'-H 
 
RED BOB OF THE BISMARCKS 
 
RED BOB 
 
 OF THE 
 
 BISMARCKS 
 
 BY 
 
 BEATRICE GRIMSHAW 
 
 Author of "When the Red Gods Call." 
 '"Hie Sorcerer's Stone," file. 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 LONDON 
 
 HURST AND BLACKETT LIMITED 
 
 PATERNOSTER HOUSE. E.G. 
 1915 
 
Ax 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 AFTER lunch as I was passing through 
 the weaving-sheds on my way back to 
 the office, my father came through the swing- 
 door. He had some samples of yarn in his 
 hand. 
 
 " You have to hurry and catch the two-thirteen 
 to Lime Street," he said, speaking to me through 
 the crash and yell of the looms, with his grey 
 beard close to my ear. " Come outside." 
 
 We crossed the sheds, and stood in an asphalted 
 courtyard, where it was comparatively easy to 
 speak. 
 
 " I can't spare Henry or James," said my 
 father, twisting his beard with one hand. " In 
 general, you are a disappointment to me, Paul, 
 but I will allow you have an eye for yarns. You 
 must do your best. Go and look up Griffens 
 
 Fionn I a 
 
2-\ : :;; :;Re4i :Bob -of the Bismarcks 
 
 and tell young Snaith himself that those seventies 
 are not up to the last. Show him the difference ; 
 it takes some showing, but you can manage it ; 
 anyhow, you have to. Take these hundred- 
 and-forties as well, and tell him the other is from 
 Fletchers' ; make him see the value they are 
 offering us even at that increased price. Do your 
 best. You have brains enough and to spare for 
 nonsense of your own. . . . Have you your 
 railway fare ? " 
 
 I plunged hurriedly into three or four empty 
 pockets. My father watched me with a 
 disapproving eye. 
 
 " As usual," was his comment. " It is one- 
 and-four return, first-class. There is one-and- 
 sixpence, including trams. I'll debit it against 
 your allowance. Make haste and catch your 
 train." 
 
 I nodded, put the money and samples into my 
 pocket, and crossed the yard to the outer door. 
 My father stood in the middle of the asphalt, 
 his long beard blowing in the September wind — 
 it was a grey Liverpool day, and like to rain — and 
 as I went out, I heard him call : 
 
 " Don't go and lose those yarns." 
 
 They were the last words he ever said to his 
 troublesome youngest son. If I had known that 
 the iron gate of the Corbet burying-ground was 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 already turning on its hinges to let him in. 
 But when I knew, the world lay between. 
 
 When I got to Griffens', I found that Griffen 
 Senior's wife had died the night before, and all 
 the office was shut. I rolled up the yarn samples 
 small, and put them in an inner pocket, till they 
 should be wanted again. I have them still ; 
 my father's fear that I should lose them was quite 
 unjustified. 
 
 Of course, the right thing to do was to take the 
 train straight back to our works, and go on with 
 my accounts. I did not do it. I looked at the 
 Exchange clock, found it was not yet three, and 
 walked down to the B. I. & C. offices in Water 
 Street. The under-manager was a friend of 
 mine ; I could always rely on him for a seeing-off 
 ticket when I wanted one. 
 
 I found him in his own small office, with all 
 the windows shut, and a heavy smell of varnished 
 linoleum in the air. 
 
 " What's going out to-day ? " I asked. 
 
 " Best we have," said the under-manager, 
 smacking his lips, as if the liners of the B. I. & C. 
 were so many choice things to eat. 
 
 " Not the Empress oj Singapore F " 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " That's she. Eleven thousand register, twin 
 screw. A hundred and twenty first saloons, one 
 hundred and eighty-two second, seventy-nine 
 third. Cargo " 
 
 " Bother the cargo. Can I have a ticket ? " 
 
 " Catch hold. . . . We've got some star 
 passengers this trip. Carita, going to sing all 
 over India ; General Dames ; Professor Pedley 
 Liddiard, for Borneo via Singapore. When 
 are we going to see you in the passage-department 
 for yourself, Corbet ? I never saw a lad so keen 
 on watching other people go off." 
 
 " Oh, God, Horsley, let it alone ! I'm not 
 in the mood for being guyed about that." 
 
 A side door opened, and a small, nervous clerk 
 looked in. 
 
 " I didn't call ; you can go," said Horsley. 
 Then, looking rather keenly at me : " You'll get 
 me into trouble with the G. M., if you roar like 
 a bull in my respectable room. You go for a 
 walk, lad, or go back to your father's office, where 
 I suspect you ought to be at three o'clock in the 
 afternoon. If the Empress of Singapore puts you 
 into such a devil of a temper, I guess you'd better 
 let the lady alone." 
 
 " I'm as cool as you are," I said. " Anyone 
 else going ? " 
 
 " Vincent Gore, for parts unknown — after 
 
Red Bob of the Bismareks 
 
 Singapore. Lad, you're morbid. Lots of us 
 get that way in Liverpool, and we have to get 
 over it. You will too." 
 
 " Fm damned if I shall," I said, svnnging out 
 of the room. I wondered for a minute or two if 
 there really was anything in the frequently 
 repeated accusations of bad temper made by my 
 father and my step-brothers. . . . Horsley 
 seemed to have some idea of that kind in his 
 head too. . . . However, I dismissed the subject, 
 writh the consideration that it did not matter, 
 anyhow. 
 
 It was chill for September ; there was — almost 
 — a threat of winter somewhere in the air. A 
 pinching wind blew off the painty-grey water, 
 making dry spots on the pavements. The sun 
 had gone in ; Liverpool, down, by the landing- 
 stage and the elevated railway, looked like a steel 
 engraving of itself. 
 
 They hint a lie who say, " if youth but knew." 
 It does, sometimes ; above all — though this is 
 strange — on days like the late September day that 
 saw me drawn to the place where the ships went 
 down to sea. Spring, for youth, is a time of 
 dreaming and languor ; the white March days 
 that send the man of full years looking for his 
 cabin-trunk and his pamphlet of steamer sailings, 
 more likely draw the lad of twenty to those quiet 
 
6 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 nooks near railway-bridges far out in the country, 
 where one may sheher from the east, and dream, 
 and feel the new spring sun flow over his face, 
 like the golden hair of the girl he is dreaming 
 about. . . . 
 
 But the earliest bite of autumn, in the latitudes 
 of England, fills a man in the pride of youth with 
 a glory that seems to have no root or reason in 
 any external circumstance. Because the wind has 
 turned cold, and the roads are growing heavy — 
 because dead leaves blow up beneath an iron sky 
 — ^you are glad. You want to run and sing. 
 You feel the round gold coin of Youth held tight 
 v^thin your hand, and know that there is nothing 
 in the world it may not buy. Youth knows ! 
 
 At all events, Paul Corbet, aged twenty-two, 
 run away from his work to see the ships go out, 
 knew that day. But what is the use of knowing 
 when you may not do ? 
 
 I wonder how many lads there are, now, in 
 Liverpool, not yet broken to the bit and collar, 
 who feel a sickness of heart every Wednesday and 
 Saturday afternoon, when the great liners put 
 forth with shouting to the ends of all the world, 
 sending their cries far up the clattering grey 
 streets ? How many know the notes of the 
 whistles ? (" That's a Bibby for Burmah . . . 
 There's the Nestor singing out ; she's going to 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 Australia . . . That must be the Benin ; Canary 
 Island and Gold Coast . . . There's the Maure- 
 tania's big bellow, third time ; she's off for New 
 York . . . The Victorian should be leaving for 
 Montreal about now ; that must be her . . . 
 What's the Leyland boat for Buenos Ayres to- 
 day ? Well, anyhow, she's going now ; I hear 
 her.") . . . 
 
 We, the world's sea-rovers, have grown so rich 
 nowadays through our roving that we must needs 
 train our youths to stay at home and sit tight 
 upon its gains in linoleumed rooms v^th all the 
 windows shut. But they don't want to do it — 
 they take a lot of training. And some of them — 
 not the worst, though I say it — can't be trained 
 at all. 
 
 Well ! I went down the Overhead to Prince's, 
 having travelled third to Lime Street and saved 
 eightpence ; otherwise I should have had to 
 tramp it. My head was humming vnth Vincent 
 Gore, all the way to the landing-stage. A famous 
 traveller, whose life had been a tissue of the 
 wildest adventures ; who had added more than 
 one bit of red to the map of the British Colonies ; 
 who was something of a mystery, something of a 
 terror — for he did not write about his doings, and 
 it was said that everyone who knew him was more 
 or less afraid of him — this man was to be a 
 
8 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 passenger on the Empress of Singapore to-day, and 
 I with a ticket to go on board and see him ! 
 
 The wind was getting up ; it blew along the 
 great grey estuary in scuds and spirts of foam. 
 A Cunarder was coming down the river ; you 
 could see her scarlet, black-topped funnel swing 
 a little against the ugly sky. The Empress oj 
 Singapore lay steady enough at her moorings, but 
 every now and then the floating stage and the 
 steamer heaved just enough to let you know they 
 were not solid land. . . . To-night — oh, to- 
 night ! the Empress would assuredly be rolling 
 and storming down St. George's Channel, with 
 the wild Atlantic breakers rushing up to meet 
 her from the south ; the v^nd would yell in the 
 wire riggings, and the spray would smack on the 
 top of the smoke-stacks, and fall with a crash on 
 deck. . . . And Vincent Gore would be going 
 out to " parts unknown, via Singapore." 
 
 I was walking through the elevated tunnel that 
 leads from the railway to the boats when this 
 thought came to me. And at the moment, 
 another came : a thought that exploded in my 
 brain with the force of a bursting shell. To-night 
 I would go too ! 
 
 It sounded like the sheerest nonsense ; for I 
 had only fourpence in my pocket ; my father 
 and my step-brothers were even now looking out 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 9 
 
 for me to come back to the works with my 
 samples, and my aunt, who kept house for us all, 
 no doubt was planning out the dinner at Laurel- 
 holme (Gateacre and Woolton suburb) with 
 perfect confidence in the assumption that four 
 men were to be fed at that table, now and for 
 ever more. Yet, I knew that I should do it. I 
 was not too young to have experienced some of 
 those rare moments in the history of the mind, 
 when thought and desire, fused together by the 
 heat of some outward shock, flash suddenly into a 
 driving force that nothing can resist. I do not 
 think all men have such moments ; but those 
 who have will never miss what they stretch their 
 hands out to take. 
 
 So I went up the gangway of the Empress of 
 Singapore, knovdng that the gates of the world 
 were opening for me — at last. 
 
 The alleyways were full of blue-coated stewards 
 carrying cabin luggage ; passengers and passengers' 
 friends jostled one another against the enamelled 
 bulkheads. There were half a dozen small 
 crowds in the marble-panelled smoking saloon, 
 farewelling one another, with the aid of drinks 
 from the bar. Every table in the writing-room 
 was occupied by people scribbling to catch the 
 last shore mail. Madame Carita swept by in 
 velvet and ermine, vnth a train of two maids and 
 
10 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 a secretary ; she was abusing the purser in 
 voluble Glasgow, for having given her the second- 
 best state cabin. The purser was, meantime, 
 trying to pacify an indignant Indian general, who 
 thought that he had been deprived of the second- 
 best cabin in favour of Madame Carita. 
 
 It was all famiHar to me — the whole scene of 
 departure, the gilding and looking-glassing and 
 marbling and bird's-eye mapling and brocading 
 of the ship decorations ; the typical ocean-going 
 steamer smell of mattresses, apples, rubber 
 carpeting and paint. I had never been on the 
 Empress of Singapore before, but I have. an eye for 
 ships' geography, and I found my way without 
 any hesitation to the first state cabin, about 
 which no one was disputing, and which, I some- 
 how guessed, would be the property of the man 
 for whom I was looking. 
 
 I found the cabin, a double one, well amidships 
 on the promenade deck, knocked at the shut door, 
 and was answered in a voice that left no doubt 
 whatever in my mind that I had guessed right. It 
 was like the bark of a mastiff. 
 
 " Can't see anyone ! " it said. 
 
 I opened the door and walked into the cabin. 
 
 The occupant swung round in a ship's chair 
 that was fitted to a handsome writing-table, and 
 asked me what the hell I meant by coming there ? 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 11 
 
 " To speak to you," I said. I did not feel 
 half as put out as I had often felt in my father's 
 works, when James or Henry were rating me 
 about something I hadn't done. 
 
 " And is the youth of Liverpool," said the 
 barking voice, " so Liverpudlianly wrapped in 
 fog that it is incapable of seeing when a man 
 is busy ? " 
 
 I stood against the doorway with my arms 
 folded. He did not frighten me a bit ; I felt 
 my spirits rise at the fact. For this Vincent 
 Gore, with his big, thin frame, his Cecil Rhodes 
 type of face, and his blue, hard eyes with cat- 
 pupils in them, was undoubtedly formidable. 
 
 I did not answer his gibe. 
 
 " You look as if you wanted a secretary," I 
 said. " I should like to offer myself. I could 
 make myself exceptionally useful, if you cared 
 to engage me." 
 
 The first sentence I spoke in French, the 
 second in German, the third, half in Spanish 
 and half in Dutch. All these languages are 
 useful in the cotton trade, and the work of learn- 
 ing them had been one of the few things about 
 my father's business that really interested me. 
 James and Henry couldn't learn languages 
 for nuts. 
 
 Vincent Gore's cat-pupils fixed themselves 
 
12 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 on me steadily, and I saw that he was counting 
 me up. I saw also that he was one of those men 
 whose first impulse is always to say " No," who 
 find every variety of " Yes " drag heavily on 
 the tongue. 
 
 " I don't want a secretary," he said. 
 
 " I can fight," I went on. " I can stand 
 anything, and I'm not afraid of anything in 
 the world." 
 
 Vincent Gore swung round further in his 
 chair, and made an impatient chop in the air 
 with one finger — a characteristic gesture. 
 
 " Men don't say those things," he said. 
 " Shed your baby petticoats, lad ; they seem 
 to have stuck to you a long time." 
 
 I felt myself flush hot at the thought of having 
 swaggered ; perhaps the smear of Liverpool 
 clerkdom had not quite passed me by. . . . 
 
 " Will you have me ? " I said. 
 
 " No," said Gore, turning back to his table, 
 and taking up his pen. 
 
 I went out of the cabin, cold and hot at the 
 same time, but the hot predominated. I was 
 sure that the gods would send me something, 
 for I was in the mood that Fate herself must 
 heed when it comes. 
 
 Before I was out of earshot the door opened, 
 and Gore barked out : " Sterry ! " 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 13 
 
 A youngish man, Hght and strong-looking, 
 well-clad, but not a gentleman, came running 
 down the alleyway, answering, " Yes, sir." He 
 went into the cabin and the door was shut. 
 I waited, in an odd, passionless kind of 
 calm. I was sure that something would 
 happen. 
 
 Nothing did, except the reappearance of 
 Sterry, who came out, hat in hand, and made 
 for the shore gangway. It was still an hour 
 before sailing time. I saw him go ashore ; 
 followed him and took the same train on the 
 Elevated. My mind was beginning to purr 
 like a cat inside me. For now I began to see. 
 
 When he got out I went after him, and fol- 
 lowed him again. He went into an outfitter's 
 in Bold Street, and began buying some special 
 kind of socks. I stayed outside. 
 
 Either I was not clever at following or else 
 Sterry was keen in suspecting anything of the 
 kind, for when he came out again, he saw me, and 
 asked me somewhat impertinently if I wanted 
 anything. 
 
 " Yes, I do," said I. "I want you to come 
 and have a drink." 
 
 " Oh, if that's all," said the man, dropping 
 his gentleman's-gentleman air at once, " Pm 
 with you, though I'm blest if I know who you 
 
14 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 are from Adam. I thought you was a bill, 
 I did." 
 
 " Bill for whom ? " I asked, falling into step 
 with him along the windy pavement. 
 
 " Me, you can lay. The governor isn't the 
 sort to have bills after him. Wish you could 
 say the same of me — but there. Jack ashore's 
 Jack ashore, to the end of his days." 
 
 " Come in here ; you'll find it a decent sort 
 of place. So you were a sailor before you became 
 a valet ? " 
 
 " Yes ; Royal Navy. Scotch is mine, thanks." 
 
 " Been many voyages with Mr. Gore ? " 
 
 " Many," said the man, gaping at me vdth 
 his hard red face over the rim of his glass. 
 " Why, bless you, I only signed on with him last 
 week. Hardly got time to know the run of his 
 clothes." 
 
 " Would you sell your place to someone else ? " 
 
 " You arst me, would I sell my place to some- 
 one else — meanin' 'oo ? " 
 
 " No matter." 
 
 " Well, it isn't any matter, for I wouldn't. 
 Not for all the girls that lives in Liverpool." 
 He set down his empty glass and eyed it. I 
 beckoned to the barman (who knew me, fortu- 
 nately, for I had only twopence in my pocket) 
 and had the glass refilled. The irrelevant remark 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 15 
 
 about girls made me feel hopeful — remembering 
 that this was Liverpool and that the man had 
 been a sailor. 
 
 I edged away from the neighbourhood of the 
 men about the bar, and Sterry followed me, 
 carrying his glass. I remember that I was 
 very hot within and very cool without ; that 
 the place smelt of cold beer and washed 
 marble, and that there was a white-faced clock 
 on the wall, which I watched with half an eye 
 as I spoke. The minutes were running away. 
 
 " See here, Sterry," I said. " I want that 
 place. No matter who for. I happen to be 
 short of cash. But look at this watch. Handle 
 it ; open the case. You can see it's worth all 
 it cost, and that was fifty pounds." 
 
 " Being a man that knows something of 
 watches' movements, I can. What's that to 
 do with the flowers that bloom in the spring ? " 
 
 " I'll tell you. My tie-pin is worth another 
 ten. Take it into any jeweller's and see, if you 
 like. You can have the two, if you'll cut off from 
 the ship this afternoon, and let Mr. Gore suppose 
 you've run away." 
 
 " Do you want my answer to that propo- 
 sition ? " said the seaman-valet, draining his 
 glass and setting it down. " Then you can 
 have it. My answer is, No. Why ? Because 
 
16 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 Red Bob is worth being valet to, or bootblack 
 neither. Red Bob's a man." He added some 
 confirmatory adjectives. " And I don't pree- 
 pose to go back on him. By Red Bob I mean 
 my master, Mr. Vincent Gore, F.R.G.S., 
 F.R.S., A.B.C.X.Y.Z., etc. Not that I don't 
 want the cash, nor her. As it 'appens, I 
 want them both each as much as the other, 
 and she's agreeable — too agreeable, if any- 
 thing ; I like them a bit stand-off, best of 
 all. But go back on Red Bob I won't. Not 
 so long as I can stand on my blessed pins and 
 see out of my blessed eyes." 
 
 Something in the style of the last remark 
 struck me as familiar. I sized up the valet with 
 an appraising glance. Long arm, light foot, 
 broad shoulder, twinkling eyes beneath a pent- 
 house brow, nose that had clearly been higher, 
 in the original pattern, than it was at 
 present. . . . 
 
 " Will you fight me for the place ? " I asked. 
 
 " I know a quiet place down in " (for obvious 
 
 reasons I do not give the name) " where you can 
 be safe from the police. I could " 
 
 " You got one ear regulation pattern and 
 one cauliflower," interrupted Sterry, appraising 
 me now in his turn. " You look young, but 
 you're set. Hard and fit, and a proper young 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 17 
 
 devil, if there's anything in what they call 
 physi-physiography. Yes, I'll fight you for it, 
 and if I win, I take the foolish baubles, me lord, 
 with which you tempt me virtue ; and if you 
 win, I stop and marry the girl. Nor don't you 
 think I won't try to knock your head off, both 
 ways, because I will honestly endeavour so to 
 do. Where's your spot where the birds in their 
 httle nests can chide and fight, without Robert 
 putting in his fairy foot to spoil a happy day ? " 
 
 I think we had been speaking louder than 
 either of us had imagined, for at this point three 
 officers of the Red Sun Line, and two from the 
 Kinnoull who had been drinking together at 
 a small marble table, all got to their feet 
 together and came over to us. 
 
