point after point, 
 till at last we made our great discovery a little 
 bay strewn with wreckage. We ran down the 
 beach, shouting. Woodwork, bits of lumber, 
 broken boxes, kerosene tins. We turned them 
 over in feverish haste. To our delight we found 
 a battered case that looked as if it might contain 
 something edible. We dented in one side with 
 a big rock. Its contents were mixed pickles. 
 We ate a bottle each, voraciously. I had never 
 properly appreciated mixed pickles before. 
 
 Then, refreshed, we made a careful examina- 
 tion of the rest of the wreckage, and unearthed 
 a varied assortment of more or less damaged 
 foodstuffs, enough we calculated to last us for 
 perhaps a fortnight. 
 
 Before returning we carried every bit of 
 wreckage, save some timber that was too heavy, 
 above high-water mark, and, taking a case of 
 milk powder and a tin of mashed biscuits, we 
 began our return march. As an afterthought 
 I added to my load an empty kerosene tin. 
 
 " I say," said Bisscop, as we got back to the 
 smooth beach again, " isn't that girl, Miss 
 Liddicoat, stunning? " 
 
 " She's pretty enough," I admitted ; " but of 
 the two I prefer Miss Rice."
 
 72 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 " The old 'un ? " Bisscop's face almost 
 expressed surprise. 
 
 " To be shipwrecked with, I mean. I admit 
 that on board ship Miss Liddicoat would be the 
 more attractive. In fact, I thought her the 
 most attractive of all the girls on board. But, 
 back here in the primitive, Miss Rice comes out 
 on top. She's capable ; she makes sugges- 
 tions ; she's willing to turn her hand to anything ; 
 she's cheerful. She's run a boarding-house, 
 well enough to give her a trip to Japan ; and 
 that takes a certain amount of human nature and 
 a big stock of shrewdness. But the girl is mere 
 girl, pretty, no doubt, but no use here. I've no 
 doubt she has all the polite accomplishments, 
 but what's the good of being able to sing and 
 dance and play the piano just now ? " 
 
 "Oh, rot," said Bisscop, trudging on. 
 
 Rounding the last point we hilariously hailed 
 the group about the fire. Miss Rice was busy 
 cooking on a big shell the product of Podmore's 
 gathering. She merely looked up, screwing 
 her bright little eyes through the smoke, and 
 bent again to her task. The other two, 
 Podmore and the girl, who had been lying on 
 the sand, rose and hurried to meet us. 
 
 While we were eagerly telling them of our 
 find, Miss Rice noticed the kerosene tin. She 
 took the tomahawk and battered it flat.
 
 THE CLASP 73 
 
 " I'll have a frying pan now," she gleefully 
 said. 
 
 While we were sampling the tin of mashed 
 biscuits we heard a " cooee," and the grocer 
 stepped from the fringe of scrub. 
 
 He waited to hear our news before telling us 
 that he had none. He had tried to climb the 
 little peak behind us to discover the extent of the 
 island, but had found the task too difficult. He 
 was everywhere blocked by a mass of tangled 
 undergrowth. The island, he said, was evi- 
 dently of volcanic origin, as the ground was 
 extraordinarily rough, being composed of jutting 
 rocks probably scoria and the soft humus of 
 rotting leaves and tree trunks. Nowhere in his 
 short journey had he been able to get a look-out 
 point over the forest. Thus he did not even 
 know whether we were on an island or not. 
 And the chance of seeing some sign of 
 habitation, such as smoke, had been equally 
 impossible. 
 
 " And now," he concluded, " as you've found 
 that wreckage good boys for hauling it 
 above high-water mark! we have plenty of 
 building materials. We'll run up a sort of 
 ' humpy ' for the ladies to-morrow." 
 
 :< Then you don't know whether the island is 
 inhabited or not ? " Bisscop gloomily concluded, 
 as we men moved away from the smoke of the
 
 74 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 fire, leaving the women busy at their immemorial 
 job. 
 
 " Nothing definite, but He pulled his 
 
 pocket-book from his pocket and opening it 
 showed us a little article that glittered. 
 
 " I found this in the bush, close here," he 
 explained. "What do you make of it?" 
 
 Each of us handled the thing in turn. It was 
 a small clasp of bright metal, attached to a piece 
 of pinkish elastic webbing. None of us could 
 make out what it was. 
 
 " It's something belonging to civilisation, at 
 any rate," I said hopefully. 
 
 " Which shows that there's some civilised 
 people on the island," said Podmore. 
 
 "Or was" the grocer gravely corrected. 
 " But whoever dropped this was here recently. 
 You see the india-rubber has hardly perished 
 at all, except at the end where it's broken." 
 
 Instinctively we men turned to stare up at 
 the dark, towering wall of forest, almost as if we 
 expected to see some one emerge from it, with 
 welcoming hand outstretched. 
 
 Miss Rice, seeing us thus, came over. 
 
 " What's that you've got there ? " she asked. 
 
 I handed the thing to her. " Greatheart 
 picked it up in the bush," I explained. " We 
 can't make out what in the world it is."
 
 THE CLASP 
 
 Miss Rice took it, glanced at it and blushed. 
 
 "Fancy you men not knowing!" she 
 exclaimed. " It's it's a suspender clasp, the 
 thing a woman uses to keep her stockings up 
 with." 
 
 We men stared at each other. 
 
 A woman on the island ! A civilised woman ! 
 With stockings!
 
 ;6 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE HANDKERCHIEF 
 
 THE whole of the next day we spent 
 toilsomely carrying the wreckage from 
 the shore to the camp. The work of 
 getting the heavy timber over the 
 stretch of rocks between the cove and our 
 camping place took us till evening; and after 
 dinner we were too exhausted with our unusual 
 labours to do anything but sleep, with the stars 
 for ceiling. Luckily it kept fine. 
 
 The next day Greatheart set us to work on 
 the hut for the women, putting the job under 
 my clumsy charge, while with Bisscop he made 
 another attempt to discover whether the island 
 was inhabited. This time he determined to 
 explore the coast, as progress inland was 
 impossible. He warned us that probably they 
 would be away the whole day. 
 
 " It's this suspender clasp," he confided to me
 
 THE HANDKERCHIEF 77 
 
 as I accompanied him a little way along the 
 beach. 
 
 He got out his pocket-book to look at it again ; 
 and as he opened it a faded photograph dropped 
 to the sand. I picked it up. It was, I could 
 not help seeing, the portrait of a big, placid 
 woman with the sack-like figure of the mother 
 who has lost interest in herself. 
 
 " My wife," he said simply. " Taken a good 
 many years before she died. I always carry it 
 now. But she never, to my knowledge, wore 
 suspenders." He mused a moment. " Poor 
 Ann," he muttered, " she would have enjoyed 
 this shipwreck. She always wanted to travel; 
 but the children came, and when they got out 
 of hand she began to mother the shop. And 
 now she's dead, and never guessed the fine 
 times I was going to have. Well, well! " 
 
 He put both suspender clasp and photograph 
 back. There was no grief in his words, just 
 the resignation that comes to the middle-aged 
 at the thought of the inevitability of death. No 
 romance in that little dried-up body, I thought. 
 And yet the gentle, unconscious, fondling way 
 he touched that bit of pink elastic ! 
 
 ' You see," he went on, " this thing is worry- 
 ing me. I lay awake a long time last night, 
 thinking about her." 
 
 c Your wife ? " I asked reverentially.
 
 78 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 " No ; the woman the one who wore 
 stockings." 
 
 " Of course," I hastily agreed. 
 
 " She must be on the island now. I'm certain 
 of it. But where is she? I don't think the 
 island is very large ; and if she has been over 
 this side lately she will surely come back. Of 
 course she might have a lot of suspenders and 
 never miss this one. But then she ought to see 
 the smoke of our fire. Why is she hiding from 
 us ? What is she doing here ? There must be 
 
 a reason." 
 
 " Not necessarily with a woman," I reminded 
 him. 
 
 " A woman always has a reason . My wife 
 used to have lots ; and my daughters always had 
 too many for me. But I'm going to find out 
 why." 
 
 I watched the little grocer set out on his 
 romantic quest for the owner of a suspender 
 clasp, carrying, like some mediaeval knight, his 
 lady's token on his breast. 
 
 I returned to my work, the erection of the 
 shelter for the women. But though the job of 
 building a " humpy," with the timber to our 
 hand, seemed an easy one, we found ourselves, 
 despite the full directions left us by Greatheart, 
 making but slow progress. I discovered that 
 I was incredibly clumsy, while Podmore, who,
 
 THE HANDKERCHIEF 79 
 
 in the grocer's presence, had simulated a sort 
 of fat enthusiasm for work, loafed like a day- 
 labourer now that his task-master's eye was off 
 him. 
 
 It was really Miss Rice who took the job into 
 her capable hands. She used the tomahawk 
 with professional ease. She explained that in 
 running a boarding-house, what with trouble 
 with the servants, she had often to chop the 
 firewood. 
 
 Meantime Miss Liddicoat lay lazily on the 
 sand, making a feeble pretence of minding the 
 fire. Since our arrival at the island the girl 
 had said little. Miss Rice explained that she 
 was grieving over the probable loss of her 
 mother. That was why Miss Rice had 
 hesitated about asking her to handle her share 
 of the work. 
 
 I suggested that work was the best antidote 
 to grief. 
 
 " She doesn't know how, poor girl," Miss Rice 
 apologised for her. " She's so helpless. She's 
 never had to do a thing for herself not even 
 her hair." 
 
 " Beautiful hair, too," I could not help 
 remarking. 
 
 The girl's bronze hair was hanging over her 
 slim shoulders, thick, wavy, glorious. On board 
 ship I remembered it had been plastered into
 
 8o GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 tight rolls, tortured into elaborate designs of 
 sausages, and fluffed out into absurd, but care- 
 fully controlled, curls, pinned and twisted and 
 tamed and netted. It is a way women have with 
 their hair and their souls. 
 
 Miss Rice unconsciously pushed back her 
 thin and scraggy locks, already greying. " My 
 pads went down with the ship," she sighed. 
 " Perhaps it's just as well. I could never have 
 worn them without hair pins. But I do hope 
 that when we're rescued there will be some 
 woman on board with a pad or two to spare." 
 
 " She's very pretty, even in that overcoat," 
 I had to confess. 
 
 " Men ! " the boarding-house keeper sadly 
 smiled. " All you want is prettiness. You'd 
 put us all back into the harem if you could. 
 The Paris dressmakers men, all of them are 
 trying to do that now. Though I admit that a 
 harem skirt would be just the thing to be ship- 
 wrecked in." 
 
 By midday we had got the little shelter well 
 in course of erection. After our scrappy meal 
 Podmore insisted on having a rest. 
 
 " There is something," he admitted, as he lay 
 at full breadth on the sand, a globular bulk 
 beneath the shade of a tree, " in an eight-hour 
 day, after all."
 
 THE HANDKERCHIEF 81 
 
 "Oh, I wish," the girl broke out petulantly, 
 " I had some proper clothes." 
 
 ' You'd only ruin them," Miss Rice reminded 
 her. 
 
 " All my new dresses and hats ! " Miss 
 Liddicoat pursued her bitter reflections. 
 " Made specially for London. And there they 
 all are at the bottom of the sea, ruined. And 
 now just when I want particularly to look my 
 nicest " 
 
 ' You do look your nicest now," Miss Rice 
 beamingly reassured her, " with your lovely hair 
 down." 
 
 " Oh, do you really think so ? " the girl's 
 vanity eagerly asked. "Aubrey said so last 
 night; but I know my complexion will be 
 ruined." 
 
 Both women were, of course, badly sunburnt, 
 while Miss Liddicoat had been most decoratively 
 freckled. 
 
 " But I suppose you didn't mind browning 
 when you went in for surf bathing in the 
 summer," Miss Rice reminded her. "Wait a 
 few days and you'll be a most becoming brown. 
 I never brown. I burst into flame. But, of 
 course, it doesn't matter with me." 
 
 " No," the girl acquiesced, with the dreadful 
 cruelty of youth. 
 
 F
 
 82 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 Out of pity I had to say, " I think some colour 
 suits you splendidly, Miss Rice." 
 
 The little lady almost blushed. She gave me 
 the grateful glance of the woman who receives 
 a compliment too late the compliment that she 
 knows might once have been true. 
 
 " I don't know what we'd have done without 
 Mr. Bisscop," Miss Liddicoat went on en- 
 thusiastically. " He's so splendid, isn't he ? 
 Just the build of man that gets shipwrecked with 
 a girl in novels." 
 
 Even Podmore agreed with Miss Rice's 
 enthusiastic assent. 
 
 Before sundown the shelter was, somewhat 
 shakily, upright, and Miss Rice hung a piece of 
 sailcloth over its entrance. We waited for the 
 arrival of the others till, on Podmore's petulant 
 complaint that he had never been so hungry in 
 his life, we made our evening meal. 
 
 It was late before we heard Greatheart's 
 " cooee " ; and ten minutes later the figures of 
 the two were silhouetted in the light of our 
 blazing bonfire against the darkness. They had 
 extraordinary news to tell. 
 
 They had discovered a wrecked galleon and 
 had heard a brass band! 
 
 But in answer to our quick questioning they 
 admitted that they had not explored the galleon,
 
 THE HANDKERCHIEF 83 
 
 and had not been able to discover the musicians 
 who played the brass band. 
 
 It was the galleon we wanted to hear about 
 first. Greatheart insisted on calling it a galleon, 
 though to me it seemed that he might have 
 termed it, with greater exactness, merely an old 
 wreck. But galleon was a word with magic in 
 it; and the inherent buccaneer was rapidly 
 coming out in the retired grocer. 
 
 At one point in their progress along the coast 
 a jutting bluff opposed them. Laboriously 
 climbing it, they found themselves looking down 
 steeply on a little rock-walled cove. Across it 
 a series of reefs showed white teeth above the 
 scarcely ruffled water; and in a little natural 
 harbour made by two in-curving reefs a thick 
 spar slanted up. From the few feet of timber 
 showing dribbled lank weeds. Peering closer, 
 they made out from their altitude a dark bulk 
 against the clean yellow sand of the bottom. 
 From its sharply defined shape it could be only 
 one thing the skeleton of a wrecked vessel. 
 From this fact it was a quick leap to the glorious 
 inference that they were gazing down upon the 
 hull of a wrecked galleon. 
 
 But there was no way down the cliff, and 
 without a boat they could not have reached the 
 wreck. And to examine it would need diving 
 gear. There it lay, in its little sheltered dock, 
 
 F 2
 
 84 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 as secure and intangible as doubtless it had been 
 for more than a century. 
 
 " Oh," Miss Rice cried in her disappointment, 
 " and there must be all sorts of things in that 
 galleon, and we can't ever find out. Treasure! 
 Why, they might have been pirates! Or it 
 might have been wrecked and burnt by pirates ! " 
 She shivered with the deliciousness of it. 
 
 '' That's what I said," Bisscop looked up from 
 his meal to remark. " There's always treasure 
 in Spanish galleons." 
 
 " But what good, even if we could have got 
 at it," Greatheart asked, " would it have been to 
 us?" 
 
 " What good, man ? " cried Podmore, his fat 
 little eyes bulging with the predatory instincts 
 of the commercial man. " Why, there's tons of 
 money there ! Gold and jewels ! Treasure ! " 
 
 ''Treasure?" the grocer flung it from him. 
 " What we need is food." 
 
 "And clothes," Miss Liddicoat added. 
 
 " Well," the grocer said, " if this is any good 
 to you, you're welcome to it." He tossed the 
 fat man a little blackened disc. " Bisscop 
 picked it up on the beach near there." 
 
 Podmore scrabbled in the sand for the thing. 
 We pressed round to see. It was a piece of 
 metal, tarnished and blackened, but from its 
 weight evidently gold.
 
 THE HANDKERCHIEF 85 
 
 " A Spanish doubloon ! " Miss Rice cried with 
 awe. 
 
 It was certainly a gold coin; but none of us 
 had had any acquaintance with Spanish doub- 
 loons; and it was impossible to make out any 
 inscription. Podmore's pig eyes glittered 
 greedily at the phrase. He fondled the coin 
 eagerly. 
 
 " We'll form a syndicate," he said, " and when 
 we're rescued we'll come back and make our 
 fortunes." 
 
 " When we're rescued! " I exclaimed irritably. 
 ' You mean, if we're rescued." 
 
 " I think," Greatheart gravely answered, 
 " that will be soon. There are people living on 
 the island. There must be, else why is a brass 
 band playing tunes on it ? " 
 
 "The brass band!" Miss Rice exclaimed. 
 ' Tell us about it. Did you actually hear a 
 brass band ? " 
 
 " Heard it all right," said Bisscop, " but we 
 couldn't see the rotters playing." 
 
 Greatheart explained. 
 
 They had gone on past the galleon, with the 
 intention of continuing their way round the 
 coast. But here a curious geological formation 
 arrested them. Signs of some recent seismic 
 movement appeared as a sharp cleavage across 
 the island, resulting in a big, naked cliff that
 
 86 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 stuck out into the sea, just past the cove, 
 effectively barring all further progress along the 
 shore. A great section of the land beyond had 
 been lifted about a hundred feet, the ridge 
 running back up the hills, curiously keeping to 
 their formation, as far as could be seen. A 
 giant hand had lifted half the island to a higher 
 level, and left no gateway to the elevated 
 land. 
 
 As it was impossible to creep round the base 
 of the cliff where it fell into the sea, the explorers 
 turned inland, paralleling the bare face of this 
 rock wall. 
 
 It was astonishingly clean cut, only a few 
 grasses clinging to its face, and the level strata 
 of the rocks running in streaks along it. 
 
 At the first possible chance of climbing it they 
 tried. But, though they managed to surmount 
 the litter of stones at its base, the vertical face 
 of the rock above showed them the hope- 
 lessness of their task. Then they pushed 
 further inland along its base, struggling with 
 incredible difficulties through a tangle of virgin 
 primeval undergrowth. And after an hour's 
 strenuous toil they discovered what looked like 
 a promising ascent. Here there had been a 
 slight fracture in the cliff that looked climbable. 
 
 But this attempt, too, ended in failure. By 
 supreme efforts they managed to get up to within
 
 THE HANDKERCHIEF 8; 
 
 some thirty feet of the top ; but beyond that a 
 naked precipice, leaning slightly outwards, 
 brought them, exhausted, to a pause. 
 
 " We weren't flies," Bisscop explained. 
 
 "It was as bare as a false tooth," said Great- 
 heart. " So we decided to come down, and try 
 somewhere else some other day. But while we 
 waited to get our wind we heard the music. 
 It was we're both convinced of it a brass 
 band!" 
 
 "Where on earth ?" Miss Liddicoat 
 
 cried. 
 
 " It seemed to be in the sky," said the grocer. 
 
 "A brass band on the top of the cliff?" I 
 demanded. 
 
 "It was somewhere over the face of the cliff," 
 Bisscop explained. 
 
 " But what would a brass band be doing there, 
 in the middle of the bush? " I insisted. " You're 
 sure you're not mistaken ? Some tropical bird, 
 for instance ? Sure it was a band ? " 
 
 " It was playing ' Lohengrin,' " said Bisscop 
 bleakly. " Playing it rather well, too, except 
 that the brasses were rather too strong." 
 
 A jabber of excited discussion followed. If 
 it was a brass band, there must be bandsmen. 
 And why were bandsmen playing Wagner in a 
 tropical jungle in a deserted island on a hot day? 
 If bandsmen, there must be a town or settlement
 
 88 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 there, highly civilised, too. And we in pyjamas 
 and nightshirts, living on shell-fish and sopped 
 biscuits and fruit! 
 
 " What did you do when you heard it ? " 
 Podmore was heard asking. 
 
 " Listened," said Bisscop. 
 
 "But after?" 
 
 " It stopped." 
 
 " But didn't you hear anything else ? " I 
 persisted. "Weren't there any other sounds? 
 No applause, for instance ? " 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " How far was it away ? " 
 
 "We couldn't exactly tell," Greatheart ex- 
 plained. ' You know how difficult it is to 
 estimate the distance of sounds. Sometimes I 
 thought it quite close twenty yards away, at 
 most and then it might have been half a mile 
 away." 
 
 " But didn't you shout? " 
 
 " Yes ; but what was the use ? The cliff 
 leaned over us. Our voices would be carried 
 in the other direction, away from them. So, 
 after waiting a long time, in the hope they would 
 play something else, we just climbed down and 
 came back." 
 
 Well, we had perforce to leave it at that. 
 
 " There's one thing," the grocer added, as he 
 turned to see what sort of job we had made with
 
 THE HANDKERCHIEF 89 
 
 the women's shelter, " we must explore every 
 inch of the island. There must be some other 
 way of getting over that cliff. There are 
 people, white people, here, hiding." 
 
 "What from?" I demanded, exasperated. 
 
 " That's just what we've got to find out. 
 They must know we're here. They must have 
 seen the smoke of our fire." 
 
 " But if they're hiding," Miss Rice objected, 
 " why should they hide with a brass band ? And 
 if they don't want anybody to find them, why 
 should they tune up and give selections from 
 Wagner?" 
 
 " That's what makes it all so exciting," Great- 
 heart exclaimed brightly. :< The island is 
 becoming more interesting every day. Just 
 think of our luck! We might have been 
 wrecked on an ordinary tropical island, with 
 nothing to do but to gather periwinkles and 
 cocoa-nuts. And wouldn't we have been bored ? 
 No; this is something like." 
 
 That very night a thing happened that 
 eclipsed in strangeness even Greatheart's 
 puzzling discoveries. 
 
 The women went thankfully to the shelter of 
 the "humpy" we had so stragglingly built,
 
 go GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 while we men lay on a stretch of sand between 
 the scrub and the creek. It was a night of 
 tremendous stars. As I lay on my back, think- 
 ing over the strange events of the day, and 
 vainly searching for their clue, I saw that sky of 
 stars not as a hemisphere but in perspective. I 
 seemed to look over a vast landscape dotted not 
 with trees but with suns. I saw the heavens 
 not as a painted semicircular dome of a ceiling, 
 but as solid. I looked down endless avenues 
 of stars, receding into the mist of infinite 
 distance. Almost afraid of that threatening, 
 thrusting immensity, I closed my eyes. The 
 others were already asleep. Podmore's snores 
 chanted a kind of cosmic tune. Soothed by it, 
 I sank at last to sleep. 
 
 I woke with that curious suddenness that is 
 instinctive in the presence of danger, instantly 
 alert in every fibre. For what, even in my 
 sleep, I had heard was a footfall. My ear was 
 against the sand, and the earth-vibration, rather 
 than the noise of moving feet, must have 
 awakened me. Some instinct kept me motion- 
 less ; but, fortunately, I was lying in a position 
 that enabled me to look, without further move- 
 ment, in the direction of the noise. That 
 direction was toward the darkness of the scrub 
 that fringed the shore. 
 
 And, as I uneasily watched, a figure detached
 
 THE HANDKERCHIEF 91 
 
 itself from the shadow of the scrub and made 
 its way stealthily down the sand toward us. As 
 it emerged into the starlight I made out that it 
 was a woman. 
 
 She came quietly on, paused at the 
 women's shelter, looked cautiously inside, then, 
 apparently reassured, moved slowly and noise- 
 lessly down to us. And as she thus came 
 nearer I dared not move my head, but she was 
 still in my line of vision I took in this extra- 
 ordinary vision. 
 
 A mere girl, dressed in some brilliantly 
 sparkling costume that caught and struck back, 
 as if from the surface of some lake, the warm 
 starlight. The dress profoundly puzzled me. 
 It was like no other that I had ever seen 
 except, perhaps, in the ballet of a musical play. 
 It sheathed her supple body. There was in it, 
 as in the lithe grace of her walk, something 
 alluringly feline. Yet her attire suggested a 
 sort of savagery. It was both barbarous and 
 chic. 
 
 And in her hand, ready, she held something 
 which I guessed was a revolver. 
 
 I could not clearly see her features; but to 
 me, lying there new-awakened and overcome by 
 the startling wonder of it all, the intruder seemed 
 darkly, strangely beautiful. 
 
 Why did I not speak? There was so great
 
 92 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 a mystery in this stealthy visit that I was held 
 motionless in amaze, in which, I think now, there 
 was mixed a half-fear. The thought of the 
 incredible brass band, and a quick terror 
 probably born of my dreams that it might 
 suddenly crash out the splendours of 
 " Lohengrin " from the fringe of the scrub 
 inhibited me from the slightest motion. I am 
 sure that if I had attempted to speak no sound 
 would have come from my dry lips. If this 
 strange figure was coming to rescue us, to tell 
 us that help was at hand, why had she chosen 
 this hour, why should she have come so 
 stealthily, why should she carry a revolver? 
 
 It did not strike me at that moment that 
 perhaps she might have been as afraid of us as 
 I of her. Yet the appearance of us, stretched 
 out in our tired sleep, half-clothed beneath the 
 stars, forlorn and at her mercy, should have 
 allayed her fears if she had had any. But 
 she was a girl meeting strange men. Perhaps 
 she had a reason to be afraid of men, and was 
 paying us this visit, unperceived, before she 
 would venture to make herself known to us. 
 But surely the revolver to say nothing of the 
 brass band would have been sufficient pro- 
 tection for any woman? 
 
 Anyhow, I lay unmoving, and she came, with
 
 THE HANDKERCHIEF 93 
 
 that graceful cat-like stride, straight toward me. 
 I closed my eyes. 
 
 I heard her soft step pause before me a long 
 minute, every second of which, as I simulated 
 a deep sleep, I expected, absurdly, perhaps, to 
 feel the sharp prick of a dagger. I heard her 
 soft breathing and the delicate rustle of her 
 garments in that tremendous, appalling stillness. 
 I even knew that she bent over me, peering into 
 my face. Her warm breath brushed my cheek. 
 Then, to my immense relief, she stood erect 
 again and I heard her step on the sand as she 
 turned away. I knew from the direction of 
 her movement that she was going to look 
 Bisscop over. 
 
 I ventured, cautiously, to open my eyes. She 
 was in clear view, her back to me, looking into 
 the upturned face of the Oxford youth. Her 
 scrutiny of his features was brief, probably as 
 brief as of mine. She straightened herself, with, 
 it seemed to me in my excited state, a gesture 
 of profound disappointment. It struck me that 
 probably she had been vainly looking for a 
 familiar face. 
 
 A quick turn of her little head her hair was 
 hidden beneath a sort of silver helmet made 
 me immediately close my eyes and breathe 
 evenly and deeply. But I heard her move 
 behind me to where Podmore lay, his snore for
 
 94 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 once mercifully out of action. She did not 
 waste much time on him, for, evidently, after only 
 a careless, quick glance at him, she glided in the 
 direction of Greatheart's little figure. 
 
 I knew I could now open my eyes. She was 
 standing pensively above Greatheart, almost, it 
 seemed to me, at her ease, inspecting him 
 leisurely. She stood thus, it seemed, a long, 
 long time. What was she thinking of? What 
 did she find, to dwell so long upon, in the insig- 
 nificant lineaments of the grocer? 
 
 Whatever she found, she appeared satisfied 
 with, for she sighed with a kind of happy 
 finality, and straightened that lissom youthful 
 figure almost triumphantly. Then, with one 
 last look a remembering look she turned, 
 satisfied, to retreat, but, suddenly struck by 
 a thought, she paused. I saw her lean swiftly 
 over his figure and lightly touch Great- 
 heart's breast with her white hand. I was 
 specially struck with its paleness. I wondered 
 if she was going to kill him or to kiss him. It 
 might so easily have been either. And I know 
 that, whatever she did, I could not have pre- 
 vented. It seemed to me afterwards that all 
 through that interlude I lay in a trance. The 
 thing had the conviction, yet the vagueness, of 
 a dream. 
 
 It was as through a mist I saw her sway once
 
 THE HANDKERCHIEF 95 
 
 more erect with a soft chuckle. The chuckle 
 woke me from my visioning it was such a 
 disarming, human, joyous contralto chuckle. 
 
 Then, without a further look around, she 
 rapidly, noiselessly passed me. Had I been 
 staring at her I feel sure she would not have 
 noticed me. Her mission, whatever it was, had 
 been fulfilled. When I ventured to open my 
 eyes again it was to see her disappearing into 
 the shadow of the scrub. 
 
 Even then I did not stir. I itched to get up 
 and follow her, to overtake her, capture her 
 I thrilled at the thought of taking that soft, 
 twisting feline thing in my arms and ask 
 her her woman's reason for the delightful 
 chuckle. But I dared not. Despite the 
 chuckle, she might be waiting for me in the 
 darkness of the forest, contemptuously ready 
 with her revolver. 
 
 I lay still a long time. Once I thought I 
 heard a bough move, far up the hill-side. After 
 that nothing. 
 
 Cautiously I stretched myself, as if newly 
 awakened, conscious that there might be keen 
 eyes watching me from the jungle. I rose at 
 last and strolled across to the grocer. Really 
 I was intensely curious. I wanted to find out 
 what the girl had seen in Greatheart's face. 
 Looking down on that insignificant figure I
 
 96 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 noticed on his breast something white. Care- 
 fully I picked it up. By the paling light of the 
 stars it was nearly dawn I discovered that 
 the object was a little white rag ; and, fingering 
 it, I knew that it was a tiny handkerchief a 
 woman's trifle of cambric and lace! 
 
 I felt, almost with a blush, that I had 
 stumbled upon some sacred privacy. 
 
 And as I stood there, perplexed at the 
 meaning of the token, recalling the whiteness 
 that I had mistaken for her hand, Greatheart 
 wakened quickly, completely, like a child. 
 
 In an instant he was on his little feet. 
 
 ' You're up early," he remarked, glancing at 
 the swiftly coming dawn . " Others asleep ? 
 We won't wake J em." 
 
 With a mutual instinct we moved quietly 
 away from the sleepers. The dawn was about 
 us like a misty sea. 
 
 " What's that you've got there ? " Greatheart 
 asked curiously. 
 
 "A woman's handkerchief, I should say." 
 
 "A what?" 
 
 I showed it to him. 
 
 " Where did you find this," he quickly asked, 
 examining it. 
 
 " On the sand," I easily lied. I saw in a 
 flash that I could not hope to make him believe 
 the curious and quite purposeless act I had
 
 THE HANDKERCHIEF 97 
 
 witnessed. He would remain convinced that I 
 had dreamt it. 
 
 "Whereabouts?" he snapped. 
 " Near where we slept. I picked it up as I 
 was going to wake you." 
 
 "It wasn't there when we went to sleep," he 
 commented. " And I'm sure it does not belong 
 to either of the ladies. Miss Liddicoat got the 
 loan of mine yesterday and Miss Rice made one 
 out of sail-cloth. Whose can it be ? " 
 
 Then I told him of our strange visitant, 
 omitting only the tiny unimportant fact that she 
 had deliberately dropped the handkerchief on 
 his heart. 
 
 : ' The woman!" he exulted. "What was 
 she like?" 
 
 I drew my imperfect, dimly seen vision of 
 her. 
 
 " Beautiful and young ? Yes, she must be 
 that. And by herself?" 
 " With a revolver." 
 
 * The woman who wears suspenders. Did 
 you see her stockings ? " 
 
 I could not satisfy him there. 
 " A pity," he mused. " You see, if one of 
 them was down that would prove that she was 
 the owner of the suspender clasp. But, of 
 course, it could only be her." 
 
 " But what's she doing here, coming like that, 
 
 G
 
 98 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 and slipping away without a word ? " I forlornly 
 asked. 
 
 " Not without a word," he corrected me, 
 folding the dainty handkerchief. :c There's a 
 whole book in this message. Well, it's a 
 challenge. The woman has thrown down her 
 glove. I'll pick it up." 
 
 I reminded him, a little irritably, that I had 
 already performed that chivalrous act. But I 
 did not tell him that I had robbed his sleeping 
 heart of it. 
 
 "Well," he conceded, "we've picked it up. 
 And we'll restore it to her. And, look here, 
 don't speak of this to the others. It is all too 
 mysterious. It would worry the life out of 
 the ladies and Miss Liddicoat would be sure 
 to want to use the handkerchief. Sacrilege ! 
 But why this woman? I don't like it. No; 
 I think I do like it. It's so so adven- 
 turous, so thrilling, so enticing. And I used 
 to think that the grocery business was full of 
 thrills! Why, after this groceries are tame, 
 tame! I've been asleep all my life. I'll find 
 her. Ill return her her handkerchief unsoiled, 
 and the thing that keeps up her beautiful 
 stockings ! " 
 
 The poor little arid grocer was becoming 
 absurd. He was actually falling in love. And 
 with a woman whom he had never seen. But
 
 THE HANDKERCHIEF 99 
 
 those are always the worst cases. Still, a grocer 
 in quest of his lady ! 
 
 " Come," I said, to quench his foolish ardour, 
 for there is nothing so ridiculous, next to being 
 in love yourself, as the sight of another in love, 
 " I'll show you the way she went." 
 
 In the clean dawn we went back to the 
 sleeping camp. The track of the girl's foot- 
 steps was clear, here and there, where the sand 
 had not h^en disturbed. And it was the print 
 of a dainty shoe, and, by the deep puncture in 
 the soft sand, a very femininely high heeled 
 one! 
 
 Not at all the footgear that a sensible woman 
 would use in traversing a tropical, swampy 
 jungle. 
 
 The grocer did not seem surprised when I 
 pointed this out. It was increasingly evident 
 that he was in love. He carefully erased the 
 tell-tale marks. 
 
 '' We'll see," he muttered, eagerly pressing on, 
 " the way she went." 
 
 But the tracks, once in the scrub, were impos- 
 sible to follow. Nor did we discover any 
 opening through the forest by which she could 
 have escaped. As far as we could make out 
 there was no pathway and the jungle was im- 
 passable without a track. At last we gave up 
 the quest and returned to the camp, to find the 
 
 G 2
 
 ioo GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 other men awake. But as we approached them 
 Greatheart said to me : 
 
 " I'd better keep this for the present, don't you 
 think? I'm the only one who has a pocket- 
 book, you know." 
 
 So into the pocket-book, to keep delicious 
 company with the broken end of a woman's 
 suspender and, it must be remembered, his 
 wife's portrait and the mysterious paper that 
 was too valuable to start a fire with, went that 
 futile, absurd feminine rag, with which a woman 
 charmingly pretends to blow her little nose. 
 
 And as I noted the ardent look on the little 
 grocer's face, a chill doubt shivered through me 
 a doubt of his capacity to get us out of our 
 perilous position. What chance had we now, 
 under the guidance of a middle-aged grocer, 
 moonstruck, made mad by a rag of cambric and 
 a pink elastic suspender?
 
 THE FLAG 101 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE FLAG 
 
 AFTER breakfast, without word of our 
 visitor of the night, the grocer 
 announced that he and I were going 
 to explore the coast-line in a direction 
 opposite to that taken when the galleon had been 
 discovered. Our intention was to find an open- 
 ing that would lead us inland, and allow us to 
 climb one of the peaks that hunched their heavy 
 shoulders above the velvet folds of the bush- 
 clad hills behind us. From some such look-out 
 point we should be perhaps able to settle 
 whether we were on a small island or on a 
 portion of a larger one, and possibly discover 
 something important about the other inhabi- 
 tants. As this time we were determined to 
 explore inland, and as, in view of unforeseen 
 obstacles, we might not be able to return to camp 
 that night, we would take provisions for at least 
 two days.
 
 102 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 Podmore objected. " Staying away all 
 night," he growled. " I don't like it. We 
 won't be safe without you." 
 
 " Oh, nonsense," Miss Rice cheerfully pro- 
 tested. "There's no danger, is there?" 
 
 " If there was, I wouldn't go," Greatheart 
 reassured her. 
 
 " I know that," she murmured, with again that 
 look of ardent trust that sat so ludicrously on 
 her plain, business-like, boarding-house keeper 
 features. 
 
 Greatheart was blind to the illumination of her 
 eyes. He was blind to everybody but the 
 unseen woman he sought. 
 
 " We can look after the camp all right," 
 Bisscop volunteered, and got his reward from 
 Miss Liddicoat's swiftly raised and swiftly 
 lowered eyes. 
 
 " But suppose," Podmore insisted uneasily, 
 " we're attacked ? " 
 
 "By what?" 
 
 " By savages." 
 
 " There ain't any savages," the grocer 
 patiently explained. :< The inhabitants of this 
 island wear suspenders for their stockings and 
 play brass bands." 
 
 " Well," said Podmore, unconvinced, " if 
 anything happens to you, what'll become of 
 us?"
 
 THE FLAG 103 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Greatheart," Miss Rice exclaimed, 
 " you'll promise us you won't run any risks ? 
 For Mr. Podmore's sake," she lamely added, 
 but too late. 
 
 Greatheart was flattered. What grocer 
 wouldn't have been? But I regret to have to 
 state that he strutted. He had vaulted his shop 
 counter. 
 
 ' You can depend on me," he proudly said. 
 
 But, perhaps, in thus describing him, I was a 
 little jealous. He had taken so easily, so 
 inevitably, the role of leader. It was plain that 
 even the recalcitrant Podmore had unwillingly 
 come to depend on Greatheart's capacity. 
 
 But I could not help uneasily wondering how 
 much longer the grocer would prove worthy of 
 the trust we had given him. He was deserting 
 us, lured away on a wild-goose chase by a 
 woman's handkerchief. He was rapidly 
 becoming romantic. And, however delightful 
 a romantic grocer might be in Woolloomooloo, 
 as the captain of a party of shipwrecked incom- 
 petents he would be a calamity. 
 
 Yet, in fairness to him, it must be admitted 
 that he was taking me with him. And he knew 
 that I should not willingly abet him in any of 
 his sentimental vagaries. 
 
 We set out, carrying our provisions and the 
 tomahawk. Greatheart saw that the patent
 
 104 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 pipe-lighter was in his pocket. In the direction 
 we were now taking we had not explored further 
 than the first rocky point. Beyond that lay the 
 unknown, perhaps the haunt of suspenders and 
 brass bands. 
 
 ''' There's no possible track through the bush 
 the way the woman went," Greatheart said, as 
 soon as we were out of earshot. " She must 
 have come out of the scrub and down to the 
 beach further on." 
 
 But at the first point we found that there was 
 no hope in that clue. For to round the point 
 we had to take to the rocks ; and if she had kept 
 to the scrub till she reached the point there 
 would be no footprints for us to find. We 
 presumed that this was what she had done, and 
 went on, closely examining the stretches of sand, 
 and keeping an observant eye on the fringe of 
 forest for any possible opening inland. 
 