 " Young Corbet of Corbet Mills ; I knew the 
 cut of his jib," cried the Kinnoull man. " Boys, 
 this is going to be fun. I saw Corbet knock 
 out Pentreath of the Bache Line in three rounds 
 last Sunday week down at Joe Flanagan's. 
 Come on, all of you." 
 
 We went out in a cheerful crowd, like a party 
 of old friends, and made for Flanagan's. It 
 is a quiet little gymnasium in a quiet street, 
 the name of which I had better not mention ; 
 although, for the matter of that, I had not 
 given the real name of Flanagan himself. He 
 
 a 
 
18 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 is an excellent sport, and knows which side his 
 bread is buttered on ; fights with gloves or 
 without, for love or for money, are all the same 
 to him. He has a very thoughtful little arrange- 
 ment in connection v^th his cellar-way and he 
 does a bit of plumbing and gasfitting work, 
 which is wonderfully apt to make loud slamming 
 noises with sheets of iron just at the time when 
 such noises are wanted. . . . 
 
 . . . There is nothing less interesting than the 
 description of a fight on paper, long after it's 
 over and forgotten, and in any case this one 
 did not last very long. Sterry was a stone or 
 so heavier than myself ; older, at a time when 
 age means advantage, and somewhat longer of 
 reach. He fought, too, with the spirit and 
 pluck of a gamecock, and 'the absence of gloves 
 suited his rather rough-and-tumble sort of 
 style very well. I think that on another occasion 
 he would have had the better of me. But it 
 was my day, and I knew, Hke a gambler who is 
 in luck, that I could lose in nothing. I knocked 
 him out in the fourth round, and the ship's 
 oflficers cheered me till Flanagan thought it 
 necessary to go out and nail a sheet of iron on 
 to his fowl-house, with frightful clamour. 
 
 Burt of the Kinnoull Line took him to hos- 
 pital, after I had handed over the watch and 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 19 
 
 pin, which I thought he had fairly earned, and 
 received Sterry's ticket — I was cool enough to 
 remember that they would not let me on board 
 without it. The Red Sun fellows were very 
 decent ; they thumped me on the back, stood 
 me drinks which I didn't particularly want, 
 and fixed up my face for me as well as they could. 
 I did not look very presentable when all was 
 done, but there was no time to think about 
 that ; no time to do anything but bolt into 
 a shop where they knew my father, get a few 
 clothes on credit, stick them into a Gladstone 
 bag, and run for the tram. The Empress oj 
 Singapore had already whistled twice. 
 
 With my bag in my hand, a good deal of 
 plaster on my face, and one penny in my pocket, 
 I reached Prince's again, thoroughly winded, 
 and made for the big, black liner. The gang- 
 way was still down, but the bell was ringing 
 furiously, and the stewards had begun to caU 
 out : " Any more for the shore ? " — the cry 
 that for those who sail is the swinging on its 
 hinges of the great world's door, and for those 
 who stay the first rattling of the sods upon a 
 coffin. . . . 
 
 Women were streaming down the gangway as 
 I pressed up ; many of them were crying behind 
 futile muffs and veils, and there were men, 
 
 2* 
 
20 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 too, who passed down to the shore with faces 
 grey as the autumn river, and eyes that looked 
 hard, yet saw nothing. People on the deck were 
 saying last good-byes. . . . Often as I have seen 
 it all, it never failed to make me a little choky 
 in the throat. I consoled myself, pushing my 
 way among the sobbing, hand-straining groups, 
 with the reflection that there was, at all events, 
 nobody to cry over my departure ; and then 
 an absurd vision came to me of my father and 
 James and Henry, all tall and respectable and a 
 little fat, standing out there on the landing- 
 stage, and calling to me to come back imme- 
 diately vdth the samples of yarn, whilst Aunt 
 Sarah, pink and roundabout, shook a dinner- 
 napkin at me, and told me that my soup was 
 growing cold, and I was a disgrace to the Corbet 
 family. . . . 
 
 " Hooray ! " I said irrelevantly, and dived 
 into the second-class companion way. A 
 steward looked at my ticket and let me pass. 
 I got into a quiet cabin, shut the door, and 
 sat down upon the blue-quilted bunk to await 
 the sailing of the ship. 
 
 " Any more for the sho-ore ? " sounded out 
 again, and stewards passed by in the alley-way, 
 ringing bells. Feet trampled about ; I could 
 hear the gangway going up, and by and by 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 21 
 
 came the Empresses last call, a fierce succession 
 of whistle blasts. 
 
 " She's off ! " I said, bouncing on the mat- 
 tress of the bunk. She was. In another 
 moment or two the bit of landing-stage that 
 was visible through the port began to slip back 
 and away ; a line of grey water opened out 
 . . . the Empress of Singapore had sailed ; and 
 I, who had never been anywhere except across 
 to Antwerp or Brussels, was off " to parts 
 unknown, via Singapore." 
 
 I hoped — I almost prayed — that Vincent 
 Gore would not want his valet before we were 
 out of the river ; and fortunately for me, my 
 luck still held. We got clear of the Mersey 
 and out to sea ; and the September day shut 
 down to dark. It was blowing up by now, 
 the cabin in which I sat began to swing and 
 curtsy, and the bulkheads creaked as the great 
 ship leaned to the seas. By and by she began 
 to lift in earnest, and you could hear the water- 
 fall crash of big waves on the upper deck, as she 
 drove her nose into it, storming down the 
 Channel. We were in for a dirty night. 
 
 A clashing of plates in the neighbourhood of 
 the pantries reminded me that I was hungry, 
 and also that the dinner hour could not be very 
 far off. I waited for the first bell in some 
 
* 22 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 suspense ; it seemed likely that my troubles 
 would begin with the announcement of the 
 dressing hour. . . . 
 
 I did not have to wait so long. Before the 
 bell had rung a steward ran down the alley- 
 way past my door, yelling : " Sterry ! Sterry 1 
 Here, where's Cabin Seven's valet got to ? " 
 
 I came out into the narrow passage with its 
 glitter of white paint and brass door knobs, and 
 sang out, ** Here ! " 
 
 The man did not give me half a glance. 
 
 " Your governor wants you," he threw over 
 one shoulder, as he hurried away into the pantries, 
 leaning all to one side, like a navy-blue flower 
 growing on a windy soil of crimson carpeting. 
 I made my way to the first saloon, staggering 
 about a bit — for though I was a good sailor, 
 I had no sea-legs as yet — and went to Number 
 Seven with a dash, resolving to get it over. 
 
 Vincent Gore was seated at his table, writing, 
 exactly as I had left him hours before. I do 
 not think he had moved in all that time. 
 
 " Get out my clothes," he said, without 
 looking up. 
 
 " Yes, sir," I said, determined to play the 
 part out. My throat felt rather dry. 
 
 Gore looked up at once, and his glance went 
 through me like a rifle-bullet. 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 23 
 
 " What is the meaning of this comedy ? — and 
 where is my man Sterry ? " he said. Then he 
 shut his mouth, and waited for a reply, in a 
 manner that I felt to be peculiarly disconcerting. 
 I was resolved, however, that it should not 
 disconcert me. 
 
 " I fought your valet for the place," I ex- 
 plained, somewhat short-windedly. " I tried 
 to bribe him and he wouldn't. So there was 
 nothing else left to do. It was a fair fight ; 
 two of the KinnouU men and four of the Red 
 Star were there " 
 
 " May one ask where ? " asked Gore, with 
 deceptive mildness. 
 
 " Joe Flanagan's," I explained. " Flanagan's 
 a real sport, and all the good fights " 
 
 " I don't particularly want to hear about all 
 the fights, if you don't mind," interrupted 
 Gore, still with that unpleasant gentleness. 
 " Give me the net result of this one only — if 
 you please." 
 
 " You asked me, and I answered," I said, 
 with a spirit of flame. " We had as even a 
 fight as you'd wish to see for four rounds, and 
 your man knocked me down twice " 
 
 " He seems to have done a little more than 
 that," interrupted Gore again, looking at my 
 damaged face. 
 
24 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " Whatever he did, he's in hospital, and I 
 put him there," I answered. " But he'll be as 
 right as rain in a day or two. I know." 
 
 " So it would appear," said Vincent Gore. 
 
 " I gave him about sixty pounds' worth of 
 jewellery," I explained. " I hadn't any cash. 
 He didn't want to go back on you, he said. 
 He seemed a decent chap, and I was sorry I 
 had to smash him up so, but there wasn't 
 anything else to do. I'll make you as good a 
 valet as you like, since you won't have me for 
 a secretary." 
 
 " You," said Gore, tilting back his swing- 
 chair and looking up at me with those hard, 
 cat-pupils of his, " you appear to be a nice young 
 devil, taken all round." 
 
 " That's what your valet said," I answered 
 rather impatiently. 
 
 " I suspect it's not the first time you 
 have heard the comparison," observed Gore. 
 " Well " — ^with sudden change of manner — 
 " perhaps I'm better suited to have the handling 
 of a young devil than your parents seem to 
 have been, and I've no particular objection 
 to the breed, as such — what's your name ? " 
 
 " Paul Corbet." 
 
 " Very well, Corbet, take away my boots and 
 clean them. Clean them properly." 
 
Red Bob of the Bismareks 25 
 
 I picked up the boots — they were exceedingly 
 dirty — and started to leave the cabin. 
 
 " Say, ' Yes, sir,' when I speak to you," barked 
 Gore. 
 
 " Yes, sir," I said. I took the boots away 
 and shut the door. 
 
 The Empress was pitching heavily as I made 
 my staggering way down the passage. I 
 cannoned into a steward before I had gone 
 far. 
 
 " Beg pardon " he began, and then, seeing 
 
 the boots in my hand : " You silly owl, why 
 can't you keep out of the way ? Where are 
 you going with them boots ? " 
 
 " Going to clean them if I can get some 
 blacking," I said. 
 
 " Who are you with ? " 
 
 "Mr. Vincent Gore." 
 
 " Oh— Red Bob ! Well ; Pd recommend you 
 to clean them proper. I'll give you a lick of 
 blacking after dinner ; it isn't boot-cleaning 
 time now." 
 
 " I'm going to do them," I said. " I wish 
 you could " 
 
 " Who's been knocking your face about like 
 that ? " he interrupted. 
 
 " A hospital patient." 
 
 " Hospital patient ? " 
 
26 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " He is now." 
 
 " Oh — ah — I take you ; I comprehend. Well, 
 seeing it's Red Bob you're with, I'll stretch a 
 point, and get you the stuff now. Where's 
 your own ? " 
 
 " Don't know." 
 
 " New at the job ? " 
 
 I made no answer, but looked at him. I 
 might have looked unpleasant. He went off 
 and got me the blacking, and I found my cabin 
 and sat down to clean the boots. The job 
 was not so easy as I had expected, but when I 
 had got them clean and shining, I took them down 
 to Number Seven again, and knocked at the 
 door. 
 
 " Your boots, sir," I said. 
 
 The electric lights were on, and the cabin, 
 panelled in white and gold and upholstered with 
 amber brocade, looked very bright and luxu- 
 rious. Gore was standing in the middle of 
 it, and swinging to the motion of the ship as 
 he tied his evening tie. He took the boots 
 from me, and examined them. He tapped 
 the inside of the heel with one finger. 
 
 " Clean that again," he said, and imme- 
 diately turned to his tie once more, and blotted 
 me out of existence. I went back and cleaned 
 the insides of the heels with microscopical 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 27 
 
 care. The second bell rang while I was at 
 work ; I hurried back to the cabin as quickly 
 as I could. Vincent Gore was still there. He 
 examined the boots and set them down. 
 
 " Don't let me have to speak about that 
 again," he said. " Unpack while Fm at 
 dinner." 
 
 He left the cabin and walked lightly and 
 securely along the pitching alley-way towards 
 the saloon companion. I did my best with his 
 things ; I had never had a valet — such luxuries 
 not being fashionable even among the wealthy 
 section of Liverpool society — but I was fas- 
 tidious enough about my own clothes to guess 
 fairly well how things should be done. Gore 
 was back before I had quite finished — I found 
 later that he was a phenomenally small eater 
 and never lingered over meals. I got found 
 fault with again over two or three matters. 
 I shut my teeth and took it in silence. He dis- 
 missed me soon, and I went to the stewards' 
 pantry, and found someone to give me food ; 
 I was fairly ravenous, and the second-class 
 cabin tea had long been over. 
 
 " But I wonder," I said to myself, as I came 
 back to my cabin, " I wonder why Vincent 
 Gore is caUed Red Bob ? " 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 WHY Vincent Robinson Gore, M.A., LL.D., 
 F.R.G.S., F.R.S., was, by certain people, 
 called Red Bob did not become clear to me for 
 some time. There were a good many people 
 on the ship who knew him, but his curious nick- 
 name did not seem to be current among the upper 
 classes of our little world afloat. It was the ship 
 proletariat and the ship bourgeoisie who used 
 it — the deck hands, stokers, pantry boys, and 
 general stewardry. He was Red Bob to all of 
 these ; I would not ask them why, for Gore 
 kept me determinedly to my valet work during 
 the first part of the voyage, and it was hard 
 enough to stand all that was coming to me in 
 such an anomalous position, without making 
 things worse by asking questions about my 
 employer. The stewards, knowing that I was 
 not one of themselves, took it out of me by with- 
 holding all the small helps and hints they would 
 have given to one of their own class, and the 
 passengers, naturally, had nothing to do with 
 
 28 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 29 
 
 me. I had, in consequence, a fairly hard time 
 of it up to Port Said — harder than anything in 
 the shape of snubbings, scoldings, loneliness 
 and uncongenial work that had ever fallen to 
 my share in Liverpool. 
 
 And — I was supremely happy. 
 
 I had inherited Spain and Portugal. Up to 
 this, they had been areas of paint on a piece of 
 paper. Now they were purple headlands and 
 blue, floating peaks, real peaks above a real sea 
 . . . and they were mine. I owned the rock 
 of Gibraltar ; last week it had been an insurance 
 company's boring advertisement — now it was 
 a wonderful, ghttering town, full of palms and 
 castles and Othellos in white wool gaberdines, 
 and Desdemonas picturesque in mantilla dress 
 . . . and it belonged to me. I owned Mar- 
 seilles — partly ; I had seen France before, and 
 that seemed to lessen my sense of property in 
 the place ; still, the delicate remoteness of 
 Notre Dame de la Garde touched my senses 
 like a perfume, and I added it to my gains. 
 When we came to the Bay of Naples I found it 
 so like a painting of itself by somebody that it 
 disconcerted me a little. Nevertheless, through 
 it, and through Vesuvius, cut sharp as a gem 
 against a wonderful, clove-pink dawn, I imme- 
 diately came into the possession of ^the 
 
30 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 Mediterranean, which up to that point had some- 
 how eluded me. And when the Empress tied up 
 alongside the jetty of Port Said, I, looking on 
 flat roofs and minarets painted in strange clear- 
 ness against a sky of hard, high, unknown blue, 
 felt with a deep content that my hands had 
 closed upon the East. 
 
 With all that, was it likely that I should break 
 my heart over tricks played by the " glory- 
 hole," or cold shoulder from young infantry 
 lieutenants going second out to Bombay ? 
 
 Nevertheless, I was well pleased when Gore 
 sent for me, just after we had entered the Canal, 
 and told me, without any preface or explana- 
 tion, that the cabin steward would take over 
 my valet duties, and that my secretary work 
 began that day. 
 
 " You will have a salary of a hundred and 
 fifty and your expenses," he said. " I'll expect 
 you to learn any languages I may require. I 
 can get a working knowledge of any language in 
 three weeks myself, and I don't see why you 
 should take much longer." 
 
 He opened a drawer and took out a small 
 volume. 
 
 " This is a Malay phrase-book," he said, 
 handing it to me. " It's time you began. 
 Malay — the pigeon Malay that's spoken all over 
 
Red Bob of the Bismareks 31 
 
 the Far East — is ridiculously easy ; you ought 
 to learn it in a fortnight. Talk to the sailors 
 for practice ; there are one or two Malays 
 among them. . . . How about your German ? " 
 
 " I'm pretty useful at it," I answered, 
 wondering a little, for I did not see 
 what need there would be for German in 
 the lands through which we were likely to 
 travel. 
 
 " Right," said Gore ; he put his long legs 
 up on the sofa and opened a book of Seligmann's. 
 I withdrew. The steward met me in the alley- 
 way. It was as hot as the flue of a stove in there ; 
 the ripples on the Canal outside had a sharp, 
 diamond radiance that hit you in the eye, and 
 the sands of the Sahara glittered hard white and 
 blue, through the yellow circles of the ports. 
 The wind-shoots were out all along the ship, 
 looking like great coal shovels set in a line. 
 They caught next to no breeze, for we were 
 going with the wind. 
 
 " Lord, it's goin' to be like 'ell in the Red 
 Sea," said the steward, mopping his neck. Then 
 he suddenly remembered himself, and put away 
 his handkerchief. 
 
 " Beg your pardon, sir, I forgot," he said, 
 pulling himself up straight. " Mr. Gore says 
 you're to go into cabin twenty-nine, sir, down 
 
32 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 the next alley- way. Hope you'll be comfortable, 
 sir. rU see after you myself." 
 
 I had punched his head in the stewards' 
 " glory-hole " the night before, for borrowing my 
 shoe-brushes without leave ; but his calm eye 
 and starched demeanour suggested that he had 
 never met me except as the benevolent employer 
 of a worthy and obliging servant. ... I could 
 hear the cHnk of Vincent Gore's gold in his 
 pocket, as plainly as if I had seen it put there. 
 
 "Thanks," I said. "Will you kindly shift 
 my traps ? " 
 
 " I did so already, sir. Anything else I can 
 do, sir ? " 
 
 " No, thanks," I answered, entering my new, 
 neat cabin with its humming electric fan, and 
 sitting down on my cream brocade sofa to medi- 
 tate on the fresh turn of affairs. It was clear 
 to me that I had been successful in passing some 
 test — I could not tell what — and that Gore had 
 finally decided to join my fortunes to his. What 
 those fortunes might be I was uncertain ; but 
 I was sure of one thing — there was a mystery and 
 a secret somewhere. Vincent Gore was not 
 only an anthropologist and a geographer. . . . 
 What else was he ? 
 
 The door curtain swung a little, and a subdued 
 tap sounded on the woodwork. 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 33 
 
 " Mr. Gore asking for you, sir," came the 
 steward's voice. 
 
 I went back to cabin seven. Gore was still 
 on the sofa, under the big, open port. 
 
 " Shut the door, please," he said. " I wanted 
 to say to you — that I have had secretaries, and 
 given them up, because they talked. . . . Don't 
 you talk, young Paul ! " 
 
 The last words were shot out with a dynamitic 
 violence that almost made me jump, and as he 
 spoke them. Gore's cat-pupilled eyes flashed 
 suddenly red. If you have never seen light eyes 
 play this trick, you will not believe me ; and 
 indeed, the small flash sometimes caused by a 
 sudden dilating of the pupil is not very notice- 
 able. As a rule Gore's eyes, however, did not 
 dilate, they seemed to explode, and for one 
 astonishing instant, they were red, red as flame. 
 Then the light passed away, and the steady cat- 
 pupil was fixed on me again. But now I did not 
 need to ask anyone why Vincent Robinson Gore, 
 in the steamer world that knew him so well, went 
 by the name of Red Bob. 
 
 " That's aU," he said. 
 
 When I got back to my cabin, I settled myself 
 for a comfortable afternoon lounge beneath the 
 fan, musing upon many things. Especially did 
 I muse upon the other secretaries, who had 
 
 3 
 
34 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 talked. . . . Gore was the sort of man who would 
 maroon you penniless in a foreign port, without 
 a grain of compunction, if he thought you had 
 given him cause. I made a compact with myself 
 that no cause should be given. 
 
 I worked hard at Malay ; it is an easy language, 
 if you do not trouble about acquiring the literary 
 form, and I was able to make myself useful with 
 porters and " mandoers " (native hotel-clerks) 
 by the time we got to Java. . . . This is not the 
 story of our travels through the East and Farther 
 East ; if I once began to tell those things, I 
 should never come to an end. I think I was more 
 or less drunk from Aden clear through to Batavia 
 — drunk on the wonders and glories of the wide 
 world. I should never have remembered to write 
 to my father, if Gore had not told me to do it, 
 somewhere about Bombay. When I did write, I 
 found I had nothing particular to say to him ; 
 I only told him that I was not coming back, and 
 sent a civil message to Aunt Sarah. There was 
 no use in filling up pages with explanations, even 
 if I could have explained anything. East of the 
 East, thank God, one simply does things, without 
 having to chew and slaver them all over with 
 explanations, before and after. 
 
 Gore himself, as I afterwards heard, had 
 telegraphed to my people from Marseilles — 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 35 
 
 a characteristic message, which must have 
 astonished the recipients : 
 
 " Tour young devil is with me. — Vincent Gore.^^ 
 
 I don't know how other people feel about these 
 things, but to me there has always been a fasci- 
 nation about certain parts of physical geography 
 — latitudes, longitudes. Tropics, Arctic and Ant- 
 arctic circles, points of the compass, the Equator. 
 I should never have any respect for the man who 
 was heard " to speak disrespectfully of the 
 Equator." 
 
 I said as much to Gore one night when we were 
 running through a sea of hot, black oil, down 
 towards the Java coast. I thought he would have 
 laughed — but he did not. He only took another 
 pull at the extraordinary Burmah cheroot he was 
 smoking — a thing as big as a ruler — and said : 
 
 " I know, boy. . . . There is something in 
 the words that goes to your head. You run down 
 the Bay of Biscay into the thirties out of the 
 forties, and you feel there's an adventure in that ; 
 and you say to yourself that the South is waiting 
 just round the corner ; and the word sounds to 
 you like the name of a girl you love. And you 
 see Africa — it's just a strip of sand and rocky 
 hills — but it makes your heart jump, because 
 
 3* 
 
36 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 Africa is, well, Africa ; there are no words for 
 these things. But men have shed their blood 
 for them, and they'll go on shedding it. 
 
 " And you get to the Line — and it seems 
 glorious to you — just an imaginary division in the 
 sea — still, you'd write hymns to it if you knew 
 how. . . . The East — everyone talks about the 
 fascination of the East ; you thought you knew all 
 about that, but then there's another East, further 
 away, and that seems as delightful as finding a 
 sovereign in a pocket you thought was empty. 
 The forms of things on the map fascinate you like 
 pictures ; you can read an atlas for hours. When 
 there's a dotted line anywhere, or a blank space, 
 you want so much to go there that it makes your 
 mind ache just as your stomach aches when you're 
 hungry " 
 
 " I think you're a wizard, sir," I said, staring 
 at him. For indeed he had spoken out my very 
 inner mind. 
 
 " Not a wizard, young Paul, only a man who's 
 been there too," said Gore. There was some- 
 thing I liked in his face. You would never have 
 thought he had it in him to swear at you violently 
 in four languages when you let his papers get 
 astray. 
 
 " Ah, but you " I said. 
 
 " Same breed," said Gore, tucking the big cigar 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 37 
 
 into the corner of his mouth. " Celebrity and all 
 that, you mean ? Yes. But we're all one 
 family, young Paul. You and I and Stanley 
 and Burton and Sven Hedin and all of them. 
 Any one of us would give up our lives for a river, 
 or make love to a mountain range. Or we'd 
 serve seven years, and seven years after that, for 
 Rachel in the shape of a tribe that nobody'd 
 ever heard of. No sense in it, boy, so far as we're 
 concerned. Means a couple of letters after your 
 name when you're growing old, and a flock of 
 geese a-cackling over your little bit of work, 
 and saying you never did it. . . . Means fevers 
 and dirt and general uncomfortableness, short 
 commons and that sort of thing. Spear or an 
 arrow into you once in a way. Get three-quarters 
 drowned now and again; get wrecked — beastly 
 things, wrecks, except in boys' books. No com- 
 fort. No wife, no home. I'd tell you to stop 
 while you can — only that was before you bashed 
 in the head of my valet, and came aboard. You'll 
 never stop now. You're one of us, God help 
 you ! " 
 
 " There's nothing in the world I'd rather be," 
 I said. 
 
 " Twenty years — when the century's beginning 
 to get middle-aged," went on Gore, as if he had 
 not heard me. " Twenty years. . . . Your 
 
88 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 James and your Henry will have the mills then, 
 because of course you'll be out of the old man's 
 will, and they'll take care you stay out. They'll 
 be respected. Sit on committees, people ask 
 their opinions, stand for Parliament, make the 
 nation's laws. Mrs. James and Mrs. Henry. 
 Nice, pinky-faced young daughters, boys at 
 school. Lamps in the windows when they come 
 up the avenue at night. Stuffy comfy evenings, 
 red curtains — and cats — and somebody making 
 crochet. Home, young Paul." 
 
 " If there's anything on the face of the earth I 
 loathe," I said with emphasis, " it's home. And 
 as for wives and kids, I can't for the life of me see 
 why any man's fool enough to bother with them. 
 And as for the rest, and red curtains, and stuffy 
 evenings — why, sir, you'd have died if you'd had 
 to live a life like that." 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Gore, with that twinkle in his 
 eye again. " Undoubtedly I'd have died — some 
 of me. . . . But did you ever hear the schoolboy 
 ' howler ' about an amphibious animal ? " 
 
 " * An animal that can't live in the water, 
 and dies on the land,' " I quoted. 
 
 " Yes. That kid shot straighter than he knew. 
 There are such animals." 
 
 " Well, I don't understand," I said. 
 
 " No," answered Gore, looking down at me 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 39 
 
 with the curious, middle-aged sort of wisdom 
 that is so irritating to you when you are really 
 young — in my opinion, elderly people of forty 
 and upwards think they know a great deal more 
 than they actually do. 
 
 We fell to talking about Java then, and the 
 subject dropped. But after that night I think 
 we both understood our fortunes were linked by 
 a stronger bond than that of a salary and service. 
 As Gore had said, we were one breed. 
 
 By this time he had told me where we were 
 going, and I could have danced a hornpipe on 
 the deck when I heard it. We were bound for 
 New Guinea — not the comparatively settled 
 and civilized area of British Papua, but the wild, 
 unsettled northern coasts, and the archipelagos 
 of Httle-known islands that lay beyond — Kaiser 
 Wilhelms Land, the Bismarcks, the Solomons. 
 There was nothing in all our baggage that 
 engaged my attention so much, after this, as the 
 great, finely-lettered atlas with its satisfying 
 maps of every corner of the earth. I studied 
 Borneo, Celebes, Halmaheira, Banda, Amboyna, 
 Ceram, the Aru Islands — all the outliers of New 
 Guinea — the great island continent itself, British, 
 Dutch and German ; the lesser island groups 
 that huddled round it, like chickens round a 
 hen (indeed, the whole country is shaped not at 
 
40 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 all unlike a long, scraggy fowl). I gloated over 
 the famous names that lay thick along its coasts — 
 Geelvink, Schouten, Tasman, Le Maire, D'Entre- 
 casteaux, and mentally shook my fist at the vandal- 
 ism of the hideous titles along the German section 
 — such names as Potsdamhaven, Stephansort, 
 Friedrich Wilhelmshaven, Herbertshohe. 
 
 " It's like a beastly lot of suburban villas, with 
 monkey-puzzles in their gardens, along a tarred 
 motor-road," I complained to Gore, when he 
 found me nursing his weighty " Philip's " in a 
 secluded corner of the deck. 
 
 " What are you going to do about it ? " asked 
 Gore oddly. 
 
 " Do about it ? " I asked. In the curious 
 pause that followed, the steamer's screw beat 
 steadily, and the sound of the Java Sea rippling 
 like corn silk before our bows, came up through 
 the quiet afternoon. . . . Saucers and spoons 
 were tinkling somewhere below ; it was evidently 
 four o'clock. 
 
 In those days — and they are not so long ago — 
 the Terrible Year threw no shadow upon the 
 sunny fields where mankind played like a child 
 beneath the slopes of a slowly-waking volcano. 
 Yet there were some, here and there, who sensed 
 the first dull tremors, before the smoke and flame 
 burst forth. Gore, I think, was one. I say 
 
Red Bob of the Bismareks 41 
 
 think, for there were recesses in his mind to which 
 I was never admitted. How much he may have 
 known, guessed, found out, I can never even 
 surmise. 
 
 At any rate, he passed the matter off, and no 
 more was said. If he, with his secret knowledge, 
 whatever it may have been, saw " MENE, 
 MENE, TEKEL UPHARSIN " written across 
 the Friedrichs and Finschs of the map, so did 
 not I. 
 
 And now I have come to a part which is very 
 difficult to tell. If I were one of those poetical 
 fellows, who make a song about everything, in 
 prose or in verse, I suppose it would be easy. 
 But it is not. I read poetry, but I do not write 
 it. And as for speaking it 
 
 Well, when we came into the harbour of 
 Banda, the last of the Moluccas, that blue, early 
 morning, with the sun sending up long rays hke 
 the crest of the P. and O. Company, behind the 
 rim of the volcano 
 
 You see, Banda Harbour is just a volcano. A 
 crater with walls of green forest, quite steep 
 straight up, and a floor of deep water — very 
 deep and very blue-green. And there are 
 islands. Little ones, with palms . . . palms. . . . 
 
42 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 No, I can't describe the place. It is hke some- 
 thing that you see in a coloured picture when you 
 are a little kid at school, and that you don't 
 believe in when you grow up. Only it is true. 
 Even the fortressed sort of stone town, and the 
 castle on the height, that you see in the picture, 
 are there too — there on Banda, last outlier of 
 Malaysia, next to New Guinea, which is cer- 
 tainly the end of the world. I am not going to 
 write the history of the castle and the fort ; 
 all castles and forts have exactly the same history. 
 Somebody built them ; somebody else took them ; 
 somebody took them again ; many somebodies 
 were killed defending them ; then at last they 
 grew old-fashioned, and the green grass sprang 
 up among their stones, and tourists with guide- 
 books wandered about among the ruins, giving 
 the excellent imitation of a hen drinking that I 
 have always observed to be inseparable from the 
 tourist spirit. . . . 
 
 I have nothing to say about the castle and 
 fort of Banda, because life is short, and anyhow 
 I am not Cook or Dr. Lunn of the tours. And 
 besides, it was not at the forts that things 
 happened. 
 
 We came in early, as I have said, and a German 
 author recited poetry at the Goonong Api 
 as we dropped under its fiery cone, and a young 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 48 
 
 doctor going to Kaiser Wilhelms Land said that 
 the beautiful harbour was filled with the sea 
 as a round, deep cup is filled with wine. I asked 
 him if they drank wine out of cups in Berlin, 
 and if so, why ; but he did not answer me. 
 Personally, 1 should have said that the place 
 was more like an immense circular skating rink, 
 with canoes for the skaters. At any rate, it 
 was wonderful, and the town was wonderful 
 too. Gore let me have the morning off, and 
 I made for the market without waiting for 
 breakfast, bought a leaf full of hot curry and 
 another of rice, and ate them as I went along 
 through the sleepy stone streets to the nutmeg 
 woods above. 
 
 I do not know what took me to the nutmeg 
 woods. The town was more interesting ; it 
 was scattered with odd, sleepy Chinese, sitting 
 motionless as temple gods inside their little 
 shops, where no one ever seemed to come to buy, 
 and Malays in silk jackets and cotton petti- 
 coats, dozing on their feet at the street corners 
 — and there were gateway carvings that made 
 you think you were having a nightmare in broad 
 daylight, and great Dutch planter houses — 
 palaces almost — built largely of fine marble, 
 but dropping to pieces for lack of a soul to live 
 in them. Whereas, on the track that led up 
 
44 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 through the woods, there was nothing — nothing 
 but trees. 
 
 The morning was hot with the marrow- 
 melting heat of Malaysia ; even here in the 
 woods, where the slim, light nutmegs grew 
 beneath the shadow of lofty kanaris, like delicate 
 ladies sheltering beneath a canopy of green and 
 gold, it was undeniably warm. Still, I went 
 on and up. The sea was sparkling and cream- 
 ing far away below, where one could see it 
 through the openings in the forest, and the 
 nutmeg flowers, carved ivory blossoms smelling 
 of all the East, lay in drifts like faded snow, so 
 that I could scatter them with my feet as I 
 went. There were nutmegs everywhere, grow- 
 ing at the same time as the flowers. It pleased 
 me oddly to see that, I remember, and to know 
 that leaf and fruit and blossom went on for 
 ever and ever in these far-away, dreamy Islands 
 of the Blest. And the fruit, like a nectarine 
 to look at, with a jetty stone laced round in 
 scarlet mace, was curiously fascinating — not very 
 eatable, and yet one couldn't help eating it. . . . 
 
 " It is first cousin to the lotus," I thought, 
 as I set my teeth in a second. " If you ate 
 enough of it, you would lie down here among 
 these fallen flowers, with the scent of the spice 
 in your brain, and stay there — you would doze 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 45 
 
 away, listening to the sound of the sea, and 
 dreaming — dreaming. You'd hear those crested 
 pigeons cooing, and the sound of the steamers 
 coming in and going away, and you'd never mind 
 them. I can understand. . . ." 
 
 I was touched by a kind of fear — not of the 
 nutmeg, but of what it represented — the per- 
 fumed dream, the cHnging, poisonous peace 
 that wraps itself about the white man in the 
 East beyond the East, leaving him, like Merlin 
 in the hollow oak : 
 
 " As dead, 
 And lost to life, and name, and love, and fame." 
 
 I remembered things I had seen on our long 
 journey — palm huts on coral beaches, with 
 bare, white feet loafing and lolling about the 
 sand of the floors ; eyes of English grey that had 
 grown empty-happy, as no white man's eyes 
 should be, that looked out all day under eaves 
 of sago-thatch to the far-off ruffle of the reef 
 upon the blue. . . . 
 
 I threw the nutmeg fruit away, but I laughed 
 as I threw it. For I knew that, whatever my 
 faults might be, I was not one of the kind that 
 " goes black." ' 
 
 I went on and up. It was pleasant to me to 
 hear the tramp of my solid boots on the track ; 
 it seemed, in that land of ghding, barefoot 
 
46 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 shadows, to mark me out as one of the master 
 race. Only those who have Hved in tropical 
 countries can understand the significance of the 
 boot, I can fully believe. If the ancient Romans 
 hadn't allowed themselves to slop about in 
 sandals, they would still have been the masters 
 of the world. 
 
 Thinking after this fashion, I became aware 
 of another boot ; a very light one, but unmis- 
 takably no bare foot, sounding on the track 
 somewhere above me. The air was so still 
 under the great kanaris that one could hear 
 every smallest sound. This boot, or shoe, was 
 a long way off ; but there was something clean- 
 cut and delicate about its fall that interested 
 me. 
 
 " A girl," I said, as it drew nearer, coming 
 down. " A white girl. No half-castery in that 
 walk. Young, I should guess. Pretty, if her 
 face matches the sort of foot she seems to 
 have. . . ." 
 
 I sfood at a turn of the track and waited. A 
 crested pigeon, deep in the wood, crooned 
 monotonously to itself, like something that has 
 been sounding for ever and ever, and never means 
 to stop ; among the kanari tops a bustling, 
 small breeze had begun to stir, but down below 
 it was windless as the bottom of the sea. 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 47 
 
 The step came round the corner. It was a 
 girl. She was walking rather quickly ; she wore 
 a pale-green dress, like leaves, instead of the all 
 but universal tropical white. I remember I 
 noticed that particularly, also the leaves in her 
 hair, worn, I think, instead of a hat, to protect 
 her from sunstroke, but looking, nevertheless, 
 like an Oread's woodland crown. I saw, as she 
 came nearer, that her face, under the leaves, 
 was hke . . . what was it like ? Something 
 that I had seen lately ; something that was 
 sweet and intoxicating. . . . Why, it was like 
 the blossoms of the nutmeg tree, carved ivory, 
 pale and warm ; and the eyes were the colour 
 of the nutmeg's fruit — deep-hidden, xich black 
 stone. There was no colour at all in the cheeks, 
 but the lips were red — it may have been my 
 fancy, yet I think not — with the very redness 
 of the crimson mace that lay scattered among 
 the ivory flowers on the ground. 
 
 Those dark eyes were eyes of the sun-lands, 
 and the languor of the tropic world showed 
 itself in the delicately poised head and undu- 
 lating movements of the girl ; yet the fineness 
 of her features, and especially the cameo cutting 
 of nose and upper lip, proclaimed the blood 
 pure European — especially to me. It was not 
 for nothing that I had been the pupil of a famous 
 
48 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 anthropologist during many weeks of travel. I 
 did not need to look at the Oread's finger-nails 
 in order to know that there was no dark drop 
 in her veins, despite the black eyes and the ivory- 
 pale skin. The half or quarter-caste girl of 
 gentle breeding, who swarms in Malaysian seas, 
 charming, pretty, well-educated, yet cursed with 
 the curse of mixed blood, that is sure as murder 
 to " out " some day — this girl had not, and has 
 never had, attraction for me. But the lady in 
 green was a lady, one of my own race and blood, 
 and I was interested in her. I judged her to 
 be tropic-born, perhaps even of parents who 
 were tropic-born themselves. We had not met 
 with many of her kind ; ethnologically, I told 
 myself, she was quite worth studying. I did 
 study her. She seemed entirely unconscious 
 of me ; she passed by me with the light, quick 
 step that I had noticed (where did the languor 
 come in ? Yet it was undoubtedly there), and 
 melted away among the kanaris, like : 
 
 " A green thought in a green shade." 
 
 After she had gone by, a very slight, sweet 
 perfume hung about in the air for a moment or 
 two. Most women in Eastern lands have an 
 unpleasant liking for strong, -coarse scent ; I 
 had noticed it, and come to detest any odour 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 49 
 
 that ever was manufactured and bottled. But I 
 did not disHke this ; it was a fresh, live perfume, 
 not dead nor made, and it seemed to represent 
 the girl, when she was gone, as a picture represents 
 a face. 
 
 What I did not know then about this scent 
 of hers I will tell now. She had a passion for 
 tropic flowers — mostly for those resembling her- 
 self, though I do not think this was a conscious 
 selection. She loved frangipani, stephanotis, 
 tuberose, trumpet-flower, magnolia, and all 
 the rich white flowers, wax-like and marble- 
 like and alabaster-like, that are comm.on in hot 
 countries. Her passion for them was such that 
 she always had them about her, sometimes in 
 her hair and on her dress, more often concealed 
 beneath her muslins and laces, next her own white 
 skin, surrounding her with the delicate, mys- 
 terious suggestion of flower-petals and fragrance 
 that I had noticed, and that was so pecuHarly 
 her own. 
 
 I stood by the turn of the road for a little 
 while after she had gone by. I smoked a cigar- 
 ette, and wondered who this Oread with the 
 woodland crown might be. I wondered where 
 she lived. I wondered who was in love with 
 her. I wondered why she had gone up the hill, 
 and why she had come down. I wondered 
 
 4 
 
50 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 if she ever wore a hat. There seemed no end 
 to the wonder that flowed up Hke an outbreaking 
 spring in my mind. 
 
 I got down to the ship again, I don't quite 
 remember when or how. I must have been 
 thinking a good deal on the way, but I could 
 not have told then, and cannot tell now, what 
 I was thinking about. The steamer — a small, 
 rather unsteady thing called the Afzelia — left 
 again by sunset. I nearly missed her, because 
 I lingered about the gangway till the sailors were 
 pulHng it up, and had to jump in the end. I 
 had an idea I wanted to see something or some- 
 body, but was not sure what. 
 