 At length we came to a great semicircular 
 beach, whose horns were two big bluffs. 
 Rounding the first of these, we saw a great grove 
 of cocoa-nut palms, in front of which a curious- 
 looking single palm stood sentinel. Here, 
 anyway, was a permanent store of food. 
 
 But the appearance of the solitary tree 
 interested us greatly. On approaching it we 
 found that, instead of the straight, slender trunk, 
 this palm bifurcated a few feet from the base into
 
 THE FLAG 105 
 
 two equal graceful stems, each surmounted by 
 the usual bunch of drooping fronds. I had 
 never seen so singular a palm before. 
 
 " Ever heard of a double-branched cocoa-nut 
 palm? " I asked. 
 
 " No," he said, and then frowned at it. 
 " Curious thing, I seem, though, to have heard 
 the phrase before a double-branched cocoa- 
 nut but I can't remember where." 
 
 He gave it up, still frowning. I thought it 
 curious that he should be at such pains to recall 
 the memory. But I suppose a good grocer's 
 mind is stacked with what to us would be insig- 
 nificant trifles. 
 
 "Anyway," I said impatiently, "this is one. 
 Hadn't we better investigate the bush?" 
 
 Leaving the solitary palm, which looked of 
 great age, we turned inland through the grove. 
 The swish of the steady breeze sang its lulling 
 tune through the bending trunks and the 
 swaying fronds. 
 
 " Cocoa-nuts," Greatheart said, pausing and 
 peering up at them, " I've sold cocoa-nuts, sold 
 'em in a barrow when I was a kid, long before 
 I ever dreamed I was going to own a grocer's 
 shop. And I used to eat 'em, too. But I never 
 thought about 'em, never knew how they grew. 
 To think I once sold these in a hand-barrow in 
 Woolloomooloo ! "
 
 io6 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 His strange little grocer's mind was away on 
 its fantasies. Cocoa-nuts were cocoa-nuts 
 that was enough for me. 
 
 " Think of all the commonplace things a 
 grocer sells," he went on. " Sugar and pepper 
 and rice and salt all sold over the counter, all 
 strange romantic things come from outlandish 
 places, if we could only see them. I always 
 thought keeping a grocer's shop was the most 
 romantic of the trades that was what attracted 
 me to it when a boy but it has taken this 
 experience to show me that selling groceries is 
 the most thrilling thing in all the civilised world 
 except, of course, being shipwrecked." 
 
 "You can have all the thrill," I said. " I 
 want to have it over and get back home." 
 
 " Go back ? " he murmured ; " yes, I suppose 
 it'll end by our having to go back. You can't 
 go on having adventures all your life, can 
 you?" 
 
 He sighed; and together we went on. 
 
 No sign of footsteps marred the smooth 
 expanse of sand ; but just beyond the palm 
 grove, hidden from us by it, we came upon a 
 little river. We had not noticed it from the 
 bluff. 
 
 We made our way, after crossing the river, 
 which here was a wide expanse of shallow water, 
 to a big rock that gleamed white in the distance,
 
 THE FLAG 107 
 
 and then what looked like a slight thinning of 
 the scrub drew us further inland. We hurried 
 on eagerly, and Greatheart, who was in the lead, 
 shouted excitedly for me to follow. 
 
 He had discovered a track running into the 
 forest. 
 
 Our excitement cooled on a closer examina- 
 tion. If this entrance into the forest was a 
 track, it was a very old one. All that was 
 discernible was a more open space between the 
 larger trees, but the opening itself was choked 
 with saplings and undergrowth. Still, it might 
 have once been a pathway, and if a pathway it 
 must lead somewhere. 
 
 While pushing his way through the tangle 
 Greatheart caught his foot in some obstruction 
 and pitched forward on his face. He was not 
 hurt, but before picking himself up he bent to 
 examine the cause of his fall. It was merely 
 a tree-stump. 
 
 " Look," he cried, pulling back the moss-like 
 growth that had covered it, " this tree was cut 
 down. Here's the marks of the axe." 
 
 I agreed, but pointed out that that axe must 
 have done its work fifty years ago. " Some 
 shipwrecked sailors," I suggested. " They 
 cut it down to build a hut." 
 
 " No," said the grocer, busily searching 
 among the undergrowth, " here's the tree trunk,
 
 io8 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 almost rotted away. When they felled this 
 tree they merely pulled it aside and left it." 
 
 "Must be a track then. Where to?" 
 
 Through the sturdy little saplings, over 
 creepers that lay in wait to tangle and tear our 
 bare feet, beneath the silky webs of gigantic, 
 gorgeous-coloured spiders we pushed our 
 winding way ; and at last came out on the bank 
 of the little river we had crossed on the beach. 
 Here, however, it was a rushing torrent, bub- 
 bling busily round the base of a big rocky bluff. 
 We recognised then that we were much higher 
 up than the confused pathway over uneven 
 ground had led us to expect. The first thing 
 we did was to take a delicious drink. 
 
 " Here's where the track ends," I said. 
 " This settles the question. Some ship came 
 here once for water ; and a party of sailors cut 
 the track to roll their barrels down to the shore. 
 They would naturally come inland to get purer 
 water." 
 
 But this obvious explanation did not suit 
 the grocer. He was always looking for the 
 unexpected. The poor little fellow was 
 determined, by now, to see mystery everywhere. 
 For him the island was enchanted. Suspenders 
 and lace handkerchiefs grew on every tree.^ It 
 only shows that grocers should not be ship- 
 wrecked.
 
 THE FLAG 109 
 
 He paid no attention to my words. He was 
 staring at the cliff. 
 
 " Perhaps the track goes on inland," he 
 muttered at last. " It must. We'll climb up 
 a bit and see what there is behind this cliff." 
 
 I followed him unwillingly. I believe he 
 confidently expected to find a brass band at the 
 top. It was, however, an easy climb, almost 
 suggesting to us that the hand of man had helped 
 in forming it. About thirty feet up we came 
 to a ledge running along the cliff a remarkable 
 natural pathway, level, a couple of feet at its 
 broadest, along which we had to proceed in 
 single file. When he had gone about a dozen 
 yards Greatheart gave a triumphant cry. 
 
 I peered eagerly over his shoulder. He had 
 discovered the mouth of a cave. 
 
 ' This is where the track leads to," Greatheart 
 laughed excitedly. 
 
 " But it's only a cave a hole in the cliff." 
 
 " Let's explore," he cried, and disappeared 
 into the mouth of the cave. 
 
 I waited outside, on a little natural platform, 
 and kept shouting to him in case he lost his way. 
 It was a long time before he reappeared. 
 
 " It's a splendid cave," he said, blinking. 
 " Smooth earth for a floor. Roomy lots of 
 space to stand up in. And I heard a trickle of
 
 no GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 water somewhere at the back of it. But there's 
 nobody there." 
 
 His disappointment was extreme. He must 
 have expected to meet the girl in the darkness. 
 But he soon revived. 
 
 "What a place to camp in!" he exulted. 
 
 I looked round. The natural pathway ended 
 at the cave-mouth. Above, the cliff struck 
 sheer up, and below us, except by the way we 
 had come, it was unapproachable. 
 
 " What a place to defend ! " the grocer 
 muttered. "We two could hold it against a 
 hundred." 
 
 " Who wants to defend it ? " I said im- 
 patiently. " Who is there to attack us ? " 
 
 " That's true," he admitted, suddenly 
 abashed. " There can't be any danger from 
 natives, or we would have seen some sign of 
 them. It's a pity, isn't it? Up here, with our 
 stock of provisions, and with water provided by 
 the cave itself, we could stand a siege. It 
 would be glorious to have to defend our lives 
 here." 
 
 The grocer was becoming childish. I fore- 
 saw the day when I should have to depose him 
 from his leadership. I was incompetent 
 enough, but at least I was sane. However, 
 curiously enough, I could not recall any instance
 
 THE FLAG in 
 
 of a grocer going mad. But then, I had never 
 heard of any grocer who had been shipwrecked. 
 
 " And the look out ! " he continued, advancing 
 to the edge of the platform. " We can see the 
 whole sweep of the bay and the ocean beyond. 
 No one could enter here without being observed 
 by us, and behind these rocks we could lie 
 unseen, watching every movement of the enemy 
 unobserved." 
 
 It was quite true ; but I pointed out to Great- 
 heart that what we wanted, when the search 
 steamer came, was to be observed. 
 
 " Well," he caught up my suggestion, though 
 with his new rapture, " this is the very place to 
 signal from." 
 
 But, like a child, he cast this idea from him, 
 and took up his old toy. He was playing at 
 soldiers again ; and I had to listen while he 
 sketched for me his grandiose plans of defence 
 against hordes of the enemy. Who or what he 
 conceived the enemy to be he left vague. The 
 thing was, to his mind, quite simple. Here 
 was a place obviously suitable for defence; 
 hence there must be some one to defend it 
 against. Otherwise there wouldn't be any 
 game. It was only when I recalled to him the 
 wonderful girl on whose quest we had started out 
 that he reluctantly consented to return to earth. 
 I believe, in his mind, he was already holding
 
 ii2 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 the cave with her from the determined assaults 
 of vindictive hordes of rival grocers. 
 
 We descended, recrossed the stream, retraced 
 our path through the forest and came again past 
 the grove of cocoa-nuts to the double-branched 
 one that stood sentinel beyond it. 
 
 " I'm sure I've heard of a double-branched 
 cocoa-nut before," he murmured. Then, gazing 
 fondly back at the cliff, he pointed out to me that 
 from the beach the mouth of the cave was com- 
 pletely screened by the rocks at its entrance. 
 This afforded him considerable satisfaction. 
 
 At the far end of the cove, just above high- 
 water mark, we made a discovery that promised 
 something more valuable than an empty cave. 
 A line of faint tracks, blurred by the work of the 
 wind, led inland. Whether they were the track 
 of a human being or it was my suggestion of 
 a turtle, it was impossible to say. 
 
 Greatheart followed them almost at a run. 
 He had forgotten all about his cave of refuge. 
 He was merely the curious male on his eternal 
 pursuit of the unknown female. 
 
 After several false trails we found a distinct 
 track, quite unlike the clogged pathway we had 
 found to the cave. This was a broad way, made 
 comparatively recently, as we judged from the 
 state of the broken branches that lined and 
 strewed it ; but how it had been made we could
 
 THE FLAG ri3 
 
 not guess. No signs of trees cut down, no way 
 cleared by axe or bill-hook no touch at all, it 
 seemed to our startled minds, of human agency. 
 The track, winding and ill-defined, yet perfectly 
 passable, had not been cut through the heavy 
 forest; it had been forced through it. The 
 undergrowth had been ruthlessly trodden down 
 but by what feet? Only by a large body of 
 men marching in double file, it seemed to us, 
 could this remarkable passage-way have been 
 driven through the jungle. Great branches had 
 been thrust aside, at a height above our reach, 
 saplings and bushes twisted awry, clinging, 
 thorny creepers bruised into inoffensiveness, 
 overhanging boughs torn as if by giant hands. 
 It gave us the impression of some vast, relent- 
 less might struggling irresistibly, triumphantly, 
 onward. In my incredulous mind I had images 
 of some traction-engine, or some steam-roller 
 used for road making. But no steam-engine, 
 no motor lorry, could have made its lumbering 
 way over that slushy soil. Whatever the 
 agency employed to make the track it was not 
 unintelligent. It had not gone on blindly : it 
 had chosen the best track, twisting aside when 
 a big tree blocked its progress, and more than 
 once retracing its steps to find an easier way. 
 
 Greatheart, of course, had his grandiloquent 
 idea. " It's been made by some enormous 
 
 H
 
 H4 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 animal," he suggested in a tone that disguised 
 its awe by its sense of adventure. He had 
 never expected a mystery so beautifully un- 
 explainable as this. The enchanted island was 
 living up to its reputation. 
 
 "Animal?" I nervously asked. "There 
 are no big animals in these islands. They don't 
 grow big animals." 
 
 " How do you know? " the grocer queried. 
 
 " Never heard of them." 
 
 " That's it, then," he cried with delight. 
 " It's some prehistoric animal." 
 
 Greatheart was in his element. " Some vast 
 creature that the world thinks extinct, surviving 
 here, after millions of years, on this unexplored 
 island. And we shall discover it! What 
 luck!" 
 
 I laughed outright, and paused in the middle 
 of my laugh. Here, in the silence of the jungle, 
 surrounded by the dim twilight of the matted 
 forest, inhabited by I knew not what strange life, 
 it frightened me to hear the sound of my foolish, 
 half-hysterical laughter. I was glad, then, that 
 I was not alone. In such a weird environment 
 even a mad grocer was something to buttress 
 my fears against. 
 
 "Well, an elephant," he hazarded, coming 
 reluctantly back from the prehistoric ages. 
 
 " Elephants don't live in this part of the
 
 THE FLAG 115 
 
 world," I assured him. " Besides, on a little 
 island like this, there would be no room for a 
 herd, and elephants always live in herds." 
 
 " Modern elephants may ; but what do we 
 know about prehistoric ones? Anyhow, what 
 made this track ? " 
 
 I could not tell him. So, without further 
 talk, we went on again. 
 
 It was not an easy matter to follow the path. 
 Sometimes we lost it altogether, and had to halt 
 and retrace our steps. At last we came out on the 
 edge of the stream, or it might have been another 
 stream, perhaps a couple of miles from the beach. 
 We continued along this until the stream 
 diminished to a trickling rill. Then the track 
 
 ,<j 
 
 led us up a steep gully, from the ridge at the top 
 of which we had a view of the big peak. And 
 on the top of the ridge we found the going much 
 easier on account of a slight thinning of the 
 forest. 
 
 It took us several hours' climbing before we 
 reached the shoulder that pointed the way for 
 the last climb to *he summit. During our 
 journey a tropical shower had drenched us ; our 
 sodden clothing steamed from the heat of our 
 bodies ; yet that last few hundred feet of climb- 
 ing was the spur our exhaustion needed. As 
 we reached the top we flung ourselves, utterly 
 tired out, on the ground. Then, having 
 
 H 2
 
 n6 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 regained our breath we stood stiffly up and 
 looked round. To our surprise the summit, 
 save for one big tree, afforded us a clear view 
 in every direction. 
 
 The first thing we satisfied ourselves about 
 was the fact that we were on a small island. 
 We could see the whole sweep of the coast, 
 except to the west, where other peaks and ridges, 
 as high as the summit on which we stood, shut 
 out our view of the coastline. And far to the 
 north we faintly made out the loom of other land. 
 That lifted our spirits. A way of escape, by 
 means of the raft, lay open to us. On all the 
 other sides of the island there was nothing but 
 the vast circle of the horizon of the ocean. 
 
 And, far away, near the coast at the other 
 end of the island, we saw, above the blue haze 
 of the distance, the blur of smoke ! 
 
 " That's where she lives! " Greatheart cried. 
 
 "And that's where the brass band hides," I 
 added. 
 
 " Yes, the brass band. The smoke is above 
 the place near where we heard it playing. See 
 that ridge? That's the earthquake cliff I told 
 you about. The bandsmen are living in that 
 depression behind it, on the shore. And she's 
 with them ! " 
 
 I followed his unsteadily pointing finger. The 
 sharp rise of the land prevented us seeing any
 
 THE FLAG 117 
 
 signs of habitation. Yet there could not be any 
 doubt about the reality of the smoke. 
 
 " We'll follow this track. It was made by 
 the bandsmen and leads straight to her," the 
 grocer said. 
 
 But I could see that it would take at least a 
 day to reach that smoke from where we stood ; 
 and the state of our provisions necessitated 
 caution. Indeed, the easier way, provided 
 there was an opening through the forest, was 
 to return to camp and set off from there. Or, 
 failing that, we might manage to navigate the 
 raft round the coast and surprise the mysterious 
 inhabitants by coming by sea. But the height, 
 the thin clarity of the air, the pricking spur 
 of curiosity and the infection of Greatheart's 
 enthusiasm so wrought on me, keying me up to 
 his romantic pitch, that I was ready, eager, to 
 follow him if he had pointed to the moon. 
 
 We turned to search for the track that must 
 lead past the peak down to the inland lowlands, 
 which we observed with surprise were not com- 
 pletely swathed in forest. Here and there we 
 made out large spaces of treeless ground, alter- 
 nating with expanses of open, park-like country. 
 
 And, as we made our way across the level 
 space of the summit, I found the flagpole. It 
 was lying on the ground a ship's spar, tall and
 
 n_8 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 yellow. And attached to it was a tattered 
 Australian flag. 
 
 But why was it on the ground? Its base had 
 been roughly hacked through, and close to it 
 we saw the stump, still firmly planted in the 
 ground. 
 
 " Cut down ? " I cried. " Why ? " 
 
 We stared gloomily at each other. Why, if 
 people had erected this signal of distress, had 
 they so hurriedly cut it down ? And, again, how 
 had they carried so heavy a piece of timber to 
 such a height along that difficult track? 
 
 "All I can make out of it," the grocer said 
 at length, " is that there's been a party of people 
 shipwrecked on the island." 
 
 "The brass band?" I suggested. 
 
 " Yes. And they naturally wanted to get off. 
 So they selected this peak, and carried that pole 
 up here though how, beats me to signal to 
 any passing ship. And look! They had even 
 built up a big bonfire ready to signal with at 
 night. But they never set it afire. Why? 
 Because no ships passed ? No. Because they 
 suddenly changed their minds. Brass bands 
 are like that, perhaps. But something occurred 
 to make them anxious not to be rescued. They 
 decided to stay here." 
 
 " To practise * Lohengrin ' ? " I inanely sug- 
 gested.
 
 THE FLAG 119 
 
 " Perhaps," he seriously agreed. " Anyhow, 
 they'd some reason for not wanting to go back 
 to civilisation." 
 
 " I can't understand that," I protested. " No 
 sane person would want to live all his life in this 
 desolate spot." 
 
 Greatheart looked away over the wide expanse 
 of forest and park-land for a long minute before 
 answering me. "I can," he said at last, almost 
 as if to himself. : ' There's a fascination about 
 this island that is working on me. Haven't you 
 sometimes felt since we came here that there is 
 something wrong about civilisation? There 
 must be, if it keeps a man a grocer all his life." 
 
 " No," I said curtly. I had no patience with 
 his romantic vagaries. And I had been examin- 
 ing the chopped off stump. " It's quite recently 
 they felled the flag post. Since we arrived?" 
 
 " Because of our arrival," Greatheart answered 
 serenely. " They are satisfied with this island. 
 They don't want intruders. We are the 
 intruders." 
 
 " But," I objected, " if we're never rescued, 
 we'll still be intruders." 
 
 " Possibly they think we'll starve. Maybe 
 they mean to see that we do. That girl's visit 
 was to find out how near to starving we were. 
 But, no ; that girl wouldn't do that. She 
 wouldn't leave the message of her handkerchief.
 
 120 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 Perhaps the brass band is imprisoning her here 
 and she wants our help. But if they had left 
 that signal of distress flying and a ship had seen 
 it, our rescuers would have found them, too. 
 And that's the one thing they don't want." 
 
 Hardly listening to him, I had been going over 
 the strangeness of it all. " Do you know," I 
 said, " I think I have the explanation. It's 
 simple. On this island there's a crowd of 
 lunatics " I had an inspiration from the grocer's 
 strangely lit eyes " or perhaps there's some- 
 thing in the air here that makes people who come 
 here lunatics; or it may be a sort of asylum 
 for the insane like the leper stations. That 
 woman is the leader of the harmless crew. Only 
 a party of lunatics would have made this absurd 
 track to the peak, and only madmen would have 
 taken all the trouble to haul this spar up here 
 when they could have merely chopped down this 
 tree and made as good a flagpole of it. And 
 only some one ' touched ' would have chopped it 
 down again. And nobody but a madwoman 
 would have come wandering through our camp 
 at night, peering in people's faces and leaving 
 silly handkerchiefs about." 
 
 "No, no!" the grocer broke in fiercely. 
 " Whatever the brass band may be, she's not a 
 lunatic ! " 
 
 I had touched his fantasy on the raw. There
 
 THE FLAG 121 
 
 was a murderous gleam in his small eyes. I 
 felt for a moment that the island had indeed 
 made the harmless little grocer insane. But 
 the sudden fire died down as suddenly. He 
 turned moodily away. 
 
 " If they're lunatics we'll find out. There 
 must be a track down to their camp, or asylum, 
 or whatever it is. Come on." 
 
 But half an hour's search brought us to a halt. 
 The track, despite our careful search, did not 
 lead anywhere, save back the toilsome way we 
 had come. Nonplussed, we made a determined 
 effort to break our way through the forest in the 
 direction of the smoke, but the thorns of the 
 creepers and the toughness of the matted under- 
 growth soon cooled our mad ardour. And when 
 we gave up the attempt the sun was just sinking 
 behind the range. We found that we had lost 
 all sense of time. It would be necessary to 
 camp, and the best place would be the summit. 
 We climbed again to our look out. The bon- 
 fire was set ready for us. 
 
 But Greatheart shook his head. " They 
 might see it over there," he warned me. 
 
 " What 's it matter if they did ? " I impatiently 
 asked. 
 
 "Ah!" That was all Greatheart's answer. 
 
 So we camped that night on the summit. And 
 when from a dream that the strange woman was
 
 122 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 smothering me with a lace handkerchief I awoke 
 and sat up, I saw Greatheart's figure standing, 
 tremendous, against the red disc of the level sun. 
 About him probably because at this height 
 the dawn was cold he had swathed the old 
 Australian flag. 
 
 Like all of us men, his features had by now 
 become submerged beneath a stubbly growth of 
 beard. Podmore, I had noticed, had changed 
 in a few days from a prosperous business man 
 to a ripe and mellow specimen of the " dead- 
 beat " who leans against the veranda post of a 
 suburban "pub." Bisscop had fared better. 
 His chubby cheeks were but faintly washed with 
 a delicate down. He had confessed to me that 
 he was bitterly disappointed, though Miss 
 Liddicoat had told him she thought it became 
 him. My own features, sicklied over with a 
 greyish sea of beard, did not please me. But to 
 the insignificant features of the grocer his dark, 
 strong beard gave already a certain largeness 
 and breadth. 
 
 And, seeing him haloed, as it were, by the red 
 sun, I perceived a certain aspect of power in his 
 face, an unexpected suggestion of grandeur. 
 Wrapped in his strange garment, he looked 
 almost heroic. About him was the blue of the 
 heavens, and on his grocer's breast were great 
 stars.
 
 THE FLAG 123 
 
 I spoke I think it must have been in a 
 whisper and he heard me. He came striding 
 down from his height. 
 
 " I've been wondering," he began, " about my 
 people at home. How they're getting on, 
 and all that. My girls and the shop and 
 Woolloomooloo. It's so far here from Wool- 
 loomooloo, isn't it? I can't help worrying 
 about my girls. They're capable enough, of 
 course, but I think it always needs a man behind 
 the counter, don't you ? " 
 
 He looked round vaguely at the silent spread 
 of hills, almost as if he expected to see a cus- 
 tomer come over the horizon; then suddenly 
 his grocer's cringe relaxed. He flung the flag 
 from his shoulders. 
 
 " Look! " he cried. " The smoke's going up 
 again. I've been waiting since the dawn to see 
 it." 
 
 I saw, where he pointed, the hesitating blur 
 of blue. 
 
 ' They're not early risers, at any rate," was his 
 sole comment. Then, with a sigh, he said, 
 c< Suppose we'll have to be getting back." 
 
 " But what about this ? " I asked, picking up 
 the flag. " Hadn't we better stick it up some- 
 where, in case a ship comes looking for us ? " 
 
 He did not answer. He was again intent on
 
 124 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 the beckoning finger of the distant smoke. I 
 repeated my question. 
 
 Disturbed at being brought back from his 
 imaginings, he said carelessly, " All right. I 
 don't think it would be any use. But stick it 
 up if you like." 
 
 I managed to affix it securely to a bare bough 
 of the solitary tree that crowned the summit; 
 and with a last glance at it from me, and a last 
 glance at the trail of smoke from him, we 
 plunged again into the track. 
 
 And when, long after noon, we emerged again 
 on the shore, I looked back at the distant peak 
 and found that the flag was gone ! 
 
 Greatheart did not seem greatly disturbed. 
 
 " I expected that," he serenely said. " If she 
 cut the flag down, you may be sure she would 
 have it down again." 
 
 It seemed to me that the grocer would have 
 had it so. There was one mystery the more to 
 solve. And he was in love with mystery. It 
 flashed upon me, then, that the grocer had 
 become an elderly Boy Scout.
 
 THE TIGER 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE TIGER 
 
 IT was only when we reached the double- 
 stemmed cocoa-nut palm that we realised 
 how exhausted we were. We flung our- 
 selves gladly down in the shade of its 
 double crown and let the cooling sea-breeze 
 soothe us. There were not many miles between 
 us and the camp ; but we felt it impossible, after 
 our recent exertions, to go on without rest and 
 food. The food was soon cooked and eaten 
 too soon, for we had come to the end of our 
 provisions and after that we stretched ourselves 
 luxuriously on the soft sand, content to idle for 
 an hour. 
 
 Often, as I lay there, my eyes turned towards 
 the peak, in the foolish hope that I might see 
 the flag again waving from the tree ; but the 
 grocer had forgotten the peak his inquisitive 
 gaze was upon the foliage of the palm. It 
 occurred to me and I smiled pityingly at the
 
 126 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 thought that he was probably trying to recollect 
 where in his grocer's experience he had heard 
 of a double-branched cocoa-nut palm before. 
 
 To my amazement my idle conjecture proved 
 right; for suddenly he sat up. 
 
 "I've got it!" he cried. "I knew I had 
 heard of it before." 
 
 He whipped the pocket-book from his coat, 
 took from it and carefully laid aside the handker- 
 chief and the suspender clasp, then, probing 
 deeper, he pulled out a few papers envelopes, 
 pencilled memoranda on cards, bank receipts, 
 visiting cards the usual trivial beachcombings 
 of a busy life, once important, now forgotten. 
 It was with part of this collection that I had 
 remembered lighting our first fire. He set to 
 work to examine the debris of his past, and I 
 recalled that when I had been about to hold one 
 of these scraps of writing to the flame of his 
 cigar-lighter he had excitedly snatched the light 
 away. 
 
 " I say," I said idly, " what was there so 
 valuable about one of those papers that you 
 wouldn't let me burn it ? Love-letter ? " 
 
 " No. I'm just looking for it now. Surely 
 I can't have lost it?" His hand shook as he 
 fumbled among the litter. " To lose it now, 
 when ah! Here it is!" 
 
 Quickly, yet with reverential gentleness he
 
 THE TIGER 127 
 
 smoothed out the little scrap of folded paper and 
 scanned the writing on it. " Yes," he breathed, 
 with a sigh of relief, " it's quite plain." 
 
 This is what he read triumphantly out to me : 
 
 " ' One tin condensed milk (double-headed 
 cocoa-nut brand)." 
 
 "What gibberish is that?" I irritably asked. 
 Was the grocer reading me out an item from one 
 of his bills? 
 
 I took the paper from his hands. Yes, it 
 looked like a bill, or an invoice, or a list of 
 articles the sort of thing women produce from 
 their hand-bags when they're trying to find a 
 penny for their tram fare. But what woman 
 would ever want to purchase the list of things 
 mentioned in this paper. They were headed 
 by the item that Greatheart had so proudly read 
 out; but after that the list struck me as only 
 possible should an insane person purpose buying 
 the earth. It was the most haphazard, jumbled 
 and madly incongruous collection of things that 
 anybody could conceivably want all at once. 
 Here, not alone for its curiosity, I write it down. 
 The events that followed caused every item of 
 that peculiar list to remain engraved on my 
 memory till to-day. I could repeat it now, 
 figures and all, without a mistake.
 
 128 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 This is what the paper had written on it in a 
 man's hand in somewhat faded ink : 
 
 i tin condensed milk (double-headed cocoa- 
 nut brand). 
 305 yards watered silk. 
 
 i carpenter's T-square. 
 217 Ibs. sugar (cheapest quality). 
 i ton rock-salt. 
 i musician's triangle, 
 i cork-screw. 
 75 loads garden soil, 
 i box aerated waters. 
 i surveyor's plumb-bob. 
 i carpenter's level. 
 35 tins soap (Sunset brand). 
 i spade. 
 
 " Well, what do you make of it ? " Greatheart 
 eagerly asked. 
 
 " Nothing except that this list was written 
 by a lunatic." 
 
 " That's what I thought, at first," he admitted. 
 "Afterwards I began to think there was some- 
 thing in it. But you see the mention of the 
 double-headed cocoa-nut? I knew, as soon as 
 I set eyes on this palm, that I had heard of the 
 phrase before." 
 
 I dismissed th.e coincidence. "I've never
 
 THE TIGER 129 
 
 heard of that brand of condensed milk," I said. 
 "Have you?" 
 
 " No," said the grocer. " And I used to do 
 a great deal in condensed milk in Wool- 
 loomooloo. I made a lot of inquiries; but 
 nobody in the trade had ever heard of it. But 
 the whole list is curious, isn't it ? " 
 
 " Yes," I said, studying it. " Who would 
 want at the same time 305 yards of watered 
 silk and 75 loads of garden soil? And what 
 good with all that is one cork-screw and a 
 surveyor's plumb-bob ? And what should the 
 purchaser of the garden soil want a musician's 
 triangle for ? To play tunes to the ton of rock- 
 salt? It's just the random scribbling of some 
 idle mind. What on earth makes you think 
 that it has any possible value ? " 
 
 " He said he wouldn't have lost it for a 
 thousand pounds." 
 
 "He? Who?" 
 
 :; The chap it belonged to. Oh, I haven't 
 told you about him. It's the way he went on 
 about it, and the way I came into possession of 
 it that makes me sure it is something valuable. 
 It was like this. One day, just about a fortnight 
 before I left on this trip, a stranger came into the 
 shop. He was the sort of man you do not easily 
 forget. A Dago of some sort, an Italian or a 
 Spaniard, I fancy. When I first looked at him
 
 I3Q GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 over the counter I thought he was tall; but it 
 was something in the way he carried himself, so 
 aggressively upright, and the way he held his 
 head back when he looked at you, that made him 
 appear above ordinary height. Sharp black 
 eyes and a yellowish face with a big nose. 
 Clean shaven. Dressed like a shopwalker, 
 gentlemanly and dapper. 
 
 " He hovered about the shop, nervously 
 picking up things and peering at them, as if he 
 meant to buy the whole place out, and was 
 determined to get full value for his money. 
 When the only other customer left he came up 
 to the counter and gave me a written order. I 
 remembered afterwards that he pulled a lot of 
 papers out of his pocket and hurriedly selected 
 the order from them, then jammed the rest back 
 into his pocket. It was a very big order he 
 had written down, and a very curious one." 
 
 " This list? " I asked with surprise. " What 
 did he want the ton of rock-salt and the cork- 
 screw for ? " 
 
 "Oh, no. Not this list at all. I only saw 
 that later. It was a straightforward enough 
 list of groceries that he wanted. But it was the 
 amount of them he ordered that astonished me. 
 It was practically a wholesale order. He could 
 have got it much cheaper from one of the big 
 wholesale houses ; but I didn't tell him that.
 
 THE TIGER 131 
 
 No grocer would. My trade was entirely 
 retail. It had to be in that neighbourhood 
 sixpence worth of this and a quarter of a pound 
 of one-and-fivepence-halfpenny tea, you know. 
 The profit is so much bigger on quarter pounds. 
 But this order was in dozens tinned meats, 
 tinned vegetables, canned fruit, bags of oatmeal 
 and rice and flour, cases of condensed milk 
 not cocoa-nut brand. I suppose I looked sur- 
 prised ; for, in that confidential, hurried way of 
 his he leaned over the counter and said some- 
 thing about a mining party going away for a 
 long prospecting trip in the country. He 
 wanted a complete outfit, and left it to me to 
 supplement it if he had overlooked anything 
 material. I read it over carefully, and told him 
 that I hadn't the quantity of some of the things 
 in stock. I would have to send out for them. 
 
 ' Well,' he said, ' don't let anybody know 
 that you're doing it for a customer. Just say 
 you've run out of stock.' I couldn't see the need 
 for this secrecy ; but I never object to doing a 
 favour for a customer. It pays. 'When do you 
 want these delivered, and where?' I asked him. 
 ' To-night,' he replied, ' at eleven o'clock ' ; and 
 he named a back street down by the Woolloo- 
 mooloo wharves. Well, it was none of my busi- 
 ness. I asked him for a deposit. He paid it, 
 in gold he had a big hand-bag with him and 
 
 I 2
 
 132 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 said he would call at six o'clock with the balance . 
 I had to promise I would have everything ready 
 by then. But I was not to say a word to any- 
 body about the business. Then he went, first 
 looking out of the door up and down the street, 
 as if he was afraid the police were after him. 
 
 " It was hard work, as, of course, I had to do 
 everything myself. The list of things practi- 
 cally cleared out my stock ; and of course I got 
 rid of some lines that were not selling mind 
 you, they were not inferior goods, only the 
 public likes one brand and won't touch another. 
 And just before six, when I was seeing to the 
 packing of the goods on three expresses I had 
 hired, I was called in from the back-yard by my 
 eldest girl. 
 
 " She and her sister were, of course, intensely 
 curious about the whole thing; but they never 
 got a word out of me, though they were nagging 
 at me most of the afternoon. And when I got 
 behind the counter, there was the strange Dago 
 chap, and my girls hovering about with their 
 ears and eyes peeled. But I shoved them out 
 of the shop. They didn't hear a word, I'm 
 sure ; but at tea the toast was burnt and the 
 chops tough at least, mine were. Women 
 always get the last word, don't they? 
 
 " I told the man that everything was ready 
 to go, and gave him his bill. He just glanced
 
 THE TIGER 133 
 
 at the total and paid me, in notes and gold, from 
 that hand-bag. I was sorry then that I had not 
 charged a halfpenny a tin more for the herrings 
 in tomato sauce. I had been worrying over 
 that most of the afternoon. Some of the subur- 
 ban shops always charged the halfpenny extra ; 
 but quite early in my life I made it a fixed 
 principle in my business to sell herrings in 
 tomato sauce without the extra halfpenny. I 
 think it was really because I was very fond of 
 them for tea. Foolish of me not to charge a 
 total stranger the usual price in other suburban 
 shops. It wasn't cheating, of course. But 
 there it was: I couldn't do it. And both my 
 daughters said afterwards that I was a fool and 
 ruining the business. I expect by now, with 
 me out of the way, they're charging that odd 
 halfpenny. Well, it won't do the business any 
 good in the long run. 
 
 "When I had given the foreign chap his 
 receipt he didn't go. I had to serve another 
 customer, and when I had finished with her, he 
 leaned over the counter again and whispered, 
 ' You didn't happen to see a piece of paper 
 knocking about the shop a piece of paper with 
 some private memorandums on it? I've lost 
 it somewhere. Hunted everywhere for it. 
 Thought, as a last chance, that I might have 
 dropped it here when I was in giving you the
 
 134 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 order.' I hadn't seen any piece of paper. I 
 asked him if it was valuable. 'Valuable!' he 
 said excitedly he seemed a bundle of nerves. 
 ' It's the most valuable thing I've ever possessed. 
 I'd pay a thousand pounds to have it back. But, 
 there, it isn't in the least likely I dropped it here. 
 And I've not got too much time to find it.' I told 
 him that I'd have a look round the shop and let 
 him know when I delivered the goods if I had 
 come across it. And after he had cautiously 
 gone I explored the corners of the shop, but 
 found nothing. 
 
 " I went down myself that night with the 
 expresses. He met me at the place he had 
 named, and made us drive right down to the 
 wharf. There we drew up alongside a ship 
 one of those schooners fitted with an oil engine. 
 The crew were waiting to load the stuff I 
 noticed they all seemed lascars or some such 
 natives and we all helped. The man seemed 
 crazy to get off without the least possible delay. 
 ' I've looked everywhere for that paper,' I told 
 him the minute I saw him. ' Have you found 
 it ? ' ' No,' he said with a kind of a snarl, ' but 
 I said I'd go, with or without the damned paper. 
 
 It's been stolen from me by those ' He 
 
 pulled himself up, and gave me a suspicious 
 glance. ' But I'll beat 'em yet. I'll be there
 
 THE TIGER 135 
 
 before them, waiting for 'em, and we'll see ' 
 
 'Why don't you advertise for it?' I asked. 
 ' No fear,' he snorted. ' Tell 'em I lost it, 
 eh ? That would be just what they would want 
 to know. And if they haven't got it by now, 
 they'd pretty soon get on to it. But I'll be 
 there before 'em, and waiting ! ' There was such 
 a ferocious scowl on his foreign face that I felt 
 sorry for them, whoever they were, if ever he met 
 them. The last I saw of him was on the deck of 
 the schooner, hurrying on the crew to get under 
 way." 
 
 " But you found the paper, after all ? " I 
 suggested. 
 
 ;t Yes," said Greatheart, " a few days later. 
 Why, that very afternoon, just after the man 
 had called, my eldest daughter picked it up 
 beside the counter. He must have dropped it 
 there when he pulled out that heap of papers. 
 It struck my daughter as a very funny sort of 
 bill. She and her sister tried to puzzle it out 
 together. Never told me about it at the time. 
 They were offended because I had kept them 
 out of the shop when the Dago was there ; and 
 they tried to pump me about him. I wouldn't 
 tell them, and they sulked. The meals got 
 most unsatisfactory. So after a few days I had 
 to tell them. Then my girl produced the
 
 136 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 paper. I told her she had lost a thousand 
 pounds. They had a little respect for me after 
 that. And I kept the paper, in case the man 
 ever turned up again. But he never did. 
 That's all." 
 
 I took the precious thing and scrutinised it 
 carefully. " I can't see where its value of a 
 thousand pounds comes in," I said. 
 
 " It's worth much more. If he was willing 
 to give a thousand pounds for it, it would mean 
 many thousands to him, wouldn't it ? " 
 
 " Well," I said, " it's not worth a penny here 
 on this island . Why do you hang on to it ? " 
 
 "Chuck it away?" he said. "No; I'm the 
 sort of man who hoards things. Always did. 
 Hate to throw away anything. I suppose all 
 grocers are like me. But what makes it 
 valuable just now is the mention of a double- 
 branched cocoa-nut palm in it and here we are 
 sitting beneath one." 
 
 He looked almost reverently up at the palm, 
 as if it could tell him its secret; then, with a 
 sigh of disappointment, he carefully folded up 
 the precious paper and placed it in the security 
 of his pocket-book. 
 