 Gore saw that I had nearly been left behind, 
 but he made no comment. What you had nearly 
 done, good or bad, never interested him. Clean- 
 cut results were the only sort of thing that he 
 had any use for. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE ship, as I have said, was a German 
 one, a tidy little boat that did the long 
 trip from Singapore to German New Guinea 
 and New Britain once in three months or so, 
 carrying Government officers, planters and 
 traders to the colony. We had only been on 
 her a day or two before Banda, and I had not 
 taken any special notice of the passengers, being 
 too much interested in the strange Moluccan 
 ports where we were calling to trouble about 
 anything with a flavour of Europe in it. But 
 after Banda, our last port of call on the way to 
 Kaiser Wilhelms Land, the Afzelia became sud- 
 denly so German that we two Englishmen 
 began to feel a little " out of it." The magis- 
 trates and customs people and postal officials, 
 and captains of native forces, and managers of 
 plantations and stores, began to march up and 
 down the narrow decks with their chests swelled 
 out, whistling soldierly airs ; the Kaiser's health 
 was drunk after dinner, and free opinions were 
 freely bandied about the Dutch colonies through 
 
 51 4* 
 
52 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 which we had been passing — not to the advantage 
 of Queen Wilhelmina's empire. 
 
 " As soon as we get these places we shall reform 
 them," I heard a tall, smart-looking fellow 
 called Hahn say to a stocky South German trader. 
 They were marching together up and down the 
 decks under the shadow of Ceram, last outlier 
 of Malaysia — a wonderful world of high, sabre- 
 toothed peaks and rolling tablelands, Reckitt's 
 blue in colour, hung above a sea of bluish silver. 
 
 " Yes — yes," answered Wolff, the trader, 
 nodding his round, cropped head, " so we shall." 
 
 " That Ceram," went on Hahn, " is worth 
 something, and when the natives have been well 
 kicked, there will be no more fool's play of re- 
 bellion. Also we shall back to life the trade of 
 that dead island, Banda, immediately bring. 
 Also Amboyna. Java we shall " 
 
 " Guard ! " interrupted Wolff. " That young 
 Englishman knows German." 
 
 " What does that make ? " inquired Hahn, 
 swinging his arms as he walked, and looking 
 proudly over the sea. " In this part of the world 
 it is not the English who are the masters." 
 
 " No," I said, putting my head out of the 
 saloon entrance, " only everywhere else. We 
 don't mind your having a bite of our leavings." 
 
 Hahn turned scarlet from crown to chin ; 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 53 
 
 the very scalp under his golden bristles of hair 
 glowed pink. 
 
 ** If you were a German," he said, restraining 
 himself with some difficulty, " I should know 
 how to answer that." He spoke in good English. 
 
 " Answer it any way thou likest," I replied 
 in German, using the familiar " ^«." 
 
 " Damn you, then, I will ! " was his (English) 
 reply. He pulled a dogskin glove out of his 
 pocket (where I seriously believe he kept it for 
 just such emergencies) and was about to throw 
 it in my face, when a head, bald, fair, middle- 
 aged, with peculiar, grey-green eyes, quietly 
 projected itself from a neighbouring port-hole, 
 and remarked : " Quiet ! " 
 
 It had an extraordinary effect upon Hahn. He 
 dropped his arm, looked at me sulkily, and was 
 about to turn away. Oddly enough, I felt 
 sorry for him ; I rather liked him on the whole. 
 He wanted a row ; that was all in his favour — 
 so did I want a row. And whoever the gentle- 
 man with the commanding eye might be, he 
 didn't command me. 
 
 So I straightened out the situation in my own 
 way. The glove was still in the young German's 
 hand. I nipped it from between his fingers, 
 flicked him on the nose with it, and handed it 
 back with a bow. He turned pinker than ever, 
 
54 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 and looked at the bodiless head with what almost 
 seemed an expression of entreaty. The head 
 was sternly shaken. 
 
 As for me, I had my back turned to the port, 
 so I quietly winked at Hahn, and said, as I 
 passed him by : 
 
 " The first place we stop." Then I went to 
 my cabin, and lit the biggest and blackest of 
 cigars that I had bought in Sumatra. I felt that 
 I owed it to myself. 
 
 " Going to be fun," I said, and swung my feet 
 joyously to and fro, over the edge of my bunk. 
 
 I was not long left to enjoy myself. Gore 
 sent for me, and gave me a lot of stuff to copy out 
 in the saloon — our only working-place for the 
 present. I took the papers, and set myself down 
 at a side table with my typewriter, cursing his 
 scientific zeal. I wanted to look at Ceram until 
 we were out of sight — a piratical island, of the 
 real old, fierce Malay type, where the natives were 
 still actively engaged in hunting each other's 
 heads, seemed to me a good deal more interesting 
 than some dusty facts about culture drifts and 
 modification by environment. 
 
 We steamed on through a quiet sea, warm, 
 pleasant winds pouring through the open door- 
 ways of the saloon. I could hear the flying-fish 
 skittering about our bows ; we were running 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 55 
 
 through shoals of them. The ship's bells sounded 
 in the sleepy stillness of the morning. 
 
 Wolff and Hahn had disappeared ; I knew as 
 well as if I had seen them, that they were sitting 
 in some private cabin, drinking beer out of large, 
 glass-handled mugs, and discussing the duel that 
 the bodiless, elderly gentleman had seemed so 
 anxious to prevent. A duel ! Something about 
 my diaphragm was giving delighted little jumps 
 as I worked. This was worth coming abroad 
 for. This was better than punching the heads 
 of second mates down in Larry's gymnasium. 
 
 I finished the stuff — it was a typed extract from 
 a scientific paper that Vincent Gore had told me 
 to do — and carried it to his cabin. He took it 
 from me, and began reading it over. I stood 
 with one knee on the locker-couch, pulling the 
 curtain-tassels, and wondering how best I could 
 keep the nature of my proposed diversions from 
 my employer — at least, until after the " next 
 stopping-place." 
 
 Gore read the whole extract through till the 
 end. Then he opened a drawer, took out a red 
 pencil, neatly underlined one passage, and 
 handed the paper back to me without a 
 word. 
 
 I looked at the marked paragraph. It ran as 
 follows : 
 
56 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " Nevertheless, considering the history of these 
 islands, one is compelled to allow that successive 
 waves of immigration, arriving from India, 
 China, and the continent of Africa, have in so far 
 modified the original duel ..." 
 
 It was my turn to grow red now. I felt myself 
 flushing pinker than even Hahn had done. 
 
 " May one ask," said Gore, in a singularly 
 gentle and agreeable voice, " what duels are 
 doing in this particular galley ? I never heard 
 it was a custom of the races under question — but 
 if you have made any new discovery " 
 
 " Paying me a salary doesn't entitle you to 
 make fun of me, sir," I cut in, twisting the 
 tassels till they fell off in my hand. I threw 
 them on the floor and looked at them. I found 
 I was breathing rather hard. 
 
 " No, young devil," said Gore, still in that 
 pleasant voice, " but it does entitle me to notice 
 if you mean to leave." 
 
 " I don't mean to " I began. 
 
 " Oh, yes, you do," said Gore. " By the 
 shortest route — home. If I beHeved in the 
 Christian mythology (it really does come in 
 handy at times) I should say that you hadn't 
 far to go — home — in a cHmate Hke this. . . . 
 Now will you please tell me what you mean 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 57 
 
 by cooking up duels when you are engaged in 
 my service ? " 
 
 His pleasant manner had suddenly flown out 
 of window, and the last sentence was spoken 
 in a tone that would — I suppose — have scared 
 some people. It was also decorated — consider- 
 ably. Gore was a remarkable hand at decorated 
 language on occasion. 
 
 I said nothing at all. I looked at him. 
 
 " You know I can give information to the 
 authorities, and stop it," said Gore. 
 
 I said nothing. 
 
 " You know I can dismiss you at the first 
 port." 
 
 I thought it time to speak. 
 
 " You can do all those things," I said. " But 
 you won't, Vincent Gore, because you're not the 
 sort of man, whatever you may say, to stop a 
 fight. Also because I can jolly well guess you've 
 fought duels ^yourself." 
 
 Gore leaned back in his seat, and gave vent to 
 one of his appalling shouts of laughter. A scared, 
 small steward peeped in at the door, asked feebly 
 if the Herr wanted anything, and scurried away 
 without waiting for an answer. 
 
 "Well aimed!" he said. "Sit down and 
 tell me about it." 
 
 And I knew that I had won. I may mention 
 
58 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 here that the " Sir " was dropped from that day 
 onwards, between us. 
 
 I told him. He made no comment for a 
 moment, and then asked : " They are evidently 
 trying to force the challenge from you, so as to 
 deprive you of the choice of weapons. . . . How 
 are you with a pistol ? " 
 
 " Don't worry about that," I replied. " Since 
 I was a kid I've handled a Webley." 
 
 " Let him do the challenging ; he will if you 
 sit tight," observed Gore. 
 
 " That's all right ; the old gentleman with 
 the face won't stop him," I said. " We under- 
 stand each other. Hahn is a white man. I 
 wish I could punch his head instead. I'd enjoy 
 it more, somehow." 
 
 I went out again into the warm wind and the 
 sun, pondering on many things. It seemed to 
 me I had acquired a good deal of food for thought 
 that day already, although it was not yet eleven 
 o'clock. 
 
 I was to acquire more. Half an hour after- 
 wards, I met my employer coming round a 
 corner, with an expression of abject terror on 
 his face. 
 
 Sudden death was the smallest thing I thought 
 of — such ideas as an outbreak of bubonic plague 
 on the ship, a coming typhoon that was bound 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 59 
 
 to wreck us, fire among explosives in the hold, 
 rushed through my mind, it is true, but only 
 to be discarded on the instant. Nothing of that 
 sort would have disturbed Red Bob's equani- 
 mity. Then what, in the name of all calamity 
 and disaster, had disturbed it ? 
 
 My heart, as he came nearer, began to thump 
 like the screw of the steamer. Surely unheard-of 
 things were happening to-day ! I saw that 
 Red Bob was gnawing the end of his moustache, 
 and that his eyes looked Hke the eyes of a cat 
 that is just going to jump out of your arms 
 through the window. I should not have been 
 surprised to see him make a spring over the rail. 
 
 " What ? " I began, rather breathlessly. 
 
 " God save us, Corbet ! " said the great 
 explorer, almost trembling. " The damned ship 
 is full of damned women ! " 
 
 " Come into my cabin," was the first thing 
 that occurred to me to say, for I really thought 
 him mad. He preceded me into the little blue- 
 and-white room, and sat down abruptly, mopping 
 his forehead, and looking at me with an expression 
 of abject dismay. I switched on the electric fan, 
 and under cover of its steady buzz, which ensured 
 us against being overheard from the next cabin, 
 asked him : 
 
 " Has anything happened ? " 
 
60 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 Gore was recovering somewhat. He answered 
 peevishly. 
 
 " I told you what had happened. The ship 
 is crawling with them. At least, there are three, 
 and that's as good, or as bad, as thirty." 
 
 " I never knew you were — at least, on the 
 Empress " 
 
 " Give me a drink," interrupted Red Bob. 
 I filled him out a glass of tepid water ; he drank 
 it, and went on : 
 
 " On the Empress, and after, the women, what 
 there were of them, were married, if you'll 
 remember." 
 
 I did. The only lady pasesngers from Liver- 
 pool to Singapore had been a few wives going 
 to join their husbands. And later, on the way 
 to Batavia and Makasser, there were no women 
 at all, except a few half-castes. 
 
 " Don't you like unmarried women ? " I 
 asked, still feeling puzzled. 
 
 Red Bob poured out and drank another glass. 
 
 " I do not— I do not," he said. " Two of 
 these are married, I believe — a Frau Baum- 
 gartner and a Frau Schultz — agoing to join their 
 husbands in Simpsonhafen — but the third . . . 
 Yoimg Corbet, for God's and your employer's 
 sake, go and flirt with the whole lot till we get 
 there. I believe you're quite capable of it." 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 61 
 
 " I don't mind," I said, struggling with a 
 frantic desire to laugh, " but I haven't much 
 leisure time." 
 
 " You shall have all you want," declared Gore, 
 leaning back in his seat, and watching the blue 
 curtains sway out and in through the yellow circle 
 of the port. " I feel better now. ... It was the 
 lean one did it. She scared the seven senses out 
 of me, up there on the boat-deck just now." 
 
 " Scared the seven Would you mind 
 
 telling me what she did ? " I asked. I would 
 have given the world to be able to explode, like 
 an overcharged soda-water bottle. 
 
 " She didn't do anything. She sat and 
 sniggled at me, and babbled. She saw a hole in 
 my sock where I'd just torn it on a nail, and she 
 put her head on one side, and said : ' Oh, Mr. 
 Vincent Gore ! What a sad life you must lead, 
 without a woman's hand to attend to these 
 things for you ! '" 
 
 I was speechless. 
 
 He went on. " And then she said : * Is there 
 nothing I could do for you ? ' * Madam,' I said, 
 
 * you could ' But she stopped me, and said 
 
 with another sniggle : ' I'm not madam, I'm 
 miss — I'm a girl ! ' A girl, and she as old as I 
 am ! * W^ell, madam, or miss, as you like,' I said, 
 
 * you could leave me alone ; I want to read.' " 
 
62 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " You didn't ! " I interrupted. 
 
 " I did," said Gore, with a terrified look. 
 " But she simmered at me, and said " 
 
 " She simpered ? " 
 
 " No, simmered — Hke a saucepan bubbUng — 
 and said : ' Oh, Mr. Gore, you're too much 
 alone, I'm afraid ; but I can understand about 
 that, for so am I.' ' Excuse me,' I said, ' I've 
 forgotten something in my cabin,' and got up — 
 I got up and ran away." 
 
 It was too much. I collapsed on my berth, 
 and shrieked, rolling over and over in an agony 
 of mirth. 
 
 " Don't, for heaven's sake," said Gore. " If 
 she hears you, she'll think you have a fit, and 
 insist on coming in to nurse you. She's so beastly 
 sympathetic." 
 
 " I never thought you were afraid of anything," 
 I choked, wiping the tears out of my eyes. 
 
 " You thought dashed wrong," replied Gore. 
 " That sort of woman has been the tragedy of 
 my life. Corbet — " he sat straight up, and 
 his blue eyes dilated into the lakes of fire that had 
 won him his name — " Corbet, some day a woman 
 like that'll get me, and I won't even have the 
 pluck to hang myself." 
 
 " Oh, rats ! " I said disrespectfully, rocking to 
 and fro in the anguish of my enjoyment, ^* A 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 63 
 
 woman can't make a man marry her. Anyhow, 
 I never was afraid of anything that wore a skirt, 
 in all my life." 
 
 " Honest Injun ? " asked Red Bob, fixing his 
 eyes on me. They were blue and quiet now. 
 
 " Honest ! " I said. 
 
 " Shake ! " remarked Bob gravely, holding out 
 his hand. " You're a braver man than I am." 
 
 " Well, I know what your heel of Achilles is 
 now," I said, getting up and going to the glass. 
 
 " What are you after ? " asked Gore. 
 
 I pulled down my tie, and buttoned up my coat 
 so as to show my figure, which is none of the 
 worst. 
 
 " Going to talk to the lady who suffers from 
 lonehness," I said, putting on my Panama with 
 a rakish cock. 
 
 " Go on, Casabianca," said Gore, reaching 
 for my cigarettes, " I'll stay where I'm safe." 
 
 We were almost out of sight of Ceram now, 
 and the Afzelia was steaming steadily along 
 towards the wild, strange coasts of New Guinea. 
 The wonderful island-continent had not yet 
 hfted its head out of the sea ; I might have been 
 more deeply engaged in looking out for it, had I 
 not been interested in looking for something still 
 stranger than itself — the woman who had scared 
 Red Bob. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 1 FOUND her on the boat-deck. She was 
 reading, and did not hear my approach, 
 so I was able to get a good look at her before 
 she saw me. I should not have thought her to 
 be so old as Gore had said, but she was certainly 
 not far off forty, and she could never, at any 
 age, have been pretty. She was smallish, and her 
 figure — was there, or was there not, anything 
 wrong with it ? I thought not, at a second 
 glance. Her feet were small, but flat and ill- 
 shod ; her hands, roughened by exposure with- 
 out gloves, were what the palmists call " spatu- 
 late." She looked up as I came nearer. I saw 
 then that she had a — was it a squint ? No, 
 after all, it was not. Her smile was the one thing 
 about which there could be no doubt ; it was 
 undeniably false. On the whole, I did not Hke 
 her. 
 
 She spoke at once. 
 
 " Oh, you are Mr. Corbet — I saw your name in 
 the purser's list. It's so nice to have a couple 
 of Englishmen on board, among all these foreigners 
 
 64 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 65 
 
 — and then such a celebrity as Mr. Vincent 
 Gore ! " 
 
 Her voice did not match her person ; it was 
 soft and pleasant — a misfit voice that should 
 have belonged to a pretty woman. A pretty 
 woman, however, would not have had that 
 carneying manner. 
 
 Her hair was of no particular colour ; her 
 dress, as far as I can describe it, seemed to be 
 something squashy, with tags and bobs about it. 
 By force of contrast, it brought to my mind 
 something very different — the green floating robe, 
 fresh and soft as a leaf, worn by the Oread of the 
 mountain woods. But the Oread had nothing 
 to do with my present duty — I had to remind 
 myself of that. Who was that irritating heroine 
 of Dickens's who used to go about jingling a basket 
 of keys, and saying to herself : " Duty, Esther ! 
 Duty, my dear ! '' I thought of her, with a grin, 
 as I pulled myself together, and took a seat near 
 the last from Banda. . . . After all, she had 
 come from the island inhabited by the Oread ; 
 she might even be able to tell me something about 
 her. . . . Duty, for the moment, seemed some- 
 thing easier. 
 
 The lady looked at me over the top of her 
 novel, with her head a good deal on one side. 
 
 5 
 
66 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 (Did she really squint ? No, a second time. 
 She only made you think she was going to.) 
 I saw her eyes fairly now ; they were greyish, 
 small, and very keen, and they seemed to be 
 adding me up with considerable acuteness. 
 There was no familiarity in her address ; I should 
 have wondered if Red Bob had not been dream- 
 ing, if I had not seen the unmistakable marks 
 of terror produced by the lady's attentions to 
 him, only half an hour ago. 
 
 As for what she said, it was simply the in- 
 evitable British comment on the weather. She 
 informed me that it was a fine day. I, in my 
 turn, informed her that the fine days thereabouts 
 averaged some three hundred a year. She smiled 
 a slightly one-sided smile, as I have noticed 
 women do who are uncertain of their charms, 
 and said gently that I knew all about those 
 matters, no doubt, but she was just a stupid 
 little thing who had to ask everything she 
 wanted to know. It seemed to me that the 
 remark was rather a clever one — supposing that 
 she had summed me up as a man with more 
 worldly keenness than Vincent Gore was pos- 
 sessed of. I knew then, and know now, that 
 I had not a tenth part of his. brains, but for 
 mere commonplace sharpness I was easily his 
 master. 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 67 
 
 " You don't know my name," said the small 
 lady (I saw now that she was small — oh, no, not 
 dwarfish ; nor had she a squint, nor was she 
 crooked — one had to keep reminding oneself 
 of all these things). " I'm Miss Siddis — Mabel 
 Siddis. You've never heard of me — no one 
 ever has. I'm nobody. I'm just a little gover- 
 ness going back to my work in Herbertshohe ; 
 they wanted an English governess, and I saw the 
 advertisement in Sydney. I can't afford to take 
 holidays in Australia or Singapore, so I came down 
 as far as Banda, because I have kind English 
 friends there. Or, rather, I had. It was a Mrs. 
 Ravenna, an Englishwoman married to an Italian 
 who settled there years and years ago. And 
 she died while I was there — poor dear Mar- 
 garet ! But this is all a bore to you." 
 
 It was, but I couldn't say so. I made the 
 inevitable contradiction, lit a cigarette, by special 
 permission, and resigned myself to my duty. 
 I didn't see that it demanded attention on my 
 part, if I could only manage to look attentive. 
 So I let my mind wander off towards Hahn and 
 the " next stopping place," while Miss Siddis 
 babbled gently on at my side. 
 
 I gathered that she was giving me the family 
 history of the Ravennas — why the original Ra- 
 venna had come to Banda and settled there, why 
 
 5* 
 
68 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 his wife had married him, how he had died, how 
 she had followed him. There was somebody 
 called Schultz in the story, also Schultz's wife. 
 I remembered that Gore had told me the 
 Schultz woman was on board. I knew exactly 
 what she was like ; all middle-class German 
 women are the same woman, and I rather thought 
 I had seen her as I came on deck — a fat, grey- 
 cotton back, below an area of barren neck leading 
 to a small plot of scraped-up hair. She didn't 
 seem to be the sort of person one wanted very 
 passionately to hear about. I smoked, and 
 looked blankly at Miss Siddis, letting my 
 imagination run before me to the mysterious 
 land of New Guinea, now so near. . . . Weren't 
 we up to the islands and headlands of Dampier 
 Strait ? If I could just get away forward for 
 a minute. . . . 
 
 I woke to attention with a jump. What was 
 Miss Siddis saying ? 
 
 " As for mourning, of course, no one in the 
 tropics is expected to wear black. But I did 
 say, and do say, that white, with a black sash, 
 is only common respect. And when I saw her 
 going about everywhere in green, just usual " 
 
 " Saw who ? " I asked, with sudden, sharp 
 interest. 
 
 " Isola, of course — Mrs. Ravenna's daughter — 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 69 
 
 as I've been telling you," said Miss Siddis, with 
 that phantom squint almost visible again. 
 
 " Isola ! What a curious name ! " 
 
 " It was her father. He called her ' Isola 
 Bella ' because he said Banda was an ' isola 
 bella ' — that's Italian, you know ; it means 
 ' beautiful island,' and she was born there. So 
 he called her that. A very fanciful name." 
 
 " A beautiful name," I said, determining to 
 know more about it, and about its owner. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " said Miss Siddis, with instant 
 pliability. " Fanciful and beautiful — that's what 
 I meant." 
 
 " She should be a beautiful girl herself, if 
 she matches her name," I added. 
 
 Miss Siddis fingered her novel, and I saw some- 
 thing ugly look out of her small eyes. But her 
 voice was gentler and pleasanter than ever as 
 she answered : 
 
 " Now that's so nice of you ! I can see you 
 are one of the people who like to think the very 
 best of everyone right away. Yes, poor Isola — 
 yes, I should certainly say she was pretty. Oh, 
 yes. You might call her that." 
 
 " Why do you call her poor ? " I asked. 
 
 " Oh, I've just told you ! " 
 
 " Yes, of course," I said, cursing my own 
 stupidity. What had she told me about the 
 
70 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 girl ? Only her parents' death, and something 
 about Frau Schultz, who seemed to be a worry 
 to someone, as far as I could recollect the scraps 
 of Miss Siddis's yarn that had penetrated to my 
 consciousness. It seemed, then, that the Oread 
 of the mountain was an orphan, and that Frau 
 Schultz, somehow or other, was an annoyance 
 in her life. ... I resolved that, employer or 
 no employer, I was not going to make myself 
 pleasant to Frau Schultz. 
 
 I was quite prepared to stick by Miss Siddis 
 now, being determined to get out of her all there 
 was to be got about the girl in green — but Nature 
 and the Pacific Ocean willed otherwise. We 
 were well out from under the shelter of Ceram 
 now, and in the open sea. The Ajxelia^ which 
 had run on an even keel ever since we joined 
 her at Makasser, felt the coming swell of the 
 great ocean, though we were not in it yet, and 
 began to dip and roll — not very much, but it 
 was enough for Miss Siddis. 
 
 She gathered up her novel and her workbag, 
 murmured an apology, and fled. 
 
 I remained alone on the boat deck, sitting 
 astride a boat to watch the blue shadow on the 
 water that was New Guinea-^New Guinea at 
 last ! — and thinking about Miss Siddis and the 
 girl in i^rccn. T had a notion that the former 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 71 
 
 was more dangerous than she might seem to be. 
 Her carneying voice and deprecating manner, 
 her skill in flattery, the hidden hardness of will 
 that I sensed beneath all her chnging and purring, 
 might be dangerous to a man like Gore. I 
 knew her kind ; it is a pathetic sort of creature 
 in a way — the woman who has proved too un- 
 attractive to secure an " establishment " in 
 England, and who, in consequence, roams the 
 world's waste places seeking whom she may 
 devour. But I was not going to let any pity 
 for Miss Siddis influence me in my duty as the 
 watch-dog of Vincent Gore. I knew his weak 
 point now, and meant to guard it. 
 
 Besides . . . besides . . . she was an insinua- 
 ting, little, crooked creature ; she was curious, 
 as all inferior minds are curious. What was the 
 hidden object of our journey ? — what might 
 happen if she found it out ? 
 
 I came to a resolve there and then. I would 
 know the secret myself, before I slept that 
 night. It was time, and more than time, that 
 Gore should take me into his confidence. 
 
 Late in the afternoon we came to New Guinea. 
 
 It was not in the least what I had imagined. 
 I had expected huge rivers with painted war- 
 canoes dashing forth from them, immense 
 
72 Red Bob of the Bismareks 
 
 peaky mountains overhanging the sea, stilt- 
 legged villages with wonderful temples, black 
 marshes full of crocodiles and crabs. . . . 
 
 Instead, I saw only a group of islands of 
 moderate size and height, cut through by calm, 
 dark straits. There were no villages, no houses, 
 no rivers, no canoes, just that smear of dusky, 
 lonely islands lying on a darkening sea. The 
 mainland was not yet in sight. All the land we 
 saw was hidden under a blanket of black forest, 
 that swept from the summits of the hills down 
 to the lip of the water. In all the Malaysian 
 islands, there had been lights that moved and 
 shone at dusk, and canoes flitting among the 
 shallows like water-flies ; one had heard the 
 merry tom-tomming of the drums from the little 
 villages, and always, from Sumatra right to 
 Ceram, one smelt the universal, unforgettable 
 smell of Indonesia — sandalwood, dust, gum 
 damar and dried fish. 
 
 Here, running through Dampier Strait in the 
 sinister sunset dusk, here at the very end of the 
 world (for it felt like that) you heard no sound 
 but the beating of the ship's steel heart, echoed 
 back by the walls of the strait as she ran through. 
 You saw no lights on the black, furry blanket 
 of forest, untouched, unbroken. 
 
 If there was any living thing upon those 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 73 
 
 islands, it hid itself well. You listened to the 
 silence of New Guinea, you smelled its mystery. 
 For there was a new smell on the sea air, and it 
 stirred — it called like a voice. It was subtle, 
 cold and sweet ; I cannot describe it, but you 
 who have been by Geelvink Bay, who have 
 panted in a launch up the Fly, who have seen the 
 war-canoes slip out from the black beaches of 
 cruel Mambare and heard the alligator belling 
 under the shadows of Mont Yule — you will 
 remember it — the sunset smell of Papua. 
 
 It grew dark then all in a minute, for we were 
 close on the equator, up there by the long, north- 
 ward trending beak of New Guinea — and the 
 ship ran on towards the Pacific under invisible, 
 impending mountains ; still in the silence, still 
 in the dark. Gore had once told me that New 
 Guinea sunsets were like the Judgment Day. 
 It seemed to me that New Guinea itself, in the 
 dusk, was like a man's awakening after death 
 in the twilight of lost souls. 
 
 Gore came up to me where I was standing in 
 the ship's head, away from passengers and sailors, 
 and sat himself down upon the opposite side of 
 the bulwark, holding on by a stay. 
 
 " New Guinea," he said. " Feel her stretch- 
 ing out to you. . . . She's your love. Her lips 
 
74 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 have blood on them, but you'll kiss her. You'll 
 leave her, and come back to her. We all do. 
 New Guinea calls." 
 
 " I can believe it," I said. They had begun 
 to play the piano in the saloon ; one of Richard 
 Strauss's waltzes was sounding over Dampier 
 Strait, and our lights shone yellow on the curdled 
 ink of waters where the old, old ships of dis- 
 covery, manned by sturdy Dutchmen seeking 
 fortune in the unknown, had passed by in the 
 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Not a 
 feature of the place was changed since then. 
 As New Guinea had been in the days of Eliza- 
 beth, so — here at the end of the world — it had 
 remained. Down southward, there were five 
 white settlements — Merauke, Port Moresby, 
 Samarai, Friedrich Wilhelmshaven and Simpson- 
 hafen — all mere villages, scattered about the 
 coasts of a country four times the size of England 
 — but up about Geelvink, Dampier Strait, and 
 the (Papua) Cape of Good Hope, there was the 
 black blanket of forest, the mountains and the 
 sea. No more. 
 
 We ran on through the strait, and now, coming 
 out into the open, the great Pacific made itself 
 felt, and the Ajzelia^ like the bergs in the song, 
 " began to bow her head, and plunge, and sail 
 in the sea." At the same time a breath of air 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 75 
 
 crept across the bows, so cold, so penetrating, 
 that it made me shudder in my thin, heat- 
 soaked drill. 
 
 " Get your coat," said Gore. " You'll be down 
 with fever if you don't. We're passing the great 
 snow mountains of Dutch Guinea — you couldn't 
 see them in broad daylight, but they can make 
 themselves felt, though they're right in the, 
 interior. Get your coat — and we'll talk." 
 
 " Shall we ? " I asked, pausing with my 
 foot on the deck. 
 
 " I promise you," said Gore. " I always meant 
 to, when we sighted New Guinea." 
 
 I brought his own as well, but he would not 
 take it. 
 
 " An old dog for a hard road," he said. " No- 
 thing can kill me. There's the second bell ; 
 they'll all have gone in to dinner in a few 
 minutes, and we can talk quietly." 
 
 I might have mentioned that it was one of 
 his peculiarities to leave out any meal that 
 happened to interfere with what he might be 
 doing at the moment. I saw myself deprived 
 of dinner for that evening ; but the occasion 
 was worth it — more so than many others had 
 been. Several times on the voyage a visit to some 
 ruin that didn't particularly interest me, or an 
 endless conversation in Malay with some tiresome 
 
76 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 chief, had forced my youthful stomach to do 
 penance that (I suspected) was no penance at 
 all to the hardened frame of Red Bob. One 
 of his huge Burmese cheroots always seemed 
 dinner or lunch enough for him. He had lit 
 one now, and it was glowing in a sharp point of 
 scarlet against the mysterious outlines of New 
 Guinea, the unknown land. The ship slid on 
 in the dark. They had put out the lights on the 
 boat deck to assist the steersman and drawn the 
 curtains in the saloon ; we could not see ourselves, 
 or the water, or anything of the land but that 
 faint, looming shadow, blackness against the black. 
 
 Red Bob said nothing at all for what seemed 
 to me quite a long while. I lit a cigarette to 
 keep him company, and waited as patiently as 
 I could, which was more patiently than usual, 
 for so many things had happened that day that 
 my mind had been beaten into weariness. The 
 first night of New Guinea — the duel — Red Bob's 
 amazing cowardice concerning Miss Siddis — 
 the news I had managed to pick up about Isola 
 Ravenna, all these things had moved and excited 
 me. Now there was something more. I felt 
 that I needed my cigarette ; I puffed at it 
 gratefully. ... 
 
 By and by Red Bob spoke, jumping home to 
 the heart of his subject, as always was his way. 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 77 
 
 " Pm out — and you're out — after the pearls 
 of Willem CorneHszoon Schouten." 
 
 " The what ! " I said. 
 
 " The pearls," he repeated, " of Willem 
 CorneHszoon Schouten. I should feel more 
 certain I was going to get them, if you could 
 avoid the habit of jumping and exclaiming when 
 anything astonishes you." 
 
 " I will," I said, swallowing my annoyance. 
 
 "You've got to," replied Red Bob. "This 
 is no sort of a picnic for babes ; and there are 
 likely to be times when your life and mine — 
 if either of them's worth anything — will hang 
 on your keeping your head. Well — I suppose 
 you remember who Schouten was ; you ought 
 to." 
 
 We had been working on the population ques- 
 tion for a few days, and the observations of all 
 the old Dutch navigators had been tabulated 
 by me for Vincent Gore's reference. 
 
 " Schouten and Le Maire," I said, " sailed 
 from the Texel in 1615, to look for a passage to 
 the South Seas south of Magellan's Strait. They 
 discovered Cape Horn, and then they went 
 wandering about the Pacific — and I think they 
 discovered New Britain — and they came up 
 round this way, and got to Batavia, and one of 
 their ships was seized." 
 
78 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " It was," said Gore, " because — as you don't 
 remember — they were trying to evade the law 
 which gave the monopoly of all trading voyages 
 made through the Straits of Magellan, or round 
 the Cape, to the Dutch East India Company. 
 The Hoorn, Schouten's ship, had been burned 
 before they got to Jilolo. It was the other ship, 
 the Eendracht, that was seized, by Governor 
 Jans Pieterszoon Coen. Spilbergen took 
 Schouten and Le Maire home vAth. him, and 
 Le Maire died of vexation before they got to 
 Holland. Schouten didn't ; he was made of 
 harder stuff." 
 
 There was a pause here ; Gore puffed at his 
 cheroot, which seemed to draw a little hard, 
 as some of these native Burmese cigars will do. 
 It had grown darker : you could tell by the 
 echoing beat of the screw that we were some- 
 where near land, but the shadow on a shadow 
 was swallowed up in one all-covering blackness, 
 that lay on unseen land and sea like the cover of 
 a coffin pressed down upon the dead. 
 
 " H'm ! something coming, I think," said 
 Gore. He shifted his seat upon the bulwark, and 
 went on, in a quiet voice that scarcely rose above 
 the hissing of the Afzelia's stem through the 
 unseen water. 
 
 " I was here before — more than once — tracing 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 79 
 
 the incidence of the different waves of immigra- 
 tion — well, you know the result." 
 
 I did. Before ever I boarded the Empress of 
 Singapore, and sent Sterry the valet to hospital, 
 for his good and mine, I had heard of Vincent 
 Gore's Line of Culture Drifts. It stands with 
 Wallace's Line, in scientific importance — 
 higher, indeed, because Wallace's Line, nowadays 
 — but I am not writing for the scientific press, 
 I am telling of the hunt for the pearls of Willem 
 Corneliszoon Schouten. 
 
 " I spent most of my time about the north 
 and north-east coasts," he went on. " Kaiser 
 Wilhelms Land and the Bismarcks. Especially 
 the Bismarcks — New Britain, New Ireland, and 
 so on. You'll find people there — and nearer — 
 who will tell you that I had a double game on. 
 Secret mission — Government — and so on." 
 
 I could not turn my tongue to ask him if it 
 was true, although I wanted most passionately 
 to know. Where is the man in his early twenties 
 who will not rise to the word " secret mission " 
 as a trout to a fly ? 
 
 " Reason why they thought it," went on Gore, 
 " was because that is their own game. German 
 wants to know something he hasn't any business 
 to know about us or our places — first thing he 
 does is to go in the character of a man of science. 
 
80 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 'Cause we know so dashed Httle about science, 
 we'll believe anything anyone tells us about it, 
 and we — speaking of the public in general — have 
 a sort of idea that a Professor — as we call them — 
 is a woolly-brained old boy who spends his time 
 measuring skulls, and wouldn't know a concealed 
 battery from a currant bun, or recognize a private 
 signal-book if somebody dropped it in his 
 soup. . . . Well, you may take it — you may safely 
 take it — that German scientific research is a 
 dashed sight more researching than it seems to 
 be, sometimes." 
 
 He stopped again. From the saloon below 
 ascended sounds of plates and cutlery, also certain 
 pleasant smells that made me puff hard at my 
 cigarette. They were having stuffed veal to- 
 night. If there was anything on earth I loved, it 
 was stuffed veal — browned — with cherries. . . . 
 
 " Well," went on Gore, dismissing the subject, 
 " that's neither here nor there. Only they 
 hampered me a bit once or twice. So I went 
 out to places at the end of everywhere — places 
 they didn't know they'd got and don't know 
 yet. And I ran across something that made me 
 think — not about culture drifts. ' Something 
 else." 
 
 We were running very quietly now, with a 
 slight, steady roll. The night was too black for 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 81 
 
 one to see beyond the gaping hawse-pipes and the 
 V-shaped end of the bow, but I could smell the 
 land — a new smell now, with a mangrovy and 
 marshy flavour in it. Something sounded away 
 on the starboard beam — a distant bellow, with 
 a sort of upturned snarl in it, and a long moaning 
 tone like a fog-siren. 
 
 " Alligator — though properly speaking, it's a 
 crocodile. Always called alligators in New 
 Guinea. It's no use making oneself peculiar. 
 Nasty beggars by any name you like to call 
 them, and these northern rivers are hopping with 
 them. Well — I ran across something, as I've 
 said. I'll tell you what it was another time. And 
 it made me think. You know, young Paul, 
 I've warned you about what this sort of life means 
 — danger and hardship and accident and all 
 that — but there's one thing perhaps I didn't rub 
 in enough. Want of cash, my son. Being hard 
 up. Money enough to rub along with while 
 you're fit — because any man who can knock 
 around the backstairs of the world and not find 
 little things lying about that nobody's thought 
 of picking up, must be a bigger fool than me — or 
 you. But when age comes, or break-down, the 
 tame beasts of burden have the best of it." 
 
 " I daresay," I said. " But when one has 
 
 only oneself to think of " 
 
 6 
 
82 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " I haven't," said Gore. " I have my 
 daughter." 
 
 After the previous lesson, I did save myself 
 from answering : " Your w^hat ? " But I only 
 did it by biting my cigarette clean through. 
 
 Gore seemed pleased by my silence — or so the 
 tone of his voice suggested, as he went on. 
 
 " I have to think of her. I shan't be always 
 here — and it worries. Eats in." 
 
 " I didn't know you were ever married," I 
 ventured, wondering how many more revelations 
 I was to hear that day. 
 
 Gore pushed his cheroot into the corner of his 
 mouth, as he answered : 
 
 " I never was." 
 
 " Oh ! " I said feebly. 
 
 He went on, in a tone completely devoid of 
 expression. 
 
 " She is nineteen. Very pretty — very pretty 
 indeed — like. . . . She is deHcate. Crippled. 
 Doesn't walk. Bath chair and all that sort of 
 thing." 
 
 There was a silence ; I felt it incumbent on me 
 to say something, but could think of nothing save 
 the banal question : 
 
 " Was it an accident ? " 
 
 " No," said Gore, still quite inexpressively. 
 He did not even stop smoking. " Done on 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 purpose. Her mother was thrown downstairs 
 the night the child was born." 
 
 This time I forgot my lesson, and said, " Good 
 Lord ! " adding : " Who did it ? " 
 
 " Her husband," repHed Gore calmly. " You 
 might give me a match ; this dashed thing has 
 gone out at last." 
 
 I gave it, mentally ejaculating " Good Lord ! " 
 again. 
 
 " She died," went on Gore conversationally, 
 unsnapping his cigar-case and scraping a match 
 on the bulwark. I could see his hard, lean face, 
 with the brilliant eyes — " the brow of an angel, 
 and the jaw of a devil," as someone said of Sir 
 Richard Burton — lit up by the small red flame 
 as he shielded it with his hands, and set it to the 
 cigar. 
 
 " So did he," went on Red Bob, when the great 
 roll of tobacco had caught. 
 
 " Died ? " I asked. " How ? " 
 
 Red Bob burst out into a great fit of 
 laughter, as he had done in my cabin, earlier 
 on that day. 
 
 " Ostend," he said. " Thirty paces. Smaller 
 intestine shot through, one lumbar vertebra 
 smashed. Lived a week, howling except when 
 they had him under morphia. I used to call, 
 to listen to him. Have a cheroot, youngster ; 
 
 6* 
 
84 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 those cigarettes of yours are filthy things to ruin 
 your nerve." 
 
 I took it, feeling — there is no elegant word for 
 the condition — flabbergasted. 
 
 " So," said Gore, with the air of one taking up 
 a conversation at the exact point where it had 
 been abandoned, " it happens that Pm greedier 
 after money than most people might suppose — 
 for reasons. Always on the smell after it, even 
 when Pm busy with something else. And this 
 last time the scent was hot. So hot, Pd have 
 run it down, only I wanted someone to work 
 with me, and — as I told you — the fellow I had 
 talked. Sterry didn't. He was a good sort ; 
 he'd have done just as well as yourself." 
 