 Then we rose, our muscles stiff with our 
 unwise relaxation after such strenuous exercise, 
 and trudged wearily toward the camp.
 
 THE TIGER 137 
 
 Our cheerful " cooee " as soon as we rounded 
 the last point was eagerly answered. The four, 
 who had been gathered about the fire, came 
 eagerly to meet us. They were too full of their 
 news to ask us for ours. 
 
 " What's the trouble? " I called out. 
 
 11 Trouble?" Podmore echoed angrily. "It 
 isn't trouble ; it's tigers ! " 
 
 ;{ Tigers ! " the grocer cried, with a look that 
 was almost triumphant. It was a delightfully 
 adventure-filled island ! 
 
 "Where?" I impatiently asked. 
 
 "Here!" 
 
 He attempted to explain ; but his bottled 
 indignation boiled over. " Nice sort of island 
 to be shipwrecked on, I must say ! " he choked . 
 "Wild animals loose on it. Tigers! It's not 
 safe for respectable, law-abiding people. It's 
 not an island: it's a zoo With all the cages 
 open. The shipping company should have 
 warned us. It's damnable the callous way they 
 overlook the comfort and safety of their pas- 
 sengers. It shouldn't be allowed. Criminal 
 negligence, that's what it is. I'll expose the 
 whole thing in the papers. Serve 'em right, 
 too keeping wild tigers on innocent-looking 
 islands for their passengers to be shipwrecked 
 among. And they expect us to put up with it! 
 They don't know me. I'm not going to sit
 
 138 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 down and be crawled over by nasty smelling 
 beasts without making a public protest. And 
 I expect you all to back me up. What do we 
 pay the police for if they don't remove wander- 
 ing tigers? There ought to be a by-law. I'll 
 get a question asked in Parliament about it. 
 I'll stir up the public. Tigers! Wild tigers! 
 It's scandalous, scandalous ! " 
 
 We endured this outbreak impatiently. 
 Podmore was in no condition to explain. It 
 was only that the fat, perspiring man's breath 
 gave out in a falsetto " Scandalous ! " that allowed 
 us a chance of being heard. 
 
 Greatheart snapped a curt question to Miss 
 Rice before Podmore could wail again. 
 
 "Mr. Podmore," that lady explained, "was 
 sleeping with Mr. Bisscop on the beach last 
 night we were in the hut when he was 
 awakened." 
 
 " By a beautiful woman with one stocking 
 down?" the grocer broke in eagerly. 
 
 " No ; by a nasty tiger." 
 
 " Alone ? " Greatheart showed his disappoint- 
 ment. 
 
 " One was surely enough." 
 
 " I mean, wasn't there anybody with the 
 tiger?" 
 
 " Likely anybody would go out strolling with
 
 THE TIGER 139 
 
 a tiger ! " I snubbed his preposterously romantic 
 soul. 
 
 " There's the case of the Lady of Niger," 
 Bisscop bleakly intruded. 
 
 We stared at him, as we should have stared 
 at a tiger. It was the only evidence the Oxford 
 youth had ever given of a suspicion of humour. 
 The island was doing him good. But nobody 
 smiled, though I saw that Miss Liddicoat was 
 digesting the remark and finding it satisfying. 
 
 " No lady ? " Greatheart was loath to give up 
 his hope. By this time he was seeing a woman 
 in everything. " Well, how did Podmore ? " 
 
 " He woke in the night," Miss Rice continued. 
 " He heard a soft sort of sound on the sand. 
 He was lying on his back. He opened his eyes, 
 and there was the beast. He says it was an 
 enormous tiger." 
 
 ' 'Normous! " spluttered Podmore. 
 
 " What was it doing? " I asked. 
 
 " Looking at Mr. Podmore." 
 
 "Smelling me!" said that gentleman. 
 " Smelling me in the most insulting manner." 
 
 "Well, what did you do?" 
 
 "Do?" Podmore snorted. "What could I 
 do ? I didn't go to sleep prepared to meet tigers, 
 did I ? I went to sleep trusting to the implied 
 guarantee of the shipping company that there
 
 I4Q GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 were no tigers on this trip. I just lay still, 
 pretending I was dead." 
 
 " And what did the tiger do ? " 
 
 " He smelled me in a most contemptuous 
 manner. Nobody has ever dared to smell me 
 like that before." 
 
 " That all? " I could not avoid saying. 
 
 " All ? " Podmore gasped, purple with indig- 
 nation . " You just wait till you're smelled by a 
 tiger! Luckily I didn't move. By a tremen- 
 dous effort I restrained myself from hitting it on 
 the nose. He smelled me all over, quietly. I 
 had my eyes shut, of course. I felt his breath 
 on my face, for, I should say, quite half an hour. 
 It was a horribly nasty, warm sort of breath as 
 if his stomach was out of order a sort of bad 
 whisky smell, a morning smell, with lobster in 
 it. It upset me. I couldn't help it. I 
 sneezed." 
 
 !f Yes, yes ? " Greatheart and I encouraged 
 him. 
 
 " I sneezed right in his insulting face. He 
 jumped." 
 
 " But you're not wounded ? " 
 
 " No. He jumped away. When I opened 
 my eyes I saw him slinking away into the bush." 
 
 ;< That's all," Miss Rice concluded, seeing we 
 were waiting for more.
 
 THE TIGER 141 
 
 ' You dreamt it," I said at last. " Biscuits 
 and shell-fish and cocoa-nuts are just the sort of 
 supper that would make you dream tigers. It's 
 a wonder you didn't dream more of 'em. / have. 
 There aren't any wild animals on the island. 
 What would they find to feed on ? " 
 
 :< That's what I wondered when I smelt his 
 nasty breath," said Podmore. "Dream it? I 
 didn't dream a smell" 
 
 " We all saw its tracks, plain, in the sand this 
 morning," Miss Rice added. "Come here." 
 
 We followed her to the edge of the stream. 
 
 There we plainly saw the pads of some great 
 animal, like the footprints of an enormous cat. 
 
 We stared at each other in consternation. 
 
 " We're not safe here at night," Miss Liddi- 
 coat wailed, clutching Bisscop's protecting arm. 
 
 " We've got no guns," said that youth. " And 
 I had a beautiful little revolver under my pillow 
 in the cabin. I always slept with it under my 
 pillow since I left England." 
 
 " I simply refuse to allow that animal to smell 
 me again," Podmore emphatically declared. 
 
 We all turned to Greatheart. 
 
 He had his usual inspiration. " There's the 
 cave ! " 
 
 " What cave ? " the others asked ; and Great- 
 heart, in his element once more, described the 
 place of refuge we had so opportunely found.
 
 142 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 " We must move everything there at once," he 
 said. " To-night we'll sleep in safety. The 
 island's getting too dangerous. First the 
 woman, then the strange track and the flagpole 
 cut down, then the smoke, and now the tiger! 
 Come on ! " 
 
 He was our trusted leader again, confident, 
 alert, almost welcoming the new danger.
 
 THE WOMAN 143 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE WOMAN 
 
 WE paid little attention to the discovery 
 that our raft had been smashed and 
 rendered useless. We had too 
 many other things to think of. 
 We were now settled in the cave, whither we 
 had hastily fled at the news of Podmore's 
 nocturnal tiger. We had removed our small 
 store of food, and had, with some difficulty, 
 carried our fire by means of torches to its new 
 altar. The smoke, we discovered, found its way 
 through some rifts, invisible to us, in the roof 
 of the cave. And the difficulty of the approach 
 along the narrow ledge enabled us to sleep 
 secure from prowling beasts. 
 
 The floor was of hard dry earth. It was 
 smooth enough to suggest that the cave had 
 once been the habitation of human beings. This 
 was quite conceivable, as, had there been natives 
 on the island, they would certainly have utilised
 
 144 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 so safe a refuge. But there was no sign of bones, 
 or of the remains of a fire. If it had been the 
 home of human beings that must have been in 
 the long ago. 
 
 The water that Greatheart had heard dripping 
 in the interior of the cave came from a hole in 
 the rocky wall, falling thence into a natural basin 
 of stone, whence it emerged as a tiny rivulet to 
 disappear further on again into the rock. The 
 water, doubtless spring water, was delightful to 
 drink; and the natural basin provided us with 
 a plentiful supply. 
 
 It was on the day following our removal that 
 Greatheart suggested bringing the raft nearer 
 to our new camp. As the sea was quite calm, it 
 would be possible to launch the raft and navigate 
 it along the coast by poling it through the 
 shallow water. Bisscop and I volunteered for 
 the work. After our hod-carriers' job this 
 promised something like relaxation. 
 
 We found the raft where we had left it, above 
 the reach of the highest tide, moored securely to 
 the trunk of a small tree. But it was no longer 
 seaworthy. It had been deliberately smashed 
 up. The big drums that, filled with air, had 
 given the raft its buoyancy, had been hacked 
 by some sharp and heavy instrument. One 
 glance told us that the raft would never float 
 again.
 
 THE ' WOMAN 145 
 
 We hurried back to the cave with our bad 
 news. The grocer did not seem over-surprised. 
 
 ;< You look," I said indignantly, " as if you 
 expected this." 
 
 "I did," he replied. "At least, I did not 
 think they'd break up the raft; but I'm con- 
 vinced that whoever is on the island does not 
 intend us to leave it. The cutting down of the 
 flagpole was warning enough. But I should 
 have looked after the raft." 
 
 " Well," said Bisscop gloomily, " that settles 
 the question of us trying to get off to the main- 
 land, if there is a mainland." 
 
 " Couldn't we build another raft ? " Miss Rice 
 suggested. 
 
 "With one little tomahawk?" Greatheart 
 answered. 
 
 " Why not? " Miss Rice urged. " You're so 
 clever with the tomahawk." 
 
 In her bright little eyes there dwelt an adora- 
 tion as she turned to him. She was already, 
 with that strange weakness of the most sensible 
 of women, deifying a mere human being simply 
 because he was a male. But there was no 
 worship in Podmore's glance. 
 
 ' You're so clever with a tomahawk," he 
 sneered, " that you could even have smashed 
 the raft up yourself." 
 
 His sneer struck us like a blow. I confess 
 
 K
 
 146 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 I felt uneasy. We all turned to Greatheart. 
 He laughed. 
 
 " Why to goodness should I do that ? " 
 
 "Why?" Podmore was ready for him. 
 " Because you're not playing fair. Because 
 you don't mean to let us leave the island. 
 Because you're in love with some woman on the 
 island, and you're going to stay here and find the 
 treasure of the galleon for yourself and her." 
 
 Blankly we looked at each other, avoiding the 
 gaze of our leader. Had this clumsy fat man 
 found the clue to the growing mysteries of the 
 island? Was Greatheart a traitor in league 
 with our unseen enemies? To me, perhaps 
 more than to the others, his conduct looked 
 suspicious. The midnight visit of the woman 
 to the camp, her apparent recognition of the 
 grocer, her dropped handkerchief all these 
 hitherto inexplicable occurrences seemed to add 
 weight to Podmore's accusation. Had Great- 
 heart, unsuspected by us, been meeting that 
 woman and her friends in the bush? Had he, 
 on that exploring trip, deliberately hoodwinked 
 me? Had he been in touch all the time with 
 the mysterious inhabitants of the island ? Was 
 he, in his infatuation for that girl of which I 
 had had ample proof plotting against us? 
 
 We waited for the grocer's defence. He 
 said nothing.
 
 THE WOMAN M7 
 
 It was Miss Rice's reedy voice that ended the 
 embarrassing pause. " For shame! " she cried, 
 turning on the fat man. " After all Mr. Great- 
 heart has done for us, after his saving our lives ! 
 Mr. Greatheart" she left Podmore withered 
 by her scorn, and turned to pour her balm on 
 the grocer's wounded soul " Mr. Greatheart, 
 I we trust you. Do not trouble to answer Mr. 
 Podmore. We believe in you. So there! " 
 
 The last two words, the most convincing in a 
 woman's vocabulary, should have left Podmore 
 slain. He merely grinned his contempt of 
 femininity. And, flushed with victory, and 
 perhaps a softer feeling, the little lady beamed 
 on the little grocer. 
 
 " If you really think," Greatheart began with 
 a gravity that had, to me, something almost of 
 sublimity in it, " that I've been deceiving you, 
 there is only one thing for a man to do. I'll go 
 away and camp by myself. In this cave you'd 
 be quite safe safe," he showed his bitterness, 
 " even from me." 
 
 He had been sorely wounded. As a grocer 
 he had, of course, been all his life suspicious, 
 professionally suspicious of everybody. But he 
 had so easily sloughed off his grocerdom in this 
 freer environment that his across-the-counter 
 suspicions of his fellow-men had been lulled 
 
 K 2
 
 148 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 asleep. He had accepted us as human beings, 
 not as customers whom the ethics of grocerism 
 compelled him to cheat ; and it doubtless came 
 as a shock, abrading his tender vanity, to learn 
 that he could still be suspected of not putting 
 enough sugar in his sand. Podmore's brusque 
 accusation, and our momentary acceptance of it, 
 had pushed him rudely back to Woolloomooloo. 
 And he had quite forgotten Woolloomooloo. 
 
 " No, no ! " Miss Rice exclaimed, lifting her 
 thin, bird-like hand impulsively, almost pro- 
 tectingly, to his shoulder. "Stay with us! 
 What could we do without you ? " 
 
 She had hit the right note. We knew our- 
 selves a crew of incompetents, and, lacking his 
 guidance, our future frightened us. Podmore 
 contented himself with a grunt that implied that 
 he washed his blistered hands of us, recognising 
 the futility of protest against our hero-worship. 
 Miss Liddicoat, backed up by Bisscop and 
 myself, implored him to stay. 
 
 That was the first time I had ever seen a 
 grocer weep. The tears trembled from his 
 eyes, but he pulled himself up, sniffed he had 
 no handkerchief and brightened. 
 
 " Then," he answered, " it's up to me to settle 
 the mystery of the island right away. To- 
 morrow at dawn I'll start out for that place 
 where I saw the smoke. And I won't come back
 
 THE WOMAN 149 
 
 till I've found out everything. If I'm not back 
 here in three days you'll know that I've failed, 
 that they've been too much for me. Keep to 
 the cave, and don't show yourselves if anybody 
 comes, unless it is the rescue ship. No," he 
 added, as I made to speak, " I'll go alone ! If 
 there's any danger I don't say there is it 
 would not be fair to the ladies for two of us men 
 to run any risks." 
 
 It struck me then that the little man, in his 
 emotion, was posing. I did not think, terrifying 
 as the advent of the tiger seemed, coming as it 
 did on top of our other disconcerting discoveries, 
 that we were in any immediate danger. Still, 
 we had the refuge of the cave, with a supply of 
 provisions for possibly a fortnight, while he 
 purposed finding the lair of that tiger and of 
 what other terrors beside ? No ; I did not 
 altogether blame him. The island, which had 
 seemed so idyllic, had suddenly become peopled 
 with menace. I know I should not have pro- 
 posed such an adventure alone. And if he were 
 posing, what grocer in history had ever before 
 been so tempted to pose ? 
 
 That night the brightness of the moon drew 
 us, after our dinner, out to the platform at the
 
 I5Q GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 mouth of the cave. The cove was at rest; the 
 sea was as smooth as the. sand ; the grove of 
 cocoa-nut palms, sentinelled by the double- 
 branched one, had ceased its deep murmur of 
 tremulous fronds ; the forest above us brooded 
 in a hush of silence beneath the calm benignity 
 of a passionless faint blue sky. 
 
 We were disposed to silence, too. The day's 
 work had left us happily and contentedly tired. 
 I recalled other moonlit nights in Sydney, 
 when just at this hour I would be clanging in 
 the crowded tram down dusty, stifling streets to 
 my night-long work at the heated office. And 
 I rejoiced; for the work we had to do in diis 
 new world was inspiriting work, labour that 
 lifted the heart with the thrill of health and set 
 strong currents of fire a-running in the veins. 
 I had never before felt so physically fit. 
 
 I think, too, the spring in my muscles, the 
 youth in my heart, were felt by all the others. 
 Greatheart was transformed. His small, wiry 
 frame had proved itself invulnerable to fatigue. 
 His skin glowed with vitality. He was alive. 
 Bisscop looked like an athlete new come from 
 his bath and a vigorous towelling. Podmore 
 had lost the outer strata of his fat. He had that 
 evening climbed the path up the cliff with the 
 agility and zest of a bird-nesting schoolboy. 
 He had more than once confessed to me that
 
 THE WOMAN 151 
 
 he had never known before the beautiful 
 meaning of an appetite. 
 
 Miss Liddicoat, who was just now with 
 Bisscop " washing up " the remains of our meal 
 within the cave, had lost that provocative pale- 
 ness that I suspect she had hitherto assiduously 
 cultivated. She was now quite ordinary 
 looking and correspondingly healthy. Her 
 hands, which had once dawdled listlessly and 
 doubtless gracefully over the piano keys, were 
 now the strong red hands of a washerwoman. 
 And Bisscop seemed to like to touch them. 
 Miss Rice had almost renewed her forgotten 
 youth under the spur of her new duties. In her 
 ulster she looked at times jaunty. One morn- 
 ing I had accidentally come upon the two women 
 dancing together after their bathe by the river 
 bank. 
 
 Podmore and I were leaning against the cliff, 
 while Miss Rice and the grocer were sitting at 
 the edge of the precipice, swinging their shame- 
 less legs over space. Bisscop and Jean 
 Liddicoat, who should have by this time 
 finished their " washing up/' still lingered within 
 the darkness of the cave. 
 
 " If that young man hasn't kissed that girl, 
 I'll be surprised," Miss Rice said softly, with a 
 reminiscent, or perhaps a merely wistful, sigh.
 
 152 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 " It's such a night for love-making, isn't it, Mr. 
 Greatheart ? " 
 
 I thought she leant nearer to the grocer. He 
 said nothing. 
 
 " It's just lovely," she murmured on, " to see 
 a love-affair developing, isn't it? They're so 
 perfectly matched. I remember " 
 
 Perhaps affrighted by the silence, she broke 
 off at the memory. I wondered vaguely what 
 it was. Some sentimental passage in her own 
 obscure youth? Some moonlit night that 
 might have meant happiness to her, but didn't? 
 Some hope builded only on the promptings of 
 a foolish young heart that dissolved into fantasy 
 at a touch of common sense? Some wasted 
 dream, vaguely spacious, that only on moon- 
 lit nights she could permit her shy soul to 
 disinter, buried beneath the matter-of-fact clods 
 of life? I do not know. Her secret was held 
 secure, shut in beneath her boarding-house soul. 
 
 " I wonder," she went on, to cover the 
 awkward pause, "what memory this moonlit 
 night reveals for you, Mr. Greatheart? " 
 
 The grocer started, rudely stirred from his 
 reverie. 
 
 " I was just thinking," he said, slowly speak- 
 ing out his thoughts, " of another night as bright 
 as this. I watched all through that night when 
 my wife's first baby was being born. And now
 
 THE WOMAN 153 
 
 my wife's dead, and the girl's grown up and 
 running the shop. And it was on another 
 moonlight night that my wife died. I thought, 
 the morning after, that I had died, too. And 
 now I know," he perceptibly brightened, " that 
 till I came here I had never lived. All that, 
 what seemed so important, was nothing but a 
 dream a bad dream. And how poor Jane 
 would have enjoyed this! You know, all my 
 life in Woolloomooloo I never stopped to think 
 whai I was doing with my life, or, rather, what 
 my life was doing with me. For it isn't we who 
 make any impression on life : it's life who 
 hammers us. Funny, isn't it. There's been 
 so much life on the globe all those dead 
 and gone civilisations. Egypt, you know." 
 Evidently his knowledge of ancient history was 
 meagre. ; ' There must have been millions and 
 millions of people exactly like us; and what 
 good were they, anyhow? What did they do 
 with their rotten useless little lives? A few 
 silly pyramids that are no use to anyone except 
 as building material. And think of all the 
 grocers there have been in the world! There 
 were grocers in in Babylon, and, oh yes, 
 grocers in Greece. And they kept their little 
 shops and married and had children and died 
 and left the business to their children, who 
 married and died, too. And what use was all
 
 154 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 this mob of grocers ? What did they do for the 
 world?" 
 
 "They made money," Podmore vouchsafed. 
 
 " But that's so easy," said Greatheart. 
 " Everybody makes money, more or less. 
 Everybody makes more than his actual worth 
 at the moment he comes into the world. At 
 least, till he dies of starvation. No; what I 
 mean is, what use did we make of living? I 
 know now I made none." 
 
 " There's your shop in Woolloomooloo," I 
 urged. 
 
 " That's no use to me. I was of use to it. 
 I made it ; but it didn't make me. Once I 
 started it, from that moment I became its slave. 
 And, but for this shipwreck, I'd be its slave yet. 
 The best part of my life gone in chains! But 
 I'm free of it now. I'm going to be\ " 
 
 " But you liked your job," I objected. 
 
 " I had to. I never had any choice: it was 
 either that, or something equally dull or 
 starving. I confess I was attracted by the 
 grocery business, but there wasn't anything 
 more attractive within my reach. If only I had 
 been shipwrecked when I was a boy! And, 
 really, do any of us like our jobs ? " 
 
 "Well, do any of us?" 
 
 " Civilisation," the grocer ran on . " All it's 
 done for us is to chain us down to jobs that we
 
 THE WOMAN 155 
 
 dislike the least. There's no variety in our 
 lives. All the delightful doors are shut in our 
 faces. Grocers' shops, hundreds of them in 
 Sydney, all competing against the others, all 
 just making a little bit of profit. Several in one 
 street, almost next door to each other. There 
 were two other grocery shops just round the 
 corner from Greatheart's Grocery Store. Fight- 
 ing against each other just to supply Sydney 
 with groceries. All of us chained up to our 
 counters, scheming how to beat the others. And 
 one big concern with a branch in every suburb 
 could have done it twice as efficiently and with 
 a doubled profit." 
 
 " Socialism ! " The word came inevitably 
 from Podmore. 
 
 ' Yes, in the grocery business I'm a Socialist. 
 Private grocers' shops are excrescences. 
 Clumsily useful, perhaps; but what a waste in 
 efficiency. And that's all that civilisation has 
 done with groceries. It's just gone on multi- 
 plying grocers' shops, with more grocers and 
 their families tied to them. People who might 
 have been men and women." 
 
 The girl came from the cave, flushed, 
 angered. Bisscop sheepishly followed. Either 
 he had tried to kiss her, and bungled it, or she 
 had given him his chance and he had not tried 
 to kiss her. Women regard both as insults.
 
 156 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 She moved over to the edge of the cliff, sat on 
 the other side of Greatheart and swung her legs 
 in unison. Bisscop sank down beside Podmore 
 and me. 
 
 It seemed to me that Miss Liddicoat looked 
 up at the grocer on one side as Miss Rice did 
 on the other. Evidently Bisscop's love affair 
 was not running smoothly. There was a grocer 
 in the field. 
 
 At last he stood up ; and it seemed to me, and 
 doubtless to the adoring eyes of the women, that 
 he was actually taller. Perhaps he was. For 
 he had completely lost the grocer's stoop the 
 immemorial cringe of grocers, with flat hands 
 spread wide on the counter and the insinuatingly 
 humble " And the next thing, madam ? " 
 
 As he surveyed his domain, a prehistoric man 
 with his adoring clan behind him, there came 
 from the night the far-reverberating roar of a wild 
 animal. 
 
 " The tiger! " Podmore groaned, shivering. 
 
 I did not notice, as I leapt to my feet, which 
 of the two women was the first to clutch Great- 
 heart. As Greatheart was on his feet, and the 
 women were sitting, they merely clutched his 
 knees. The result was that he sat abruptly 
 down. 
 
 He rose as swiftly as he had fallen, and,
 
 THE WOMAN 157 
 
 pulling the women up with an impartial hand to 
 each, and holding them as they swayed, he faced 
 the forest, his mind made up. 
 
 " I'm going now," he announced. " This 
 minute." 
 
 The women gasped, huddled against him. 
 ' You wouldn't leave us now ? " one of them 
 moaned. 
 
 He shook them off. " That tiger can't be 
 half a mile away." 
 
 He found us, the men, at his side. 
 
 " What can you do? " I asked. 
 
 " Find that tiger." 
 
 " But you haven't got a weapon." 
 
 This obvious fact had not struck him. 
 
 "And we're quite safe here," I urged. 
 
 The tiger answered me. It seemed to me 
 nearer. 
 
 " I must go that's all," he muttered. 
 
 " Then we'll all go," Bisscop politely said. 
 "All except the women. Podmore can stay 
 and look after them." 
 
 " No," Miss Rice broke in, exalted. " If 
 Mr. Greatheart goes, I'll go." 
 
 Miss Liddicoat was not to be left. And she 
 was not going to leave Miss Rice with the 
 grocer. 
 
 " And I'm coming, too," said Podmore, " to
 
 158 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 see that you are not up to any more of your 
 tricks." 
 
 Greatheart, with a gesture that was either 
 magnificent or theatrical I'm not sure even 
 now which swung round on him. " If you can 
 think that of me," he bitterly said, "come. 
 We'll all go together." 
 
 Of course, it was mere foolishness thus to risk 
 the lives of all in the darkness of the forest, 
 without weapons and with no knowledge of what 
 beside the tiger might be waiting for us there. 
 But we were all strung up with excitement. The 
 tension had to be snapped by immediate action. 
 To remain cooped up in the cave, with that 
 challenging mystery at our door, was unthink- 
 able, even to the women. 
 
 Hastily we set out, each of us armed with as 
 thick a stick as we could find. We climbed 
 down the cliff and made our way across the sand 
 towards the bluff that was the further horn of the 
 cove. It was from the bush near that point 
 that the roaring of the animal, even more 
 menacing now, plainly came. As we reached 
 the base of the bluff the animal's voice sounded 
 almost on top of us. 
 
 I noticed Podmore glance anxiously back 
 I noticed him because I had also glanced 
 anxiously back but Bisscop, who with him 
 brought up the rear, had him by the arm.
 
 THE WOMAN 159 
 
 : ' You couldn't run very far or very fast, any- 
 how," he cruelly said to the fat man. " Safer 
 to keep with us." 
 
 The women, who occupied the centre of our 
 forlorn hope, marched bravely on, though in the 
 moonlight their faces were whiter than their 
 nightdresses. 
 
 " I remember once," said Miss Rice desper- 
 ately, " I had to turn out a drunken boarder in 
 the middle of the night. He was breaking up 
 my best bedroom suite. I only had a poker." 
 
 We climbed the tiny bluff, Greatheart leading, 
 I close behind him. The forest, which had 
 looked to us from the beach to be an impassable 
 jungle, thinned unexpectedly out, once we had 
 penetrated its seaward fringe, to a thinly tim- 
 bered stretch of rocky country, sparsely carpeted 
 with a rank grass. Even in the moonlight it was 
 comparatively easy to thread our way through it. 
 ' This is the way the girl came and went 
 that night she visited the camp," the grocer 
 whispered to me. "We missed the track. I 
 bet it leads straight back to where we saw the 
 smoke. Lucky that tiger gave the show away 
 like this. They can't escape us now." 
 
 By now the roaring had ceased. Perhaps the 
 beast had scented our approach, and was waiting 
 behind one of those black blobs of shadow that 
 seemed in the moonlight almost solid. We
 
 160 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 went cautiously on, I, at least, reluctantly. The 
 others had closed in on us, evidently uneasy. 
 
 We panted up a little ridge and instinctively 
 paused, cowering down, at the top. There, in 
 the moonlight, we stared amazed at a strange 
 picture. 
 
 The forest had thinned away to an open glade, 
 in the cup of which the moonlight lay like a lake 
 of silver. And into this arena, passing slowly 
 from the shadows at its edge, came a woman and 
 a tiger. 
 
 She was the woman whom I had seen 
 bending over Greatheart, the woman whose 
 love-token the grocer still held sacred in his 
 pocket-book. And her slim arm was thrown 
 confidingly and caressingly over the glossy 
 shoulder of a gigantic tiger, her ringers lovingly 
 buried in its beautiful fur. 
 
 "Look!" Miss Rice whispered, awestruck. 
 " She's stroking its fur backwards, as you 
 stroke a cat! And, goodness gracious me, I 
 do believe it's purring ! " 
 
 Apparently absolutely unconscious of our 
 intrusion, the incongruous pair strolled across 
 the open space. The girl was dressed in that 
 strangely glittering grey costume that I had seen 
 before. In the moonlight she seemed sheathed 
 in silver mail. It looked to me like some 
 picture of pagan Greece the goddess and the
 
 THE WOMAN 161 
 
 fawning beast. And yet there was a discon- 
 certing modernity about her figure. J had the 
 sudden conviction that she wore a corset 
 beneath that mediaeval mail. And, when you 
 come to think of it, if suspenders, why not stays ? 
 
 We could do nothing but stare as at a limelit 
 scene in a drama. So even was the pace of the 
 strange pair, so oblivious of any observers they 
 contentedly seemed, that they might have been 
 a lady and her pet dog going for an evening 
 stroll. And the lithe, swinging walk of the 
 tiger was no more lithe and swinging than that 
 of the girl. 
 
 Suddenly their almost divine detachment was\ 
 rudely broken. The tiger paused with a lifted 
 paw, raised its regal head and gazed fixedly- 
 straight at us. It had found our scent. 
 
 The girl as instantaneously stopped. It 
 almost seemed as if her lifted foot, too, hung 
 waiting in the air. She stared at the rising 
 ground behind which we were concealed. I 
 saw her lips move some quietening murmur 
 to the tiger. 
 
 In time, too. For the great beast had thrown 
 back its head to give challenging voice to its 
 suspicions. The girl smartly clouted it across 
 the open mouth. It snarled, reared, and, at her 
 uplifted, imperious arm, flopped heavily down,
 
 162 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 like a cat that had been whipped. Then 
 obviously it sulked. 
 
 So she stood, mechanically soothing the 
 tiger's hurt feelings with a fondly caressing 
 hand, and stared, it seemed expectantly, in our 
 direction. 
 
 Silently Greatheart rose from his crouching 
 position, stepped from the shadow of the trees, 
 stood one moment clear and significant on the 
 ridge, and, as if drawn by an invisible filament, 
 moved slowly, mechanically down into the 
 moonlight-flooded arena. 
 
 At the sight of him the tiger stiffened. So 
 brilliant was the moonlight, so vividly it etched 
 the two figures against the background that I 
 could see the contracting muscles furrow and 
 ripple his thick fur. But the girl's sensitive 
 fingers had warned her. She flung at him, 
 without wrenching her gaze from Greatheart's 
 figure, one sharply hissed command, and the 
 tiger became again a loose bundle of tawny 
 beauty. It cringed, sulkily fawning, relaxed, 
 afraid. 
 
 And, erect, expectant, with her hand firmly 
 buried in the tiger's skin, the girl awaited 
 regally the arrival of her mate. 
 
 He passed steadily, as in a dream, straight 
 across the glade, drawn by that arrogant poise
 
 THE WOMAN 163 
 
 of the waiting woman. A queen was sum- 
 moning her barbarian slave. 
 
 Then, with the uneasy tiger between them, 
 they looked straightly at each other, a long, 
 drinking gaze. Perhaps they spoke we were 
 too far away to hear perhaps their transfixed 
 look was question and answer. 
 
 Then, turning, as if with reluctant sighs, from 
 their gaze, they paced side by side, the tiger 
 between then ; and across the great forgotten 
 beast's rippling back they scanned each other 
 with sidelong glances. So, as we watched, the 
 three passed sedately across the arena and were 
 received by the shadows of the forest. 
 
 We breathed, silent, waiting for the issue of 
 their rencontre. It seemed to us the prelude to 
 something momentous. What secret was 
 Greatheart now learning, and when would he 
 return to us with it? But the glade remained 
 empty. No grocer desecrated its silent, silver 
 beauty. 
 
 " I thought so," Podmore at last found voice. 
 ' The man is in league with the others. That 
 woman is their leader. It's the last we'll ever 
 see of him. And a good riddance." 
 
 I could not find words, nor had I the desire, 
 to defend the grocer. He had deserted us, 
 probably I excused him against his grocer's 
 will, lured from his fellow-kind by the barbaric 
 
 L 2
 
 164 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 wonder of woman. The syrens still called, 
 even to grocers. The odd thought came to me 
 that it was a good job that Jane, his wife, was 
 dead. Against the witchery of that silver 
 woman, Jane, however estimable, would have 
 had no chance. 
 
 Then I grew conscious of a sound behind me 
 a sound my ears, but not my brain, had taken 
 cognisance of for some minutes past it was 
 the helpless, hopeless sobbing of Miss Rice. 
 
 "But she's beautiful!" the little boarding- 
 house keeper found voice at last to wail. 
 "Beautiful!" 
 
 " And she's got him ! " the voice of the other 
 woman broke savagely in, " stolen him from 
 from us!"
 
 THE SCHOONER 165 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE SCHOONER 
 
 IT was a depressed company that climbed 
 the cliff and filed along the narrow path 
 to the cave. Even Podmore's vindic- 
 tive elation, during that walk from the 
 scene of Greatheart's defection, had time to 
 simmer down. It is one thing to be able to 
 say " I told you so," and another to feel like 
 saying it. In truth he was now feeling like the 
 rest of us, strangely lost and leaderless. I do 
 not doubt that if Greatheart had not come with 
 us on the raft we should have got on somehow ; 
 but we had so got into the way of letting him 
 decide things, of depending on his resource, 
 that, missing him, we felt like a crop of incubator 
 chickens. 
 
 The underlying grievance was not his 
 desertion of us, but that he had taken his talent 
 for organisation, his delight in contriving, his 
 large optimism and his inexhaustible resource 
 over to the enemy. With such an ally, those
 
 166 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 mysterious beings of the island, we felt, 
 deliberately menaced our lives. 
 
 Miss Rice gave voice to the dread in our 
 craven hearts. "If that creature told him to 
 exterminate us," she said drearily, " he'd do it. 
 He'd murder the whole boiling of us for one of 
 her wicked smiles. Oh, I know that sort of 
 woman. I had one for a week in my boarding- 
 house. Every other woman in the place 
 insisted on her leaving ; and my best boarder, 
 a nice old gentleman I had had for eighteen 
 months, left with her. And I did think 
 Mr. Greatheart rather liked" she hesitated 
 before she supplied the non-committal plural 
 ''us." 
 
 " Well," Bisscop cheerily interposed, " we 
 needn't be afraid of that tiger any more. It's 
 as tame as a Persian kitten. No wonder it ran 
 away when Podmore sneezed. If Podmore 
 had only sneezed to-night, we would have seen 
 the last of the beast and the girl. Did you see 
 the way it cuddled up to her hand when she 
 stroked its fur ? " 
 
 " Yes," Podmore indignantly replied, " and 
 I saw the way it snarled when the grocer 
 appeared. It was just touch and go with him, 
 as it was nearly the end of me." 
 
 " It's the end, anyhow," Miss Rice said sadly. 
 
 " He's dead to us" Miss Liddicoat added.
 
 THE SCHOONER 167 
 
 " But what's a tiger, tame or not, doing out 
 strolling with her?" I asked. 
 
 " And what's she doing on our island ? " Miss 
 Liddicoat snapped. 
 
 " I think/' Miss Rice said deliberately, " that 
 an uninhabited island is the best place for that 
 sort of woman. If I had my way those lithe, 
 supple, cat-like women would all be shut up in 
 a sort of leper-station. I wouldn't have her as 
 a boarder, not if she paid twice over." 
 
 " Well," Bisscop said, " the grocer chap 
 knows all about it now." 
 
 " I wonder," said Miss Liddicoat, " where she 
 got her extraordinary clothes ? " 
 
 " Reminds a chap of the front row in the 
 ballet," Bisscop flung his item in. 
 
 " How any decent woman, even on an un- 
 inhabited island, could appear in public in those 
 
 things ! " Miss Rice's bitter contempt 
 
 overpowered her utterance. 
 
 " Come to think of it," I said soothingly, " the 
 costumes we're all wearing now aren't exactly 
 the sort of things that decent people wear." 
 
 :c You know well enough," Miss Liddicoat 
 severely called me down, " they're the only ones 
 we've got." 
 
 " Perhaps hers are the only ones she's got." 
 
 "Nonsense!" Miss Rice cried. "Sooner
 
 168 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 than wear those things indecent I call them 
 I'd go naked." 
 
 Bisscop smothered a chuckle. 
 
 " She must have other clothes," Miss Liddi- 
 coat came to her sister's rescue, " with the 
 brass band and the other people. No. How 
 any decent woman " 
 
 " That's it," said Miss Rice eagerly. " That's 
 what she is." 
 
 Which remark seemed soothingly satisfactory 
 to both women. 
 
 " All I can say is," Miss Rice remarked with 
 contemplative gloom, " and say it I do, and with 
 sorrow. I would never no, never have 
 expected such conduct from our Mr. Great- 
 heart. I thought I knew men ; I've seen every 
 sort in my house ; but now I see you must be 
 shipwrecked with them." 
 
 There was a gloomy silence. 
 
 It was broke by Miss Rice's sharp wail. " I 
 wonder what he's doing now ? " 
 
 " Stroking the tiger," said a voice. It was 
 Bisscop's. 
 
 Now I understood why he, at least, was not too 
 seriously concerned at the grocer's defection. 
 With his competition out of the way Miss Liddi- 
 coat might prove more kind. 
 
 And then Miss Rice spoke with cold vindic-
 
 THE SCHOONER 169 
 
 tiveness. " I would rather the tiger tore him 
 limb from limb than that that woman got him." 
 
 And the other woman, after one astonished 
 glance of admiration at the boldness of her sex, 
 murmured her agreement. 
 
 " I say," said Bisscop, " ever read that story, 
 by that writer chap named Stockton, ' The 
 Lady or the Tiger,' I think he called it? I 
 often wondered who got the fellow in the end 
 the lady or the tiger now I know." 
 
 Miss Rice, in her unmitigable gloom, had no 
 retort for him. Miss Liddicoat scornfully rose 
 and without a " good night " sailed into the cave . 
 
 There was nothing further to say or do. So, 
 one after the other, they slipped into the cave 
 to sleep. I remained. I wanted to think 
 things out. I had to admit that the night's 
 adventure, instead of clearing up the mystery, 
 only tangled matters more inextricably. What 
 was it that the woman and her companions, 
 human and animal, were so anxious to 
 keep hidden, as they themselves had kept 
 hidden? The idea of a concealed treasure to 
 which the woman and the others had first claim, 
 and the existence of which they would naturally 
 desire to keep secret, impressed itself strongly 
 on my mind. But why these strange tactics? 
 Was the woman the agent of a band of adven-
 
 i;o GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 turers, and her purpose the luring of us as 
 possible rivals for the gold to destruction? 
 She had begun with Greatheart. Which of us 
 was to be the next? Well, we had been fully 
 warned by this night's adventure. 
 
 I was just considering how I might block up 
 the mouth of the cave, so that we could sleep 
 secure from any intrusion, when I wheeled 
 round at a sound. It was the soft pad of naked 
 feet coming along the cliff path. 
 
 I faced the intruder, my back against a big 
 rock, emboldened by the knowledge that with 
 such advantageous foothold it would be easy to 
 hurl any man or beast off the narrow track. 
 
 And then I recognised the grocer. 
 
 " It's you, is it ? " I made the immemorial 
 foolish remark. 
 
 ;< Yes, it's me," said Greatheart in a new, 
 meek voice. 
 
 It struck me then that he had the humble, 
 slinking, apologetic attitude of the husband who 
 has been " making a night of it " at the Lodge 
 meeting, and is not quite satisfied in his blurred 
 mind whether his dream that he had a wife at 
 home might not turn out to be miserably true. 
 
 His first words, too, confirmed the im- 
 pression. 
 
 :t They're asleep the ladies ? " he whispered, 
 lifting a cautious thumb towards the cave.
 
 THE SCHOONER i;i 
 
 " Long ago," I assured him. " And the men 
 too." 
 
 He sighed his obvious relief it was almost 
 gratitude and sank comfortably down on the 
 rocky platform. 
 
 " Didn't want disturb ladies," he said thickly. 
 " Gone bye-bye, poor dears. Thatsh right." 
 
 For a moment I suspected alcohol; but a 
 closer inspection showed me that I had maligned 
 my fellow-man. His thick utterance was the 
 result merely of the dazed stupor in which his 
 mind seemed sunk. 
 
 "Well," I said at last, "what happened?" 
 
 "Eh?" he ejaculated, startled. 
 
 Brusquely I rained my questions on his 
 huddled form. "Who is she? What's she 
 doing here? What does she want?" 
 
 " I don't know," he answered slowly and with 
 an effort. 
 
 "Don't know? You must know. The 
 woman " 
 
 "Ah!" the grocer seized on that. "The 
 woman ! " 
 
 It seemed to him to explain everything. He 
 was surprised to find me still impatiently 
 waiting. 
 
 :{ You're sure they're all asleep ? " he 
 muttered. 
 
 "Sound."
 
 172 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 Frowning, he tried to put his tangled thoughts 
 in order. " It's it's so hard to explain." 
 
 I told him to take his time. He did. 
 " Didn't she tell you anything about herself ? " 
 I had at last to ask. 
 
 ; ' Yes, yes, of course," he assented eagerly. 
 
 "What did she say?" 
 
 He puzzled a bit, then wearily, " I don't 
 remember." 
 
 Exasperated, I prodded that curiously 
 shrunken and abjectly huddled form with eager 
 questions. He let them fall, without defence, 
 upon his bent head. 
 
 At last he spoke. "Wonderful eyes!" he 
 murmured. " I never saw such eyes." 
 
 " Look here, Greatheart," I said, adopting 
 the tone that a doctor uses to an hysterical girl. 
 " You'll just tell me plainly and at once what 
 took place from the moment you met that 
 woman." 
 
 His dog-like eyes were raised to me at the 
 new brusqueness of my tone. " I'll try," he 
 said humbly, a scolded schoolboy. 
 
 " What did she say when you stepped up to 
 her?" I prompted. 
 
 " I I think she just looked at me, a long, long 
 look. Such eyes! " 
 
 " But surely you said something, introduced 
 yourself, or said, ' Good evening ' ? "
 
 THE SCHOONER 175 
 
 "No; I don't think so. You see," he confi- 
 dently explained, " there wasn't any need. We 
 understood." 
 
 " Understood what ? " 
 
 " Each other. She was there and I was 
 there. That didn't need any explanation. We 
 just stood and looked." 
 
 " You said that before. But what about the 
 tiger?" 
 
 :< The tiger ? " Evidently the word stirred 
 some recollection. " There was a tiger, wasn't 
 there? I kind of remember seeing a tiger. 
 Did you see one, too? Then there must have 
 
 been a tiger. But " He worried over it, 
 
 " I forget what became of it. You see, we had 
 so much to say to each other. I suppose the 
 tiger got bored and went away for a stroll, or 
 lay down for a sleep." He tried again to recall 
 the fate of the animal. It had passed out of 
 recollection. He gave it up, as a matter of 
 ephemeral importance. "We must have mis- 
 laid that tiger somewhere. But it really didn't 
 matter. We had each other. We just strolled 
 on through the open country in the moonlight, 
 and at last we sat down." 
 
 " Why did you sit down ? " I asked, deter- 
 mined to keep him to his story. 
 
 " Because," he said, with a slight impatience, 
 "we saw the chairs."
 
 174 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 "Chairs? In the forest?" 
 
 ;< Yes," he said brightly. " Easy chairs 
 those wide chairs made of cane, you know. 
 Two easy chairs." 
 
 No; he was not fooling me. I tested him; 
 but he always came back simply, to those two 
 easy chairs set ready for them in the jungle. 
 No ; there was no hut nor camp there, just the 
 two comfortable easy chairs under a big tree. 
 I had to concede him the chairs. 
 
 "What did you two talk about?" I asked. 
 
 " What do a man and a woman talk about in 
 the moonlight ? " he murmured, overcome by 
 my stupidity. " A woman and a man a woman 
 with wonderful moonlight eyes 
 
 " Surely you asked her who she was and what 
 she was doing here ? " 
 
 " No. It wasn't necessary, don't you under- 
 stand? She was there. I touched her. She was 
 real. That was enough. We just talked. I 
 think I must have told her about my dead wife, 
 poor Jane." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 " Then," he said simply, " I kissed her." 
 
 " From your easy chair ? " 
 
 "No. I suppose I must have got up and 
 stooped down to her." 
 
 " And what did she do ? " 
 
 " She kissed me, of course."
 
 THE SCHOONER 175 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Then I came home." 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 " All of a sudden I seemed to remember the 
 
 cave, and all of you waiting for me. I had 
 
 forgotten everything. Her eyes were so 
 
 wonderful sleeping eyes, with shadowy dreams 
 
 in them. But after she had kissed me I did 
 
 not know women could kiss like that, Jane 
 
 never did she stood away from me and kept 
 
 her eyes down, sideways. And I seemed to 
 
 wake up. I remembered the cave. I told her 
 
 I had to go home. It was very late to be out, 
 
 and you would be expecting me. She wouldn't 
 
 believe I meant it at first. She clung to me, 
 
 so close she seemed part of me, like like 
 
 the colours in an opal. I pushed her away it 
 
 was like pushing away my own shadow. She 
 
 wasn't half as strong as I had thought. She 
 
 was soft. Her arms seemed fragile. They 
 
 fell down. I made her sit down in the easy 
 
 chair. She huddled into it, and only looked at 
 
 me in a puzzled, frightened way. Then I gave 
 
 her back her handkerchief and the suspender 
 
 thing. They were hers, you know, and she 
 
 might have been uncomfortable without them. 
 
 She just let them lie in her lap, with her hands. 
 
 And all the while I felt how careless I had been 
 
 leaving you alone so long. Anything might
 
 i;6 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 have happened to you. So I went, and left 
 her lying in the chair, in the forest, under the 
 setting moon. She did not call me back. She 
 kept her frightened eyes on me all the time. I 
 felt them even when I turned my back." 
 
 He waited a moment, as if to taste again the 
 savour of that farewell glance. When he went 
 on it was with a brisker note. 
 
 " I don't know how I found my way back to 
 the beach. The moon soon set. I think it 
 was just by chance that I came out on to the 
 shore. Podmore was right. I shouldn't have 
 gone, neglecting you. I am responsible for 
 you. But she kissed me. I felt it right down 
 to my heels." 
 
 He relapsed into a Buddhist contemplation of 
 that kiss. 
 
 I shook him. He looked up, sulkily. I 
 ordered him to go to bed. He rose like a 
 hypnotised man and slunk inside the cave, 
 stepping, it seemed to me, stealthily so as not 
 to wake the others. 
 
 I sat there, outside in the starlit darkness, 
 and considered this new grocer. So, after all, 
 he had been "making a night of it." The 
 grocer had fallen in love, and fallen with a flop. 
 Love had snared him; he was lost, eternally 
 forgone. The alert little man had got his 
 second calf-love, and his lady was dressed like
 
 THE SCHOONER 177 
 
 a ballet girl and roved a lonely island with a 
 tame tiger. 
 
 And yet, drowned fatally in the shadows of 
 the strange woman's eyes, he had grasped his 
 tiny straw of sanity. He had steeled his pliant 
 soul, straightened himself and broken away. 
 He had desperately pushed those clinging arms 
 aside and taken the straight path back to 
 respectability and the suburbs. Stumbling and 
 dazed and torn with his wounds he had come 
 back to us; at least, he had come back. 
 
 Next morning, as was to be expected, I woke 
 late. As I lay in a half-doze, to my ears came 
 the voices of two women talking over the fire. 
 
 " Out all night ! " Miss Liddicoat remarked, 
 with the thin sucking of the lips of a woman 
 savouring a dainty bit of scandal. " Not that 
 I ever expected he'd come back at all." 
 
 " Out all night, with that creature ! " Miss 
 Rice ejaculated vindictively. 
 
 " And he a new-made widower ! " 
 
 " Nice goings-on for a respectable grocer, 7 
 say!" 
 
 So it went on. Evidently Greatheart had 
 crept to some dark corner of the cave, and was 
 sleeping without a move. 
 
 Some one went past me towards the mouth of 
 
 M
 
 i;8 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 the cave. As his figure blotted out the light, I 
 saw it was Bisscop. Then, from outside, I 
 heard his excited shout, " The ship ! " 
 
 In the rush for the mouth of the cave I was 
 the last to reach the open air. I found all the 
 others silently staring. 
 
 There, clear-cut in the morning sunshine, was 
 a schooner, not a mile from the shore. A dainty 
 looking vessel, her sails furled, yet moving, at 
 first sight mysteriously, slowly on over the calm 
 sea, straight for the shore. Then we noticed 
 the white of her wake : she was coming com- 
 fortably on under the power of an auxiliary oil 
 engine. And as we watched, we saw the vessel 
 beautifully come to rest and heard the sharp 
 rattle of the chain as the anchor slid to bottom. 
 It was a beautiful, a heart-lifting sight, that 
 pretty little toy ship, coming so confidently, so 
 calmly to anchorage in our little cove. It 
 meant home for us ; and in that moment even 
 my sub-editor's desk on a long hot night, with 
 the ceaseless thudding of the great machines, 
 the rush and scramble of the last half-hour, the 
 smell of ink and the sense of irritable weariness 
 all that seemed to me better than our island : 
 all that meant to me home. 
 
 Then a little doubt intruded. I glanced at 
 the faces of the other watchers. That same 
 uneasiness was already faintly there.
 
 THE SCHOONER 179 
 
 " But that can't be the rescue vessel," I said, 
 perplexed. ; ' They would send a steamer not 
 a tiny schooner." 
 
 " Probably there's a whole lot of vessels 
 searching," Bisscop replied. "Anyway, even 
 if they're not looking for us, we're looking for 
 them. We're saved, though it's quite possible 
 those people don't know yet there's anybody to 
 save." 
 
 " And they're landing," Miss Rice cried. 
 " Look, they're lowering a boat." 
 
 " Quick," cried Bisscop, " let's go down and 
 welcome them ! " 
 
 "Wait!" 
 
 My first thought was that the quiet, authori- 
 tative voice was Podmore's, whom I had not 
 noticed in our group at the cave mouth. But 
 when we simultaneously turned it was a blinking 
 grocer who stood silhouetted against the dark- 
 ness of the cave. 
 
 ' You ! " the two women gasped, too surprised 
 to move. 
 
 ' You're really back ? " Miss Rice could not 
 believe her twinkling eyes. " Oh! " she doated, 
 "and we thought we had lost you. But I 
 always said you'd come back." 
 
 Greatheart had no time for civility or scenes. 
 He pushed his way past the women to the cliff 
 edge. 
 
 M 2
 
 i8o GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 "Ah," he said, " Podmore's seen them." 
 
 From our height we were spectators, as from 
 the gallery of a theatre, of a ludicrous sight. 
 Podmore, who had evidently been taking his 
 morning bath in the river, had heard the rattle 
 of her anchor chain, and without a thought of his 
 nakedness he was now making his way through 
 the scrub towards the beach, a podgy, grotesque 
 figure, cantering clumsily along. 
 
 " The fool! " Greatheart exclaimed. " How 
 does he know they're not enemies ? " 
 
 " Why should they be ? " Miss Rice protested. 
 " Why did they come here if not to rescue us ? " 
 
 "What brings them ashore just here? 
 There's no signal of distress up. They can't 
 have a suspicion that there's anybody here." 
 
 " Podmore will soon know, anyhow," said 
 Bisscop. " Look, those men in the boat have 
 seen him." 
 
 While we had been watching Podmore's 
 progress to the beach we had not seen that a 
 boat, with three men in it, had put off from the 
 schooner and was now half-way to the shore. 
 And, indeed, the wildly gesticulating figure of 
 the naked Podmore could not have long 
 remained unnoticed as it lumbered across the 
 shining expanse of sand. Suddenly an order 
 was given by the man steering, and the two 
 rowers lay on their oars. The steersman,
 
 THE SCHOONER 181 
 
 shading his brow with his hand, carefully 
 scrutinised the extraordinary apparition of a fat, 
 naked white savage. 
 
 It was evident from the quick interchange of 
 talk in the stationary boat we could see their 
 excited gestures that the last thing these 
 strangers had expected to meet on the island 
 was a stout nude Cupid. 
 
 Podmore, his wind giving out in the last 
 hundred yards, had reached the shore, and 
 stood, gesticulating at the strangers. The man 
 at the rudder merely raised his arm, with some- 
 thing in his hand that dully glinted in the 
 sunlight. 
 
 We saw, horror-stricken, a white puff of smoke 
 and a scattering spurt of sand over Podmore's 
 figure. The fat man collapsed, then, to our 
 relief and somewhat to our surprise, lifted him- 
 self to his feet with an unexpected agility and 
 fled grotesquely up the beach. And, as he 
 sped, he dodged and ducked as if from following 
 bullets. 
 
 But the man in the boat did not fire again. 
 He had raised his arm, but, realising the im- 
 probability of hitting the bird on the wing after 
 missing a pot shot, he put his revolver back 
 into his belt. 
 
 So Podmore regained the safety of the scrub. 
 At his disappearance the steersman gave a brief
 
 1 82 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 order to his men, and the boat continued her 
 interrupted way to the beach. 
 
 As it happened, this move was lucky for us ; 
 for in making their landing their attention was 
 taken off Podmore, and thus they missed seeing 
 the figure of Podmore, spent, blown, but once 
 more clothed in his ragged pyjamas, painfully 
 climb the cliff and totter along the narrow path 
 to us. 
 
 ;< The fiends ! " he spluttered as he collapsed 
 at our feet. " They fired at me." 
 
 ;< You saw them close ? " Greatheart eagerly 
 asked. " Who are they ?" 
 
 "Murderers!" 
 
 " But what are they like ? Quick, man ! " 
 
 " How could I see, when they were all firing 
 at me. The bullets were whistling all round 
 me." 
 
 "But the man who fired? Describe him. 
 It's most important." 
 
 Podmore, frightened even more if it were 
 possible by the grocer's tone, struggled to get 
 his senses back. " He looked like a foreigner," 
 he said at last. " A swarthy, scoundrelly face, 
 a devil's face. A Spaniard or an Italian." 
 
 "It's him, the Dago!" Greatheart cried. 
 " I thought I recognised the schooner. It's 
 the man who lost the paper in my shop in 
 Woolloomooloo the man who ordered all
 
 THE SCHOONER 183 
 
 those stores from me and made such a secret 
 about it. Yes, it's him, the man who said the 
 paper he lost was worth thousands, and I've 
 got it in my pocket-book I " 
 
 Hurriedly Greatheart told the others the out- 
 lines of the strange story that he had told me 
 under the double-branched palm. He even 
 took the precious paper from his pocket-book. 
 The others, crowding round, examined it with a 
 curiosity that was almost awe. 
 
 "He's come for that?" Bisscop said. "It's 
 only a lot of gibberish." 
 
 " No," the grocer replied. " They can't 
 know I've got it. They can't know I'm here. 
 And why should they fire at Podmore ? Well, 
 whatever their rascally game is, we'll soon know. 
 And in this cave we're safe. We could defend 
 it against a hundred. Why, they won't even 
 know we're here. They can't have seen Pod- 
 more making his way back. They won't guess 
 the existence of the cave. All we've got to do 
 is to lie hid we've got plenty of provisions 
 and watch them unseen." 
 
 The grocer was happy again. Here was a 
 campaign to plan, an army to lead, a castle to 
 hold. He had completely forgotten the syren 
 of the forest. He was a man again.
 
 1 84 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE STRANGERS 
 
 THY," said Miss Rice, peering over 
 ' the edge of the rock, "whatever 
 are they up to now ? " 
 
 The actions of the strangers 
 were certainly curious. They had pulled their 
 boat up on the beach, then, almost running in 
 their eagerness, they had made straight for the 
 cocoa-nut palm with the double-branching stem. 
 Here they had now halted and were gazing, as 
 if fascinated, at its strange bifurcation. Evi- 
 dently they found it very interesting. At length 
 they stepped from the shade of its double crown 
 and looked long and earnestly about them. 
 
 "Keep back!" Greatheart cried. "They're 
 looking for our camp." 
 
 Whatever they were looking for they did not 
 find. They stood arguing, one, their leader, 
 wishing to proceed along the beach in our 
 direction, the other two equally inclined to go
 
 THE STRANGERS 185 
 
 in the opposite direction. The leader tried 
 persuasion, argument, and at last threats. We 
 saw the revolver in his raised hand. The others 
 were convinced. 
 
 The three came slowly along the beach, look- 
 ing carefully about them, till they reached the 
 shallow outlet of the stream. They greeted 
 their discovery with a shout, and unanimously 
 turned inland, following along its edge. As 
 the banks of the river rose abruptly from the 
 shore, the river having cut its way through a 
 ravine, and the jungle encroached to the water's 
 edge, they were soon forced to wade. They 
 made two efforts to climb the cliffs, but without 
 success; and as the pathway of the river 
 narrowed they had to force their way against a 
 swiftly running stream. 
 
 At last they disappeared from our view behind 
 a ridge of forest. We waited long before we 
 caught sight of them again at the same place, 
 returning. Evidently, owing to the fact that, as 
 we had discovered, here the river was com- 
 pressed into a narrow gorge, they had given up 
 their attempt. Equally impassable, by the way 
 they had come, w r as the forest. Unless they hit 
 upon the track through the scrub that had led 
 us to the cave, our hiding place was safe from 
 discovery. 
 
 We watched them go, with lagging footsteps,
 
 1 86 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 disappointment in their heavy movements. 
 Arrived at the double-branched palm, they threw 
 themselves wearily on the ground, and after a 
 while apparently renewed their discussion. The 
 result was that they returned to their boat, 
 launched it and rowed back to the schooner. 
 
 We watched the vessel all the rest of the after- 
 noon, but saw no signs of its preparation for 
 departure. And at night we saw its riding light 
 winking at us in our eyrie. 
 
 Many and far-fetched were the conjectures 
 we indulged in as to the meaning of this visit. 
 The outstanding point was the strangers' obvious 
 interest in the double-stemmed palm. 
 
 " That makes me certain," said Greatheart, 
 " that the man in charge is the man who lost the 
 paper in my shop. You see," he produced the 
 scribble of gibberish again, " it is the first item 
 mentioned in the list. It is a phrase a man 
 would not be likely to forget; and the palm is 
 a sort of landmark to any ship on this coast. To 
 my mind it's a sort of signal." 
 
 "For what?" I naturally asked. 
 
 " How do I know, except that it's a well, say 
 a clue." 
 
 " To the galleon's treasure," Podmore sug- 
 gested. 
 
 The grocer waved the remark aside. " The 
 galleon's treasure would have gone down with
 
 THE STRANGERS 187 
 
 the galleon; and that's five miles along the 
 coast. If they were searching for the galleon, 
 they would not anchor in a cove that hasn't a 
 reef in it. No ; what they want has something 
 to do with the cocoa-nut palm. That's cer- 
 tain. Well "-he brightened visibly " it's only 
 another of the mysteries of the island. Really, I 
 couldn't imagine a more exciting place to be 
 shipwrecked on, could you ? " 
 
 Greatheart was himself again. The memory 
 of the grocer's abashed return to the cave the 
 previous evening, his humility and his obsession 
 of the woman, was wiped away by this man of 
 action the Greatheart that inspired confidence, 
 the leader we looked up to. The need for 
 action had broken the spell. Work was the one 
 antidote that could have saved him ; and here, 
 indeed, was work enough. His own life, and 
 ours, if we considered the reception accorded to 
 the naked Podmore, depended on his vigilance. 
 And, shaking the lulling dream from his little, 
 drowsy eyes, he had emerged, clear-visioned, 
 alert, a leader of men. 
 
 I thought it wise, until the present danger was 
 past, to keep that woman out of Greatheart's 
 memory. As long as we were shut up in the 
 cave she could not cause trouble. But Miss 
 Rice interfered. 
 
 ' They've come, of course, to see that woman,"
 
 1 88 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 she abruptly said . " She has made them a signal 
 they have been looking for, and they've come to 
 help her." She pounced on Greatheart. " And 
 you spoke to her last night," she said with a bitter- 
 ness astonishing in her ; " you had quite a long 
 conversation with her goodness knows what 
 you talked about ! Surely you know ? " 
 
 The grocer miserably shook his head, and, 
 with a gesture of hopelessness, turned away and 
 entered the cave. 
 
 And, left with the others, I had to answer 
 their eager questions. I told them the nothing 
 I had learnt from my fruitless questioning of the 
 grocer. Then I impressed upon them the absc - 
 lute need for no further reference in his presence 
 to the strange woman. I pointed out the change 
 I had seen in him, the strength of her influence 
 over him, and how our very lives might depend 
 on making him forget her. The need for action, 
 the presence of unknown dangers, had keyed 
 him up again to his true self; but the woman 
 had only to beckon and he would leave us. 
 
 Rebellion flamed in the women's eyes. So I 
 told them how and why he had come back to us. 
 
 "He left her?" Miss Rice cried exultantly. 
 " She couldn't hold him ! Ah ! I knew that he 
 could never stand that sort of woman not a 
 man of the strength of character of Mr. Great-
 
 THE STRANGERS 189 
 
 heart. I've been a beast. To think that even 
 
 for an instant I could have doubted him ! " 
 " But surely he told you all about the 
 
 creature? " Miss Liddicoat persisted. 
 "Only that she had wonderful eyes." 
 " Much good they were to her ! " Miss Rice 
 
 almost sneered. " We've got him back." 
 
 Next morning the schooner was still at anchor 
 in the cove, and again we saw the boat leaving 
 the vessel, with the same three men in it. They 
 disembarked at the same spot, and made straight 
 for the palm. But this time they were all armed. 
 They were carrying what looked like rifles on 
 their shoulders. 
 
 As they reached the neighbourhood of the 
 palm, to our surprise they began digging in the 
 sand. The things on their shoulders that we 
 had mistaken for rifles were spades. 
 
 All that forenoon they worked on the beach, 
 not digging systematically, but tentatively trying 
 various places all along the beach, and even 
 inland at the edge of the scrub, right up to the 
 edge of the river. It looked to us as if, failing 
 to find the landmarks for which they were 
 searching, they were spasmodically trying their 
 luck. But, as far as we could see, they were not 
 rewarded ; for at midday they threw down their
 
 JQO GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 tools and made for the shade of the palm. There 
 they lit a fire, and, procuring stores from the 
 boat, cooked a meal. After dinner they 
 separated, each taking a spade with him and 
 disappearing into the bush. Toward sundown 
 one after the other emerged, compared notes 
 and ultimately returned to the schooner. 
 
 It was a wearying day for us, cooped up within 
 the limits of the cave and the tiny platform at 
 its mouth, with nothing to do but watch the 
 strangers. The inaction got on our nerves. At 
 last Bisscop appealed to us to let him sneak 
 down and spy on the intruders ; but there was 
 the risk that his descent might be observed and 
 the location of the cave revealed. 
 
 At intervals one of us would ask Greatheart 
 for the paper, and vainly endeavour to make 
 some meaning out of its strangely jumbled list 
 of items. But gradually we came to the con- 
 viction that the paper afforded the clue to the 
 strangers' haphazard movements. If it was 
 treasure that they were seeking, the secret of its 
 hiding place was in our ignorant hands. It 
 was, of course, useless to us, unless, which 
 seemed hopeless, we could make sense of its 
 unintelligible gibberish. 
 
 From the attention the men had paid the 
 double-branched palm, it was plain that that tree
 
 THE STRANGERS 191 
 
 formed an important item in the directions 
 necessary to uncover whatever they were 
 seeking. But what did the carpenter's T-square 
 mean, and where was one to find "217 Ibs. of 
 sugar " even though it was stipulated that it was 
 to be of the " cheapest quality " ? And what 
 was " 305 yards of watered silk " and " i box of 
 aerated waters " doing on a tropical island ? And 
 who could get any sense out of " i musician's 
 triangle " ? 
 
 ' You know," Miss Rice said at last, pushing 
 the paper irritably aside, " you have no right to 
 keep that. It doesn't belong to you, does it? 
 Jt was all right to keep when you didn't know 
 where the rightful owner was; but he's down 
 there now, and by keeping it you are practically 
 stealing it. Morally, we ought to give it up." 
 
 We looked at each other in surprise. This 
 point of view had never occurred to us. Had 
 such a request been made to any of us in Sydney, 
 we would have at once complied. Indeed, we 
 would not have needed the reminder. But the 
 plain fact was that we had deteriorated, lost 
 touch with the decencies of the civilisation we 
 had left so far behind. The veneer had been 
 scraped off us; and the least jolt from the 
 unfamiliar will show how thin that veneer is. 
 Scratch a suburbanite steal his fowls, for 
 instance and you will find a ravening savage.
 
 192 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 It was Miss Rice's question that sharply made 
 us aware of the depth of our fall. We had been 
 so near death, we had suffered so much, we had 
 had so hard a fight with plain facts, such as 
 hunger and privation and toil and personal 
 danger, from which the comfortable blanket of 
 civilisation had hitherto protected us. We had 
 lived too precariously and too strenuously to 
 retain the graces and the refinements, even the 
 morals of social life. The veneer had been not 
 merely scratched ; it had been ripped bodily off. 
 Under the stress we had discarded the trappings, 
 moral as well as physical, that hitherto we had 
 regarded as as much our own as our skins. We 
 had unconsciously relapsed into the simpler, 
 sterner code of primitive man. We woke now to 
 the realisation of the bare fact that we had slipped 
 back to the primitive age, where might was right 
 and the only sceptre was the strong hairy arm. 
 
 With the loss of my black bowler hat and my 
 stiff collar had gone my badge of respectability. 
 Stripped to my pyjamas, I had reverted to the 
 state of mind of a man escaping from a burning 
 building. All the elaborate complex of prohi- 
 bitions and restraints had been sloughed off; 
 my hands had become predatory claws. 
 
 And so, I fear, it was with the others. All our 
 chivalry had been swallowed up in the mere will 
 to live. We had only one loyalty left the
 
 THE STRANGERS 193 
 
 ancient loyalty to the clan. All outsiders were 
 enemies ; but the clan, for its own protection 
 the first lesson learnt in man's long struggle into 
 manhood stuck together united by the most 
 selfish interest. And in this fierce antagonism 
 to the world, forced upon us by the world's bleak 
 antagonism to us, we had cast overboard all the 
 scruples and daintinesses of civilised morals. 
 Inside the clan we still lived a civilised life the 
 only civilisation we knew ; but to the world 
 outside its confines our fangs were instinctively 
 bared. 
 
 Miss Rice had retained a few scruples; but 
 these, of course, were not impermeable to the 
 logic of facts. 
 
 " For," said the grocer indignantly, " they 
 tried to kill one of us." 
 
 The clan loyalty flamed in the boarding-house 
 keeper's barbaric eyes. " Of course, that makes 
 all the difference," she admitted. "They've 
 declared war on us, and we must fight them." 
 
 She rose, a flashing Boadicea. 
 
 The grocer's eyes dwelt appreciatively upon 
 this Amazon in an ulster. "If they want this 
 paper," he said gravely, " they'll have to get it 
 over my dead body." 
 
 Uncivilised as I was, even then I felt a false 
 note in the grocer's boast. There was danger, 
 of course, if the strangers, desperate men as we 
 
 N
 
 194 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 feared them to be, discovered our hiding place. 
 But a suspicion occurred to me that they had 
 fired at Podmore merely to scare away any 
 inquisitive intruders, to leave them freedom for 
 their work. Yet, had the bullet been a foot 
 
 higher 
 
 None of us, at that moment, dreamed that 
 Greatheart might soon have to make good his 
 vaunt. 
 
 -V . 
 
 It was Miss Liddicoat who was to blame. 
 
 On going out next morning I noticed on the 
 rock outside the cave a white garment. It was 
 one of the women's nightdresses, newly washed, 
 put there to dry in the sun. 
 
 I snatched it off. It was altogether too 
 noticeable against the dark hue of the rocks. 
 From the schooner it would appear as a bright 
 patch almost as a signal or a flag. Our only 
 hope against discovery lay in the chance that 
 no inquisitive eyes had been turned in our 
 direction. 
 
 I spoke of it to the others, and the girl 
 admitted her indiscretion. Greatheart was 
 angry and gave that young lady a talking to such 
 as I feel sure she had never listened to before. 
 There was no politeness in the grocer's stinging 
 remarks. The clan had been placed in danger 
 by her. The clan must punish her.
 
 THE STRANGERS 195 
 
 Bisscop spoke hotly in her defence; and, 
 frankly, there was a pretty row. Our nerves 
 were all at tension. We were as lacking in 
 control as a crowd at a football match or a legis- 
 lature during a "scene." But Miss Rice and 
 I took Greatheart's side, the woman sinking her 
 sex loyalty to that of her world ; and at last the 
 quarrel died into a sullen silence. The simple 
 life is, after all, very much like any other life. 
 We were merely two suburban wives calling 
 each other names over the backyard fence. 
 
 There was nothing to do now but to wait 
 developments. These were not long in 
 coming. The three men left the ship and 
 rowed briskly to their accustomed landing. 
 This time, however, they did not bother with 
 the palm. They came straight along the beach 
 to the outlet of the stream. Up this they 
 waded, as before, and disappeared from our 
 sight behind the intervening ridge. Evidently 
 they had a definite objective. 
 
 It was midday before they gave us any further 
 sign. I was alone at our observation post 
 behind the largest rock. The others were at 
 the midday meal. A shout it seemed almost 
 at my back made me turn hurriedly. I saw 
 nobody. Then I recognised that it was only 
 the echo from the overhanging cliff. The man 
 who sent forth that jovial " Hullo ! " was below, 
 
 N 2
 
 196 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 at the base of the cliff. I peered cautiously 
 round the rock, and saw three men standing 
 all ^ost exactly below me, at the further edge of 
 the river, which here swirled close to the base 
 of the rock. They had evidently been closely 
 watching; and the hail had achieved its effect. 
 They saw me. I ran into the cave and quietly 
 summoned the others. Greatheart kept the 
 women back. 
 
 'You speak to them," he said. 'They 
 mustn't see me." 
 
 I " cooeed " from behind my rock. 
 
 " Where are you? " a voice shouted back. 
 
 " His voice the Dago's ! " Greatheart 
 whispered. 
 
 " I'm not going to show myself/' I replied. 
 ' You shot at one of us." 
 
 "Oh, that's it, is it?" the voice laughed. 
 :< That was only a bluff. Well, here goes." 
 
 Raising my head cautiously, I saw the three 
 men deposit their three revolvers carefully on 
 the sand at their feet. I stood up and looked 
 them over. They returned my scrutiny with 
 equal interest. 
 
 One, evidently the leader, was a slim, dark 
 man, the chief features of whose clean-shaven 
 face at this distance were his thick, black eye- 
 brows. I recognised him from Greatheart's 
 description as the foreigner whom he had met
 
 THE STRANGERS 197 
 
 in his shop at Woolloomooloo. The second 
 was a mere youth, about Bisscop's age, quite 
 beautifully dressed in white duck. The third 
 was a little, wizened old man, whose precise, 
 business-like demeanour seemed strangely out 
 of place against that tropical background of 
 jungle. 
 
 I gathered from their quick interchange of 
 talk that I was' not the person they had expected 
 to see. 
 
 " What do you want? " I called down. 
 
 ' You know," was the impatient reply from 
 the Spanish-looking man. 
 
 " I don't." 
 
 "Well, your boss does. Why doesn't he 
 show himself ? " 
 
 It did not need Greatheart's gesture to give 
 me the clue. " I'm the boss here," I called. 
 " That is, if we have any boss. We're a party 
 of shipwrecked castaways, and are anxious only 
 to get back to civilisation. But you fired at one 
 of us. Why?" 
 
 The spotless youth chuckled. " That fat, 
 naked chap, eh? He looked like a dressed 
 turkey. Nobody could have helped firing at 
 that, surely? I bet you would have fired, too. 
 And did you see him run ? " 
 
 " That settles it," I said, indignant at such 
 reckless callousness. " You don't get another
 
 198 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 chance of potting us. You can't reach us here, 
 and we're not fools enough to come down. 
 We've got water and food enough to last us a 
 month ; and long before that's up the search 
 steamer will be here to take us off." 
 
 I could see that they did not believe me. 
 
 " How many of you are there ? " the old man 
 asked. 
 
 I lied easily, " Five." 
 
 " We'll take you all off in our schooner," the 
 dark man said quickly. " We're a party of 
 scientists, collecting insects for an American 
 millionaire's museum. Sorry I fired at one of 
 you ; but I never expected to find anything but 
 natives here, and he did look rather ferocious, 
 didn't he? Anyway, I didn't fire to hit him 
 just to scare him away. We'll be here for a 
 day or two longer, "just to complete our entomo- 
 logical collection, and then we're off direct to 
 Manilla. We ought to be back there in a 
 month." 
 
 It sounded convincing, after all. The 
 Podmore incident might be explained by mere 
 light-hearted recklessness ; and, for all we 
 could tell, they might be scientists, and their 
 spades a necessary part of the equipment of a 
 scientific exploration party. And though the 
 grocer had recognised the foreigner, that indi- 
 vidual might be an entomologist, and the paper
 
 THE STRANGERS 199 
 
 in Greatheart's possession might be merely 
 some scientific memoranda. 
 
 "Wait a minute," I called down. "I'll ask 
 the others." 
 
 But as I turned away, distinctly to my ears 
 came an echoing whisper from the wall behind 
 me. The youth below, in his relief, had for- 
 gotten to lower his voice sufficiently, and had 
 evidently no indication how clear was the echo 
 from the overhanging cliff. "Got 'em!" I 
 heard. 
 
 I leant over the rock. " Thanks for the 
 offer," I said politely, " but we prefer to wait 
 for the arrival of the search steamer. That 
 would take us straight back to Sydney long 
 before you would have reached the Philippines. 
 And we're quite comfortable hefe." 
 
 " But surely ' the dark man began 
 
 earnestly. 
 
 " Frankly," I cut him short, " we don't trust 
 you." 
 
 " Oh, that's it, is it ? Well, you might let us 
 have a look at you if there are five of you." 
 
 I saw no harm in letting them see our 
 strength. Greatheart, of course, lay concealed, 
 while Bisscop and Podmore joined me at the 
 edge of the platform. 
 
 The strangers seemed startled. I turned to 
 find that Miss Rice and Miss Liddicoat, their
 
 200 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 curiosity overcoming their prudence, were 
 ranged with us in full sight of the three men. 
 
 "Women." 
 
 We stared at their stupefication. They had 
 not for a moment believed our account of our- 
 selves. 
 
 " And one of them," muttered the brisk youth, 
 in what he obviously meant to be a confidence 
 to the dark man, " extremely pretty ! " 
 
 The two women flushed with delight. 
 
 But the leader of the strangers was not satis- 
 fied. "That all?" he shouted. 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 " Where's the grocer? " he insisted. 
 
 I vigorously denied all knowledge of grocers. 
 
 " So you won't come down," the little fussy 
 man asked at last. " I may remind you that 
 our time is valuable." 
 
 " Ours is not." 
 
 " Then may we come up just a courtesy 
 call?" the youth asked. 
 
 " No ; we prefer to keep people who shoot 
 strangers at sight at a distance. We can't 
 afford to take any risks. We have women to 
 protect." 
 
 " Lucky beggars ! " the youth shouted blithely 
 back. 
 
 For a few minutes the three men conferred. 
 Then their leader stepped forward. He had
 
 THE STRANGERS 201 
 
 cast aside all pretence of good-humour ; his 
 voice rang angrily out. 
 
 " We don't believe your cock-and-bull story. 
 We know why you've come, and you know why 
 we've come. We quite understand each other, 
 don't we? Now, you come down to us all of 
 you, including the grocer or " 
 
 "Or what?" I called down. Then quickly, 
 to the women, " Duck ! " 
 
 They were just in time. For the foreigner 
 stooped for his revolver; and simultaneously 
 the other men recovered theirs. But as we 
 slid to safety behind the rocks, I noticed the 
 little old man grab the other's extended arm. 
 
 We waited anxiously for the report. None 
 came. At last I cautiously peered round, not 
 over, the rock. The little man had seized the 
 other's hand; and this is what I clearly heard: 
 
 " As chairman of directors, I have already 
 ruled that there must be no bloodshed except as 
 a last resource." The speaker turned politely 
 to the youth. " And I feel sure that the majority 
 of the board will support their chairman's 
 ruling?" 
 
 The spruce young man laughed. " The silly 
 fool," he said, " might have killed that particu- 
 larly pretty woman." 
 
 Sulkily the foreigner put up his weapon. I
 
 202 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 heard behind me two sighs of happiness. Both 
 women had caught the youth's remark. 
 
 :< There's plenty of other ways of getting at 
 them," the fussy old gentleman remarked testily. 
 Then, raising his voice for our benefit. " We'll 
 starve you out." 
 