 Whoever looked for smooth sayings from Red 
 Bob was fishing in Dead Sea waters. I held my 
 tongue, though I thought — no matter. 
 
 " Willem Corneliszoon Schouten," repeated 
 Gore dreamily. " Good old boy. I always 
 had a liking for him^him and Dampier — you'd 
 be astonished if you knew how many hundreds 
 of men would rather have been WiUiam 
 Dampier, and had his chances, than go to 
 heaven for evermore. . . . But I never 
 thought old Willem Corneliszoon would leave 
 me a legacy." 
 
 They were through with the soup and meat 
 
Red Bob of the Bismareks 85 
 
 now, and I thought — unless my nose mistook me, 
 and I did not think it did — there was a smell 
 of pancakes on the air. Also something suety 
 and plummy. I put my hands inside my coat, 
 and hauled in my belt. It did not do as much 
 good as I had expected. 
 
 " I needn't give you the whole history, or, 
 rather, I won't, just now," went on Gore. ** It 
 came about through my spending a summer in 
 Holland, poking about museums and libraries. 
 And picture galleries. In that fine one at the 
 Hague, there's a picture of Helga Maria Van 
 Oosterdyck — the girl old Schouten wanted to 
 marry and didn't ; I read all about it in Hall's 
 * History of the Low Countries in the Sixteenth 
 and Seventeenth Centuries.' She has a magni- 
 ficent pearl necklace, with a sort of pearl cypher 
 hanging on to the end of it — a monogram, but a 
 very complicated one, and not made any easier 
 by the age of the picture. I got it photographed, 
 and took the photo away with me, because I 
 fancied the face — it was pretty — very pretty — 
 like someone I used to know — anyhow, I hked 
 it. It's nearly as celebrated as that Httle 
 Duchess Christina of Holbein's — and not so 
 unlike her." 
 
 I was getting more and more interested, though 
 the sensations aroused by the passage of an officer's 
 
86 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 dinner on a tray, towards the quarters at the end 
 of the deck, were passionate enough to induce 
 me to take up another hole in my belt. What was 
 he having ? Stewed beef, I thought — hot and 
 full of gravy — and surely that was pineapple 
 fritters that accompanied it. . . . What was it 
 Gore was saying ? I did not want to miss a 
 word — even for the officer's dinner, which indeed 
 I rather wished to neglect altogether. 
 
 " Well," went on the deep voice at my side, 
 " before I went to Holland, it happened that Vd 
 come across the tracks of old Willem Corneliszoon, 
 about German Guinea — no matter where, just 
 yet. Now you know — or you don't — that pearls, 
 in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, were 
 nearly all obtained from what they called the 
 ' Indies ' — a pretty big term, but it didn't 
 include the Pacific, except a bit about Panama. 
 Of course the islands were chock full of pearls, 
 every here and there, as they are now, but those 
 old explorers never seem to have suspected it — 
 went hunting about for mythical islands called 
 * Rica de Plata ' and ' Rica de Oro,' when there 
 were hundreds of ' Ricas de Perlas ' everywhere, 
 if they'd only known it. Well, Willem Cornelis- 
 zoon Schouten — I love his name.; it sounds like 
 the name of a man who could do things ; you 
 might expect a Jacob Ic Maire to curl up and die 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 87 
 
 when a Governor turned nasty — Willem went to 
 some places where most people don't know he 
 went. And he found things they didn't know he 
 found. But I'd never have got on the scent, 
 from now till the crack of doom — by the way, 
 what is doom, and why should it crack ? If it 
 means the Christian idea of Judgment Day, why 
 don't they say trump ? — well, anyhow, I'd never 
 have picked up the scent but for Helga Maria 
 Van Oosterdyck — whom he certainly ought to 
 have married, if suitability in names had anything 
 to say to such matters." 
 
 Gore stopped, and glanced about him in the 
 dark. There was no one near ; I think he would 
 have managed somehow or other to see anyone 
 there had been — he always seemed to me to have 
 sharper senses than anybody else. 
 
 " Well, one day, when I was puzzling about 
 what I had seen, I happened to come on the 
 picture of Helga Maria in one of my boxes. I 
 was looking at it — carelessly — but sometimes, 
 when half your mind is at work on a thing, to 
 your knowledge, in the ordinary way, the other 
 half is at work without your knowledge, in some 
 way that isn't ordinary. It was so in that case. 
 As I was looking at the picture, the reading of the 
 monogram jumped straight at my eyes, and I 
 saw — without the shadows that had perplexed 
 
88 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 me, mind you ; that was what had been doing 
 the mischief — that it was * W. C. S.' 
 
 " Well, it told me the whole thing, for a reason 
 m explain later. It cleared — the matter I had 
 been puzzHng over. Schouten did find pearls 
 in the Pacific, and he left a record of it. No 
 matter where — now. And he brought some of 
 them home, and gave them to Helga Maria. She 
 took them — no woman could have helped taking 
 them — but she didn't marry him, for all that. 
 And as for Schouten, I've no doubt he meant to 
 come back again, but he never did ; if one could 
 see through the fogs of that three hundred 
 years — but one can't. At any rate, till the latter 
 nineteenth century, no one went looking for pearls 
 in the Western Pacific again. And no one ever 
 found the remains of Willem Corneliszoon 
 Schouten's pearls — but me. And I haven't found 
 them yet. That's all, youngster — for the 
 present. Stop pinching in your diaphragm with 
 that smart belt you bought to impress the ladies 
 of Batavia — whom it didn't impress, because they 
 have no waists themselves — and go and get your 
 dinner." 
 
 " What about you ? " I asked, springing down 
 from my seat. 
 
 " Not worth the bother," said Gore, sliding 
 down to the deck, and setting his back comfort- 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 89 
 
 ably against the iron plates of the bow. " Tell 
 the steward to bring me two handfuls of raisins. 
 Raisins, dates and olives are " 
 
 I did not wait to hear what they were. I was 
 convinced that the plummy pudding would be 
 finished. . . . 
 
 It was not, and there was still some beef stew 
 — tepid, but satisfying. As for the roast veal, 
 only the cherries remained. I ate them, and was 
 thankful. When the silently protesting steward 
 had cleared my table, I went out on deck, feeling 
 at peace with the world, and found a long chair 
 where I could lie and think. 
 
 " Going to be fun ! " was the result of my 
 thinking. " Going to be jolly fun. How glad 
 — how very glad I am that I punched Sterry, and 
 that he didn't punch me. 
 
 " Now I should not be surprised," I meditated 
 further, " if Red Bob never said another word 
 about his daughter again. It would be like 
 him." 
 
 It seemed I was right, for he never did. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE " something coming " that Red Bob 
 had predicted came in the night. 
 North New Guinea is out of the hurricane zone, 
 but nevertheless the Pacific, that ill-named 
 ocean, welcomed us to the neighbourhood of the 
 Schoutens with a blow that would have given 
 the average steamship passenger something to 
 talk about for the rest of his life. However, we 
 were not average passengers on the Afzelia. I 
 was by a long way the least experienced ; the 
 Germans had almost all been in the German- 
 African colonies, to China, and to Australia, and 
 even Miss Siddis (who turned up smiling as soon 
 as the worst was over) could tell me tales of stormy 
 days off the Golden Gate and the Farallones, and 
 hurricanes in Honolulu. . . . 
 
 I said as much to Gore when I met him on the 
 lower deck (he had seen Miss Siddis's green veil 
 flying afar off on the boat deck, and hurriedly 
 retreated, panic in his eye). Gore, wedged into 
 a comfortable space where there was safe purchase 
 for his chair, turned over the leaves of his volume 
 of Pliny and remarked that in all his experience 
 
 90 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 91 
 
 of travel he had never met anyone who had been 
 to Honolulu who was not a bore. 
 
 " I don't know whether it's Honolulu that 
 makes people bores, or whether all the natural 
 bores are mystically attracted to the place, by 
 some strange provision of Nature that we can't 
 fathom," he said. " But you'll find that what I 
 say's a fact. The pious Mahommedan isn't 
 more intimately connected with pilgrimages to 
 Mecca than the bore is with pilgrimages to 
 Honolulu. I don't say a man can't be a bore — 
 a travel bore — without going as far as the 
 Hawaiian Islands. Spain produces a fine crop 
 of the smaller varieties. So does Japan, rather 
 bigger ones. And the man who's been to the 
 Balkans, and talks about it in his sleep — and in 
 yours — is pretty bad. But on the whole, the 
 Honolulu bore is the pick of the bunch. Every- 
 one who's been to Honolulu is a bore." 
 
 " Have you been there ? " I asked, balancing 
 on my rubber-soled shoes to the steady roll of 
 the boat, and looking down at the hard, strong, 
 handsome face, worn with the winds and seas 
 of all the world. It came to me just then, 
 as I looked, that a woman who loved such a 
 man would love him through life and to death — 
 as one woman had done. Nor was I thinking 
 of Miss Siddis, in that moment. 
 
92 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 Gore, in reply to my question, laughed some- 
 what dryly. 
 
 " I don't tell it," he said. " The curse might 
 come upon me, like the Lady of Shalott, if I 
 did. What a title for a poem, by the way ! 
 * Our Lady of Onions ' would be as poetical. 
 It's part of the blasting influence of Tennyson 
 on the Victorian age, that he had no sense of 
 humour whatever, and discouraged it in everyone 
 else. In Tennyson's reign, it was vulgar to see 
 the joyousness of the world. Consequence was, 
 inevitably, he and his school were dull and vulgar 
 both. Smugly vulgar. Vicarage - and - croquet- 
 lawn-vulgar. Oh, Lord ! " 
 
 He saw by my face that I did not agree with 
 him — as indeed I did not — and, with his 
 diabolical power of reading thoughts, went on : 
 
 " But when a young man's fancy lightly turns 
 to thoughts of * Maud ' — confess, young Paul ; 
 isn't * Maud ' your favourite poem ? " 
 
 Now, as it happened, certain lines of " Maud " 
 — which I thought, and still think, one of the 
 noblest poems in the English language — had 
 been running through my brain all night, 
 mingling with the roar and wash of the great 
 Pacific combers, as we swept through the 
 Schoutens in the dark ; weaving themselves 
 with the faint cry of sea-birds, when the stormy 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 93 
 
 dawn began to break over Papua, and I stood 
 clinging to the rail, all wet with spray, to see the 
 black hills of the Unknown Land spread out their 
 beckoning hands. . . . 
 
 Those lines had nothing to do with me — 
 nothing to do with New Guinea — but the wild 
 orchestra of the storm, and the sight of the 
 strange dark land that we had reached at last, 
 worked upon my mind as the sound of distant 
 music works on one who scarcely hears or listens 
 to it, and the brain-waves that came rolling in 
 cast strange flotsam upon the shores of sense. 
 
 " There is none like her, none, 
 Nor will be when our summers have deceased. . . ." 
 
 Then again : 
 
 " Were it ever so airy a tread 
 My heart would hear it and beat 
 Had it lain a century dead." 
 
 No definite vision went with the haunting 
 lines ; if there was any vision at all, it was only 
 the inappropriate one of Miss Mabel Siddis, 
 giggling a grisly, elderly giggle in her deck-chair, 
 and talking about the nutmeg islands. I did not 
 pause to think why she had insinuated herself 
 into that galley ; I wasn't thinking at all. I was 
 merely feeling. And Gore's barbed arrow, in 
 consequence, went far and stuck fast. 
 
 ** I don't know why it should be," I parried. 
 
94 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " Because," said Gore, letting Pliny slide to 
 the deck, and looking up at me with a twinkle 
 in his blue cat-eyes, " because you are twenty- 
 two and read a good deal. And because you're 
 over the Shelley stage, and not into the Browning 
 stage. Also, if you want another reason, because 
 you whistle, ' Come into the Garden,' while you're 
 shaving — out of tune. 
 
 " Tennyson ! " he went on. " Pap ! he never 
 in his life wrote anything that bites home to 
 human nature like those seven lines of Whit- 
 man's : 
 
 " Shine ! shine I shine ! pour down your warmth, great sun ! 
 While we bask, we two together, 
 Two together ! 
 
 Day come white, or night come black, 
 Home, or rivers or mountains from home, 
 Singing all time, minding no time. 
 If we two but keep together." 
 
 I do not think I have mentioned it, but Vincent 
 Gore had a voice that was as uncommon as every- 
 thing else connected with him — low-pitched as 
 a rule, but strong and what instrumentalists 
 call " full of reed." When he recited poetry 
 — a thing I had never heard him do before — he 
 made the lines live and sing. I beHeve, from 
 what I heard about him afterwards, that he had 
 a wonderful singing voice, but had always dechned 
 to have it trained, or even use it, on the ground 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 95 
 
 that a man who could sing well was never any good 
 at anything else. And, thinking over the charac- 
 ter of the few really good singers I have known, 
 I cannot help seeing that there was reason in 
 what he said. 
 
 At any rate, be that as it may, there was some- 
 thing in Red Bob's rendering of the few rugged 
 lines that affected me strangely. Since the 
 coming of Marconi and his miracles, we have 
 become much more liberal-minded than we 
 used to be about the effect of thought on thought 
 — the wireless messages that pass between human 
 minds. Things are thought possible, even 
 commonplace, now, that would have been laughed 
 at in our parents' days as fanciful and absurd. . . . 
 
 I am trying hard to say it, but I find no words. 
 I am compelled to state, plainly and baldly, what 
 happened, without telling, as I would like, about 
 the small, fine, wordless intimations and warnings 
 that went before. 
 
 For that I knew before, I am convinced. That 
 subliminal consciousness of which we hear so 
 much nowadays had been at work, and was fully 
 informed, long before my ordinary, physical 
 eyes looked up from the white decks of the 
 Afzelia pin-striped with caulking of pitch, and 
 saw, just at the moment when Red Bob finished 
 speaking, Isola of the nutmeg island — Isola 
 
96 Red Bob of the Bismareks 
 
 Ravenna — Isola Bella — coming round the corner 
 of the dining saloon. 
 
 Red Bob could not see her where he lay in his 
 chair, but he saw my hand fly instinctively to 
 my tie — as it does, you know, when you see a 
 girl who — a girl that is — well, everyone knows 
 what I mean. ... He did not even get up. 
 He looked at my face, read something there, I 
 suppose, and burst into one of his great bellows 
 of laughter. 
 
 " Go on, Maud," he said, " I shan't want you 
 till lunch. So there was another lady on board 
 after all ! " 
 
 " Why didn't Miss Siddis tell me ? " I won- 
 dered, as I got out of Red Bob's neighbourhood, 
 and found a place where I could watch the girl, 
 myself comparatively unnoticed. " She was free 
 enough with her yarns about Frau Baumgartner 
 and Frau Schultz, but never a word about Miss 
 Ravenna. ... I wonder where the Schultz 
 woman is — sick, I suppose." 
 
 For I had caught a glimpse of the fat, fair- 
 haired Frau Baumgartner already that morning, 
 and had indeed accounted for all the passengers, 
 with the exception of the Schultz woman. She 
 seemed to be something of a mystery : I had not 
 seen her, or even heard of her, since we left Banda. 
 
 " Well," I thought, " the fewer the better ; 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 97 
 
 the more chance of having her to myself." And 
 by " her," I did not mean Frau Schultz. 
 
 Isola Ravenna, it was evident, was no bad sailor. 
 Miss Siddis was sitting in a long chair on the deck 
 above, well secured and well cushioned, and with 
 no idea at all of tempting Providence by un- 
 necessary movement. But the Oread of Banda 
 mountain, sure-footed as an Oread should be, was 
 pacing up and down the narrow deck, balancing 
 to the roll of the ship as lightly as a flower in the 
 wind. She was not dressed in green to-day. 
 She wore a suit of very thin white wool, girdled 
 with a green ribbon ; there was another green 
 ribbon tied about the wide-leafed hat she wore. 
 As she passed me on the deck, I noticed the 
 faintest possible perfume of fresh flower-petals. 
 
 We were running far out now, and there was 
 nothing to be seen of New Guinea but a long, 
 blue serrated line to starboard. The sky was the 
 thin hot blue of the tropics ; the sea pale blue, 
 with intolerable diamond sparklings in every 
 wave. Blue and diamond was the whole morning, 
 hard, relentless, and, with the following wind, 
 distressingly hot. Unseasoned as I was, I felt 
 it somewhat, but Isola Ravenna, true flower of 
 the tropics, seemed to enjoy the heat. At all 
 events, she paced lightly up and down the decks, 
 from shade to sun, and back again, and her 
 
 7 
 
98 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 ivory-pale, small face, the exact shade and texture 
 of a magnolia petal, did not seem to be affected 
 in any way by the fierce glare from the sea. I 
 remembered the redness of poor Miss Siddis's 
 nose, and the roughness of her ungloved hands, 
 and wondered if all white women born in the 
 tropics, and only they, were armed like Isola, 
 against the arrows of the sun. 
 
 Inside the smoking-room, watching her through 
 the windows, I sat and enjoyed myself unobserved. 
 What luck it was that she should be travelling on 
 the Afzelia I What stupendous luck ! I never 
 asked myself why it should be so lucky ; nor did 
 I even pause to wonder why she, a young girl, 
 without relations or friends, should be journey- 
 ing along this wild north coast of New Guinea 
 towards a German settlement where (I knew) 
 no foreigner was especially welcome. I cannot 
 account for such stupidity ; God knows it cost 
 me dear enough in the end. 
 
 While I was pleasing my eyes with the sight of 
 Isola walking up and down, who should come 
 forth from the saloon but the elderly man with 
 the grey-green eyes, the owner of the bodiless 
 head that had protested so strongly against my 
 duel. I had not seen him before, and judged 
 that the heavy rolling of the steamer during the 
 first day and night had kept him in his cabin. 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 99 
 
 At all events, there he was, spruce, shaved, and 
 fresh, with a grizzly head cropped so close that 
 the skin shone through, a thick figure barely 
 restrained by his loose shirt and belt, and, in 
 unexpected contradiction to his short, weighty 
 build, a light walk that was singularly well-drilled 
 and smart, even for a German. 
 
 " Good morning ! " he said, with a pleasant 
 smile. I noticed another contradiction as he 
 spoke ; the pleasantness of his address did not 
 agree with the cold watchfulness of his unsmiling, 
 grey-green eyes, deep and chill as the Baltic of 
 his Prussian home. 
 
 " Good morning ! " I replied. I wondered 
 how much he knew. I had ascertained already 
 that the " next stopping place " would befall 
 on the day after to-morrow. 
 
 " So you will visit Kaiser Wilhelms Land ? " 
 he said agreeably, seating himself at one of the 
 small leather-covered tables, and offering me his 
 cigar-case. 
 
 I helped myself to a cigar of uncommon quality 
 and fragrance. 
 
 " The old gentleman does himself well," I 
 thought, as I Ht it. I had already noticed that 
 his shirt was of thick Assam silk, and that he wore 
 a tie-pin of one perfect sapphire, about the size 
 of a pea. 
 
 7* 
 
100 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " Yes," I said. " Fm secretary to Mr. Vincent 
 Gore." 
 
 " So ! " he said, as if the statement were news 
 to him — which I was assured it was not. " Then 
 you are also a man of science ? " 
 
 " By no means," I assured him. " I don't 
 care a rap about it." 
 
 " Ah," he said, holding his own cigar in a hand 
 that was delicately white and smooth, and 
 adorned with a heavy diamond-set ring. " Youth 
 loves adventure above all things. In company 
 with Mr. Vincent Gore, adventure will run to 
 meet you ; is it not true ? " 
 
 His manner was careless, but those greenish 
 eyes, hard with the hardness of eyes that have 
 seen cruel things, watchful as eyes that have had 
 to guard their owner's life, betrayed him. And I 
 thought he listened too carefully for my reply. 
 
 It is a good rule (I thought to myself) when one 
 asks you a question that you do not choose to 
 answer, to put the very same question in reply. 
 