 His leader sullenly acquiesced. I distinctly 
 caught his next remarks. : ' You don't know the 
 man you have to deal with," he said, with sombre 
 conviction. " That grocer would stick at no- 
 thing. He is a desperate man. But what did 
 you make me general manager for if you always 
 outvote me on the board? I could have got 
 one of those thieves that time, and the others 
 later on. They aren't armed." Then, in a 
 voice meant for us, " We'll wait till you come 
 down till you have to come down. And we'll 
 make you pay for the delay." 
 
 The three turned, making their way down the 
 river edge. They did not suspect the existence 
 of the old track that had led us to the discovery 
 of the cave. And as they disappeared from 
 our sight, the immaculate youth, who was last, 
 deliberately threw a kiss at our wondering 
 group. 
 
 Miss Rice and Miss Liddicoat expertly 
 caught it.
 
 THE BOUQUETS 203 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE BOUQUETS 
 
 " T ^\O you know," Bisscop carelessly 
 1 remarked, when the strangers had 
 
 - J disappeared, " I know those chaps." 
 He dropped his bomb-shell as 
 negligently as he would throw away a match. 
 
 " Met 'em, and all that," he added, stemming 
 our torrent of questions. 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 " Coming out on the steamer to Australia, a 
 
 good many months ago. Been trying to 
 
 remember their names. One was Cadwallader 
 
 that young fellow. Rather decent sort of 
 
 chap, I thought." 
 
 " But he didn't recognise you." 
 
 " Not likely," Bisscop drawled, " in these 
 rotten clothes, eh ? " 
 
 " But who is he, and what's he doing here ? " 
 Greatheart questioned. 
 
 " He's the chap who got hold of the clue, 
 of course," Bisscop said somewhat wearily, 
 astonished at our obtuseness.
 
 204 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 The clue! And here had been its explana- 
 tion all the time! 
 
 " Cadwallader was secretary of the Sports' 
 Committee on board the boat coming out, you 
 know," Bisscop began. " Got up silly tin-pot 
 games you don't want to play, you know pick- 
 ing up potatoes and dropping the silly things 
 into buckets, threading needles and pretending 
 to play golf by putting into chalk rings on the 
 deck. More like marbles, eh? But he was a 
 good break bowler. One afternoon he and I 
 got the whole of the married men's side out for 
 a duck. Rather a record, don't you think? 
 He cleaned bowled five of 'em. That's how I 
 got to know him. We got talking in between 
 whiles when he wasn't getting up concerts for 
 the women and gymkhanas and sweeps on the 
 day's run. And one night he told me about 
 his precious clue." 
 
 " He showed it to you? " I interjected. 
 
 " No; too valuable. Kept it in the purser's 
 safe. Told me about it, though. Something 
 like this. I thought he was rotting, don't you 
 know. His father had somehow got hold of 
 some papers about a Spanish treasure in a 
 tropical island. Sort of stuff you read in the 
 magazines." 
 
 " But how did his father get it ? " Podmore 
 heavily asked.
 
 THE BOUQUETS 205 
 
 " From one of the survivors ? " Greatheart 
 suggested confidently. 
 
 " Survivors of the men who buried it nearly 
 two centuries ago?" Bisscop laughed. "No; 
 these papers came from Spain. Old Cad- 
 wallader came across them in London . A sailor 
 told him a yarn about getting the papers from 
 a Spanish sailor, and offered old Cadwallader 
 the lot for five pounds. The sailor was starving, 
 or nearly so, and Cadwallader gave him some 
 money ten shillings or so but he wouldn't 
 look at the papers. About a year afterwards a 
 packet arrived at his London office addressed 
 to him, and in it was a note from the sailor 
 thanking him for what he had done and asking 
 him to keep the papers. Cadwallader put them 
 away and forgot them. Then, one day he got 
 a new clerk, a chap who could speak Spanish ; 
 and, just to test him, Cadwallader got out the 
 papers and told him to write a translation of 
 them. Can't think of the clerk's name ; he had 
 Italian blood in him. Anyway, he was the 
 blighter who tried to pot Podmore on the 
 beach." 
 
 'The Dago. My Dago!" Greatheart 
 exulted. 
 
 * Yes. He and the other man you saw down 
 there were on board, too. Didn't speak much 
 to anybody, those two. Well, the Italian chap,
 
 206 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 Sal Salvini. No ; Sabini ! that was his con- 
 founded name came to old Cadwallader with 
 the news that the old sailor's papers contained the 
 story of the wreck of a Spanish galleon 
 
 " Our galleon! " Greatheart cried. 
 
 "On a tropical island." 
 
 " Our island ! " This from Miss Rice. 
 
 " Looks pretty like it, don't it ? The yarn 
 young Cadwallader told me was that, nearly 
 two hundred years ago, the galleon came to 
 grief on a reef, and the crew decided to take the 
 treasure ashore and bury it safe. Of course, 
 they meant to come back and collar it ; but the 
 package of papers told how in the end only two 
 men managed to get back to civilisation, and one 
 of them died soon after. I guess the other 
 rotter must have hastened his death. But the 
 survivor couldn't raise the cash to return for the 
 treasure expensive matter in those days, I 
 should say, and risky but before he died he 
 wrote down all particulars. That was the first 
 thing the package contained ; but there were 
 other writings, from which it appeared that some 
 one else had had a try for the treasure. This 
 chap, so he said in a different handwriting, had 
 found the island from the directions and had 
 made an effort to get the stuff; but something 
 happened the account was very vague about it 
 and he came away, and was, I gathered, very
 
 THE BOUQUETS 207 
 
 glad to come away without it. But he set out 
 very carefully the exact position of the place 
 where the treasure was buried. And that was 
 only fifty years or so ago. How the papers got 
 into the old sailor's hands there was nothing to 
 show." 
 
 " Did it state," I asked, " exactly what the 
 treasure was ? " 
 
 " No," Bisscop said. " It referred to it every 
 time as * the treasure ' ; but, of course, that must 
 have meant gold." 
 
 " Of course, it was gold," Podmore said 
 thickly and lusciously. " Gold ingots! Spanish 
 doubloons ! " 
 
 " Still, if those men," the grocer objected, 
 " have got the full directions, what do they want 
 with this piece of paper I've got ? And why can't 
 they go straight ahead and find the stuff ? " 
 
 ' That's just the curious thing about it," 
 Bisscop answered. "When Cadwallader's 
 father found out the gold mine he had struck, he 
 got a bit scared that some one else might get hold 
 of his secret and I suspect he didn't quite like 
 trusting his secret to a mere clerk like Sabini. 
 So he decided to commit the directions for find- 
 ing the treasure to memory the son told me his 
 father was very proud of his memory and he 
 burnt the document, and saw to it that Sabini 
 hadn't any copy of it. But in case he forgot
 
 208 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 any part of the directions they were pretty intri- 
 cate, I believe he made a sort of reminder, and 
 wrote that down. It was so constructed, young 
 Cadwallader said, that if it fell into anybody 
 else's hands, they could make no sense out of it. 
 And yet, if you knew how it had been con- 
 structed, you had only to go right along and 
 scoop up the bally gold." 
 
 " Our clue? " Greatheart cried in triumph. 
 
 :< Yes, it must be the very thing," said Bisscop. 
 " Didn't connect it before with those chaps, you 
 know." 
 
 He went on. "So old Cadwallader's father 
 had the directions all right in his noddle, with 
 the paper on which he ha'd jotted down his 
 memorandum to fall back upon in case he forgot. 
 He hadn't too much ready cash, so he took his 
 discovery to a local solicitor that's the fussy old 
 fellow who objects to fire-arms I'll remember 
 his name in a minute. And the solicitor got up a 
 sort of syndicate limited liability company kind 
 of affair. They made the solicitor chairman." 
 
 " Chairman of directors ! " the grocer ex- 
 claimed. " Wasn't that what he called himself 
 down there half an hour ago ? " 
 
 ' Yes ; and the clerk who knew Spanish, 
 though I think he's an Italian, was appointed 
 manager of the expedition to search for the
 
 THE BOUQUETS 209 
 
 treasure, and everything was ready for the start 
 when old Cadwallader went and died." 
 
 " Slain by the Dago ! " Greatheart almost 
 hissed. 
 
 " No ; by asthma." 
 
 Greatheart drooped. Life was always play- 
 ing him sordid tricks like that. It is a way life 
 has with the romantic temperament especially 
 in grocers. 
 
 " It was a set-back all right," Bisscop con- 
 tinued. " Here was the secret in a dead man's 
 head ; and all he had left was an unintelligible 
 sort of memoranda, without any clue to its mean- 
 ing. It nearly smashed up the limited liability 
 company. But the solicitor had the clue such 
 as it was in his office safe. The board met 
 they put young Cadwallader on in his father's 
 place and spent some days in trying to decipher 
 it with the help of Sabini's vague memory of the 
 original documents. No use. Then they de- 
 cided that, as all the preparations were made, 
 to send the expedition out to the island ; they 
 knew where that was, anyway. The solicitor 
 johnny, who was run down with overwork, or 
 something, had been ordered a sea-trip by his 
 doctor. He insisted on coming along with 
 Cadwallader and Sabini. I thought from what 
 I saw of the three on the boat coming out that 
 the old chap didn't quite trust the foreigner. 
 
 o
 
 2io GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 Cadwallader told me that, as they knew the posi- 
 tion of the island, they'd soon be able to puzzle 
 out the meaning of the clue when once they were 
 on the spot." 
 
 " Well, were on the spot, and we can't puzzle 
 the blamed thing out," I said helplessly. 
 
 " Wait! " said Greatheart grandly. 
 
 Bisscop almost frowned, except that his 
 smooth forehead had no room to frown. He 
 was evidently thinking. We watched, awe- 
 struck. We had never seen him thinking before. 
 
 " Bibb! " he triumphantly exclaimed. 
 
 We stared at him. 
 
 " Yes, Bibb! " he confidently repeated. 
 
 " What on earth has a bib to do with it ? " Miss 
 Rice asked, exasperated. 
 
 '' That's his name the little solicitor's name 
 I knew I'd remember it. Bibb." 
 
 Late that afternoon we saw the three again. 
 This time they had evidently argued that there 
 must be an easier way to our cave than the diffi- 
 cult passage up the river bed. The result of a 
 careful examination of the foreshore was the 
 discovery of the ancient track that had served us 
 so well. 
 
 With them, as they emerged with a triumphant 
 shout from the bush below the cave, we saw a
 
 THE BOUQUETS 211 
 
 couple of natives evidently from the crew of the 
 schooner carrying the equipment for a camp. 
 Before sunset the five of them had managed to 
 erect two small tents in the shelter of a group of 
 trees just opposite where the path from the cave 
 came down to the river's edge. They had 
 opened the siege. They meant to starve us out. 
 
 Of course, they could not have been aware of 
 the fact that we had a permanent supply of water. 
 Probably they counted on us having merely a few 
 days' supply stored. We could afford to wait. 
 
 That evening they lit a huge fire whose light 
 sharply illuminated the only possible descent 
 from our cave. They sent the two natives back 
 to the vessel ; and during the night they kept a 
 strict watch. There was always one of the men 
 on guard from that moment. We took turns in 
 watching the enemy ; but there was no attempt 
 on their part to attack us, or force an entrance into 
 the cave. Indeed, they must have recognised 
 that any such foolishness could only result in 
 their defeat. Our position was impregnable to 
 any conceivable attempt, unless they could take 
 us by surprise. 
 
 From the actions of the enemy, and the price- 
 less information given to us by Bisscop, we were 
 enabled to hazard a good guess at their motives 
 and intentions. They had not recognised in 
 the tattered figure of Bisscop their fellow- 
 
 o 2
 
 212 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 passenger on their voyage to Australia. They 
 were convinced that their opponent was the 
 Woolloomooloo grocer. And, from their point 
 of view, their conviction seemed overwhelmingly 
 probable. 
 
 All had gone well with their expedition until 
 they were on the point of embarking from 
 Sydney. They had bought and commissioned 
 a useful schooner, provisioned her secretly, 
 and were about to start when Sabini, their 
 manager, lost the indispensable clue. Naturally, 
 they would be convinced that the priceless piece 
 of paper had been stolen, and by some one who 
 had more than an inkling of its value and mean- 
 ing. What to do, then ? Nothing but to push 
 ahead and attempt to forestall their unknown 
 rivals. They knew the exact position of the 
 island of treasure. There must be some land- 
 mark that would indicate to them the where- 
 abouts of the pirates' hoard. And that landmark, 
 it was now plain to us, could only have been the 
 curious cocoa-nut palm with its double stem. For 
 we had seen how they had made that palm the 
 starting point of their search. 
 
 Though the clue had been stolen, the expedi- 
 tion had the knowledge of the landmark they 
 doubtless remembered that it formed the first 
 item in the list of things mentioned in the clue.
 
 THE BOUQUETS 213 
 
 Find the double-branched palm, and, with luck, 
 they would unearth the treasure. 
 
 So they had worked their way under sail slowly 
 up to the north of Australia, and arrived at a spot 
 that tallied with their other information. Till 
 then, doubtless, they would have had no reason 
 for suspecting that they had been forestalled by 
 their rivals. Their consternation at the sight of 
 a white man on the beach had been extreme. It 
 was to them, in their great disappointment and 
 rage, practically a declaration of war ; and they 
 had not hesitated to act on their belief. The 
 fact that there were others on the island, and on 
 the very spot where the treasure was concealed, 
 must have made them busily put two and two 
 together. 
 
 The priceless clue had been lost, or stolen, in 
 Sydney, the very day of their departure. If it 
 had been picked up by an ordinary man, he 
 would have seen no value in it, and thrown it 
 away again. But if the clue had been taken by 
 some one who knew, or shrewdly guessed at, the 
 object of the expedition ? 
 
 Who, in Sydney, could have known? The 
 purchase of the schooner had been arranged, 
 doubtless, before the arrival of the three men in 
 Australia, made through a reliable agent who 
 would not have divulged the names or objects of 
 his principals. But in the ordering of stores for
 
 214 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 the voyage such secrecy could not be maintained. 
 Doubtless it was to limit the chances of leakage 
 that the extraordinary course was followed of 
 buying all their stores from the shop of an 
 obscure grocer at Woolloomooloo. One subur- 
 ban grocer's suspicions did not matter . But now 
 it appeared to them that it was this one tiny leak 
 in their rampart of precautions that had let the 
 ocean in. For Sabini surely remembered that 
 he had admitted the loss of the paper to the 
 grocer, and had made the damning confession 
 that it was of a surprising value to him. 
 
 Now how, it was not quite clear the grocer 
 must have got hold of the clue and, with some 
 knowledge of its value, had organised this ex- 
 pedition with such haste that here their rivals 
 were installed on the very scene of operations. 
 But how could the grocer know what they were 
 after? At this point, probably, Cadwallader 
 might have confessed talking a little un- 
 guardedly about their scheme, either on the boat 
 out or in Sydney; and some one must have 
 brought this information to the ears of the 
 grocer. Of course, this was one of the weakest 
 links of the chain ; but every chain has a weak 
 link. Much of their reasoning was mere 
 surmise; but undeniable facts stared them in 
 the face. Somehow the destination of the ex- 
 pedition and its objects had leaked out.
 
 THE BOUQUETS 21$ 
 
 Such was the chain of reasoning by which, 
 we conceived, they had arrived at the perturbing 
 fact that there was competition to meet, an 
 enemy to account for. It was a logical chain, 
 granting the falsity of its premises. So, 
 obsessed by their suspicion of us, they scouted 
 our plain story of a party of survivors from a 
 shipwreck. For one thing, calling at few or 
 out-of-the-way ports, they would not have 
 heard of the wreck of the liner ; and finally, they 
 were not likely to put down to mere chance our 
 presence on the very spot where they were 
 convinced the treasure was hidden. The 
 absence of any vessel in the cove admitted, to 
 them, of an easy explanation. Our ship had 
 dropped us for our work, and would return later 
 to pick us and the treasure up. As for our 
 tattered appearance, that was either a disguise 
 adopted in case of the appearance of strangers 
 a rather far-fetched supposition or, what 
 would appear to them as more likely, the result 
 of some disaster that had overtaken us while on 
 the island. 
 
 It was a pretty and a plausible theory. 
 
 For the next two days there was no change 
 in the situation. We "sat tight," husbanded 
 our food stores, kept continual watch and
 
 216 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 waited. On their part, the visitors guarded the 
 exit down the cliff, day and night. During the 
 day while one, well armed, remained as sentry, 
 the others made a systematic exploration of the 
 neighbourhood, setting off each time carrying 
 picks and spades. 
 
 All through this time of inaction we watched 
 for the appearance of the search-steamer. The 
 news of the disaster must have reached civilisa- 
 tion ; if the ship was a week overdue the 
 Australian Government would take prompt 
 action. The recent loss of the Waratak, 
 and the strenuous efforts made by Australia to 
 discover news of her fate, even after all hope of 
 rescue had been abandoned by the world, 
 cheered us with the confidence of a speedy and 
 thorough search. Not one inch of land would 
 be missed. The archipelago would be pains- 
 takingly combed. But the fact that at the time 
 of the catastrophe we were so far from our usual 
 course might at first lead the search to the wrong 
 quarter. But any dawn now might bring with 
 it the welcome smudge of smoke over the 
 horizon. 
 
 Greatheart, however, did not look out with us 
 to sea. His eyes searched the dense forest 
 behind us and the far-flung crescent of beach. 
 He expected succour nearer at hand. 
 
 Indeed, it was curious that since that night
 
 THE BOUQUETS 21; 
 
 of moonlight we had received no sign of the exis- 
 tence of the strange woman. The grocer was 
 puzzled. The girl must have learnt of the pres- 
 ence of the strangers on her island. And, if so, 
 it would have been easy for her, by spying, to 
 glean the purpose of their visit and their inten- 
 tions towards us. And, whatever her feelings 
 toward the rest of us, at least she must have had 
 some concern over the plight of the grocer. 
 
 " She will come," Greatheart answered when 
 at last I spoke my thought. " She will come 
 at the right time at her own time." 
 
 His queen could do no wrong. 
 
 On the afternoon of the third day of the siege, 
 however, it became evident that the strangers 
 were becoming uneasy. Our surrender had 
 been unaccountably delayed. They must have 
 had some suspicion that we had access to a 
 permanent supply of water. And they had 
 wasted much valuable time. The result of this 
 change of attitude took the form of a visit from 
 Cadwallader, the speckless youth in white who 
 had distributed his kiss evenly between the two 
 women. 
 
 Bisscop, on guard at the mouth of the cave, 
 announced the news that Cadwallader was 
 climbing up the cliff. We watched him reach 
 the end of the cliff track, and begin to make his 
 leisurely way toward us.
 
 2i8 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 " Is he armed ? " Greatheart, who was con- 
 cealed behind a rock, anxiously asked. 
 
 " Not that I can see," said Bisscop over his 
 shoulder. " Keep back, all of you. He's got 
 something curious in his hand, though. 
 It's it's a bouquet." 
 
 " A bouquet ? " Miss Liddicoat echoed, with 
 widened eyes. 
 
 ;< Yes, of tropical flowers," Bisscop replied, as 
 if flowers were the usual present to shipwrecked 
 survivors, or, from their view-point, a mob of 
 desperate ruffians. 
 
 " It's a trap," Podmore exclaimed. " He's 
 got a revolver hidden in those flowers." 
 
 " Challenge him," our commander ordered. 
 
 Bisscop suddenly quietly stepped from the 
 shelter of his rock. 
 
 " Hullo, Cadwallader," he genially remarked. 
 
 Peering round from my hiding place I saw 
 that youth's jaw drop. He almost let his 
 flowers fall. 
 
 " Whew! " he whistled. " The chap I knew 
 on the boat ! Bisscop ! " 
 
 " Yes," said Bisscop. " Hope you're feeling 
 fit?" 
 
 "Ripping," the other politely replied. "So 
 it was you," he went on curiously, " you, all the 
 time. And we thought it was the grocer fellow. 
 Well," he was evidently, behind that impassive
 
 THE BOUQUETS 219 
 
 English face, thinking rapidly, " as it's a friend, 
 I'll just drop in and have a chat. It's rather 
 warm out here in the sun, isn't it ? " 
 
 His step toward Bisscop was checked by that 
 youth's warning. " Better not," he said quietly. 
 " As a matter of fact, we're not at home to-day 
 not receiving, don't you know some other 
 day, perhaps." 
 
 " Sorry," Cadwallader murmured, hesitating. 
 Then a look came into his blue eyes that I 
 interpreted. He was calculating the chance he 
 had of overpowering Bisscop with a spring. 
 
 Bisscop knew, too. '' You know, old chap," 
 he said, " you can't get past me. The foothold 
 isn't too good on this narrow track, is it? I 
 would have an unfair advantage here. And" 
 he glanced below " it's a pretty decent drop 
 to the bottom, what ? " 
 
 The other followed, unconsciously, that 
 glance, sheer down to the rocks at the edge of 
 the river. He looked up brightly. " Oh, I've 
 no intention of intruding, dear boy. I just 
 thought as I was passing that I'd drop in. It's 
 a bit dull down below; and it can't be very 
 exciting up here, eh? I thought you might 
 welcome a fresh face." 
 
 " A very attractive face," a voice murmured 
 at my elbow. It was Miss Liddicoat, whose 
 curiosity, and perhaps the memory of that aerial
 
 220 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 kiss, had brushed aside Greatheart's commands 
 and had brought her close beside me. 
 
 I thrust her quickly out of the stranger's sight, 
 but not before he had glimpsed her presence. 
 
 " It occurred to me," he said politely, " that 
 the ladies might like a few fresh flowers to 
 decorate their home. Would you oblige me by 
 handing these to them with my compliments ? " 
 
 I saw that there were two bouquets. The 
 youth was a diplomat. Miss Rice would be 
 delighted. 
 
 " Thanks," said Bisscop. " But don't trouble 
 to come any further. If you leave them on the 
 path, I'll deliver them for you with pleasure." 
 
 Cadwallader, with a shrug, deposited the 
 flowers at his feet, and with a genial, " See you 
 later. Ta-ta," carefully climbed back and 
 descended to his camp. 
 
 It was not till he had turned his back that I 
 ventured along the track and retrieved the 
 flowers. 
 
 " It was thoughful of him," Miss Rice purred 
 as I handed over the bouquets. 
 
 " He can't be a murderer," Miss Liddicoat 
 protested, "not with such a nice face." 
 
 They both smelled eagerly. I think two 
 pairs of lips lightly brushed the gorgeous 
 orchids ; but it was only Miss Rice who parted 
 the stems and glanced down for the folded note
 
 THE BOUQUETS 221 
 
 that was not there. I had thereupon to revise 
 my conception of the barren past of the boarding- 
 house keeper. Some one had once sent her 
 flowers with a word of love at their heart. How 
 long ago? 
 
 The grocer had seen, too. He glanced 
 glumly at me. The enemy was bringing gifts. 
 The loyalty of the women was in danger of being 
 sapped. 
 
 That night we kept strict watch. Now that 
 the enemy knew that Bisscop, who knew their 
 plans, had forestalled them in their search, we 
 felt sure they would adopt more vigorous 
 methods. 
 
 I had just lain down, after being relieved as 
 sentry by Greatheart at midnight, when a low 
 whistle brought me at a run to the mouth of the 
 cave. By the starlight I saw the dark bulk of 
 Greatheart crouched behind his rock. 
 
 c They're coming," he whispered, without 
 turning his head. " Look out! " 
 
 Even as he spoke the figure of one of the 
 strangers it looked like the Italian blocked 
 out the stars beyond the rock. 
 
 There was a moment's pause as the other 
 measured his distance, then with a spring he 
 flung himself round the edge of the rock.
 
 222 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 The grocer was ready. Braced against the 
 cliff wall he had the attacker at a huge disadvan- 
 tage. There was a cry from the man a 
 triumphant cry of " The grocer ! " a quick 
 scuffle and a final shove, and the foreigner, 
 clutching at Greatheart, hung desperately 
 balancing on the edge of the cliff. The next 
 moment ended it. His foothold gave way, and 
 with a clatter of debris and a shriek he 
 disappeared. 
 
 But the impetus of Greatheart's effort was so 
 great that he tottered forward, perilously lurching 
 into space. I grabbed him just in time. 
 
 "Look out!" he gasped. "The others are 
 coming ! ' 
 
 In the silence that followed the noise of the 
 falling fragments of rock we waited breathless. 
 But nothing happened. I peered round the 
 point. I could just make out the other two 
 figures braced against the cliff, and just below 
 them, as it seemed hanging in space, there was 
 a third figure. At first I thought that in his fall 
 he had managed to cling to some projecting 
 ledge ; but the tense attitude of the other men 
 furnished a more likely clue. 
 
 Their leader had saved himself from certain 
 death by having taken the precaution of roping 
 himself, like an Alpine climber, to the other 
 two.
 
 THE BOUQUETS 223 
 
 We watched them struggling to pull their 
 leader to safety. It was a grim effort ; but the 
 suspended man at last managed to relieve the 
 strain on the rope by finding support for his 
 hands in some small irregularities of the cliff 
 face. 
 
 " Let's help them," I whispered, sick with the 
 dreadful possibilities in that struggle for life. 
 
 "By God, no!" Greatheart cried. 
 
 I knew him then. He had lost the last of 
 his civilisation ; he had relapsed into the 
 snarling cave man whose sanctuary had been 
 attacked by wild beasts. His clan had been 
 menaced. Towering on the edge of the cliff 
 in the starlight, he seemed to me all fangs and 
 claws, the embodiment or, rather, the resur- 
 rection of that callous, malignant, half-man, 
 half-brute, that in the steaming, sodden atmos- 
 phere of the earth's early ages had first raised 
 himself on his hind legs and knew himself lord 
 of his cousins, the beasts.
 
 224 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE TORTURE 
 
 AFTER all, as far as we could see, Sabini 
 was hauled up from his precarious 
 position without any worse injuries 
 than a few bad bruises and the shock 
 of his fall. And as the three, without a word for 
 us, retraced their steps along the ledge and 
 regained their camp, it appeared to us as a 
 ludicrous anti- climax to a valiant emprise. 
 
 " Curious thing," Greatheart remarked, 
 coming down into modernity with a sigh, " why 
 they didn't use their revolvers." 
 
 " The chairman of directors has more power 
 than we thought." 
 
 "No; I don't think that explains it," he 
 replied. " I imagine that if it had been you, or 
 any of the others, whom he found on guard, he 
 would have had as little compunction at potting 
 you as he had of shooting at Podmore. What 
 they're after now is to get me alive. They can't
 
 THE TORTURE 225 
 
 do anything without the clue, and that they know 
 I've got, or know the place where it is hidden." 
 
 All that day we waited for a sign from the 
 outside world ; but none came. Sabini, we saw, 
 had recovered sufficiently to take his turn at 
 sentry-go. 
 
 But in the afternoon a new development oc- 
 curred. I was idly watching the schooner, when 
 I saw that something untoward was happening 
 on board. I called the attention of the others to 
 it. It looked as if some dispute had broken out 
 on the deck. There seemed to be a struggle 
 between the members of the native crew; out 
 of which two natives hastily scrambled into the 
 ship's boat lying at the stern of the vessel and 
 almost frenziedly rowed ashore. Once on land 
 they made straight for the camp. There they 
 burst upon ithe three preparing their evening 
 meal. An excited volley of questions and 
 answers broke out. The next thing we saw was 
 the departure of the man named Bibb and the 
 youth, Cadwallader, with the natives. They 
 rowed to the ship. For the moment it looked 
 as if their reception at the hands of the excited 
 crew would be hostile. But the two white men 
 had their revolvers ready ; and, cowing the 
 natives, they climbed quickly up the ship's side, 
 kicked the nearest of the crew and soon had 
 them under control. About half an hour after-
 
 226 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 wards the chairman of directors got into the boat 
 and was rowed ashore again. Cadwallader was 
 staying on the schooner, as a precaution against 
 any further trouble. 
 
 " That leaves only two now," Greatheart said 
 with a satisfied sigh. 
 
 But things were not any better for us. The 
 provisions, despite our being put by the grocer 
 on rations, were diminishing more quickly than 
 we had expected. We suspected Podmore, but 
 had no proof. Even with a further reduced 
 ration we could not expect to hold out more than 
 three days more. And there was no welcome 
 break in the pitiless straight line of the horizon. 
 Unless relief came soon we should have to capi- 
 tulate if only for the sake of the women. 
 
 " There's only one thing for it," said Great- 
 heart, in the dismal pause that followed our 
 overhaul of the provisions, " I'll have to get 
 help." 
 
 " From that woman? " Miss Rice sneered. 
 
 " It's our only chance unless the relief vessel 
 arrives." 
 
 " But what could that creature do? " 
 
 " She could do anything," was the grocer's 
 solemn response. 
 
 Miss Rice became enigmatic. " That's 
 exactly what I think." 
 
 Podmore, dumbly offended at our open sus-
 
 THE TORTURE 227 
 
 picion of him, offered his peevish contribution. 
 " She's in league with them." 
 
 The grocer, deeply hurt, protested fiercely 
 against the imputation. 
 
 " Well," said Podmore, who could so easily 
 become nasty, "doesn't it look like it? Here 
 these scoundrels have been on the island for 
 days, shutting us up in the cave and firing at us 
 and all the time not a sign from her. Why is 
 she lying low, unless it is that she wants to see 
 us starved out? The whole thing is a plot 
 between her and them. They employed her 
 first to find out all about us ; and she's done it " 
 he glared at Greatheart " thanks to you . 
 Then " he silenced the grocer's interruption 
 with a ponderous wave of his fat, blistered hand 
 " they come along, and she leaves the field to 
 them. She was their spy. Now that she has 
 told them all about us she skulks in the back- 
 ground. When they go off into the bush they 
 go to meet her." 
 
 " How dare you ? " the grocer said, rising 
 majestically, or melodramatically, if you prefer 
 it. But, absurd as it may seem, his anger gave 
 him an heroic appearance. Remember, he had 
 heard another man insult the woman he loved ; 
 he had seen all that his soul held sacred 
 desecrated. He advanced upon Podmore. 
 
 Had we not intervened he might have 
 
 p 2
 
 228 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 battered that mass of flaccid flesh into pulp. 
 There was murder in his grocer's eyes. But 
 we calmed him down with our protestations of 
 utter belief in the lady. And Greatheart saw 
 again his idol set up in its shrine, untarnished. 
 
 " That settles it," said he solemnly. k ' I will 
 find her, and she will rescue us." 
 
 "That's impossible," I replied. "How are 
 you going to get past the sentry ? " 
 
 ' There's only two of them now. They won't 
 be able to keep so close a watch. I'll manage 
 to escape somehow. I may be captured, of 
 course; but it's our only chance." 
 
 I felt that the thing was impossible ; and yet 
 what else was left for us to do? By staying 
 here we would in the end have ignominiously to 
 capitulate. But to let Greatheart go was quite 
 out of the question for us. We could not run 
 the risk of allowing the enemy to capture our 
 captain. I felt sure that the others would agree 
 with me. I put it confidently to them. 
 
 " The rule with us is that in all disputes the 
 majority decides," I addressed myself specially 
 to the women. " You know the danger of this 
 forlorn hope. Will we let Greatheart risk his 
 life? Will we let him go?" 
 
 To my surprise the women remained doggedly 
 silent. The men, however, were with me. 
 Podmore vigorously insisted on Greatheart
 
 THE TORTURE 229 
 
 being prevented from deserting us for the 
 woman. Bisscop blithely suggested that if 
 anybody took the risk it should be a blighter 
 like himself, whose fate wouldn't matter. " And 
 I'd like to have a closer look at the lady," he 
 shamelessly admitted. 
 
 I expected a protest from Miss Liddicoat. 
 But she was absently smelling Cadwallader's 
 bouquet. 
 
 It was Miss Rice who gave the sex's decision. 
 " I think," she said deliberately, in a landlady's 
 voice, " that it would be better for everybody 
 if Mr. Greatheart went." 
 
 :c That's what I say, too," Miss Liddicoat 
 muttered. 
 
 ' Then it's a tie," I said. " Three votes on 
 each side. How are we going to settle it?" 
 
 ''Toss for it." The suggestion came from 
 Bisscop. " Only," he added, " we haven't got 
 anything to toss with." 
 
 " Oh," said Greatheart glumly, " if the votes 
 are even I'll stay." He turned away and went 
 into the cave to get his sleep before his midnight 
 watch. 
 
 Later on, the other men followed him. The 
 two women and myself, whose duty it was to 
 remain on guard, waited on the platform outside 
 the cave.
 
 230 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 " Why," I had to ask, when we were alone, 
 " did you vote for Greatheart to go ? " 
 
 Miss Rice was still the grim landlady. " Don't 
 you see what he's after ? " 
 
 Being a man I did not. 
 
 " It isn't us he's thinking about at all. We 
 could all starve, for all he cares. The only 
 thing he wants is to get back to that creature's 
 arms a^ain. He's worried over her. He 
 doesn' t know what's happened to her. He's 
 itching to meet her again to kiss her again 
 the beast! All his talk about our safety! He 
 cares nothing nothing for us, for any one of 
 us. Oh, I know how it is when that sort of 
 woman gets her arms round a man any man. 
 Well, let him go." 
 
 :< You send him back to her ? " I blindly said. 
 
 " No," Miss Rice said venomously. " He'll 
 never reach her. They'll capture him and 
 and " her voice was near to tears " I hope and 
 pray they do ! " 
 
 " So do I," her sister echoed forlornly. 
 
 So that was it jealousy! 
 
 An hour before it was Greatheart's turn to 
 stand guard over the cave he came quietly to my 
 side.
 
 THE TORTURE 231 
 
 ; ' Take that," he whispered, and thrust into my 
 hand a piece of paper. I knew at once it was 
 the precious clue. 
 
 "Why?" I whispered back. 
 
 " It's not safe with me after the fight." 
 
 ' You're going, after all ? " I had to ask, 
 though I knew. 
 
 ' Yes," he answered absently, looking up at 
 the silent circle of hooded hills. " I must go. 
 They might have killed her, the brutes! Or 
 
 captured her and " He shuddered. " And 
 
 me waiting here, like a hen in a fowl-yard, and 
 she calling and calling for me! Not a sign of 
 her all these days. She must be dead no ; she 
 cannot be dead. All the lithe, living, vibrant 
 wonder of that woman! No; she cannot slip 
 out of life like that. God wouldn't allow it." 
 
 :< Then it's true," I said, struck by the exalta- 
 tion of his language surely never grocer spoke 
 like that ? " What Miss Rice said is true, that 
 you're not going for our sakes ? " 
 
 ' You ? " he said impatiently, dropping from 
 his heights. " I never thought of you. How 
 could I when she's in danger. But," he 
 brightened ingenuously, " of course, it will bene- 
 fit you, too. I'll bring her back. We'll rescue 
 you. Tell Miss Rice that, won't you?" 
 
 "Don't be a fool," I said roughly. "You 
 talk like a child, like a boy in love. How are
 
 232 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 you going to get past the sentry at the foot of 
 the cliff without being seen, possibly shot ? " 
 
 " Man, you wouldn't stop me, would you, when 
 
 she ? Nothing can stop me. Coward I 
 
 was to wait so long. Don't you see how it all 
 had to be, how we were led together, she and I ? 
 Our ship was wrecked, just that she and I could 
 meet. And the raft, and the strange dis- 
 coveries, isn't it plain to you how all these 
 things have led me straight to her as if I had 
 been swirled along in a stream ? And now you 
 say that a tiny obstacle can keep us apart. 
 Nothing not even death could keep us 
 apart." 
 
 " And there he is Death," I said grimly, 
 "that chap standing sentry before the fire." 
 
 " Ah, I've thought of that. I've been scheming 
 about that ever since we've been shut up. But 
 while there were three of them it was impossible. 
 Otherwise. I wouldn't have funked it, for 
 one night. But now there's only two of them ; the 
 other man is kept on the ship. To-morrow 
 night he'll probably be back here again. So 
 this is my only chance. When it comes to the 
 solicitor's turn to keep watch he'll have to be 
 awakened. Now I've noticed that he sleeps 
 pretty soundly any man does at two in the 
 morning. Sabini has to go into the tent more 
 than once to rouse him. Last night he was off
 
 THE TORTURE 233 
 
 his beat for over a minute. And the minute he 
 steps inside the tent to-night I'm off." 
 
 I saw that it was useless to attempt to dissuade 
 him. He was in the swirl of the stream. And, 
 on consideration, I concluded that his project 
 had a possibility of success. 
 
 " And this? " I asked, fingering the clue. 
 
 '' Take charge of it, keep it safely. Better hide 
 it not on yourself. They must never get hold 
 of it. And if they overpower you, destroy it." 
 
 I promised ; and we waited, watching the man 
 below. Lit by the flames of the big fire he seemed 
 to us something inhuman, the reincarnation of a 
 mediaeval malignity. There might have been in 
 him some strain of the Borgias. I shuddered for 
 Greatheart if he fell into his cruel clutches. 
 
 At last, with a quick glance in our direction, 
 Sabini turned toward the tent. In that moment 
 the grocer was on his feet, crouched ready for his 
 adventure. As the Italian's figure disappeared 
 within the tent, Greatheart was already on his 
 way along the cliff ledge. I heard the raised 
 voice of Sabini, rousing his sleepy companion, 
 and the growling response of the sleep-dazed 
 man. The moments were precious now. Great- 
 heart had got to the end of the path and was 
 cautiously descending the cliff. I saw him 
 plainly in the light of the fire, his shadow pasted 
 black against the cliff.
 
 234 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 A dislodged stone clattered from his foot ; 
 and Greatheart, recognising now the uselessness 
 of secrecy, sprang down the cliff. But before 
 he reached the level Sabini was at the tent door, 
 his revolver raised. I shouted, in the vain hope 
 that I might distract his attention. He covered 
 the grocer with his weapon and staggered back. 
 
 The grocer had grabbed a large stone from 
 the debris and hurled it straight at his opponent. 
 It caught the Italian on the right shoulder, 
 momentarily confusing him. 
 
 Before Sabini could steady himself to take 
 aim, the grocer was running steadily toward the 
 sheltering darkness of the forest. 
 
 Sabini took two steps in pursuit, raised his 
 arm and fired. 
 
 I thought I saw Greatheart's form stagger and 
 sway. He stopped short, then, to my immense 
 relief, began to run again. The next instant I 
 had lost sight of him in the shadows of the bush. 
 
 I heard the Italian's quick curse. The 
 solicitor was behind him, fully awake. It took 
 Sabini only a minute to explain what had 
 happened, and then he set off in pursuit. But, 
 after running a few steps, he turned and rushed 
 back into the tent. A moment later he was out 
 again, with something in his hand. I guessed 
 that he had gone back for more cartridges. 
 