 "Oh, do teU me," I begged. "Are there 
 adventures in New Guinea, and does Mr. Gore 
 have them ? It's been pretty dull up to the 
 present, I can tell you. What does he do when 
 he goes there besides hunting after mouldy old 
 skulls and writing up tribal customs ? " 
 
 " What does he do ? " repeated Herr Richter 
 
Red Bob of the Biswarclirs^ ifOl^ 
 
 (as I afterwards knew him to be called ; I say 
 called, because — but that must come later). 
 " What does Mr. Vincent Gore do in the Bis- 
 marcks and Kaiser Wilhelms Land ? " He looked 
 carefully at the diamond in his ring, and polished 
 it on his silk sleeve. '' There is nothing for any 
 man to do there but to study science, as you say. 
 We Germans, we do not want English settlers 
 or traders. You have many colonies of your 
 own. ... As for adventures, you must not 
 believe everything you shall hear. You cannot 
 expect adventure. We do not encourage men to 
 outwander in the bush, and make trouble for the 
 Government. No, I fear that German New 
 Guinea will disappoint you.'' 
 
 He seemed glad of it, on the whole. I liked 
 his cigars, but I did not like himself ; besides, I 
 was anxious to get to the doorway again, and see 
 where Isola Ravenna had gone to. She had 
 stopped walking up and down, and she was not 
 sitting on the seats outside. So I excused myself 
 as soon as I could, and went off hunting after the 
 Oread of Banda. She was, I told myself, quite 
 the most interesting girl I had ever seen. . . . 
 
 I did not find her. It grew dusk ; it turned to 
 dark, and she had not reappeared. Someone 
 told me that Miss Siddis had succurtibed to the 
 roll of the ship, and gone back to her cabin ; I 
 
^^^^^^rf^^ 
 
 rij92-/:{*';I?^d:B[Qli )of the Bismarcks 
 
 guessed that Miss Ravenna was keeping her 
 company. The evening passed away stupidly. 
 The Germans were playing cards in the saloon ; 
 Vincent Gore was reading ; Richter was padding 
 up and down the decks — it seemed to me, looking 
 out for something. I could not settle to cards, 
 to a book, even to the endless tramping up and 
 down on deck that is the solace of most sea 
 voyagers. Like Richter, I was looking for some- 
 thing. . . . 
 
 I did not find it. Richter disappeared, the 
 card party broke up in the saloon. It grew to- 
 wards the hour when the electric light was turned 
 off. I wandered into the bows, and stood with 
 my hands in my pockets, staring at the thick 
 darkness that we were ploughing through, and 
 wondering what lay beyond it. It struck me 
 with a sensation of incredible strangeness that 
 in two days more I might not be there — might 
 not be anywhere — I, Paul Corbet, who stood here 
 in the bows of the Afzelia, with the wind from 
 the wide Pacific blowing in his face. It struck 
 me with still greater strangeness that the 
 Afzelia undoubtedly would be there ; she would 
 finish her voyage along the New Guinea coast, 
 get to Simpsonshafen, and turn back again. That 
 curve of iron in front of me, those two round- 
 lipped hawse-pipes, with the anchor-chains 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 103 
 
 running through, would still be in the world, two 
 days hence, ten days hence. And I who looked 
 at them now, perhaps, would not. 
 
 It was the first time I had thought of death ; 
 the first time that the feeling and realization 
 of man as a passing shadow struck right home to 
 my heart. When the Romans — which of them 
 was it ? — no matter — cried out in bitterness : 
 " We are dust and shadows ! " this was the 
 feeling that had possession of their minds. Why, 
 they were right ! we were shadows, nothing 
 more. This iron ship, the rocks by which we 
 ran in the soundless dark, the sea that carried 
 us, were real things. But we, the masters of 
 them all, were not real. They stayed, we 
 passed — we passed ! 
 
 The winds of eternity blew and in a moment 
 the dust that was I was whirled away, and in 
 the place where my feet had rested the sun shone 
 again, and the salt- jewels sparkled . . . the 
 shadow had gone. 
 
 " It is true," I thought, " all true, what the 
 old Jews and the Romans and the rest of them 
 said. I am a shadow, and I shall pass like one, 
 perhaps the day after to-morrow, perhaps in 
 fifty years. It doesn't seem to make much differ- 
 ence. But whichever it is, I'm not afraid. 
 Glory be to " I did not want to say God, 
 
104 Red Bob of the Bismareks 
 
 for some odd, shamefaced reason ; I think 
 perhaps it was the idea of the bloodthirsty- 
 business toward between myself and Hahn that 
 held me back ; yet the word would come — 
 " Glory- be to God, I'm not afraid of anything ! " 
 
 A small, sweet, pointed face, magnolia-white, 
 seemed to rise before me in the darkness. I 
 shut my hands on the steel of the bulwark, cold 
 with night and dew. 
 
 " Not even for that," I thought. " I am not 
 afraid — for anything. The splendour of life — why, 
 it is death. I wonder why I never saw that before." 
 
 Now in another minute the words seemed 
 meaningless to me ; yet they had had, for the 
 moment, all the force of a revelation. 
 
 The window shut. It seemed to me that I 
 had been thinking things without ' significance 
 or sense. Man was dust and shadow ; yes, 
 everyone said it ; there was nothing in that. 
 I was going to fight a duel in two days — in one 
 day and two nights, rather. Well, that was 
 good fun, and I hoped I'd come out on top. 
 Was there any supper going in the saloon ? 
 
 I never found out if there was. I had come 
 back from the bows, and was strolling toward the 
 companion, when a voice said very near to me in 
 the darkness : " May I — may I speak to you ? " 
 
 I don't think the lessons of Red Bob — about 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 105 
 
 being surprised and so on — ^had been altogether 
 wasted on me. I answered at once, and quietly : 
 
 " Certainly, Miss Ravenna. What can I do 
 for you ? " — although it seemed as if all the 
 blood in my body had suddenly flung itself in 
 one wave towards my head, and as if the sleeve 
 that brushed accidentally at that moment 
 against something soft and near were charged 
 with a strong electric current. 
 
 " You can't do anything for me," said the voice 
 rather breathlessly, " but I can do something for 
 you — if I can speak where nobody hears." 
 
 She was not whispering ; she spoke in a soft 
 but rather high-pitched tone that somehow 
 made one think of winds and waters ... as 
 different from the carneying tones of Miss 
 Siddis as morning dew from treacle. . . . Isola ! 
 Isola Bella ! that voice of yours : 
 
 " My heart would hear it and beat 
 Had it lain a century dead." . . . 
 
 " You are most kind," I answered. We had 
 both forgotten — or had not troubled to re- 
 member — that we had never been introduced. 
 " If there is anything you want to say, we had 
 better go a little way back into the bows — or, 
 indeed, no one can hear us here." 
 
 " Oh, but they could," said the girl, still 
 rather breathlessly. " You've no idea how people 
 
106 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 can overhear on a ship — I hadn't, till to-night 
 
 — that's what I want to Please, in the 
 
 bow. I won't be a minute, but you must hear ; 
 it's important." 
 
 There was not a shade of self-consciousness 
 in her manner ; not the veriest coxcomb who 
 ever hinted at a hundred conquests could have 
 seen anything flattering to himself or coquettish 
 in her, at the back of the strange request. 
 
 I took it as it was spoken. 
 
 " Certainly," I said. " It is dark ; let me 
 lead you." 
 
 She gave me her hand with perfect confidence 
 — it was a cool, firm hand, as smooth as silk, 
 but not soft — and I helped her past the covered- 
 up donkey-engine, and the coiling chains, to the 
 quiet place I had just left. 
 
 " No one can see or hear us," I said. I took 
 off my coat and threw it lightly round her 
 shoulders. " The night air is sometimes chilly," 
 I told her ; and indeed, it was not so warm 
 as it had been. Then, standing by the bul- 
 wark — for I would not sit when she did not — 
 I waited. I thought she would begin with : 
 " You must think me very forward," or, " I 
 hope you won't be shocked," or some cliche 
 of the kind. But I did not know my lady of the 
 mountain. 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 107 
 
 " Vm afraid," she said, with simple directness, 
 " that there are people on board who mean you 
 some mischief." 
 
 " Oh, is that the case ? " I said, laughing a 
 little. " Perhaps I mean them some mischief, 
 too." 
 
 " You don't understand," she said, consider- 
 ing. " I will tell you just what it was. I was 
 lying on the deck, with a cushion under my 
 head, because I could not keep my chair from 
 slipping about, and it was dark. And my head 
 was a Httle over the side of the ship, under the 
 rail, to catch the breeze. And there was a 
 porthole just beneath, and people inside, smoking 
 and talking. I heard what they said. It was 
 German " 
 
 " Do you speak German, then ? " I asked. 
 
 " Why, of course," she answered, " though I 
 wasn't born a German — perhaps you know " 
 
 She paused for a moment, and I, thinking 
 I did know, answered : 
 
 " Yes, Miss Siddis told me." 
 
 Isola Ravenna did not go on with her story 
 immediately. Her tall, slim figure, just visible 
 in its white dress against the crape-like black- 
 ness of the sky, swung lightly to and fro with 
 the rolling of the steamer — once, twice, three 
 times. . . . The foam about the bows made 
 
108 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 such a hissing that I could not tell if she sighed ; 
 yet somehow I thought she did. 
 
 " Well ! " she said presently. " I was going 
 to tell you. They were talking about you. 
 It was Richter, I think — he smokes those very 
 nice-smelling cigars, doesn't he ? " 
 
 " Yes," I said, remembering the sample I had 
 enjoyed that afternoon. 
 
 " And the tall, fair young Prussian, Hahn, I 
 know his voice. And several others. They 
 were in a private cabin — one that hasn't any 
 deck outside it. Richter said — I must try to 
 remember, ' I have talked to him, and he is 
 no sheep's head, that young Englander. Thou 
 wast right, Hahn ' — that was what he said — 
 * he is clever enough to play the stupid game, 
 and see thou, when a man plays even so, he has 
 something to hide. Also he is not at all stupid.' 
 And then they said things I could not catch — 
 and then I heard Hahn, and he said, ' Truly, 
 sir, I did not do it on that account, but because 
 he had insulted Germany.' And Richter said — 
 oh, he said — I can't remember the words, but 
 it was about Hahn having done right, although 
 he had been hasty. ' Perhaps I should not have 
 wanted it if the youngster had been the common 
 English fool,' he said. * But I find him quite 
 other, and what Vincent Gore knows, be 
 
 :.^ 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 109 
 
 assured he knows. We cannot catch that bird 
 with salt on the nose, as the English say, but the 
 young chick we can.' And then he said, ' Thou, 
 Hahn, when we get to Kronprinzhaven, fight 
 then, like a right Prussian, and avenge the honour 
 of Germany.' And they laughed, and talked 
 together, so that I could not hear. But by and 
 by I heard Hahn, and he said, * No matter about 
 the choice of weapons, to me it is all the same. 
 Thou, wilt thou take the challenge to-night ? ' 
 And someone else said he would." 
 
 She stopped a moment ; she seemed out of 
 breath. In the silence I heard the far-off 
 tumbling of unseen waves on unknown shores ; 
 near at hand, the clattering of plates in some 
 steward's " glory-hole " under the forward deck. 
 The sound made me think of my strange experi- 
 ences on the Empress of Singapore, coming out from 
 England. Since then, I thought, the world had 
 widened marvellously. Off the shores of New 
 Guinea — agoing to fight a duel — bound on a 
 mysterious treasure-seeking quest — listening at 
 dead of night (it was a quarter to eleven only, 
 but that was dead enough for purposes of 
 romance) to a beautiful girl, who was warning me 
 of a plot against my life. 
 
 " Well ! " I said to myself, ramming my hands 
 deep down into my pockets. " This is plummy ! " 
 
110 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 To Miss Ravenna I spoke with more for- 
 mality. I told her that she was very kind indeed, 
 and that I could not be sufficiently grateful to 
 her. That I would tell Mr. Gore what she had 
 told me, and act by his advice, and that I hoped 
 she would not trouble herself in any way about 
 the matter, but rest assured that everything would 
 be all right. 
 
 She answered nothing at all to this, but 
 gathered her thin skirts round her and slipped 
 past the donkey-engine again, supported by 
 my hand. I don't think the support was in- 
 dispensable, but Isola Ravenna did not seem to 
 find it disagreeable. For all that, I rather liked 
 the manner in which she drew away that silken, 
 firm, small hand of hers, as soon as we were on the 
 open deck again, and the quick, silent fashion 
 of her bow and instant disappearance. She 
 would not have me think she had sought the 
 interview for the reasons of a vulgar flirt. 
 
 " Nevertheless," I said to myself, making 
 my way to Gore's cabin, " if you had thought me 
 a perfect beast, you pretty dear, you wouldn't 
 have taken so much trouble. Or wouldn't have 
 taken it in that way. You certainly are a dear, 
 and I'll tell you so, before many days." 
 
 Red Bob had turned in, but he answered 
 instantly to my knock, and I entered, feeling 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 111 
 
 none too comfortable in face of the interview 
 that I foresaw. It was clear that I had been 
 " made a hare of " in the completest manner. 
 I had answered readily to provocation that was 
 meant to get me into trouble, I had allowed 
 Richter — who was assuredly someone of im- 
 portance in the secret service — to suspect some 
 hidden motive underlying the apparent object 
 of our journey. There was only one course to 
 pursue, and it was bitter in my mouth. I had 
 to tell Gore everything, and act by his advice. 
 
 I did tell him, first turning on the noisy 
 electric fan to make sure that no one would hear 
 me. I repeated every word that Richter and 
 I had said to each other on the deck, every word 
 that Miss Ravenna had reported to me. Then 
 I stopped, and stood staring at the big man in the 
 pink-and-white pyjamas, waiting for his reply. 
 I was sure he would swear my head off. 
 
 Gore, sitting up in his berth, with his long 
 legs in their gay covering, and his thin, arched 
 bare feet dangling out into empty air, looked 
 at me for a moment without any expression at 
 all. Then, loosening the neck of his pyjama 
 coat — for the night was hot — ^he remarked : 
 
 " We might as well have two beers." 
 
 I pressed the bell and a steward popped up 
 like a pantomime demon. While we waited for 
 
112 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 the beer, neither of us spoke. As soon as the tall 
 glass mugs, cloudy with coolness, had been handed 
 in, Red Bob remarked, " Shut the door," and 
 buried his face in his mug. I did the same, feel- 
 ing that what was to be, was to be ; hoping, any- 
 how, that my fun was not going to be curtailed. 
 
 Red Bob finished his beer in one slow draught, 
 reached for a handkerchief, deliberately wiped his 
 moustache, and then said : 
 
 " I suppose you understand just what kind of a 
 fool you are ? " 
 
 " Does that matter ? " I said. 
 
 "Devil a bit," said Red Bob. "The thing 
 is, what are we going to do ? They have caught 
 you in a trap that they knew was too plain for 
 this old fox. It may stop our job. If the thing's 
 put up, as it seems, they mightn't even play fair. 
 They know " — he tilted the glass mug upside 
 down, to get the froth that had gone back to 
 hquid while he was talking — " they know I need 
 a companion, or I wouldn't have brought one. 
 Yes, they can hang me up nicely. Especially as 
 you played a game with Richter that he knows 
 better than you do. Don't act the fool, Paul 
 Corbet. Just be content to be what Nature 
 made you, and you'll come quite near enough to 
 a natural dashed fool for all practical purposes." 
 
 I said nothing to this, feeling that, all things 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 113 
 
 concerned, I had come off easily. Gore looked 
 into the bottom of his mug again, set it down 
 regretfully and remarked : 
 
 " When the European Armageddon comes — 
 and mind you, it's overdue — we may smash a 
 few dozen castles on the Rhine, and things of 
 that kind, but I hope to goodness the brutal and 
 licentious soldiery will spare the German brew- 
 eries. Well! These are my orders, young Paul, and 
 you've got to mind them. You'll have to fight." 
 
 " I hope so," I cut in. 
 
 " But you're not on any account, or for any 
 dashed piece of conceit, to kill, wound, or touch 
 young Hahn. Do you understand ? If he 
 kills or wings you — well, that can't be helped ; 
 you've brought it on yourself. But if you even 
 damage him, you can rely on it you will see the 
 inside of the jail at Frederick Wilhelmshaven , 
 and won't get out in a hurry. And I shall have 
 to hang about and bother over you. And the 
 fat will be in the fire, generally. Now, you have 
 your orders ; off to bed with you." 
 
 He snapped off the light and lay down I 
 heard him breathing long and quietly, before I 
 was out of the cabin. Red Bob could go to sleep 
 as quick as another man could wake, and wake as 
 quick as any man could fire off a gun. I used to 
 think his nerves must be like telegraph wires. 
 
 8 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 KRONPRINZHAVEN (which you wiU not 
 find under that name upon the map) 
 lies some way beyond the German-Dutch boun- 
 dary of New Guinea. We came up to it in the 
 very early morning, before the sun had gathered 
 warmth, and while the shadows on the deck of 
 the AJzelia were still powdered with dew as 
 fine and sparkling as ground glass. 
 
 Wolff had made a formal call on me the evening 
 before, on behalf of Hahn, and had arranged 
 with Gore the details of the fight (who, of course, 
 acted as my second). We were to use pistols 
 at twenty paces. Hahn was rather anxious for 
 rapiers, and I would not have been sorry to 
 oblige him ; but Gore had put me through ten 
 minutes' fencing earlier in the evening, and de- 
 livered it as his opinion that I was safer with the 
 pistol, provided what I said as to my feats with 
 that weapon was mostly true, and provided I 
 didn't lose my head. It has no place in the 
 story, but I cannot help observing here that 
 
 114 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 115 
 
 Red Bob's fencing was like everything else he 
 did — perfect. I do not think that Hahn, or 
 any other man in German Guinea, would have 
 cared to stand up before him vidth the buttons 
 off. Which, perhaps, may have to do with the 
 story, after all ; at least, so far as the "challenge 
 to me is concerned. 
 
 Well — we went ashore in the ship's boat, Red 
 Bob, Hahn, Wolff and myself, and the mysterious 
 Richter, who declared himself to be qualified as a 
 doctor, in case we should need the services of 
 one. The duelling pistols — Richter lent them 
 — were hidden in the folds of a mackintosh. The 
 captain, who usually took the ship into port him- 
 self, was late asleep this morning, and never 
 showed out of his cabin. The chief officer, 
 shining in white and gold upon the bridge, 
 leaned down and called out to us that he hoped 
 we would have a pleasant walk, recommending 
 us, in particular, to take photographs of the 
 native village. All the passengers were sound 
 asleep, and the stewards and deck-hands, to a 
 man, were busy on the seaward side of the ship. 
 Perfect unconsciousness of our mission, innocent 
 industry concerned only with itself, seemed 
 fairly to stick out all over the ship. And I 
 have not the slightest doubt that, the moment the 
 boat left the AJzelia^s side, every man on her 
 
 8* 
 
116 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 began making bets as to who was going to kill 
 whom. 
 
 So I landed on New Guinea. I have since 
 been to Kronprinzhaven more than once, and I 
 am therefore able to say that it is a magnificently 
 beautiful spot, a harbour of horse-shoe shape, 
 edged with tall cocoa-palms leaning over a beach 
 as white as paper, and backed by mountains that 
 rise leap on leap, wave upon violet wave, to an 
 unimaginable glory of remote, pale silver-blue. 
 The sun-beaten splendour, the cruel, feverish 
 beauty of the spot, may have touched my senses 
 at the moment — I do not know. I have only the 
 recollection of landing on a beach that was white 
 and heavy, and walking across it into a windy 
 coolness of palms ; of a dark forest after, where 
 huge buttressed roots ran out above our heads, 
 and a bird with a fiery-gold tail flashed out from 
 tree to tree as we entered — I remember its quick, 
 harsh scream, and the rustle of its wondrous train, 
 like a sound of a woman's silk dress. Then there 
 was a river, roughly bridged with logs, and we 
 couldn't hear each other speak because of the noise 
 it made tumbling over the rocks. And then the 
 track opened out, and there was a space of empty 
 meadow-land, and Wolff was chattering joyously 
 about a duel he had seen in Pomerania where 
 " the Kapitan his brains, all outrushing, upon the 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 117 
 
 green grass spilled ; " and Red Bob, walking 
 alongside of Richter, was smoking a foot of 
 Burmese tobacco, and jerking out indifferent 
 remarks about the loading of the Afzelia. . . . 
 