 As Sabini disappeared into the forest, the
 
 THE TORTURE 235 
 
 solicitor examined his revolver, piled fresh logs 
 on the fire and took up his position as sentry in 
 front of it. That was all. 
 
 I wondered what was happening in the 
 shrouded forest. Greatheart had got a start, 
 though a small one, and he knew his way. The 
 Italian, however, had nothing to do but to follow 
 the noise of Greatheart's blundering footsteps. 
 But he would go with caution. In the darkness 
 of the jungle the grocer might easily lie in wait 
 for him behind some big tree trunk and risk the 
 chances of a hand-to-hand struggle. On the 
 whole I thought that the grocer would get away 
 safely unless the first shot had seriously 
 wounded him. Yet, though he had staggered, 
 he had gone on again, as far as I could see, none 
 the worse. 
 
 I waited uneasily, blaming myself for having 
 let Greatheart go. No sounds, except the 
 interminable murmurings of night in the forest, 
 reached my anxious ears. At length I roused 
 Podmore, whose turn it had been to relieve our 
 leader, told him the facts and went to sleep. 
 
 I was wakened early next morning by the 
 others, a-clatter with questions. I learnt that 
 nothing had been seen of either men. This
 
 236 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 new news was disconcerting. It might imply 
 that Greatheart had made his escape, and that 
 Sabini was still on his track, or that the grocer 
 had surprised and killed his enemy and gone on . 
 
 But after breakfast we had certainty of a 
 painful sort. From the fringe of the bush, 
 horror-stricken, we saw the figure of our leader 
 emerge, followed by the Italian, revolver in 
 hand. And as Greatheart staggered wearily 
 into the open we saw that his right arm was 
 roughly bandaged against his chest, attached to 
 a piece of stick that served as a splint. And 
 the bandages slips torn from the bottom of 
 Sabini's trousers were red. 
 
 He had been wounded, either by that first 
 shot or a later one. His escapade had ended in 
 worse than mere failure : our leader was not only 
 lost to us, he was helpless in the hands of his 
 enemies. 
 
 As the piteous procession passed beneath our 
 eyrie Greatheart bravely raised his left arm and 
 waved to us. Sabini never raised his eyes from 
 his quarry. And at the tent the grocer collapsed 
 in the sand. Sabini watched him narrowly for 
 a minute, evidently suspecting a trick ; then, con- 
 vinced that his man had fainted, he bent down 
 and bound the unconscious man securely with 
 one of the ropes from the tent. Then, helped 
 by the other man, Sabini very thoroughly
 
 THE TORTURE 237 
 
 searched the body. He was rewarded with the 
 pocket-book. 
 
 '' The clue! " Miss Rice cried. " He always 
 carried it in his pocket-book." 
 
 " It isn't there now," I answered. " Look! " 
 
 The men examined their find eagerly. They 
 took out the few papers it contained, scanned 
 them carefully and flung them away. They 
 ripped the pocket-book open without further 
 discoveries. 
 
 ' They didn't find the suspender clasp," 
 Bisscop remarked. 
 
 " Of course not," Miss Rice enlightened him. 
 " He gave it back to the owner. But," turning 
 to me, " where did he put the clue ? " 
 
 " I've buried it in the cave, " I told her. " It's 
 quite safe from discovery." 
 
 We watched intently for the next move of the 
 enemy. They had confidently counted on find- 
 ing the clue on Greatheart. But the rebuff only 
 enabled us to see their determination. Sabini 
 waited until the prostrate man had recovered 
 consciousness, then roughly pulled him to his 
 feet, and half-led, half-pushed him to a small 
 tree near by. To its convenient trunk he bound 
 him firmly and there left him. They were not 
 going to allow him a chance of escape that was 
 evident. But, to our horror, we found they 
 meant more.
 
 238 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 What they did was obvious and simple. They 
 prepared their breakfast and it was a very good 
 breakfast. They lingered over the meal, chat- 
 ting languidly, and then with cigar and cigarette 
 they reclined in the shade of the tent. That 
 was all. 
 
 But the horror of that meal to us was their 
 apparent unconsciousness of the presence of 
 Greatheart. He was tied to the tree in full 
 sight of the open-air meal. They left him tied 
 to the tree. They did not even offer him a cup 
 of water. 
 
 We looked at each other furtively, uneasily. 
 We dared not speak our suspicions. There was 
 nothing to do but wait. 
 
 All that morning the grocer was left there. 
 The sun swung slowly higher; and the slight 
 shade that the thin foliage afforded him was but 
 a mockery of protection for his head. Just about 
 midday the Italian, strolling over to see that the 
 ropes had not worked loose, noticed that his 
 captive, to escape the steady vertical rays of the 
 sun, had twisted his weary body sideways to take 
 advantage of the slight shadow cast by an 
 overhanging bough. Sabini smiled, quickly 
 climbed the tree, using Greatheart's sagging 
 shoulders for foothold, and lopped off the upper 
 boughs. 
 
 Then we dared to look directly into each
 
 THE TORTURE 239 
 
 other's dreadful eyes. Sabini had determined 
 to make the grocer open his lips and tell him 
 where he had hidden the clue. Greatheart was 
 on the rack. He would stay there till he con- 
 fessed. 
 
 We had to look on helplessly. We were 
 cowards, you say. We should have made some 
 effort to rescue our leader before they killed him. 
 But we felt sure that no torture would make 
 Greatheart betray his secret. In our anguish 
 we launched a dozen different and absurd 
 schemes of rescue ; but our present safety made 
 any attempt at rescue impossible. Just as to 
 overpower us in the cave our assailants would 
 have to attack in single file, so if we attempted 
 to escape we should be exposed to the same dis- 
 advantage. And the enemy were armed, and, 
 as we had had abundant proof, were indifferent 
 to any brutality in the achievement of their ends. 
 Rather than let Greatheart escape they would 
 have no hesitation in shooting us one by one as 
 we emerged from the shelter of our rocks. And 
 we could emerge only one by one. Rescue was 
 impossible at least, by daylight. At nightfall, 
 we optimistically assured each other, there was 
 a bare chance. 
 
 So we had to watch, with a painful fascination, 
 the stubborn figure of the grocer, starving and 
 sun-smitten, limply erect, bound to his stake.
 
 240 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 At intervals, Sabini, immaculate in a clean suit 
 of white ducks, would stroll over and inspect his 
 victim. He would put his brief, careless ques- 
 tion to Greatheart, and get his brief, dogged 
 answer. Later in the afternoon, however, the 
 grocer had nothing for his torturer but a heavy 
 shake of his head. The muscles of his legs had 
 given way. His body, supported only by the 
 thin ropes that cut into his flesh, sagged like a 
 sack of potatoes. 
 
 It was when I saw him thus that I took my 
 determination. Nobody could be expected to 
 obey orders when a man was tortured thus. But 
 before I could speak Miss Rice anticipated me. 
 
 " It's only the clue they want. They'll let him 
 go if he gives it up. You know where you've 
 hidden it. Get it and throw it down to them." 
 
 " What's a piece of useless paper to us when 
 they're man-handling a decent chap like that ? " 
 Bisscop growled. 
 
 I slipped into the cave, unearthed the clue and 
 returned. I stood up from my shelter and 
 shouted to Greatheart. He raised his head 
 slowly. 
 
 "We give in," I shouted. "We've all 
 determined to give in." 
 
 He understood me. He knew that I meant 
 to give up the clue. 
 
 " No," he shouted with a strength that seemed
 
 THE TORTURE 241 
 
 astounding from the limp figure of that crucified 
 man. " Never! " 
 
 "But- -"I began. 
 
 " Give up now? " he cried. " Give up after all 
 this ! Why, help is on the way now. Yes," he 
 turned to Sabini, " help that you don't expect! " 
 
 Had he some knowledge of the woman? Or 
 had he but an inner surety that in his extremity 
 the woman would not fail him? We anxiously 
 debated it. 
 
 It was Miss Rice who had the final word. 
 " We'll wait till the night. He wishes it. He 
 commands it. We cannot prove unfaithful to 
 his belief in us. If he can suffer so much for so 
 trivial a thing, we would be unfaithful to the great 
 trust he has in us. He implores us to bear our 
 suffering, too. It is less than his. He is our 
 captain. If I were down there, bound to that 
 tree, instead of him, would he not expect me to 
 hold out? He knows best. But as soon as it 
 is dark we will rescue him." 
 
 So I waved reassuringly to Greatheart, and he 
 was content. We had not failed him. 
 
 Sabini and his companion had their evening 
 meal ; and at its conclusion our hopes suddenly 
 revived. It was apparent that the solicitor was 
 angry. Possibly he was getting uneasy for the 
 result of Sabini's course of action. Possibly he 
 had agreed with the Italian's diabolical sugges- 
 
 Q
 
 242 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 tion against his instincts. And now, plainly, 
 he had had enough of it. They had tried tor- 
 ture without any effect. No good could come of 
 continuing the experiment. The only outcome 
 would be a useless dead man on their hands. 
 
 So, at least, we from our height interpreted 
 that little drama. I do not know what argu- 
 ments, or what pressure, Sabini used to override 
 the other ; but the end of the dispute came with 
 the solicitor washing his hands of the whole 
 dirty business. We could see that physical 
 torture was not in the solicitor's little code. But 
 Greatheart was left crucified on his tree ; and the 
 night-watch began. 
 
 With the coming of the brief twilight the ten- 
 sion of the women's nerves broke. They were, 
 I believe, conscience-stricken. They had voted 
 for him to go ; and they saw now, in all its horror, 
 the altar of jealousy to which they had dedicated 
 their victim. 
 
 "Oh, and I sent him to this!" Miss Rice 
 moaned. 
 
 " No," Miss Liddicoat cried, " It was me ! " 
 
 " I'd rather he'd gone to that woman's kiss," 
 Miss Rice bravely spoke. 
 
 "Wait!" I strove to calm them. "It will 
 soon be dark; and then we'll rescue him, the 
 three of us." 
 
 " The five of us ! " the women cried.
 
 THE SHOP 243 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE SHOP 
 
 OUR plan of campaign was simple. At 
 the first sign of slackness on the part 
 of the enemy, we were to make our 
 rush. I was to lead, and Podmore 
 would follow close, with Bisscop behind. If 
 we could get well along the path before being 
 observed, there was a chance that one of us, 
 at least, might be able to get to close quarters ; 
 and with the support of the other two we 
 might win. We depended chiefly upon the 
 darkness and the suddenness of our rush to 
 discount the enemy's possession of fire-arms. 
 
 The weather was in our favour. The sun had 
 set gloriously, embattled with storm clouds. The 
 night promised either to be overcast or to end in 
 a fierce thunderstorm. 
 
 But first I had to see to the safe-guarding of 
 the precious clue. If anything happened to me it 
 might never be recovered. I decided to commit 
 the grocer's trust into the capable hands of Miss 
 
 Q 2
 
 244 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 Rice. For, of course, we had refused to let the 
 women take part in our rash venture. Lighting 
 one of the few remaining torches, I led her to the 
 remote corner of the cave where I had buried the 
 paper. I indicated the exact position of the 
 spot I had chosen, and pointed out to her that I 
 had smoothed and beaten down the earth to 
 obliterate all signs of its recent disturbance. 
 
 " But is it safe here ? " Miss Rice asked. " I 
 mean, mightn't it be spoiled by the earth it's 
 buried in stained and perhaps rendered illegi- 
 ble? It's difficult enough to read it as it is." 
 
 " Oh, I thought of that. I wrapped it care- 
 fully in a piece of cloth." 
 
 " What sort of cloth ? " she questioned, with 
 the housekeeping instinct. 
 
 " Just cloth. I found a bit of some material 
 here." 
 
 " But," she wondered, " how did a piece of 
 cloth come here ? " 
 
 " How do I know? " I impatiently answered. 
 " I had dug the hole, and feeling about I found 
 it on the ground. So I wrapped it up carefully 
 and buried the parcel." 
 
 Her curiosity seemed satisfied ; but after a 
 pause she suggested that it would be as well for 
 me to unearth the paper, so that she would be 
 quite certain of its whereabouts when she wanted 
 to get to it again.
 
 THE SHOP 245 
 
 It seemed a sensible suggestion. I pulled 
 away the soft earth and lifted the precious thing. 
 
 She took it eagerly. But it was the covering 
 that interested her. 
 
 ' That's curious," she muttered, examining it 
 by the light of the torch. " See, it glints." 
 
 It certainly did seem a curious bit of cloth. 
 
 " It's nothing that we've brought here/' she 
 said in an awed voice. " Look, it's inlaid with 
 with silver ! " 
 
 "Silver!" 
 
 We looked at each other with a surmise that 
 strangely excited us. " It's something," I said, 
 speaking our common thought, " left by the men 
 who buried the treasure. Then there is a 
 treasure. It's quite simple, after all. The men 
 who hid the treasure must have lived somewhere ; 
 and where else is so likely a spot for a camp as 
 this cave? That's it. They collected the stuff 
 and buried it ; and this bit of cloth wasn't valuable 
 enough to hide. I dare say there are other 
 fragments of their treasure left lying about even 
 in this cave, though unfortunately anything for- 
 gotten in the forest where they buried the stuff 
 would have soon decayed. Here anything is 
 preserved from the weather. Goodness knows 
 how long that bit of inlaid stuff has lain here. 
 Well, it proves that once this cave was inhabited, 
 and by white people."
 
 246 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 " I wonder ? " Miss Rice said, with that 
 
 blank look in the eyes that tells that the brain is 
 busy behind them. 
 
 The torch went out. 
 
 Whatever she wondered she kept to herself. 
 Her singed fingers took her whole attention. In 
 the dark we wrapped the paper up once more, 
 replaced it in its little hole, filled in the earth and 
 smoothed and tramped it level again. 
 
 " The secret's yours now," I said, as we groped 
 our way to the entrance of the cave. 
 
 "It will be safe with me," she answered. 
 
 On joining the group outside the cave we 
 heard good news. Sabini, evidently exhausted 
 by his pursuit of the night before, and urgently 
 in need of sleep, had gone to the tent, leaving 
 his partner to keep the first watch. But if we 
 had looked for any relaxation of vigilance on the 
 part of the solicitor we were disappointed. He 
 kept the fire burning evenly, and did not allow 
 his attention to stray for a minute from the exit 
 of the cave. It was evident that he expected 
 reprisals from us. And the lowering darkness 
 of the starless sky the storm still held off was 
 an added reason for watchfulness. 
 
 So we waited, growing more and more hope- 
 less, while that little sentry did his duty with a 
 pettifogging thoroughness. But, just when we 
 had decided to make our rush without care for
 
 THE SHOP 247 
 
 the inevitable consequences he had us in full 
 view the moment we rounded the projecting 
 point of our shelter a curious thing happened. 
 The solicitor, after piling some more wood on 
 the fire, picked up a pannikin, went to the edge 
 of the stream and filled it. As he was putting 
 the pannikin to his lips he turned sharply. 
 Something, some movement on the part of his 
 prisoner, perhaps an involuntary groan, had 
 recalled his attention to Greatheart's condition. 
 He hesitated a moment ; then, with the cup still 
 full, he stepped softly to the door of the tent and 
 peeped in. Evidently reassured by what he 
 saw, he stood a minute carefully scrutinising the 
 cliff, then quietly moved over in the direction of 
 Greatheart. 
 
 " The dear man ! " Miss Rice breathed. " He's 
 going to give him a drink." 
 
 " It's our chance! " I whispered, leaping up. 
 " Our only chance ! Come on ! " 
 
 " No," Miss Rice impulsively cried. " If you 
 disturb that man, Mr. Greatheart won't get the 
 water. And he's dying." 
 
 " But it is just to keep him alive so that he 
 can be tortured all over again to-morrow; and 
 I'm not going to stand the chance of that," 
 Bisscop fiercely answered. " I'm ready." 
 
 He pushed her aside. Podmore, rising un-
 
 248 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 willingly, came between us. The adventure 
 was to begin. 
 
 I crept quietly to the ledge, followed by the 
 two men. 
 
 The solicitor, on his errand of mercy, had for- 
 gotten us. He had, we guessed, found the 
 grocer sunk in a stupor of exhaustion, and was 
 attempting to force the water through his closed 
 lips. Certainly he was so busy in his effort to 
 revive his captive that we had some moments to 
 ourselves. I reached the end of the cliff track, 
 and was already beginning my cautious descent 
 down the rock when, surprised at not hearing the 
 others close behind me, I glanced back. In the 
 light of the fire I saw two blobs of black against 
 the cliff wall. Podmore had funked. He 
 crouched, a grotesque shadow, in the middle of 
 the path, while behind him Bisscop was pushing 
 him on. The fat man's fear held him motion- 
 less ; and the narrowness of the ledge prevented 
 Bisscop from passing him. Had Podmore been 
 a thin man the whole of our fortunes might have 
 been altered. Mere fat was the absurd obstacle. 
 
 There was nothing else to do but to go on 
 alone. There was no time to go back and help 
 the others. I descended the cliff with extreme 
 care, and got to the sloping debris at its foot 
 without discovery. 
 
 Then a curse rang out, echoing from the cliff.
 
 THE SHOP 249 
 
 Etched by the light of the fire against the black 
 opening of the tent stood Sabini, amazed. For 
 a moment I thought the last of our chances had 
 gone ; but his gaze was upwards, attracted by 
 those black blots on the face of the precipice. 
 The fire was luckily between him and me. 
 
 He fired. I heard a scream of agony, or 
 fear, from Podmore ; and then the sound of a 
 quick scuffle. Sabini fired again and a third 
 time. Then there was silence. 
 
 I had not time to discover whether Podmore 
 or Bisscop, or both, had been killed. For, with- 
 out attracting the Italian's notice, I had slipped 
 past the tent, out of his sight ; and, before the 
 last shot had echoed away into the forest, I was 
 safe, deep within the jungle. 
 
 I had escaped . But what to do ? I knew that 
 now the alarm had been raised there was no pos- 
 sibility for me single-handed to rescue Great- 
 heart. I hung round miserably for a while 
 and then my great inspiration came to me. I 
 would leave the grocer in the enemy's hands and 
 find the woman. 
 
 I see now that this was merely the most ob- 
 vious thing to do ; but it shows how incompetent 
 we were in the face of unforeseen difficulties that, 
 in all our discussions for the rescue of our leader, 
 no one had suggested trying to get reinforce- 
 ments from the mysterious woman. Yet the
 
 250 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 idea must have occurred to the women ; but they 
 did not mention it. I think I can understand 
 why. 
 
 Now, my resolution taken, I wasted not a 
 moment. Even in the thick blackness of the 
 bush I easily found my way to the beach, and, 
 after waiting some time listening vainly for any 
 sound of pursuit, with an exultant heart I ran 
 down the level sands. I had a great confidence 
 that I should find the woman and that her wit 
 would solve all our difficulties. That hope was 
 merely the reaction from my long confinement 
 in the cave, the joy that thrilled me as once again 
 I felt the spring in my muscles. 
 
 Of how in the darkness I found the glade 
 where Greatheart had met the girl, and the track 
 that he had taken with her through the sparser 
 bush inland, of how, in the dark, I even stumbled 
 upon one of the easy chairs mentioned by the 
 grocer, of how and with what difficulties and dis- 
 couragements I struggled on till the sudden 
 coming of the dawn, it is not necessary for me 
 here to retail. For me it was a night of eternity 
 during which I struggled desperately through 
 the chaos of a nightmare. 
 
 Dazed and exhausted, I remember toiling up a 
 sharp ascent, and as I topped the ridge I met the 
 straight stare of the risen sun. I hailed the life- 
 giver with exultation. I did not know how far
 
 THE SHOP 25^ 
 
 I had come ; but I saw that in the darkness I had 
 followed the track a track made like the strange 
 one to the peak, as if beaten down by an army 
 of marching men. 
 
 But I could not go on. I had to fling myself 
 down for the few minutes' rest that every spent 
 muscle in my body craved. 
 
 How long I traitorously slept I do not know ; 
 but I woke with an uneasy start, with the same 
 feeling that used to come to me when I had over- 
 slept and knew that I should be late at the office. 
 I opened my tired eyes, still with the sun smiting 
 them, upon a fantastic dream. 
 
 Advancing slowly toward me through the 
 glade came a tiger. Behind it rose up the 
 clumsy bulk of a huge grey elephant, gorgeously 
 caparisoned in scarlet. And seated on this 
 moving mountain, as if on an Eastern throne, was 
 the slim, strange, beautiful, fantastically arrayed 
 figure of the unknown girl! 
 
 Straight along the rays of the level sun they 
 came to me, moving from one dream into 
 another. The woman, haloed by the sun's 
 blinding disc, seemed to me some pagan goddess 
 descending in dreadful majesty to earth. A 
 mad impulse swept over me to bow my head 
 beneath this radiant splendour. But a moment
 
 252 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 later the great bulk of the elephant obscured 
 the sun, and the goddess took the humility of 
 human shape. I waited speechless and staring 
 as they solemnly moved up the slope, and, at 
 some signal from the girl, paused before me. 
 The tiger crept, like a great dog, to heel, 
 whining. The elephant towered over me. 
 And the girl, throned high on its broad neck, 
 looked down on me with a long, considering 
 gaze. And then I became aware of an un- 
 expected frailty in her slim figure and pale 
 face. So we stood silent, while what had 
 been before only a blurred picture took 
 shape to me, and while she, no doubt, revolved 
 in her mind the meaning of my unexpected 
 appearance. 
 
 The elephant bore on its back a tiny howdah 
 of crimson it seemed to me to be of velvet 
 inlaid with silver, and its trappings were of 
 leather richly dyed in sunset hues. The woman 
 I saw now that she was a mere girl was clad 
 in a shining cuirass of silver chain-work, so 
 moulded to her figure that it gave the effect of a 
 skin of silver scales. Slim and indescribably 
 supple she was, her breasts almost boyish in 
 their youthful salience. Images to describe her 
 flooded my excited brain. She had the slight, 
 curving beauty of the young moon, the bending 
 lissomness of a sapling eucalypt, the long-
 
 THE SHOP 253 
 
 petalled grace of a flannel flower. Her head 
 was swathed in a turban of rich scarlet, jewelled 
 with I know not what magnificence of gems, 
 framing a face that startled me by its utter lack 
 of Eastern contour. I had expected a princess 
 of the Orient, some tawny queen ; I saw the face 
 of an Australian girl, paler than the hue of a 
 surf -bather. 
 
 Her skirt was a lacy thing of grey, and as she 
 bestrode the elephant's neck I saw her boyish 
 legs. Her stockings were of grey silk, and on 
 her narrow feet were little flat-soled shoes of 
 silver. And in her belt were grotesquely stuck 
 two serviceable revolvers, and in her hand she 
 held a steel javelin. 
 
 " Why did you come ? " she asked at last, 
 sweeping me with her narrow eyes. 
 
 I blurted out my story. She listened with a 
 slowly freezing horror on her face. 
 
 "Torturing him!" she broke out. li Tor- 
 turing him now! And I was coming to him. 
 Quick!" 
 
 She said a word to the elephant. It sank 
 clumsily to its knees. She put out a little, 
 capable hand and helped me to climb to the 
 gaily decorated howdah. Then the march 
 began, the tiger gambolling ahead, the girl 
 guiding and hastening the elephant's slow pro- 
 gress, I uncomfortably rocking on the cushioned
 
 254 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 seat of my cage. A strange procession we must 
 have seemed. I could not help happily won- 
 dering what effect it would have on Sabini and 
 Mr. Solicitor Bibb. 
 
 ;f You wonder why I didn't know ? " the girl 
 challenged me at last. " I've been ill, very ill, 
 ever since I met him. But I never guessed that 
 he was in trouble ; and I knew he would come 
 for me in the end. But this morning I found 
 myself well again, and I threw aside my pride 
 my longing was too great and set out to meet 
 him. Strangers on my island! I do not allow 
 strangers on my island ! " 
 
 She said it with her regal air, her brow straight 
 with decision. And yet she looked so young. 
 
 ' You allowed us" I said. 
 
 "Yes, because he was with you. But even 
 you I was going to send away." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because I do not need you." 
 
 " We were only too anxious to go," I ex- 
 plained somewhat hotly. Now that I sat above 
 her, I saw in her no strange goddess, but only a 
 beautiful, wilful girl. "And," I added, "with- 
 out me what would you have known ? " 
 
 :< Yes," she admitted without discomposure, 
 " you were very useful . But I think you were 
 asleep, weren't you ? " 
 
 I admitted my lapse.
 
 THE SHOP 255 
 
 " Ah, but," she said, with a glance of sympathy 
 from her long, narrow eyes, "you had been all 
 night struggling through the bush. I'm sorry I 
 said that. But your news is so terrible . You'll 
 forgive me, won't you ? " 
 
 I did not wonder any longer about Great- 
 heart's fascination. I did not wonder even 
 about mine. 
 
 " They can't kill him before we get there, can 
 they?" she broke out anxiously. "No; that 
 would be impossible. He is too great a man to 
 be killed by such scum." 
 
 " I think he is the greatest man I've ever met," 
 I said. 
 
 ic Yes, I know," she almost snapped. She 
 did not need the assurance of any outsider. 
 
 Then there was a long spell of silence, while 
 the elephant methodically threaded its way along 
 the winding track. You cannot hurry ele- 
 phants ; but I knew that she was chafing at the 
 slowness of our progress. But no elephant can 
 keep up with a woman's thoughts when they run 
 ahead to her beloved. I roused myself, for the 
 motion of the howdah was lulling me, already 
 exhausted by lack of sleep, into a dangerous 
 drowsiness. Soon I should need all my wits. 
 I determined to make her speak, to make her 
 forget, perhaps, the thing that was being done 
 to her lover.
 
 256 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 "Who are you?" I asked. "And what are 
 you doing here ? " 
 
 " I'll tell you," she answered eagerly, glad to 
 interrupt with speech the dreadful imaginings 
 of her silence. " But didn't he tell you? " 
 
 " He could tell me nothing." 
 
 " No ; now I remember he did not ask me any- 
 thing about myself. And there was no need. It 
 was not necessary. I was there, and he had come 
 to me. That night! That silver magical night! " 
 
 Her lips even to a tired sub-editor, most 
 kissable lips seemed to savour that magic 
 again. I waited till the remembering look had 
 died in her softened eyes. Then, with a resent- 
 ful sigh, she came back to the prosaic day. 
 
 " I was shipwrecked here like you about 
 six months before you came, you must have 
 heard of the Oxford^ wrecked about here ? " 
 
 My sub-editorial memory leapt back to a 
 series of telegrams from Darwin, first that the 
 Oxford was overdue, then that wreckage had 
 been discovered, and at last that vessels were 
 detailed to search. But nothing was found 
 except more wreckage. It was ultimately con- 
 cluded that the vessel had gone down with all 
 hands in the height of a big monsoon. No 
 survivors, nor any evidence of them, were ever 
 discovered. There was something else about
 
 THE SHOP 257 
 
 the Oxford that I could not recall some detail 
 about the nature of her cargo. 
 
 I told the girl what I knew. " But they made 
 a thorough search and there were no survivors." 
 
 : ' There were three survivors." 
 
 " And the other two died? " I asked. 
 
 "Oh no; they're here." She pointed to the 
 tiger and lightly tickled the elephant's leathery 
 ear. 
 
 "Ah," I said, "now I remember. The 
 Oxford was carrying a big consignment of 
 wild animals," 
 
 " Yes ; it was a circus ship. We were coming 
 down from Singapore with a lot of animals for 
 Furth's Australian Circus. Animals in cages 
 for the menagerie, you know. We struck a 
 rock one night in a big storm and went to pieces 
 before the boats could be launched. As soon 
 as I guessed we had no hope I collared my 
 mother's keys and opened all the animals' cages 
 I could reach in the time. I determined that 
 the poor things should have their chance along 
 with us. I don't know how it happened, but 
 when I was washed overboard the first thing I 
 saw was the elephant wading ashore. You see, 
 the water was deep enough to drown us, but not 
 an elephant. I hung on to his tail. It was 
 quite easy, like being towed ashore. And when 
 he dragged me up on the beach I let go, and 
 
 R
 
 258 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 something big and wet came up to me and licked 
 my face. It was the tiger my tiger. You 
 see, it felt lonely and frightened on the island 
 by itself. It had never been outside of its cage 
 before. It seemed to know that something was 
 wrong when there were no bars in front of it; 
 and it was glad to find a familiar face. It had 
 been born in a cage, and so had its mother before 
 it. I had been training him for a month. 
 Mother had given him to me for a pet." 
 
 " But," I said, with an apprehensive glance at 
 the barred beautiful thing sniffing the air before 
 us, " what do you want with pets that size ? " 
 
 " It's my profession," she smiled. " Mother 
 was a lion-tamer for Furth's Circus. Didn't 
 you ever see her big act with six lions in the cage 
 at the same time? It was the biggest draw 
 Furth's ever had. But mother was ambitious. 
 Lions are stupid beasts ; what she wanted was 
 to do an act with a whole menagerie of all kinds 
 of wild animals. And as she was rather run 
 down after her year with the lions she had a 
 nervous breakdown after that night in Ballarat 
 when one lion had indigestion and mauled her, 
 and she had to shoot him the boss gave her 
 this sea trip to Burmah for a rest. And, of 
 course, she took me with her. And now," she 
 sighed, "she's drowned with the rest of them." 
 
 I waited till she should speak again.
 
 THE SHOP 259 
 
 " Poor mother," she murmured. " But none of 
 us in our profession ever expect to qualify for our 
 old age pension. Animal training is a risky 
 game. A little thing like indigestion or tooth- 
 ache worries them, and then you've got to look 
 out. But it's exciting, and the feeling of mas- 
 tery oh, I can't describe it! It was that that 
 attracted me. I used to enjoy mother's acts 
 as much as anybody in front. I was born in 
 the circus when Furth's was a little one- 
 waggon, one-tent concern in the Australian 
 backblocks, mooching along from one up- 
 country show to another with one-night stands 
 whenever we sighted a pub. Why, I was help- 
 ing in the acrobatic turns being thrown by my 
 uncle from one trapeze to my brother on another, 
 and being twirled round and round on my uncle's 
 legs almost as soon as I could walk. But, 
 even as a child, the animals used to fascinate 
 me. They always liked me, too. Mother used 
 to take me into the cages with her when she was 
 rehearsing, and let me pat the lions. Lions are 
 lovely things to pat they love being teased and 
 are always ready for games. But I like tigers 
 better. You can stroke a tiger's fur the wrong 
 way and hear him purr. Why, the minute I saw 
 him, I took a fancy to Fido." 
 
 ;< To who? " I asked, startled out of grammar. 
 
 " Fido ! " she smiled, pointing to the great 
 
 R 2
 
 26o GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 striped beast loping along at the elephant's feet. 
 "He was only a cub then, and so playful. 
 He's quite a baby still." 
 
 " But he looks such a nasty-tempered brute," 
 I said. 
 
 " Oh, it's part of his training to make him look 
 fierce. The public like it." 
 
 " Still," I objected, " even if his mother was 
 born in captivity, what is to prevent him remem- 
 bering some day his grandmother who wasn't 
 born in a cage ? " 
 
 " Animals do," she conceded. " That's what 
 we've always to be on the look out for ; but, 
 really, it's usually indigestion. There's always 
 some risk, of course, but" her glance dwelt 
 tenderly on the tiger " not Fido ! " 
 
 " But how did you manage on the island by 
 yourself? " I asked, remembering our difficulties. 
 
 " Not by myself," she reminded me. "I had 
 Fido and Peter." She touched the great sag- 
 ging flap of the elephant's ear. " Peter was 
 such a help. Oh, we got on all right. When 
 the ship broke up, heaps and heaps of wreckage 
 drifted ashore. Dead bodies, too I was bury- 
 ing them for days men and animals. I didn't 
 care to put temptation in Fido's way. Curious 
 thing, I never set eyes on the hippopotamus 
 and you know hippopotamuses can swim. I 
 expect the salt water killed the poor dear. Oh,
 
 THE SHOP 261 
 
 I've always been able to look after myself. Had 
 to, in my profession. I made a camp over there 
 Peter was such a help in lugging things about 
 for me and Fido, of course, was company." 
 
 " But how did you feed them ? " 
 
 " Elephants don't need to be fed not when 
 they can breakfast on a tree or two. And, 
 luckily for Fido, I found case after case of bully- 
 beef you know, soldiers' rations among the 
 wreckage on the beach. I've got a whole shed 
 full of it over at the camp. Such a lot of useful 
 things came ashore the whole ship must have 
 broken up. I even got a gramophone. I fixed 
 it up in the bush just above my camp ; and when- 
 ever I felt lonely all I had to do was to wind it 
 
 up and play " 
 
 ' Lohengrin ' ! " I cried, a light breaking in 
 on me. 
 
 "How did you know?" 
 
 " Some of us heard it. We thought it was a 
 brass band." 
 
 "So it was. A lovely record, wasn't it ? Some 
 of the other records were spoiled by the salt 
 water." 
 
 " But we thought there was really a brass band 
 here." 
 
 " On my island ? " she laughed. " It must be 
 a better record than I thought." 
 
 " And why," I asked boldly, determined to get
 
 262 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 at the bottom of the mysteries, " do you wear 
 these clothes ? " 
 
 " Well," she shot a look at me, " why do you 
 wear those? Exactly," she answered for me, 
 " because you haven't got any others. That's the 
 case with me. The few things I got ashore in 
 were worn out months ago ; but luckily I saw 
 the trunk containing my professional clothes 
 stranded in the shallows, and Peter fetched it 
 in for me hardly damaged at all. I saved them ; 
 and at last there was nothing for me to do but 
 make shift with them. And this morning I put 
 on my smartest dress, and Peter's most swagger 
 harness, because I was going to meet him. Any 
 girl would. And," she looked eagerly ahead, 
 " in another half-hour we'll be there ! " 
 
 In the tense silence that followed, for the girl's 
 imagination had flown eagerly ahead to her 
 lover, I pieced together the missing parts of the 
 other puzzles of the island. That strange track, 
 for instance, made by some gigantic force 
 through the forest to the peak, was made by the 
 elephant, carrying the ship's spar on its back. 
 But here I came to a dead end. 
 
 " Why did you cut the flagpole down after 
 erecting it on the peak?" I asked. 
 
 "Because I didn't want it up. It was too 
 conspicuous. People might notice it." 
 
 " You didn't want to be rescued ? "
 
 THE SHOP 263 
 
 " Oh, yes, I did at first. I cried and cried, 
 first for poor mother and then at my loneliness. 
 There were whole days when I wouldn't speak 
 a word to Peter or Fido. Then I determined 
 to get back to Australia. I made Peter take 
 that spar to the top of the mountain and built 
 two bonfires, one up there and one down by my 
 camp. But then I don't know how it hap- 
 pened I began to get more contented. I 
 liked the life. I had plenty of provisions, and 
 could get plenty more ; and I had made myself 
 pretty comfortable. Why, I've got easy chairs 
 like those " she pointed to the two seats by the 
 track that I had found in the night-" all over 
 the island, in my favourite spots. There must 
 have been a huge cargo of them on board. 
 
 " Then one day I made up my mind. I had 
 everything I wanted. I had had a hard life 
 circus life isn't all spangles I was my own 
 mistress. I could do as I liked. And I owned 
 an island of my own. So I cut down that flag- 
 staff and decided to stay where I was." 
 
 " But your people at home, your ties ? Weren't 
 there relations or friends that you would have 
 liked to see again ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes. There were times in the even- 
 ings when there was a big moon when I almost 
 cried to go back, even though mother was dead. 
 But Peter was always kind and comfortable, and
 
 264 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 Fido was always ready for some rough and 
 tumble fun. But on those moonlight nights 
 I've wished my heart out to be back, just for a 
 day, to be back in old Woolloomooloo." 
 
 " Back where ? " I gasped, almost falling from 
 the howdah. 
 
 "Woolloomooloo. It's part of Sydney. 
 Don't you know it? That's where my married 
 sister lives. She married a bus-driver he's a 
 cabman now. She's got two of the duckiest 
 kids such tricks! I ever saw. Funnier than 
 tiger cubs, though you've got to handle 'em 
 more carefully. They're so easy to break, so 
 soft; and they bump so easily. I used always 
 to stay at Flo's place when the circus was laid 
 up or in Sydney. And, one year, when I was 
 only a kid, I had a bad fall practising uncle 
 let me drop and I broke my ankle. It took a 
 long time to mend, so I stayed at Flo's all that 
 year. I loved that life after the hard work of 
 the circus. And circus life is so dull, isn't it? 
 Practising all the day and being moved on. So, 
 after the circus, I found life in Woolloomooloo 
 wildly exciting. I used to play with the other 
 kids in the streets; we used to make up great 
 games, and I trained some of 'em to do some of 
 my easiest tricks. And then there were all the 
 shop-windows to look in and pick out the things 
 you'd buy if you had a million pounds. But
 
 THE SHOP 265 
 
 there was one shop I liked best of all. You 
 didn't need a million pounds for it. You just 
 went in and asked the grocer for a lolly, and he'd 
 give you a bag full. At least, he always used 
 to give 'em to me. The other girls would send 
 me in to get lollies for them. He was such a 
 dear little grocer." 
 
 " What was the name of the shop ? " I asked 
 eagerly. " I know Woolloomooloo pretty well." 
 
 " Oh, we just called it the grocer's shop. Let 
 me see. It stood at a corner. Great Great- 
 head no. Ah, Greatheart! That's his name. 
 I was very fond of him. If ever I do get back to 
 Woolloomooloo the first thing I'll do, after I've 
 kissed the kids, will be to take them round to that 
 grocer's and buy lollies for them. And I'll tell 
 the grocer who I am. But," she sighed, " I'll 
 never go back now." 
 
 " Listen! " she cried a moment after. " Can't 
 you hear the surf? The beach is just beyond 
 that ridge. Oh, pray God, we're in time! "
 
 266 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE GROCER 
 
 OUR arrival at the field of combat was 
 dramatic enough for the last act of a 
 melodrama. 
 
 Before we entered the scrub from 
 the beach the girl, who had handed me one of 
 her loaded revolvers, pointed back to the 
 schooner at anchor. 
 
 " They've seen us," she exclaimed. " We'll 
 have to be quick, or else there'll be more to 
 fight. Look! They're putting off in a boat! " 
 
 Indeed, if the sight of a procession of a tiger 
 and an elephant carrying a couple of figures 
 startled the observers on the vessel, our stately 
 entrance from the scrub toward the camp must 
 have struck dismay into the hearts of such men 
 as Sabini and Bibb. 
 
 The two men were at their midday meal. 
 My first glance was for Greatheart. He was 
 still bound to his tree ; but there was no move- 
 ment in that limp figure to tell us whether he
 
 THE GROCER 267 
 
 was still alive. The two men were not eating; 
 they had the suspended attitude of men startled 
 by some inexplicable sound. They had heard 
 the crashing noise of the elephant's clumsy pro- 
 gress through the bush. As they caught sight 
 of us they sprang to their feet, amazed, and in 
 the case, at least, of Bibb, terror-stricken. 
 
 In a flash Sabini had whipped out his revolver 
 and fired at the tiger. The shot must have 
 grazed the animal, for with a snarl of rage it 
 leapt. 
 
 The girl screamed a sharp command ; but the 
 tiger, maddened by its wound, had forgotten the 
 lessons of its lifelong captivity. It was once 
 again a wild animal, thirsting for the blood of its 
 ancestral enemy. Sabini fired blindly again, 
 missed the beast, and then, with a cry of despair, 
 turned to run. 
 
 Then things happened in a heap. The 
 elephant lumbered forward, and I saw Bibb, 
 almost paralysed by fright, fire point blank. 
 From my height it looked like a man firing at an 
 avalanche. Certainly the bullet had as much 
 effect. Then, flinging away his futile revolver, 
 he dodged behind the tent and disappeared. 
 And at that moment the tiger leapt and brought 
 the flying Italian softly down to earth as one 
 would catch a floating ball of thistledown. For 
 a moment I had a glimpse of the animal above
 
 268 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 the prostrate, wriggling body, stroking it and 
 cuffing it into quietness as a cat plays with a 
 fluttering bird. Then I remembered the boat 
 from the schooner and the disappearance of the 
 solicitor. 
 
 I slipped down from the elephant it was like 
 sliding off the roof of a house and took the 
 shortest route for the beach. I heard the 
 solicitor ahead of me crashing in his blind fear 
 through the undergrowth. When I broke out 
 from the scrub I saw him well ahead of me, run- 
 ning with a fleetness that in so little and so old 
 a man amazed me. But if fear sped his feet 
 the goal ahead gave him wings. 
 
 For there, close to the beach, I saw the boat 
 from the schooner, being rowed by two natives, 
 with Cadwallader at the rudder. The sight of 
 the escaping Bibb and me in hot pursuit made 
 the youth stimulate the oarsmen's efforts ; and 
 before I could reach my quarry the boat was 
 almost beached. 
 
 With a last, desperate effort, the solicitor 
 waded through the shallows and was pulled 
 hurriedly on board, gasping his astonishing 
 news. Cadwallader proved himself quick in 
 action. He gave his order, and the boat swung 
 round and was twenty yards from the shore 
 before I pulled up, panting.
 
 THE GROCER 269 
 
 "What the hell's the row?" Cadwallader 
 shouted. 
 
 " Only that you've got notice to quit," I re- 
 plied, keeping a careful look out for any attempt 
 on his part to " pot " me. 
 
 "Where's Sabini?" 
 
 :< The tiger got him." It was Bibb who 
 volunteered this information. "A ferocious 
 tiger, eating him, my God ! " 
 
 "Dead?" Cadwallader asked. 
 
 " Expect so," I answered. 
 
 "Well," he said instantly, "if there's the 
 remotest chance of him being alive I'm coming 
 back to find out." 
 
 He turned to the oarsmen, but Bibb inter- 
 vened. 
 
 " He's dead," the solicitor cried. " If you go 
 back they'll kill you, too. They'll kill us all. 
 They've got a tiger and an elephant and a a 
 devil!" 
 
 " All the same," Cadwallader retorted, " I'm 
 not going to leave Sabini, dead or alive, in their 
 clutches murderous brutes ! " 
 
 "If you make the slightest attempt to ap- 
 proach," I warned him, with my revolver ready, 
 " I'll fire." 
 
 He debated a long minute with himself ; and 
 at last looked up with a laugh. He knew that, 
 firing from a rocking boat, he would be at a cruel
 
 2;o GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 disadvantage with an armed man on shore, and 
 that in an attempt to beach the boat I could 
 easily account for the lot of them. 
 
 " All right," he called, with a valiant attempt 
 at unconcern. 'You're on top just now; but 
 look out ! " 
 
 To Bibb's blubbering relief he gave the order 
 to return to the schooner. I stood and watched 
 the boat till I saw its occupant clamber on board 
 the ship. Then, tired out, I returned to the 
 camp. 
 
 The first thing I saw as I emerged from the 
 scrub was the elephant, at his ease, making a 
 light meal off the tree tops. There was no sign 
 of the tiger. Stretched in front of the tent, 
 where he had been struck down, lay the body of 
 the Italian, dead. The tiger had mauled him 
 dreadfully. And, bending over the limp, 
 huddled figure of Greatheart, was the girl, in 
 tense agony, without a sob. 
 
 I ran up to her. She was trying to force him 
 to drink from a pannikin of water. His livid 
 lips were tightly shut. I hurried back to the 
 tent, avoiding looking at the dreadful figure of 
 Sabini, ransacked the tent stores and discovered 
 what I had sought a bottle of whisky. Between 
 the girl and myself we got the grocer's mouth
 
 THE GROCER 271 
 
 open and poured the stimulant down it. A slight 
 quiver of the muscles was our reward. 
 
 We watched in silence. At last we saw Great- 
 heart open his bloodshot eyes. His vacant gaze 
 wandered over our faces without recognition; 
 and then a spark of intelligence came into his 
 eyes. He remembered the girl. He strove to 
 say something. The parched lips moved ; that 
 was all. But the girl, on her knees, bent down 
 and kissed him with lips that seemed by their 
 youthful vitality to challenge the grim beckoning 
 of Death. And Greatheart, with a tired child's 
 sigh, sank back to unconsciousness pillowed by 
 the woman's strong arm. 
 
 " He's only exhausted," I said. " He's on 
 the mend now." 
 
 " Look how his poor flesh is cut by those 
 cruel ropes," she murmured, infinitely tender. 
 Then, with a cruel twitch of her lips that shocked 
 me, " The beasts ! I'm glad that the tiger killed 
 him ; but, oh, if Fido had not been so quick about 
 it ! I didn't want that fiend killed just yet. He 
 was lucky ! " 
 
 A shadow fell athwart us. I looked up and 
 found, to my relief, that it was only Bisscop 
 standing over us. But behind him, all silent at 
 gaze, stood a flabby Podmore and two appre- 
 hensive women. 
 
 " I say," cried Bisscop ecstatically, " it was a
 
 2;2 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 ripping fight, what ? Never saw such a clean-up 
 in one round in my bally life." 
 
 " But what's become of the tiger ? " Podmore 
 asked uneasily, glancing fearfully round. 
 
 "He slipped away into the bush," the girl 
 glanced up to say. " I drove him off the body ; 
 and I dare say he was tired and has gone to have 
 a sleep." 
 
 "Oh, and our poor Mr. Greatheart!" Miss 
 Rice cried, on her knees beside the prostrate 
 man. 
 
 " Don't you touch him! " the girl hissed. 
 
 The two women struck at each other with their 
 fierce, jealous eyes across the body vindictive 
 rapier strokes of glances and then Miss Rice 
 rose dazedly to her feet, like a whipped dog. 
 
 The girl had forgotten her rival. She was 
 leaning close to the man's face now, crooning a 
 kind of baby-talk into his heedless ears. It hurt 
 me to hear such mother-intimacy. 
 
 And in the silence that followed a woman's 
 scream rang out. It was Miss Liddicoat. 
 
 In an instant the girl, her eyes blazing, had 
 leapt to her feet. And yet I noticed how gently 
 she had removed her arm from Greatheart's 
 head. 
 
 "How dare you, you !" she whispered. 
 
 "You'll disturb him."
 
 THE GROCER 273 
 
 Miss Liddicoat shuddered, clutched the quail- 
 ing Podmore and pointed, with averted eyes. 
 
 Out of the shadows of the jungle came slink- 
 ing the great barred tiger. But Miss Liddicoat 
 had nothing to be afraid of now. The tiger was 
 the incarnation of a penitent cat caught stealing 
 the milk. He had had time, there in the bush, 
 with the memory of his mistress's angry face, to 
 reflect on his sins. He came anxiously toward 
 our group, cringing and imploring pardon in 
 every meek curve of his body. 
 
 The girl stepped out to meet him. And as 
 the animal, divided between fear and love for his 
 mistress, came fawning up to her she looked 
 him straight in his wavering, pitiable eyes. The 
 tiger read the message there. He whined 
 piteously, imploringly. He would have turned 
 to slink off again with his shame, but he dared 
 not take his eyes from her face. He paused, 
 one conciliatory paw half-raised. 
 
 Deliberately the girl shot her pet behind the 
 ear and leapt swiftly to one side to escape the 
 beast's last convulsive spring. It sank to earth 
 and crumpled over, with a final lash of its great 
 striped tail. 
 
 For one instant the girl looked down on the 
 tremendous chaos she had wrought ; in the next 
 she was on the body, sobbing heart-brokenly, 
 her weak hands feebly stroking his beautiful fur.
 
 2/4 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 We left her there with her pet. 
 
 And at last she came to us, wiping with a weak 
 hand the tears from her eyes. And she had 
 shed no tear over the unconscious form of the 
 grocer. 
 
 " Poor Fido," she said, " I had to do it. He 
 had tasted blood ; he had found out how easy it 
 was to kill a man. I should never have been 
 
 sure of him afterwards. He remembered " 
 
 She turned to me. ;< You were right; he re- 
 membered his ancestors. I had no choice. He 
 had got out of hand once. He would never 
 forget that. And he came, sorrowful and peni- 
 tent, to take his whipping! Poor Fido, he did 
 not suffer long. But that last pleading look in 
 his eyes. He knew then. And the paw he put 
 out for the handshake ! That was the first trick 
 I taught him, when he was a tiny baby." 
 
 We men had a double task to do that after- 
 noon, while the girl, snarling like a cat if any 'of 
 us came near her, tended the sick man. We 
 sent the women away on the pretext of keeping 
 a watch over the schooner, and buried the torn 
 body of Sabini in one grave and that of his 
 slayer in another. And the women, returning, 
 having guessed our intent, brought with them 
 white flowers with which they strewed the grave
 
 THE GROCER 275 
 
 of our enemy. When she saw this, the girl, 
 committing the still unconscious Greatheart to 
 my care, went swiftly into the jungle and returned 
 with her arms full of pale blossoms, which she 
 heaped defiantly above the grave of the tiger. 
 
 Then she took up her watch over Greatheart. 
 He was sunk in a deep stupor of exhaustion, 
 from which the girl and I woke him at intervals 
 to force through his lips tiny portions of nourish- 
 ment. Miss Rice hovered wistfully in the 
 background a mother cruelly deprived of her 
 babe. 
 
 Toward evening he showed signs of wakening, 
 and began to mutter in his sleep. At first his 
 disjointed ravings were unintelligible ; but soon 
 I recognised some coherency in his words. And 
 I listened, absurdly shamefacedly, while the 
 unconscious man bared his grocer's soul. 
 
 " And the next, madam ? I can recommend 
 that brand of pickles. Use 'em myself. A 
 penny cheaper than the old brand you've been 
 complaining about. . . . Any candles, miss, 
 or soap ? We've got a new washing soap . Saves 
 all the rubbing of the clothes. Will you try a 
 bar? . . . Tea? One and sixpence. . . . 
 Charge it up, miss? Very well, but tell your 
 mother the account for last month is still due. 
 . . . Out of work, is he? Well, well. . . . 
 And the next, madam? . . . Honey-balls, 
 
 s 2
 
 2;6 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 little girl? There, there, never mind the penny. 
 Keep it for a toy. But don't you go telling the 
 other kiddies, or I'll be bankrupt. It's only 
 because your face is so clean. Now, now, run 
 away. . . . Sorry, sir, but your order has been 
 overlooked. Should have gone out on the cart, 
 yesterday's delivery. I've spoken severely to 
 the lad. What's that? I couldn't speak 
 severely to anyone, eh ? You just ask my wife ! 
 . . . Eggs bad, madam? Impossible. Oh, 
 you've got one there to show me. Phew ! No ; 
 don't leave it on the counter. I shan't charge 
 you for that dozen. . . . Bacon stringy ? Never 
 had a complaint about our bacon before. Bacon 
 needs careful cooking, that's all. . . . We do 
 our best, madam, but accidents will happen, 
 won't they? And this hot weather is so trying 
 for butter, isn't it? And there's a drought on 
 the South Coast, and we have to pay an extra 
 penny a pound. But, at the price, you won't 
 get better butter in a city shop. And the next, 
 miss? . . ." 
 
 In his delirium Greatheart had relapsed into 
 the grocer. His voice had the cringing suavity 
 that belongs behind the counter. We listened 
 sorrowfully. But I had a deeper anxiety. Did 
 the girl recognise in the stricken form of her 
 lover the grocer in Woolloomooloo who had 
 given a little girl lollies for nothing ?
 
 THE GROCER 277 
 
 I need not have worried. She took these 
 mutterings of his as the ravings of a man dis- 
 traught. She could never see the grocer in 
 him; she loved him. 
 
 Miss Rice, by this time a raving fury, had no 
 qualms. The girl had torn Greatheart from 
 her. No mercy would be shown. 
 
 " Fancy," she said loudly, " the poor man 
 remembering that he is " 
 
 It was Greatheart who prevented the dis- 
 closure. He opened his eyes wide and they 
 were the eyes of a sane man, without a hint of 
 the grocer. 
 
 " You ! " he gladly sighed, as he saw the girl. 
 
 She bent down and kissed him on the lips, 
 shamelessly, daring us, with a flashing look, to 
 blame her. I didn't nor do I think Miss Rice 
 did. The boarding-house keeper turned deso- 
 lately away. She admitted defeat. 
 
 The girl soothed the man with a gesture that 
 was all motherly. " Hush, dearest, you've been 
 very ill." 
 
 " And the clue ? " he muttered eagerly. " It's 
 safe. They didn't get it." 
 
 " I've hidden it safe," I assured him. 
 
 " Ah, that's good," he murmured, and with the 
 suddenness of the invalid he relapsed into sleep. 
 This time, as we anxiously watched, we saw that
 
 278 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 it was a sound and natural sleep. Greatheart 
 would recover. 
 
 As, in Greatheart's condition, it was impossible 
 to remove him to the safety of the cave, we took 
 possession of the tents and installed him there. 
 The girl refused to allow anybody but herself to 
 tend him, despite a valiant challenge from Miss 
 Rice. The girl merely fingered her revolver. 
 She was like a wild animal over her cub. 
 
 Of course, the position we occupied in the 
 camp was open to attack. And the schooner 
 still held the possibilities of trouble. Bibb's 
 fright might not prove lasting ; and Cadwallader 
 was of a sturdier build. So, after the return of 
 the women, I had posted Bisscop on the beach 
 to warn us of any attempt at a landing. 
 
 Before sunset I visited him. The schooner 
 was still there; but already it showed signs of 
 departure. They were getting up the anchor; 
 and though there was little breeze, and that 
 dying, I saw they meant to go out under the 
 power of their auxiliary engine. I sent Podmore 
 to take the first watch, with instructions to fire 
 two shots if he saw any suspicious signs from the 
 ship. Our plan was for the whole of our com- 
 pany to sleep at the camp, the men in the open, 
 Greatheart and his nurse in one tent, and Miss 
 Rice and Miss Liddicoat in the other. 
 
 But I had forgotten the vindictiveness of
 
 THE GROCER 279 
 
 Miss Rice. She promptly refused to stay in the 
 neighbourhood of "that creature." She said 
 she would feel contaminated. With a spitfire 
 sort of pride she announced her intention of 
 removing herself and her fierce respectability to 
 the shelter of the cave. Miss Liddicoat imme- 
 diately offered to accompany her. 
 
 I readily assented. With two jealous women, 
 one carrying a revolver, I saw there was likely 
 to be trouble. And the affront of the boarding- 
 house keeper's withdrawal was quite lost on the 
 girl. 
 
 When I mentioned it to her, she merely said, 
 " If that old thing had attempted to fuss about 
 him, I'd have shot her. I shot Fido for less." 
 
 About ten o'clock Bisscop relieved Podmore 
 on watch at the beach. Podmore reported that 
 the schooner had left an hour after sundown, 
 and that by this time her lights were almost out 
 of sight. She had headed straight away from 
 the island. Some hours after midnight I relieved 
 Bisscop. He had no news to give, except that 
 the ship was out of sight. 
 
 I took up my watch, fighting strongly against 
 sleep. But nothing happened till just before 
 the long looked for dawn. 
 
 There was a hail from the beach. " Don't 
 shoot! " a man's voice shouted.
 
 28o GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 " Stay where you are," I called. " If you 
 approach, I'll fire." 
 
 " I could have potted you hours ago," the man 
 shouted. 
 
 "Who are you?" 
 
 " Cadwallader." 
 
 That moment the sudden tropic dawn came. 
 I made out a dim, dark blotch on the sands. I 
 levelled my revolver. 
 
 " If I fire, or if you fire, you'll have the whole 
 camp on you," I warned him. " Wait there." 
 
 He remained motionless till the growing light 
 enabled me to make him out clearly. Then I 
 approached him cautiously, looking for signs of 
 Bibb or the others of the crew. He stood alone. 
 There was no sign of a boat. 
 
 " What are you doing here, after my warn- 
 ing? " I asked. 
 
 " Swam ashore just before the schooner left," 
 was his quiet reply. " I'm full up of that crowd. 
 The native crew played up three days ago ; and 
 I've been kept cooped up on board all the time 
 to watch them, while Bibb and Sabini had all the 
 fun ashore. And when Bibb got the blue funks 
 I decided to chuck him. He's a fool and a 
 coward. And Sabini's dead. So the board of 
 directors has been dissolved ; and I've come 
 along to throw in my lot with your crowd. As 
 a crowd you're all right."
 
 THE GROCER 281 
 
 '' You want the treasure? " I challenged him. 
 
 " No," he frankly smiled. " I want the fun. 
 I want to stretch my legs after those three days 
 on the palatial liner. The treasure? I don't 
 believe there ever was any treasure. Do you, 
 frankly now? It's a fool's errand we've both 
 been sent on. No ; I resign my claim to the 
 treasure. I like your crowd. There's a man 
 or two among you and, except that Italian, I 
 haven't seen a man for months. And you've got 
 some charming ladies with you. I've not had 
 a chat with a lady for oh, years. Well?" 
 
 " Well ? " I had to smile at his youthful in- 
 genuousness. " But how do I know this isn't 
 a trick?" I asked. "And how do I know that 
 the ship won't return with reinforcements ? " 
 
 " Bibb won't return. He's scared to death 
 says he didn't come out all this way to be pursued 
 by tigers and elephants and devils. He'll never 
 stop running till he's safe in his office again, and 
 then he'll bolt the door. Look here, now Sabini's 
 wiped out we haven't a hope of beating you, have 
 we, straight ? You're in possession ; you're well 
 armed ; and you've got that girl and her tiger 
 and her elephant, and the clue what chance 
 have I ? " 
 
 " No," I reflected. " And, as you said, if you 
 had wanted to shoot me during the night you 
 had a pretty good chance. But, if I accept you
 
 282 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 as a recruit, you clearly understand that you give 
 up all claim to the treasure ? " 
 
 " Oh, take your treasure if you ever find it 
 if it's there to find ! " 
 
 " If you assist us to discover it," I laid down 
 my terms, " you'll share equally with all the rest." 
 
 It had occurred to me that he might be of 
 assistance in piecing together the meaning of the 
 clue. Even a hint from him might put us on 
 the track. Cadwallader did not know how 
 valuable he might be to us. 
 
 " Anyhow," he said, waiting anxiously for my 
 next move, " you can't let me starve, can you ? " 
 
 ; ' You let Greatheart starve deliberately." 
 
 " No ? " he asked in innocent surprise. " Did 
 that devil do that?" 
 
 " Didn't you know ? You must have known." 
 
 " How could I ? I've been stuck on the ship 
 ever since they got Greatheart. What the board 
 of directors the full board had decided upon 
 was to get hold of the grocer chap without hurt- 
 ing him, and to keep him a close prisoner till he 
 handed over the clue, or till the rest of you 
 handed it over. But starving him? De- 
 liberately, you say ? Bibb wouldn't have allowed 
 that. And, of course, I wouldn't have." 
 
 " Unfortunately," I said, " Bibb and you 
 weren't asked." 
 
 " You mean to say that Sabini did it off his
 
 THE GROCER 283 
 
 own bat tortured him without Bibb knowing ? " 
 
 " Bibb knew ; but he could do nothing against 
 that fiend. And Bibb tried to give him a drink 
 of water last night." 
 
 " No water, either ? The brute ! It's torture. 
 But I'm glad Bibb tried to help him. When I 
 got our chairman on board the schooner he jab- 
 bered something about Sabini tying the grocer 
 up to a tree ; but I thought that was merely to 
 keep him from escaping. But starving him! 
 I say, that's hardly cricket, is it ? " 
 
 Looking at the frank countenance of the boy, 
 genuinely distressed at my disclosure, I could 
 not disbelieve him. The lad was decent. He 
 was not to blame for the company he had kept. 
 Probably Sabini had purposely kept him in 
 ignorance of his methods, relying on his power 
 over the meek and ineffectual Bibb. 
 
 " I'm glad that beast Sabini is dead," he said 
 at length. " Never did like the way he did 
 things. It was all due to his overbearing ways, 
 and his partiality for flourishing his revolver, 
 that the crew of the schooner played up. Once 
 I went on board it was easy to manage them. 
 And this chap Greatheart, he's O.K. again?" 
 
 " He's recovering; but it was touch and go." 
 
 " Great general, that chap. Sort of Napoleon, 
 eh?" 
 
 Cadwallader offered me his revolver, and sug-
 
 284 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 gested that I should search him. But I refrained 
 from subjecting him to that indignity. He was 
 damp from his swim and his night on the 
 beach. 
 
 Together we returned to the camp, where I 
 explained the mystery of his appearance and the 
 terms on which I had admitted him to our 
 company. 
 
 " Oh, poor boy! " Miss Liddicoat murmured. 
 "He's all wet!" 
 
 " And hungry," Cadwallader limply smiled. 
 
 Miss Liddicoat prepared a breakfast for him, 
 overlooking me ; and by drawing on the store of 
 clothing we had found in the tents we soon had 
 him arrayed as were now the rest of us men 
 in something more than rags. 
 
 Miss Liddicoat seemed most interested in his 
 story. He volunteered to tell her everything. 
 They wandered off into the bush, and did not 
 reappear till midday. On her return she was 
 carrying a great bunch of tropical flowers that 
 reminded me of the bouquet he had sent to her 
 in the cave. Bisscop seemed annoyed.
 
 THE TREASURE 285 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE TREASURE 
 
 LITTLE as we had noticed it, our sojourn 
 upon the island had changed us all. 
 Indeed, it had re-sorted us. But, 
 occupied as we were with our imme- 
 diate concerns, we had settled down into our 
 new positions with the smoothness and ease of 
 elements precipitated in some chemical solution. 
 It needed some outside shock, some impact of 
 a foreign body, to enable us to see how far and 
 in what curious directions life on the primitive 
 plane had led us. Such an impact we received 
 by the arrival of Cadwallader. His presence 
 afforded us a fixed standard, a measuring rod, 
 by which we could compare and estimate our 
 development. 
 
 Podmore, for instance, had been precipitated 
 from the top of our social system to its dregs. 
 The business magnate, who had made money 
 by that curious kink in the most ordinary brain 
 which makes millionaires, had, now that money
 
 286 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 was useless, disclosed himself as an incompetent, 
 cowardly, and foolish weakling. Him we had 
 soon got into the habit of disregarding, except 
 in so far as his inefficiency might have injured 
 our little society. He had become a useless 
 elderly rouseabout, the meek, blundering drudge 
 of the community. But I do not think he had 
 nuch inclination, or even the time, to brood over 
 his social descent. He accepted his mean value 
 and did as he was told, even by the two women. 
 If he didn't, our society collectively punished 
 him by stinting him in his rations. All that he 
 '(-presented to the clan was a greedy stomach. 
 
 Bisscop had, on the other hand, assumed a 
 place in our community that his first appearance 
 nnd his training had not entitled him to. He 
 was the usual Oxford youth, taught the polite 
 and impracticable nothing that the grey old 
 mother so suavely and so thoroughly teaches. 
 He had never before come into contact with any 
 but his English public-school and university 
 Associates youths of the same unmistakable 
 K rand, to whom good form was a god, while 
 character, unless labelled orthodox, was an 
 ^cc^ntricity to be deplored and extirpated. 
 
 But, with the shipwreck, rude, pitiless and 
 nn nitive things had intruded upon the smooth- 
 T^SS of his life. He found himself faced with 
 and privation and the clamant need
 
 THE TREASURE 287 
 
 of self-reliance. He had to think things 
 out for himself, and do things for himself. 
 And they were not at all like the things 
 he had been taught to believe the only things 
 that mattered. And he had come through. 
 Beneath all his Oxford affectations of speech 
 and thought he had something like a brain and 
 something called a heart. He had sloughed off 
 his effete civilisation with his creased trousers 
 and his stiff collar, and, I believe, he drew a deep 
 breath of relief. By this time he had come to 
 have a doubt that, after all, Oxford might not 
 have said the last word in modern education. 
 But perhaps he was unfair to his mother. She 
 had not pruned and polished him so assiduously 
 for him to get shipwrecked. There are no ships 
 in Oxford. But now, like Greatheart and, in 
 a lesser degree, myself, he was actually enjoying, 
 at least in superb physical health, our unique 
 experience. 
 
 Yes, I confess that my prim, suburban soul 
 had grown uncomfortably large under this new 
 sun. If there are, as we have seen, possibilities 
 of splendour in the soul of a grocer, why should 
 there not be a supra-soul for a sub-editor ? At 
 any rate, looking back, I now saw how meanly 
 intricate my life had been, and how blandly 
 simple it could be. Life had dulled me into 
 believing that it consisted in sitting in a sub-
 
 288 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 editorial chair through long, clamorous nights, 
 with my nervous fingers on the keyboard of the 
 world, and my narrowly-trained brain evolving 
 a kind of bastard harmony out of the deafening 
 discords that broke on my straining ears. I had 
 become a mere transmitter of the hourly history 
 that the world was so confusedly and so hur- 
 riedly making. I had degenerated into a one- 
 sided, delicate, specialised, unwearied machine, 
 liable, by the mere presence of an excess of uric 
 acid, to be thrown hopelessly out of gear. 
 
 But now I felt myself expanding in directions 
 unforeseen, bursting out into new impulses, 
 enthusiasms, hopes. I had broadened out in 
 directions that I had long forgotten. I was 
 conscious all through ^f a new well-being ; I 
 rejoiced in the "feel" of my muscles. In 
 Sydney I had only known that I was well by 
 the fact that temporarily I passively missed the 
 familiar nagging of some of my many ailments. 
 Now I thrilled with my new health, I vehemently 
 enthused over my well-being. In short, my 
 matter-of-fact soul and my suburban civilised 
 body had been born again. 
 
 And yet I was not altogether content. I 
 missed many things without which, so shackled 
 had I been, I could not be completely happy, 
 even without a daily paper to " put to bed." 
 The trivial absence of braces, I recall, worried
 
 THE TREASURE 289 
 
 me all through that strenuous time. I had got 
 accustomed to braces, grown into them as a 
 woman grows into a corset. Without them I 
 felt uncomfortable, unclothed. Tobacco was 
 another agony of deprivation. At first, with all 
 of us men, it used to be almost unbearable so 
 much so that the chance mention of a pipe or a 
 cigar would almost lead to blows. It was the 
 same with the women and with me as regards 
 tea. But gradually the open-air life, with its 
 incessant calls upon our energies and its deep 
 and dreamless sleep, had dimmed the sharp, 
 clutching memories of those divine vices. 
 
 Yet, when, before burying Sabini, going 
 through the pockets to preserve any of his 
 papers, I found a packet of cigarettes, the 
 tobacco hunger leaped awake in us ; and return- 
 ing from Sabini's grave we carefully divided the 
 treasure trove and tossed up for the odd one. 
 
 And another string that tugged at me occa- 
 sionally was the lack of reading matter. I did 
 not crave for a book; in the happy physical 
 tiredness that came at the end of the full day I 
 should have fallen asleep over it. But a maga- 
 zine, with silly, sentimental love-stories in it, 
 and pages of pictures that one could idly turn! 
 And O for the bliss of the red-covered Sydney 
 Bulletin that bitter-sweet drug to soothe the 
 nostalgia in the heart of the banished Australian ! 
 
 T
 
 290 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 You see, I had been too long a sub-editor. 
 If there are no daily papers in Paradise the souls 
 of every journalist will troop to Hades, where 
 there will be plenty, with heaps of horrors to 
 feature, an eternal enemy to criticise, and no 
 libel law. 
 
 Miss Rice, except for the lack of tea, had 
 become completely acclimatised. Women are 
 like that. They are born plastic. They can 
 mould their figures or their lack of figure into 
 any absurd shape demanded of them by the 
 male inquisitors of Paris, who have them 
 stretched on the rack of changing fashions. 
 They mould their feet into the impossibly shaped 
 Chinese foot or the high-heeled shoe ; and their 
 souls are ready for the mould of the man they 
 love. The average girl can adapt herself as the 
 wife of a plumber or the wife of a statistician 
 it may merely depend on the one who asked her 
 first. 
 
 So Miss Rice, whom a strange providence 
 had forced into the mould of a boarding-house 
 keeper, relapsed, with the relief of a woman 
 getting into neglige after a keen day's shopping, 
 into the more natural shape of the primitive 
 woman. She turned all her capabilities, warped 
 so long by the daily need of conciliating or 
 bluffing lodgers, to the provision of comfort for 
 the savages we were. And she did it cheerfully
 
 THE TREASURE 291 
 
 and uncomplainingly, and lost the hard boarding- 
 house lines that had etched themselves about 
 her kindly mouth. 
 
 Miss Liddicoat, however, had nothing behind 
 her artificial prettiness, her embryo mind, 
 clouded with the ghosts of convention, and her 
 youth. She was merely the useless type of 
 pretty girl. Her hair, over the arranging of 
 which she had spent, on the average, one- 
 sixteenth of her conscious life, she had let down, 
 tousled, over her shoulders for neither brushes 
 nor hair-pins grow on tropical islands and her 
 nails, once so fiercely manicured and rouged 
 that they had presented the appearance of pink 
 tin, were now broken and, it must be confessed, 
 bitten. 
 
 For it was the roughest work of the camp that 
 she had had to do. In that cruel sorting-out 
 enforced upon us by our cruel environment, she 
 had been quickly found out. She was useless 
 out of refined civilisation. Accustomed to the 
 false deference and chivalry of modern society, 
 she had forgotten how to fend for herself ; and, 
 when perforce she had to, she proved an incom- 
 petent bungler. Each of us was useful to the 
 clan only for what he or she could do ; and she 
 could do nothing. So it came to pass, almost 
 without our notice, that the lower and rougher 
 tasks of our common life were given to her ; and 
 
 T 2
 
 292 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 if she protested or refused as, indeed, she did 
 at first she was punished. So it was in the 
 prehistoric tribe. 
 
 Then Cadwallader came. He took this 
 Cinderella from her ashes and throned her in a 
 fairy coach. In one day, with an easy stride, 
 she stepped from the poor drudge of the primi- 
 tive clan to the polished pedestal of the civilised 
 woman. For from being comparatively useless 
 she had become of inestimable value. She was 
 desired by two men. She took advantage of 
 this dramatic alteration of the pressure of 
 demand and supply. 
 
 There was a new animation in her badly 
 freckled face; she even attempted to comb her 
 tangled hair with a spiky bough, and she stuck 
 a red flower in it, with a woman's uncanny know- 
 ledge of the exact place where it would do the 
 most damage. If she had only had the appliances 
 she would, I feel sure, have rolled up her tresses 
 into tight sausages, inserted a mattress of horse- 
 hair, and plastered and skewered the sausages 
 all over her head. But she had assuredly 
 rediscovered her waist, defining it with a rope, 
 whose ends she had carefully frayed. 
 
 And she put on airs, and developed the im- 
 memorial tyranny of the woman made the prize 
 of a conflict between two jealous males. She 
 trod on those two young men's hearts with a
 
 THE TREASURE 293 
 
 proud heel, even though it was a badly blistered 
 one, and played off the one against the other 
 with the depraved dexterity and cold-blooded 
 inhumanity of the modern girl. She kept one 
 in hell and the other in heaven for half a day, 
 and in the afternoon, with a smile, a glance, a 
 pout, she had beautified the one and damned 
 the other. For these two foolish young men 
 had made their own heaven and hell ; and its 
 name was Jean Liddicoat. 
 
 She, who had been the unnoticed drudge of 
 the clan for even Bisscop dared not relieve her 
 of her worst tasks, he had enough of his own 
 to do now came radiantly forth as a lady. She 
 had at her finger-beck two abject, able-bodied 
 males. She had forgotten Nietzsche's terrible 
 whip. So had they. 
 
 Miss Rice came down from her cave only for 
 meals; and, usually after a passage with the 
 grocer's nurse, retired sullenly to her unpolluted 
 sanctuary. 
 
 Within a couple of days Greatheart had 
 entirely recovered. But he was no longer the 
 lordly Greatheart of old. He had the dazed 
 look of the lover, unable properly to focus any 
 object save his lady's eyes. He and the girl 
 shunned the camp. They transformed the
 
 294 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 tracks through the scrub and the expanse of 
 beach into lovers' walks. Indeed, with the 
 trio of Bisscop, Cadwallader and Miss Liddicoat, 
 and the grocer and his girl, the atmosphere of 
 the island became decidedly sheepish. For 
 Podmore and myself our Eden was as dull as 
 doubtless it had been for the snake. 
 
 There was now no talk of searching for the 
 treasure. Three of the men were on a more 
 exciting quest; they had their treasure handy. 
 One morning, however, I managed to snare 
 Cadwallader while Miss Liddicoat was doing 
 her hair, and tried to get him to take an interest 
 in the clue. The sole bit of information he was 
 able to give me was that he believed the figures 
 in the list of items were really measurements of 
 distances. Thus the 217 pounds of sugar was 
 probably 217 feet, or yards, or inches, from one 
 point to another. At first sight the suggestion 
 looked as if it might be of value. But how 
 could you measure a box of aerated waters with 
 a musician's triangle, or a spade with watered 
 silk ? But, having no love-affairs on my hands, 
 the mystery of the puzzle intrigued me. 
 
 One day I left the deserted camp and wan- 
 dered down to the beach, in the recurrent hope 
 that this dull ending of our adventures might be 
 relieved by the appearance of the long-delayed 
 search steamer. The horizon was, as usual,
 
 THE TREASURE 295 
 
 unbroken. I sat down by the edge of the scrub 
 and idly pondered, once again, the useless clue. 
 
 A shadow fell across the paper. I looked up 
 to find Greatheart and the girl regarding me. 
 They has seen me on their aimless stroll. 
 
 " Still worrying over the paper ? " Greatheart 
 laughed. "What's the good? What do we 
 want with treasure when " 
 
 He looked the sheepish look of the engaged 
 young man at his miraculous woman. He had 
 found all the treasure there was in the world. 
 
 " Look at that rock," the girl idly said, point- 
 ing to the white rock that, struck by the sun, 
 shone brightly against the foliage of the jungle 
 behind. " It looks almost as if it was made of 
 nice, clean salt." 
 
 " Salt ? " Greatheart echoed, startled from his 
 blissful ecstasy. "A rock that looks like salt? 
 So it does. And " he frowned, in search of 
 some vague memory "where did I hear of 
 rocks and salt before ? Ah, rock-salt ! " Then, 
 triumphantly he chanted, " One ton rock-salt ! " 
 
 He snatched the paper from my hands. 
 " Here it is," he said, trembling, " as plain 
 as a pike-staff. ' i ton rock-salt.' Let me see. 
 There's the double-branched cocoa-nut, and now 
 the rock that looks like salt. We've found tlie 
 key to the clue ! "
 
 296 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 " Cadwallader says," I eagerly interposed, 
 " that he believes the figures in this list are 
 measurements of distances. So if we get these 
 two points to start with we ought to be able to 
 discover the track that leads straight to the 
 treasure." 
 
 " Yes," he replied. Then, with another 
 glance at the list, " But where are the cork-screw 
 and the carpenter's T-square and the watered 
 silk?" 
 
 " We'll find them. Look, we've got these 
 two starting points. It's like a surveyor's base 
 line. If once we measure the distance between 
 the rock and the cocoa-nut palm we'll have the 
 distances of the other landmarks." 
 
 " Yes," Greatheart said ; " but the rock is not 
 the second item on the list. There's the 
 watered silk and the carpenter's T-square and 
 the sugar in between. That complicates 
 matters, doesn't it ? " 
 
 The three of us scrutinised the paper. Our 
 difficulties were but begun. Here were the 
 first puzzling items : 
 
 i tin condensed milk (double-headed cocoa- 
 nut brand). 
 
 305 yards watered silk. 
 i carpenter's T-square. 
 
 217 Ibs. sugar (cheapest quality), 
 i ton rock-salt.
 
 THE TREASURE 297 
 
 " Our starting point," I said, as we hurried 
 across the sands, " is the double-headed palm. 
 Now, let's measure the distance between it and 
 the rock." 
 
 " No," the grocer replied, " let's start at the 
 beginning. We'll try the first figures, 305 yards 
 from the palm.'* 
 
 We paced off the distance in a direct line in 
 the direction of the rock, and stopped at 305 
 yards, quite a long distance from it. There was 
 no sign of a carpenter's T-square. We then 
 tried measuring the same distance in the oppo- 
 site direction, and then made a rough circle with 
 a radius of 305 yards from the palm as centre. 
 A careful scrutiny of this circumference revealed 
 nothing that we could construe as a sign-post. 
 
 The girl thought a moment. " Look here," 
 she said "we haven't tried to find out what 
 watered silk represents, have we ? " 
 
 " Well," I said, " what does it represent ? " 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " What does it look like? " Greatheart asked. 
 
 " It's silk that's got a watery sheen," the girl 
 explained, glancing idly along the beach. 
 
 " Like like " Suddenly she straightened 
 
 her lithe figure. " Look ! " she cried, pointing. 
 
 We looked. All we saw was a stretch of wet 
 sand, shining smoothly in the sun.
 
 298 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 "Don't you see?" she impatiently cried. 
 " Doesn't the wet sand look like watered silk 
 with the sunlight on it ? " 
 
 It did. Eagerly we paced the distance along 
 the water's edge. Our goal was nothing but 
 sand. We tried in the opposite direction. 
 Again no result. 
 
 The girl seized the paper. " i carpenter's 
 T-square," she read. " What's a carpenter's 
 square like ? " 
 
 " It's just a letter ' T,' " Greatheart explained, 
 "with inches marked on the edges. It is used 
 to draw lines at right angles to other lines. 
 I see ! It means that we are standing on one of 
 the lines of the ' T,' and that now we have to go 
 in a direction at right angles to it " he looked 
 at the paper "for 217 Ibs. of sugar, cheapest 
 quality." 
 
 ;< Two hundred and seventeen yards," I 
 suggested. "But where's the sugar?" 
 
 " Cheapest quality," the girl added with a 
 smile. 
 
 ' You know all about sugar," I suggested, 
 turning to the grocer. " Can't you give us a 
 hint?" 
 
 He couldn't. 
 
 Then I had my illumination. "What's the 
 cheapest quality of sugar adulterated with ? "
 
 THE TREASURE 299 
 
 " Mine/' said the grocer solemnly, " even the 
 cheapest quality, was never adulterated." 
 
 I laughed. " The comic papers insist that 
 it's mostly sand." 
 
 "Sand?" he cried. "I never thought of 
 that." 
 
 " Here it is," I said. :< Yards and yards of it. 
 All we've got to do is to go 217 yards across it 
 at right angles to the shore line, and we'll strike 
 the next item the ton of rock-salt." 
 
 "The white rock! " the girl cried. 
 
 Quickly we paced off the 217 yards, and were 
 brought up blankly in the midst of the sand near 
 the scrub. Thinking that we had not accurately 
 measured the distance, we tried again. The 
 white rock was away to our left. 
 
 " I see," said Greatheart. " We've started 
 from the wrong end of our base-line. Let's try 
 the same distance from the point, this distance 
 on the other side of the palm." 
 
 And 217 yards from that point brought us to 
 within a few feet of the rock. We had measured 
 our base-line. The rest would depend merely 
 on our being able to recognise the sign-posts 
 leading us to the treasure. Excitedly we scru- 
 tinised the next directions. 
 i musician's triangle. 
 i cork-screw. 
 73 loads garden soil.
 
 300 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 With the carpenter's T-square in our minds 
 we had little trouble over the triangle. It was 
 evidently a sign indicating direction. A 
 musician's triangle is roughly an equilateral 
 triangle. It was an indication that we should 
 turn off at an angle of 60 degrees. 
 
 We marked off two big equilateral triangles 
 on the sand, taking as their base the direction 
 in which we had approached the rock. These 
 gave us the choice of branching at the indicated 
 angle either to the right or the left. We chose 
 the left, as it pointed toward the scrub that hid 
 the stream. At the entrance of the scrub we 
 found ourselves at the beginning of the ancient 
 track, the meaning of which had so puzzled us. 
 
 " One cork-screw that must mean something 
 that twists round and round," the girl suggested. 
 
 " This winding track! " Greatheart exclaimed. 
 " It's cork-screwy enough, isn't it? " 
 
 " It leads to the stream," I said. 
 
 " No," the girl cried, " to the treasure. We're 
 getting warm." 
 
 " Wait a minute," Greatheart called, as I was 
 setting off. " There's another direction here 
 73 loads of garden soil." 
 
 "Garden soil?" the girl laughed. "That's 
 just earth. And we've left the sand for the 
 earth. This rich loam beneath the trees would 
 be just the stuff for the garden. Come on."
 
 THE TREASURE 301 
 
 We paced the 73 yards of the track, follow- 
 ing as well as we could its old, overgrown, 
 original windings. But before the full distance 
 was measured the track had led us right through 
 the scrub. The distance was only 54 yards. 
 After a moment's halt, however, we went on 
 pacing, striking straight from the jungle to the 
 water's edge. And it was, we made it, just 72 
 yards to that point. 
 
 Hurriedly we referred to the clue. It read: 
 " i box aerated waters." 
 
 Water? Water! This was water; and on 
 the swiftly running stream sailed a fleet of tiny 
 bubbles. Aerated! 
 
 The girl and I splashed through the ford we 
 had made on first coming to the cave. But the 
 grocer turned and went back to the tent. He 
 emerged, as we stood impatiently waiting on the 
 other side of the stream, and shouted to us, 
 asking us if we had seen a spade anywhere ? 
 
 I went back and helped in the search. If 
 there was a treasure within reach we would 
 want a spade. The men-strangers had brought 
 spades with them; but now, to our surprise, 
 there was no sign of them. We could not make 
 it out. 
 
 " We can come back, and look again," I sug- 
 gested impatiently. '"' The first thing is to 
 locate the treasure."
 
 302 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 " Right-o," he replied. " But it worries me 
 what could have become of those spades." 
 
 At the other side of the stream, a few yards 
 from where we had crossed it, was the track up 
 the cliff that led to the narrow ledge. 
 
 " One plumb-bob," Greatheart read. " And 
 then a carpenter's level." 
 
 "Plumb-bob," I echoed. "I think I've 
 heard of it. It's a thing used to get things per- 
 pendicular by carpenters and surveyors. It's 
 only a lead weight on a string. Of course, that 
 means that we must go up up the cliff till we 
 come to a level place. And that must be the 
 level ledge." 
 
 So far was plain sailing. But as we stood on 
 the narrow ledge the next direction, "35 tons 
 soap (Sunset brand) " brought us to a full stop. 
 
 Were we to be baulked at the last? Soap 
 told us nothing. And the narrow path con- 
 tinued in both directions, towards and away 
 from the cave. This latter track, not so clearly 
 denned as the one we so constantly used, we had 
 never thoroughly explored. 
 
 "Sunset brand?" the girl softly wondered. 
 " Never heard of a soap with that name. 
 Sunset?" 
 
 "Sunset! Look!" I called. "The sun is 
 setting now. And its rays lie right along the
 
 THE TREASURE 303 
 
 track. It means that we must go in that direc- 
 tion to the west." 
 
 We paced the thirty-five yards along the ledge. 
 It brought us a yard or so beyond the entrance 
 to our cave ; the cave we had sheltered in so 
 long, the cave in which we had lived without a 
 suspicion that it held the treasure we had so 
 uselessly sought! 
 
 ; ' There's only one direction left," Greatheart 
 said, with a tremble in his voice. "It's 'one 
 spade.' That can only mean 'Dig!' All 
 we've got to do now is to turn up the soil in the 
 cave. I wish we had found that spade." 
 
 " Anyhow, we'll have a try with my toma- 
 hawk/ I urged. 
 
 But as we pressed forward, each eager to be 
 the first, a figure confronted us in the doorway 
 of the cave. It was Miss Rice. 
 
 A surprised and jealous Miss Rice. 
 
 " What do you want here, in my cave ? " she 
 shrilled. " Can't you stay down in your camp. 
 You " she faced the girl " can't you leave me 
 alone? You've got him. How dare you come 
 trapesing here with him at your skirt? How 
 dare you flaunt him in my face now ? Go away ! " 
 
 " But," Greatheart gasped, pushing forward 
 in his eagerness, "we've found out where the 
 treasure is! We've actually deciphered the 
 clue!"
 
 304 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 " Is that all? " the fury shrieked. 
 
 " But you don't know," the grocer expostu- 
 lated. " Why, it's actually buried in 
 
 " In my cave," Miss Rice haughtily informed 
 him. " I found it myself, days ago. And I've 
 dug it all up, with a spade I got in the camp. I 
 knew it was there " she looked pityingly at me 
 " that day you buried the clue with me, and 
 found that piece of silk inlaid with silver. The 
 rest of the stuff was below that hole. If you'd 
 only dug a couple of inches deeper, even you 
 would have discovered it." 
 
 " But why didn't you tell us? " I asked. 
 
 " A lot of use it would have been telling you." 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 " Because the whole of your precious treasure 
 is worth about twopence halfpenny." 
 
 She saw the look of incredulity on our faces ; 
 and with a grim lip she selected, and handed to 
 us, three of the stock of torches at the cave 
 mouth. We entered, lit them at the little fire, 
 and saw the treasure also two spades. The 
 great bales and casks stood half-revealed in the 
 big hole she had so laboriously dug. Some 
 were broken open ; others lay untouched in the 
 trench; white and coloured materials lay 
 scattered about where in her haste she had flung 
 them. 
 
 "All useless," the lady said.
 
 THE TREASURE 305 
 
 " But that's impossible," I rejoined. " Nobody 
 in his senses would take the trouble to bury all 
 this stuff if it was valueless, to say nothing of 
 the difficulty of carting it all up the cliff." 
 
 " Well, look for yourselves," the guardian 
 genie of the treasure grimly replied. " But 
 I've looked through almost everything, and I've 
 found nothing of any possible value." 
 
 " But in these other bales these casks un- 
 opened ? " 
 
 " It wasn't worth while," she smiled. " Look, 
 half-way through my search I came across this." 
 
 She picked up from the floor a stained sheet 
 of parchment. We crowded round to read it, 
 holding our torches close. This is what the 
 parchment contained: 
 
 "iNVOYCE OF TREASURE BURY'D HERE, 1 79 1. 
 
 I cask agates, greate and small. 
 
 1 bale silk strypt with silver. 
 152 bookes of fine white calicoes. 
 
 5 bales of fine Muzlins. 
 
 2 boxes Jasper Antonio, or Stone of Goa. 
 422 bushells of cloves and nutmegs." 
 
 " That's the list of the whole lot," Miss Rice 
 broke in on our blank silence. " I've counted the 
 stuff and checked it with this list, which they had 
 buried with it." 
 
 u
 
 306 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 " But no gold or silver, or pearls ? " Great- 
 heart appealed to our common sense. " I can't 
 understand it." 
 
 " Nor could I at first ; but I see it all now," 
 said Miss Rice, taking pity upon our dis- 
 appointment. " Don't you see? The things in 
 this list and buried so carefully here were 
 treasures when they were buried." 
 
 " And they aren't valuable now," I suggested. 
 " You mean that they've all been spoilt and 
 ruined by their having been buried here so 
 long?" 
 
 " Not at all. Agates don't spoil ; and though 
 the silk striped with silver hasn't lasted well, 
 the silver won't be worth the trouble of carrying 
 away. But all these things were valuable, very 
 valuable, when the owners hid them away so 
 carefully over two hundred years ago. But 
 none of them are valuable now. To the people 
 who buried them, agates were precious stones, 
 and jasper was a rarity therefore immensely 
 valuable. But nobody would pay for agates or 
 jasper now, except by the cartload. Look at 
 them!" 
 
 She dipped her fingers into a broken box at 
 her feet and lifted a handful of dull, variegated 
 chalcedony pretty enough in a barbaric way, 
 but of no practical use to modern jewellers. 
 
 " We can wear one or two of these each as
 
 THE TREASURE 307 
 
 mementoes of our experience," she added, with 
 a sad smile. 
 
 " But the other things ? " Greatheart eagerly 
 insisted. 
 
 " Calico was valuable then, no doubt ; but 
 nowadays we can buy it cheap in any suburban 
 shop. And there are one hundred and fifty 
 books of it here. The same with muslins ; and 
 as for these casks all painted red, they're chock- 
 full of cloves and nutmegs." 
 
 She turned with a grim smile to the grocer. 
 " You know how much cloves and nutmegs are 
 a pound ! " 
 
 U 2
 
 308 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE PIRATE 
 
 THAT was the end of our treasure hunt. 
 Though we turned over every inch 
 of the floor of the cave, and ransacked 
 every cask and bale, not one coin of 
 gold, not one ingot of silver, not one jewel of 
 any value did we unearth. Miss Rice had been 
 before us ; she had searched with the meticu- 
 lous care of the perfect boarding-house keeper. 
 Where she had failed we were foolish to try. 
 
 The thing, after all, was quite simple. What 
 the unknown men so long ago had so pains- 
 takingly and so thoroughly hidden was treasure. 
 What we had so eagerly dug up was the same 
 thing, but no longer valuable. Spices and nut- 
 megs were in those old days the fruits of arduous 
 adventure in distant and dangerous tropical 
 islands, got by strategy or murder ; muslins and 
 calicoes were the fabulous products of the un- 
 explored East, seized or stolen, and subject to 
 all the risks of long transport over strange seas, 
 scoured by pirates, in vessels small and crowded
 
 THE PIRATE 309 
 
 and unsafe. If those fair cargoes came safely 
 home through all those lurking perils, their 
 value to the merchant adventurers was more 
 than their weight in gold. 
 
 I could, in fancy, see these forerunners of ours 
 on this tropical island laboriously bringing the 
 great casks and bales from the wrecked galleon, 
 hauling them, with curses and sweat, severally 
 up the steep cliff and along the narrow cliff path, 
 and lovingly lowering them into the great oblong 
 hole they had so carefully dug in the cave. And 
 then, after I know not what privations, what 
 hates and quarrels and recriminations, what 
 callous or impulsive murders, maybe, embark- 
 ing on the raft that was to carry them back to 
 civilisation, or leave them to perish in a welter of 
 wild ocean. Yet one must have escaped with 
 the knowledge of the great treasure got together 
 by such wild risks, and safely hidden against 
 his return to make him richer than any in his 
 little Spanish town. There was the carefully 
 written invoice, written, strangely enough, in 
 English. Who was that adventuring English- 
 man, perhaps the only one of the crew that could 
 write? A rascal like themselves, throwing in 
 his lot with them on the fierce quest of wealth, 
 or, more probably, a prisoner, to be slain as 
 soon as he had served his turn? None could
 
 310 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 say. At least, we did not find his bones in the 
 cave. 
 
 But neither he nor the others who got back 
 to Spain had ever been able to return to gloat 
 over this fabulous wealth of those forgotten 
 times. And we had come two centuries too 
 late. The treasure had lain there these long 
 years, secure and unhurt, protected against 
 decay by the absence of damp in the cave. Yet, 
 unchanging, it deteriorated, for past it, and 
 the need of it, the great world was moving on. 
 Little by little the things that were rare and 
 precious had become trifles of little value ; little 
 by little the East has disgorged its secrets and 
 its stores ; little by little machinery had come to 
 cheapen the priceless products of hand-looms 
 and patient, cunning fingers and now what had 
 been a luxury for the use of kings was a common 
 commodity accessible to the poorest. All the 
 wealth of the cave had vanished, yet it was still 
 there, unhurt, untampered with. It had re- 
 mained as it was ; only Time had swept over it, 
 as it sweeps over everything, and beneath its 
 ruthless slow fingering the wealth of that old 
 world had crumbled into dust. 
 
 They must have had gold and silver and 
 jewels, too. Perhaps they loaded their rude 
 raft with it ; and in their last madness of thirst 
 had flung the golden handfuls into the merci-
 
 THE PIRATE 
 
 lessly waiting sea. Perhaps they had buried 
 it elsewhere, where it is, to this day, waiting in 
 its unseen crypt. Perhaps, after all, it went 
 down with the galleon on the reef; perhaps it 
 was there, strewn over the ocean floor, and 
 making in that rocky reef rich pockets of minted 
 gold. 
 
 Well, as far as we were concerned, there it 
 might stay. 
 
 Next morning Miss Rice, as usual, retired to 
 the solitude of her cave. Since the fiasco of the 
 treasure hunt Greatheart had relapsed con- 
 tentedly into the doating content of the happy 
 lover. I doubt if he noticed Miss Rice's 
 presence at all. 
 
 I was lying idly in the shade of the tent, watch- 
 ing her lean little figure in its tattered ulster 
 climb nimbly to her retreat. There, at least, 
 she was safe from the sight of the triumph of 
 her rival. I saw her on her high platform throw 
 one glance round ; then she stood a moment 
 rigid, arrested by something she saw. One 
 glance was enough for her. She called out 
 something to us, wildly waving her scraggy arm 
 in the direction of the sea. 
 
 I would not allow myself to believe that it
 
 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 could be the relief ship. But eagerly I called 
 to the others ; and we climbed, pell-mell, up to 
 the cave. Miss Rice met us with two words, 
 shrilled triumphantly, " The ship ! " 
 
 From our height we looked. It was the ship, 
 at last! 
 
 There, standing boldly into the cove, was the 
 long looked for vessel. But at the first glance 
 a doubt assailed me. This did not look like a 
 ship chartered to search for us. It was merely 
 a small vessel; and there was a disconcerting 
 strangeness about her rig. We had had one 
 disastrous experience of visitors. Were we to 
 have another? 
 
 " It's such a curious looking craft," Great- 
 heart muttered uneasily. Then, his face lit 
 with a sudden suspicion, he sprang at Cad- 
 wallader. 
 
 " It's your crowd back again ! " he exclaimed, 
 grappling with that youth. 
 
 Bisscop and I helped him, and in a trice we 
 had Cadwallader secure. 
 
 But as we paused to get our breath after 
 that strenuous struggle Cadwallader was an 
 athlete we were assailed by a tornado. It was a 
 frenzied Miss Liddicoat, fighting with nails and 
 teeth for her lover. It was Bisscop who re- 
 ceived most of the scratches. 
 
 I kept her off as gently as I could ; and then
 
 THE PIRATE 313 
 
 Cadwallader, who had been struggling to speak, 
 managed to make himself heard. 
 
 " Rot! " he gasped. " I don't know anything 
 about it. It isn't our schooner. Can't you see 
 that? And they wouldn't be such fools as to 
 come in in broad daylight, would they ? Why " 
 he looked attentively at the strange craft " it 
 isn't like any craft that I've ever seen." 
 
 Still with our grasp on him we scrutinised 
 our visitant. The craft was long and low, and 
 it seemed absurd to use the word it 
 looked sinister. The sails she carried were old 
 and picturesquely patched; and the rig, to me 
 who knew nothing of sailing vessels, seemed 
 clumsy and, yes, old-fashioned. And then a 
 memory rose up ; I had seen ships like that pic- 
 tured in the adventure books I had read when 
 a boy. . The incredulous thought came that I 
 was looking on the sort of ship that once had 
 struck terror in the heart of all who had chanced 
 to meet it the pirate ship of romance! 
 
 Something of the same nightmare idea had 
 dawned in the startled faces of the others. And 
 Cadwallader was plainly as much amazed as we. 
 
 Then a remarkable thing happened. As the 
 vessel came gracefully straight on toward the 
 land, we made out the Union Jack flying bravely 
 at the peak. But as she approached, sweeping 
 in with a kind of evil swiftness a swiftness that
 
 314 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 was not accounted for by the light breeze blow- 
 ing the flag fluttered down from the mast-head, 
 and in its place a ball of black quickly climbed. 
 As it reached the top the black ball broke ; and 
 clear to our incredulous eyes we saw the grim 
 flag of the pirate upon a ground of black the 
 ghastly white of the skull and cross-bones ! 
 
 Were we dreaming, all enmeshed in the same 
 hideous nightmare? We looked to each other 
 for some denial of what we had so plainly seen ; 
 but on each face was the same clouded amaze. 
 Then, somewhat shamefacedly, we let Cadwal- 
 lader go. What perils threatened us certainly 
 were not to be looked for in his quarter. 
 
 Miss Liddicoat was too astonished even to 
 comfort him. 
 
 "But but " stammered Podmore, "it 
 
 can't be. It's impossible." 
 
 " Anyway," said Bisscop, " I'm going down 
 to find out what it all means." 
 
 " No," Greatheart interposed. " There's 
 something wrong about that boat. It's so 
 damnably incredible. I don't like the look of 
 it. There aren't pirates with black flags 
 nowadays." 
 
 " But mightn't there be one, forgotten, over- 
 looked, still sailing these out-of-the-way seas ? " 
 Miss Rice murmured ecstatically, a strange 
 childish light coming into her bright little eyes.
 
 THE PIRATE 315 
 
 "Impossible!" Podmore grunted. "It 
 wouldn't be allowed. How could I go on im- 
 porting things from England if there were 
 pirates to sink my consignments? Why, busi- 
 ness would be ruined. No," he flung his 
 accusation at the strange girl, " this is only 
 another of your confounded tricks, madam! " 
 
 " No/' she cried. " I must be mad like the 
 rest of you. And yet I saw that black flag go up 
 before my eyes. It's there yet." 
 
 " After all," the grocer said shyly, a boyish 
 look sunning his eager face, " mightn't there 
 be pirates, real pirates, after all? It's it's 
 too good to be true. I always believed in 
 pirates when I was a youngster. I wanted to be 
 one myself, but I never had the courage to run 
 away and go pirating. What if, somehow, boys 
 were right, after all ? " He paused, abashed at 
 the magnificence of his theory. " If there only 
 were!" he ecstatically breathed. 
 
 I could see now that no matter how Life 
 hammered at the soul of the little grocer, he 
 would always be invulnerable. He was he 
 had always been the credulous, incalculable, 
 romantic child. 
 
 Yet there, before our eyes, was the miracle 
 of the real thing. 
 
 " If these are pirates," I said grimly, " they'll 
 cut our blessed throats, that's all."
 
 316 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 " Better stay here we're safe here and see 
 what they do next," Podmore counselled with 
 a shiver of fear. 
 
 It seemed to us good advice. 
 
 " Look," Cadwallader cried, " they're shorten- 
 ing sail. They're going to anchor." 
 
 It was, had we eyes to appreciate it, a grace- 
 ful sight as that strange vessel came to rest 
 beneath bare poles, swinging at her anchor in 
 the shelter of the cove, close to the shore. She 
 seemed to have but a small crew ; but from what 
 we could discover from our distance their cos- 
 tumes had here and there a barbaric note of 
 scarlet, crude yellow and blue. And they were 
 evidently busy on some work that at first we 
 naturally took to be the lowering of a boat. 
 
 But it was no boat that we saw. It was a 
 plank shoved over the side of the vessel. And 
 before we grasped the function it was to fulfil 
 we saw lifted on to it a figure, apparently 
 pinioned, and, as we guessed from the note of 
 white on its face, gagged. He made a few 
 clumsy, reluctant steps forward. 
 
 Then we knew the horrible truth. Behind 
 that solitary figure stood another, a menacing 
 figure with a red handkerchief round its head, 
 and in its raised hand something that we knew 
 was a pistol. The doomed man was being made 
 to walk the plank!
 
 THE PIRATE 317 
 
 Distant though we were, the clear air gave us 
 vividly the full horror of that incredible tragedy. 
 From the bulwarks and the lower rigging the 
 callous crew stared curiously down as the poor 
 wretch made his faltering progress along the 
 slender, sagging plank. Behind him stood the 
 ruffian with the pistol ; and we could guess the 
 ribald laughter that hurried their prisoner to his 
 doom. 
 
 Suddenly he stopped, as if waiting for the 
 shot mercifully to end his torture. He half- 
 turned and flung out some desperate sneer at 
 his tormentors. But the ruffians knew their 
 sport better than that. So he took the final 
 steps with, I thought, a defiant swagger. 
 
 The women shrieked as they saw the body 
 fall sideways ; and involuntarily, sick with the 
 sight, we all turned our heads away. 
 
 When we ventured to look again there was 
 no sign of the man. But the ship had been 
 swinging to her anchor, and by this time the 
 plank was mercifully hidden from our gaze by 
 the ship's counter. 
 
 " How could we have saved him ? " Great- 
 heart groaned, in answer to the agonised 
 reproach in the women's eyes. 
 
 But other things were happening in swift 
 succession on the ship. First a boat was 
 lowered, and into it a number of bulky packages
 
 318 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 were quickly lowered. Then down the ship's 
 side came two figures. The second one we 
 recognised as the man with the red handkerchief 
 around his head. 
 
 " That's the captain, the pirate-chief," Miss 
 Rice said, with an unwilling hero-worship. 
 "And the other man must be his lieutenant." 
 
 The latter took the oars and the captain the 
 rudder ; and the laden boat made its way to the 
 beach. What the packages were and what the 
 pirates' purpose on this island we could not 
 guess. 
 
 But we soon saw. They beached the boat 
 and proceeded to unload its cargo. Then each 
 took up a package and, the captain leading, 
 made their way straight to the double-branched 
 cocoa-nut palm. Depositing their loads at its 
 foot, they returned to the boat, and conveyed 
 another load to the palm. A third trip sufficed. 
 Then out of one of the bundles they produced 
 spades and began busily to dig in the sand. 
 
 " It's our treasure they're after," Greatheart 
 exclaimed. '' The gold that we didn't find in 
 the cave must have been buried right under the 
 cocoa-nut palm. We've missed it, and they've 
 come for it ! " 
 
 " But who," Miss Rice breathed, in awed 
 tones, " are they ? "
 
 THE PIRATE 319 
 
 In the silence that followed each of us thought 
 the same mad thought. It was Greatheart who 
 gave it solemn utterance . 
 
 ''' The men who buried it there, two hundred 
 years ago, or, my God, their ghosts! Come 
 on ! " he added suddenly, " I can't stand this 
 any longer. If they're ghosts they can't 
 harm living men; and, if they're not, we're 
 going to make them explain the reason of that 
 cold-blooded murder at the points of our 
 revolvers ! " 
 
 Instantly we men followed our leader as he 
 sprang up. Any move was better than this 
 maddening inaction. We trooped after him 
 along the ledge ; and, as I got to the level 
 ground at the base of the cliff, I looked back 
 and saw that close behind us were crowding the 
 women. It was either courage of a high degree 
 that had prompted them or fear of being left 
 alone in this island of menaces. 
 
 Seeing them following, Greatheart had not 
 the heart to order them back, nor, had he done 
 so, would they have gone. So, closing up our 
 ranks, he led the way into the scrub. I do not 
 know what made me glance back as I followed 
 him some instinct, perhaps but I saw, on the 
 top of the cliff, directly over our deserted cave, 
 a monstrous form : a grotesque thing of black,
 
 320 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 standing on thin legs, impossible, unhuman, 
 unreal ! It looked like some bird, some enormous 
 terrible carrion thing perched menacingly above 
 our unprotected heads, ready for its hideous 
 swoop. 
 
 I turned my gaze shudderingly away. I did 
 not know what it was, bird or beast or fiend. I 
 could not fit its grotesque shape into any form 
 that I had read of or dreamed. No ; I did not 
 want to know what it was. The one thing I 
 forced my mind to hold fast to was the para- 
 mount necessity for me to preserve my sanity. 
 
 So I fled, head down, through the twisted 
 forest, as through the horrors of a nightmare. 
 
 But as we paused, agape, at the further edge 
 of the scrub, the thing that was being enacted 
 on the sand beneath the double-headed palm 
 was more fantastically unreal than anything that 
 had gone before. 
 
 A great trench had been dug in the sand, 
 and into it the two barbarically attired men were 
 lowering the last of the packages. The one 
 with the red handkerchief round his red, straggly 
 hair, was tall, and in his costume barbarically 
 splendid. His bright blue sash of silk was 
 stuck full of great silver-hafted pistols and 
 murderous-looking sheath knives. His white 
 shirt, open at the neck, showed a hairy chest;
 
 THE PIRATE 321 
 
 but his hands were fine, slender fingered, and 
 white as a lady's. And his wrists were enclosed 
 in cuffs of filmy lace. His face, with its long, 
 red, drooping moustache, was the most sinister 
 face I had ever seen. 
 
 The other was a squat, swarthy, heavily 
 bearded man, dressed in the same picturesque 
 style, but without any of the evidences of the 
 fine dandy that gave his chief such a distin- 
 guished appearance. This man was evidently 
 a villain of the common order, and obviously 
 apprehensive of the suave, cold politeness that 
 marked the bearing of his captain. 
 
 " We're wrong," Greatheart whispered. 
 'They're not searching for the treasure. 
 They're burying it ! " 
 
 : ' That's the treasure they brought in the 
 boat," Bisscop muttered. " Let's hope it's not 
 nutmegs ! " 
 
 Then the climax to the strange drama un- 
 expectedly came. As the squat dark man 
 stooped over the last package, carefully lower- 
 ing it into place in the trench, the pirate captain 
 stepped daintily behind him, quietly pulled a 
 pistol from his belt and shot the man in the back ! 
 
 The dead man crumpled up and fell face 
 downward, with clawing hands, into the grave 
 on top of the treasure. 
 
 It was enough. Whether ghosts or fiends or 
 
 x
 
 322 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 pirates, we could not stand by without an effort 
 to avenge that brutal and callous murder. 
 
 We rushed from our shelter, revolvers in 
 hand, straight for that figure standing, with his 
 back to us, calmly looking down on his fell work. 
 
 His sharp ears caught the sounds of our pell- 
 mell approach ; and he flung round, with the 
 most amazed consternation I had ever seen on 
 a human face. 
 
 And close to us, from the grove of cocoa-nuts 
 behind us, a voice roared: 
 
 " Stand back, you blasted fools ! What the 
 blithering Hades do you think you're doing? 
 Put up them toy fire-arms before you do any 
 more damage ! " 
 
 We turned uncertainly to the new voice. At 
 the base of a palm a figure stood, the figure of 
 a very hot and very angry young man, dressed 
 in dirty white. And he was manipulating on its 
 tripod a black, bulky thing a cinematograph 
 camera ! 
 
 Shamefacedly I recognised it as merely 
 another of the things that had so scared me on 
 the top of the cliff. 
 
 The bathetic truth dawned on us. We had 
 stumbled on a realistic photo-drama, enacted by 
 a company of actors with all the tropical back- 
 ground necessary for its realism. 
 
 The angry young operator advanced to us.
 
 THE PIRATE 323 
 
 " Why can't you act your own drama a ship- 
 wreck stunt, I suppose without interfering 
 with ours ? You've spoiled forty feet of the best 
 film I've ever taken. And we're rather short 
 of films on the ship. And now, thanks to you, 
 I'll have to do this last scene of ' Captain Kidd 
 Burying the Pirates' Treasure ' all over again ! " 
 
 We could not gather our scattered senses 
 together for a reply. 
 
 Captain Kidd bent down, pulled his fellow- 
 actor, unhurt, from the trench, and strolled over 
 to us. 
 
 " I'm not sorry," he smiled, pulling the red 
 bandana from his head, and, incidentally, bring- 
 ing with it his wig of fiery red. " Acting a 
 strenuous part like this in these clothes is no 
 joke under this sun . Any pubs in this suburb ? " 
 
 " What's your game ? " asked his mate, re- 
 moving his shaggy beard with a sigh of relief. 
 " We hadn't an idea there was another photo- 
 crowd on this island. Doing a castaway ship- 
 wreck act, I suppose? We meant to do one, 
 too. Who are you working it for ? " 
 
 " Say," said Captain Kidd, in what he meant 
 to be a stage aside, " they've got a peach of a 
 leading lady, haven't they?" He glanced 
 admiringly at the girl in her costume of silver. 
 " And the low comedian " he looked Podmore 
 over critically "he doesn't need to pad, any-
 
 324 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 how. And that scarecrow in the ulster" he 
 referred to Miss Rice " we've got no old lady 
 so shriekingly funny as that ! " 
 
 All speaking at once, and all indignant, we 
 managed to convey to the cinematograph 
 operator and the two actors that we were not 
 members of a rival film concern. Even the 
 flashing splendour of the girl was at last ex- 
 plained to the astonished strangers. 
 
 Learning that there was plenty of water and 
 the possibility of our adding something to give 
 it a taste at our camp, Captain Kidd and his 
 companion in villainy suggested an immediate 
 adjournment thither ; but the operator insisted 
 on them finishing their act. So we waited, 
 interested spectators, behind the camera while 
 Captain Kidd shot his friend over again and 
 gloated over the body. Then the camera was 
 stopped while the pirate helped the dead man 
 out of the trench, and sent him back to us. Then 
 the camera operator turned his handle again, 
 while Captain Kidd, with an evil smile, piled the 
 sand on top of the body that was no longer there, 
 filled up the trench, and, with a magnificent 
 gesture of triumphant villainy, strode down to 
 the boat. 
 
 " Yes," the operator explained as he packed 
 up. "We sent another operator on shore last 
 night. He climbed up the cliff behind there to
 
 THE PIRATE 325 
 
 get a bird's-eye view of the pirate ship entering 
 the cove and hoisting the black flag. He also took 
 a distance view of the walking the plank stunt ; 
 but we've got another camera on board which 
 took that act at close quarters, as well. It'll be 
 the greatest film ever produced. Ought to be, 
 too, considering the expense of fitting out that 
 ship to make her look like the real piratical 
 thing her sails are only for show; she's got a 
 splendid oil engine in her. We never imagined 
 that there'd be anybody here. We heard that 
 this was an uninhabited island, and it was just 
 the spot for the scene." 
 
 ' Yes, of course," he went on, in answer to the 
 question in our eyes, "we'll take you back to 
 civilisation. But now you're here, I'd like to 
 get a few pictures of you. What about 'The 
 Castaways Having Their First Meal' ? In 
 those things it ought to be the real thing. And 
 that property elephant of yours. I say, dearie," 
 he turned eagerly to the girl, " you'll pose on the 
 elephant for a picture, won't you? Pity about 
 the tame tiger. He would have been great. 
 Why, I'll write a drama round the whole thing; 
 it'll beat any of those American Out- West 
 dramas.'' 
 
 Well, we did our best to help our rescuers in 
 their work. And we were glad to learn that the 
 ship meant to sail that evening. The women
 
 326 GROCER GREATHEART 
 
 learnt that as there were ladies in the company 
 aboard the clothing difficulty would be solved. 
 
 Towards sunset we were ready to start. 
 
 " I say," said Captain Kidd, to Greatheart, 
 ' what are you going to do with that property 
 elephant ? Turn him loose ? " 
 
 " No," said the grocer. " He'll come with 
 us." 
 
 " But we can't take him on board." 
 
 " We are not going on board." 
 
 The girl put her hand confidently in 
 his. 
 
 "We're going to live here." 
 
 ' You see," said Greatheart the Magnificent, 
 " there's nothing to take us back. This is the 
 sort of life we like the only life we could live 
 now. Go back to civilisation and stiff collars 
 and grocers' shops? Absurd. What has 
 civilisation for me that I haven't found here ? " 
 
 His fond eyes rested on the strange girl's 
 face. 
 
 " It's such a charming quiet spot, isn't it, for 
 a honeymoon?" she said, with a happy blush. 
 
 There was no answer to that. 
 
 The last we saw of them as the boat stood 
 waiting for us at the beach was the elephant, in 
 his gorgeous trappings of scarlet, and on his 
 shoulders she in her glittering cuirass of silver, 
 and in the tiny howdah he leaning forward,
 
 THE PIRATE 327 
 
 without backward glance at us. So they passed 
 ponderously, barbarically magnificent, along the 
 beach and disappeared into the jungle. 
 
 And this scene and incidentally Miss Rice's 
 attitude of despairing horror was carefully 
 recorded on the perspiring cinematograph 
 operator's last hundred feet of film. 
 
 THE END
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 GALAHAD JONES 
 
 :: :: A TRAGIC FARCE :: :: 
 
 With 16 Full-page Illustrations by the Australian Artist, 
 NORMAN LINDSAY, a contributor to " Punch." 
 
 Crown 8vo., 6s. 
 
 SOME PRESS OPINIONS. 
 
 Athtnwn, " Mr. Adams has contrived to write a really 
 charming and tender romance, and is to be congratulated upon the 
 combined pathos and humour of his tragic farce, and Mr. Norman 
 Lindsay on his clever Illustrations, which help to emphasize its 
 moral." 
 
 Daily Chronicle. "It reminds us of Mr. H. G. Veils when 
 Mr. H. G. Wells is writing at his best, when, that is, he is presenting 
 characters like those of 'Galahad Jones' and 'Em, his wife.' But 
 there is naught of imitation in Mr. Adams' work, it is entirely and 
 eminently original." 
 
 Standard. " A comedy quaintly humorous, sufficiently senti- 
 mental, and adorned with just the right amount of genuine pathos. 
 Mr. Adams writes delightfully, stylishly, with wit and with feeling, 
 and he is never heavy. His book is rendered more attractive by 
 Mr. Norman Lindsay's clever illustrations." 
 
 Daily Graphic. " < Galahad Jones ' is a real work of art." 
 
 Scotsman. " As a character study it is a remarkable achievement. 
 Seldom does an author work in material so very commonplace, and 1 
 yet succeed in making it attractive, simply by the attraction of honest 
 human nature." 
 
 Manchester Courier. " Dainty and fresh, ^he Antipodean touch 
 marks ^ Galahad Jones ' a novel that cannot fail to enhance the 
 reputation of Mr. John Lane as a publisher, both in Mr. A. H. Adams' 
 writing and Mr. Norman Lindsay's drawings." 
 
 Yorkshire Observer. " Mr. Adams is to be congratulated upon 
 what is evidently his first book, and one who can write as brilliantly 
 as this should go far." 
 
 Liverpool Daily Post. " Mr. Adams has a remarkable power of 
 characterisation, and blends humour and pathos in a manner which 
 is intensely moving. ' Galahad Jones ' is not merely a book to be 
 laughed over : it is a fine piece of literature, and will be thoroughly 
 enjoyed. We can commend it unreservedly."
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 A TOUCH OF FANTASY 
 
 A Romance for those who are 
 lucky enough to wear glasses 
 
 Crown 8vo., 6s. 
 
 SOME PRESS OPINIONS. 
 
 Morning Post. "Mr. Adams writes with a pleasant sense of 
 fun, and an attractive outlook on life." 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette. " Mr. Adams writes well and his characters 
 live, and the result is a book which is interesting and out of the common." 
 
 Times. " . . . Drawn with a skilful band." 
 
 Daily Graphic." Told with a realism that is touched with poetry, 
 as indeed one might expect from a writer who has Mr. Adams' 
 delicacy of observation and insight. It is a romance full of tenderness 
 and charm, and written with an artist's love of words for their own 
 sake." 
 
 Daily Telegraph." This clever story." 
 Bystander. " The story is delicately told." 
 
 Outlook. " Mr. Adams writes with a remarkable touch oi 
 personality. ' A Touch of Fantasy ' is admirable comedy, and its 
 author ought to go far." 
 
 Evening Standard. " The story has a touch of sympathetic 
 glamour, not common, but very pleasant." 
 
 Daily Chronicle. " There is no question of the cleverness, 
 insight and literary gifts possessed by Mr. Adams." 
 
 Academy 11 The characters are quite real." 
 
 Mancliester Courier. " It's humour and pathos ring true. The 
 hook is fresh, tender, delightful, and this Australian Novelist's 
 reappearance is welcome. Both those who wear glasses and those 
 who do not will enjoy his story." 
 
 Western Morning News. " Mr. Adams writes with such a facile 
 pen, and with such real intensity." 
 
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