 I knew we had come to the place when I saw 
 this open, sunny bit of land, walled in by the 
 immense forest standing round about. I threw 
 a look at Hahn, and decided, not without dis- 
 appointment, that he was perfectly cool. In 
 fact, everybody was, except Wolff, and he was 
 simply bubbling over with delight. The whole 
 thing felt extraordinarily like a surgical operation. 
 I had been through one once, and remembered 
 it as very much akin to this — the cool, business- 
 like hospital people ; the new young student who 
 was so delighted to be there and see me cut up ; 
 even the assistant doctor who was busy laying 
 out glittering things in a metal tray. . . . For 
 that was how Richter occupied himself, what 
 time the seconds were measuring off the ground, 
 and inspecting the pistols. I really do not know 
 whether he did it with the view of shaking my 
 nerve or not, but if he did, he missed his mark, 
 since the sight only increased that odd reminis- 
 cence of the operation and made me feel, somehow 
 or other, that these were specialists concerned 
 together in a job that they all knew, though I 
 didn't ; that I was the job, and that my business 
 
118 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 was to do just what I was told to do, and keep on 
 feehng cooL . . . 
 
 Gore and Wolff tossed for position, and Hahn 
 won. I had the sun in my eyes, but that didn't 
 matter much, because it was still low, and the 
 forest shut off most of it. They placed us, and 
 Richter held the handkerchief. I saw Wolff's 
 face, mouth greedily open, eyes staring, full of 
 delight ; and Gore's, hard and inexpressive, 
 looking at me. Then I fixed my eyes on Hahn's 
 pink face, with the golden moustache, and out- 
 standing, heavy ears, like handles to his head. I 
 knew what I was going to do, and knew I should 
 do it. 
 
 The handkerchief fell, and a harsh German 
 voice cried : " Feuer ! " 
 
 In the very same moment, something hit me 
 hard on the forehead, and I staggered. 
 
 " Did I do it ? " I shouted out, straightening 
 up, and trying hard to see — one eye was oddly 
 obscured. ... I was afraid I might be badly 
 hit, and going to die. And if I died, I shouldn't 
 know if I had done what I wanted to do. 
 
 " Confound you all ! " I cried, losing my 
 temper, as the blood — I knew it was blood now 
 — poured down, and I began to get sick and 
 giddy — can't any of you tell me, did I clip his 
 right ear \ " 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 119 
 
 " Sit down," said Richter's voice, and I sat 
 on the grass. 
 
 " I'm not hurt," I said. " Let me have another 
 go. I tell you I can clip his ear like a sheep, and 
 I want to do it." 
 
 " Sit still, thou young fire-eater, while I sew 
 up that iron head of thine," said Richter, with the 
 suspicion of a laugh in his hard voice. " Yes, 
 truly, thou hast clipped his ear. A moment 
 now " 
 
 He lifted the piece of scalp that had been shot 
 loose, and was hanging over my eye, and I saw 
 Hahn a few yards away, holding a handkerchief 
 to his ear. 
 
 " Hooray ! " I cried. " Just the tip, wasn't 
 it?" 
 
 " Even so," answered Hahn, looking at me with 
 an odd mixture of expressions. 
 
 " What about another go ? " I asked anxiously, 
 as soon as Richter's stitchery was finished. " I 
 want to clip the other." 
 
 " Yes," said Hahn, taking away the handker- 
 chief, and putting it back again. " I would like 
 to give him the chance." He showed his teeth 
 unpleasantly as he spoke, and I reflected that, 
 whereas the seam in my scalp would not show, as 
 soon as my hair grew over it, he was marked for 
 life by the events of the last few minutes. 
 
120 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " I object," said Red Bob, coming forward. 
 " Herr Wolff, do you consider that honour is 
 satisfied ? " 
 
 Wolff did not look as if he did, but a glance 
 from Richter tamed him. 
 
 " Yes, yes," he said discontentedly. " The 
 insult to Germany and to her colonies without 
 doubt now out is wiped." 
 
 I got up from my seat and went over to Hahn, 
 who was standing in the full sunlight (for the 
 rising rays were just now over the forest) looking, 
 with his golden hair and martial bearing, like a 
 splendid, sulky, young war-god. 
 
 " Shake ! " I said. He put his hand into 
 mine, and I saw, as he let his handkerchief fall, 
 that the tip of the right ear was indeed shot 
 neatly off. 
 
 " I could have done the other," I said, with 
 some regret ; and to my surprise, they all burst 
 out laughing. 
 
 " Come," said Richter, quite good-humouredly, 
 " it is time for the coffee for one. Mr. Corbet, 
 you shoot straight — for an Englishman." 
 
 " Sorry I can't say the same for you," I said, 
 looking him fair in the eyes. I think he under- 
 stood, but it took more than the discovery of 
 one small plot to unnerve Justus Richter. 
 
 " Ah," he said pleasantly, " you mean Hahn." 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 121 
 
 (I didn't.) " But I think he has shot quite near 
 enough for you. Do you Hke to see the native 
 village before we will return to the ship ? I know 
 all this coast, and I can conduct you with safety." 
 
 I said I would like it, and we left the field of 
 battle, all in a body, and all very cheerful, as I 
 suppose people generally are after a duel where 
 no one has been killed, and there has been a little 
 bloodshed, just to give the event a flavour. 
 Gore, I recollect, was swinging along in front, 
 just about to enter the forest, his hat tossed back 
 on his head, his big frame just slightly bent down 
 to hear what Richter was saying about a Papuo- 
 Melanesian tribal custom, when all of a sudden — 
 he straightened himself up, cast a glance at the 
 path ahead, and bolted back with such suddenness 
 that he cannoned violently against Wolff, and 
 knocked Hahn into a lemon-tree full of thorns, 
 and threw me into the arms — or, to speak more 
 accurately, on to the well-cushioned stomach of 
 Richter. It was as if a bullock had broken loose. 
 
 For a moment, we were all too fully occupied 
 with ourselves to notice the cause of the disaster. 
 Hahn came out of the lemon-tree with a scratched 
 face, spitting thorns on the ground and cursing. 
 Richter swore violently at me in German, before 
 he realized that I was not the moving force in 
 the attack ; then he broke off gasping, and asked 
 
122 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 what was the matter with the verfluchter 
 Engldnder. 
 
 Wolff, who alone had escaped without actual 
 damage, went back a little way, and stared at the 
 vanishing form of Gore, which had crossed the 
 open grass with wonderful speed, and was now 
 all but lost in the forest at the other side. 
 
 I alone of the party guessed what had happened. 
 I had heard a woman's voice in the distance 
 asking the way of a native who evidently did not 
 understand her, and my foreseeing soul cried 
 out : " Miss Siddis ! " 
 
 To save my employer's face, however, I made 
 haste to explain that he was taken suddenly ill ; 
 that I had seen these odd fits before, and that he 
 would without doubt be all right in half an hour ; 
 also, that he liked to be left alone when thus 
 affected. Wolff and Hahn accepted the explana- 
 tion. Richter did not. He looked me through 
 with those chill Baltic eyes, and asked himself, 
 apparently, why I was taking the trouble to lie. 
 
 In another minute a woman's figure burst out 
 of the forest running as hard as it could — which 
 was not very hard — on small, flat feet. It was 
 dressed in an untidy medley of muslins, with a 
 hat over one eye, and its face was redder than I 
 should have thought the face of any mortal 
 being, not stricken with apoplexy, could be. 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 123 
 
 And as it went, bobbing its head with every call, 
 like a cuckoo in a cuckoo-clock : 
 
 " Mr. Gore ! Mr. Corbet ! Stop ! " 
 
 Hahn, with the reddened handkerchief twisted 
 about his ear, Wolff carrying the case of pistols, 
 stood still in their tracks and stared, a wide grin 
 spreading itself over their countenances, as ripples 
 spread in a pool when stones are thrown in. But 
 Richter acted otherwise. He made a quick, 
 light step over to Miss Siddis, caught her by the 
 arm, stopped her, and almost shook her. 
 
 " Have you brought Frau Schultz on this fool's 
 errand — ^you, who are supposed to look after 
 her ? " he said. 
 
 The mysterious Frau Schultz again ! I 
 thought that nothing could have added to my 
 astonishment at her name being brought into 
 the business of the duel ; but Richter's next words 
 did it. 
 
 " This is your doing ! " he said to me, his usual 
 icy caution melting away in the heat of some in- 
 comprehensible anger. " It is you who have 
 told Frau Schultz, and she and this ass-head 
 have " 
 
 He broke oflF short, and looked about him. It 
 was plain now that Miss Siddis was alone. 
 
 She, not minded to be left out of the conver- 
 sation, began her cuckoo-clock exclaiming again : 
 
124 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " Stop the duel — I insist upon it. Stop it. 
 The Hfe of Mr. Vincent Gore must not be 
 
 Stop the duel — Mr. Corbet, how can you stand 
 by and Stop the duel ! " 
 
 She really seemed to be out of her mind for 
 the moment. I had no doubt that she had run 
 the whole way from the shore, repeating her 
 clock-work cry all the time. Someone on board 
 must have let it out to her after we had gone ; 
 and she had very nearly been in time to run 
 screaming into the glade at the worst possible 
 minute. ... 
 
 " See, you foolish woman ! " said Richter. 
 " There is nothing to make a fuss about. See ! 
 There is no one hurt ; Mr. Gore was not fight- 
 ing ; it was this youngling. He has a scratch 
 and so has the other ; that is all." 
 
 At this she seemed to come to herself. 
 
 " But where is Mr. Gore ? " she asked, looking 
 up with something that was, and wasn't, a squint 
 from under the crooked brim of her hat. 
 
 " He is gone a walk. Where is Frau 
 Schultz ? " asked Richter sternly.' I began to 
 wonder if Frau Schultz were a criminal, being 
 taken back to German Guinea for trial and im- 
 prisonment. Certainly I had never set eyes on 
 her yet, though we were several days out from 
 Banda. Miss Siddis, Miss Ravenna, I had seen ; 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 125 
 
 also Frau Baumgartner — the lad^ whose fat, grey 
 back and scraped-up hair I had noticed on the 
 day of saiHng ; she had been more or less sick 
 ever since. But of the mysterious Frau Schultz 
 I had not had a glimpse. Miss Siddis's answer 
 only added to my perplexity. 
 
 " Where should she be but on the deck, where 
 she always is ? " was her reply. 
 
 " She is there even too much," said Richter. 
 " She walks about too much at night. See, then, 
 Schultz is my very good friend, and I warn you 
 that I will look after his interests." 
 
 " Oh, but, Herr Richter " began Miss 
 
 Siddis, in her most carneying tone. 
 
 Richter did not wait to hear her ; conscious, 
 no doubt, of having betrayed himself in some way, 
 he walked on ahead, and rapidly left the party 
 behind. We strolled to the shore together, 
 Hahn, Wolff, the still panting Miss Siddis, and I. 
 Not much was said till the beach shone out before 
 us, white and glaring in the seven o'clock sun, and 
 the AJzelia^s boat appeared, drawn up below a 
 big Barringtonia tree, that overhung the water 
 with a cool canopy of green. Then Hahn, who 
 had been nursing his sulks all the way, turned to 
 me and held out his hand. 
 
 " You shoot well, and you are a brave 
 youngster," he said. " I am your friend. No, 
 
126 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 Wolff, you need not look at me. From this day, 
 I am the friend of Paul Corbet, and any man 
 may know it who likes." 
 
 He pronounced my Christian name to make it 
 rhyme with " howl," but, nevertheless, I felt 
 gratified. 
 
 Richter was waiting in the boat, and we all 
 went over to the ship together. As the oars 
 ground in the rowlocks, taking me farther and 
 farther from the fascinating shores of the land 
 I had so longed to reach, I could scarcely console 
 myself with the knowledge that we were going 
 to call at other places. I had landed on New 
 Guinea ; I had seen a beach and a jungle and a 
 couple of brilliant birds, no more. Round the 
 corner were hosts of wonders, and I had not seen 
 any of them. ... It was really very hard. 
 
 Miss Siddis had found her tongue again by 
 this time, and her prattle nearly maddened me. 
 She wanted to know if we were sure Mr. Vincent 
 Gore was not hurt ; she had seen him go out 
 of his cabin in the early morning, as she was on 
 her way to the bath, and he was carrying a case 
 of pistols, and before she could get dressed 
 the ship's boat was away, and there wasn't 
 another to be had till it came back again from 
 the beach, and dear, dear ! she was frightened, 
 for she had heard what a reckless man he was, 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 127 
 
 and she was sure But after all, it was not 
 
 Mr. Gore — we were certain ? And he was 
 coming back to the ship all right ? That was 
 right ; but what a pity that Mr. Corbet should 
 have been hurt — and Mr. Hahn — now she was 
 only a poor little woman, but if we would let 
 her just tell us how wrong and foolish 
 
 At this point Richter looked up from the 
 bottom boards of the boat, and remarked : 
 
 " Fraulein Siddis, these affairs of honour have 
 nothing to do with women. Hold your tongue. 
 You understand me ? " 
 
 Miss Siddis, taken in full flow, stopped, blinked 
 and swallowed. 
 
 " You are so natural and simple, you Prussians 
 — so strong ! " she murmured, honey in her tones 
 and something very like hate in her small grey 
 eyes. " Yes, Herr Richter, if you wish it, I 
 will keep silence. A simple little woman like 
 me — what does she know, after all, when there 
 are men older and wiser than herself to decide ? " 
 
 " Exactly," said Richter. 
 
 Nothing more was said till we reached the 
 ship. An accommodation ladder was set slant- 
 ing down her side ; we landed on the grating 
 one by one, and ascended, Richter leading. 
 
 To the smart, starched officer who stood at 
 the head of the steps, he remarked : 
 
128 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " We have met with a Httle accident ashore. 
 A tree fell in the forest ; it has injured Herr 
 Hahn's ear and the forehead of Herr Corbet. 
 I myself have given first aid ; there will be no 
 need of the doctor." 
 
 " So," said the officer with an inexpressive 
 face. We filed through the companion-way 
 just as the first breakfast bell began to ring, 
 and I went to my cabin with my head feeling 
 like a turbine that is just beginning to go round 
 and round under the pressure of the steam. 
 Doubtless the injury I had received had some- 
 thing to say to this ; but still more had a sight 
 that flashed upon my eyes just as we were 
 ascending the ship's tall side — Isola Ravenna's 
 face, framed in a porthole, white as the paint 
 of the ship, wide-eyed, and with the under-lip 
 dropped down as lips only drop in terror or 
 dismay. Her hands, clutching the brazen rim 
 of the port, were blanched with the closeness 
 of the grip. When she saw me pass, walking 
 easily up the ladder and chatting with Hahn, 
 a cigarette in my mouth, the terror on her face 
 dissolved as snow dissolves beneath a thawing 
 wind. Her clutching hands let go, and she 
 slipped back into the dusk of her cabin, thinking, 
 no doubt, that nobodythad seen her. 
 
 I fancied Richter had, for he cast a curious 
 
Red Bob of the Bismareks 129 
 
 glance at me as we reached the grating, and then 
 threw a rapid look down the ship's side. When 
 we got on board, he went off at once down the 
 alley-way ; he had his back to me, but I could 
 see that he was twisting his moustache violently 
 with both hands, and I fancied, somehow, that 
 something had occurred to put him out. 
 
 I don't know when Red Bob came on board. 
 We sailed very shortly ; he did not appear till 
 we were well out at sea, and the ship was be- 
 ginning her long, steady roll once more. Miss 
 Siddis had succumbed again, and tottered down 
 to her cabin before we were well clear of the 
 land ; she certainly was a wretched sailor. 
 Whether Isola Ravenna was with her or not I 
 do not know ; but the girl did not appear all 
 morning, nor yet at lunch time. I wanted her 
 to appear ; I wanted to show my bandaged 
 head, and pose as the hero of a deadly light — 
 being in truth very proud indeed of my part in 
 the business of the morning — but no green- 
 girdled dress fluttered upon the boat-deck, no 
 quick, light foot paced up and down the plank- 
 ing. There was nobody more interesting than 
 Justus Richter to be seen, and he read per- 
 sistently in his long chair from eight o'clock till 
 one, never, so far as I could see, lifting his eyes 
 off the heavy German print of the page. 
 
 9 
 
130 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 Red Bob and I, sitting in our old retreat right 
 up in the nose of the ship, had a short talk over 
 the events of the morning as we steamed along 
 past the curious blue - and - black mountain 
 scenery and the silent estuaries of unpopulated 
 rivers and the mighty mangrove walls that were 
 New Guinea. 
 
 " You did the best thing, under the circum- 
 stances," he allowed somewhat grudgingly, look- 
 ing not at me, but at the illimitable, sailless sea 
 that stretched out on our port beam — a sea 
 scarce altered in its primitive loneliness since 
 the days when Willem Corneliszoon Schouten 
 and Jacob Le Maire sailed over it. " It was a 
 put-up job from beginning to end, and not a 
 nice one. They couldn't have known you were 
 handy with weapons that a young Englishman 
 generally knows nothing about. If you could 
 
 fence as well as you can shoot By the 
 
 way, where did you learn that ? " 
 
 " No mystery about it," I told him. " When 
 you find out that you've a natural gift for doing 
 something better than other people, nothing can 
 keep you from it. I learned it from myself. 
 'Tisn't like boxing ; other people must teach 
 you that, even when you've got the ability — 
 but shooting at a mark — well, you know, you 
 must get to love it." 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 131 
 
 " Yes, I know," said Red Bob reminiscently. 
 " Curious thing, too, in Livonia about ninety- 
 two, I did Well, that's nothing to do with 
 
 the case." 
 
 "Do teU," I begged. "Did you shoot off 
 the tip of anyone's ear ? " 
 
 "No," said Red Bob calmly. "I did not. 
 It's an ugly story, and best forgotten. . . . 
 About this duel. I don't quite get the whole 
 reason, somehow. It's true that your loss 
 would have embarrassed me — but that could 
 have been worked otherwise; . . . Almost seems 
 like a grudge against you. But that's not 
 Hkely." 
 
 " No," I agreed. Then, remembering the 
 incomprehensible things that Richter had said 
 to me when Miss Siddis invaded the scene of 
 the duel, I repeated his words as near as I could 
 remember them. 
 
 " I can't make head or tail of him and his 
 Frau Schultz," I said. 
 
 Gore said nothing ; you would have thought 
 he was looking on the far horizon for the ships 
 that never were there. 
 
 " I'm glad you told me," he said by and by. 
 " It'll straighten out. Things do." 
 
 " I — I said you were ill," I ventured, " when 
 you ran off like that. Was I right ? " 
 
 9* 
 
132 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 Red Bob's hard face broke up into a mass of 
 leathery creases. 
 
 " Right, right ! " he said, his eyes twinkhng. 
 " I was. I was Hke those fellows in the Bible 
 who describe themselves as feeling their bones 
 
 turn to water, and their By the way, what 
 
 an expressive book it is ; you can find a phrase 
 to fit any possible frame of body or mind in it. 
 I've no doubt you would get something that 
 would exactly describe your sensations in an 
 aeroplane, if you only looked long enough. Or 
 the way a man loses his temper over a long- 
 distance telephone. Well, young Paul, to tell 
 you the truth about that dashed Siddis woman, 
 I ran because I was morally and physically certain 
 she'd have her arms round my neck in two 
 seconds if I hadn't. It's the way they try to 
 save your life — God knows why — especially in 
 shipwrecks or fires, or at any time when you want 
 your hands free and your head cool. And she 
 was out to save mine. You couldn't have 
 stopped her with a club. So — I ran, as many a 
 braver man than myself has done. Give me a 
 match." 
 
 He ducked down beneath the bulwark to light 
 his cigar — for the wind was blowing strong from 
 those seas where no man sailed — and came up 
 again, puffing. 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 133 
 
 " Pick no more quarrels, and let no more be 
 fastened on you," he said in a tone of authority. 
 " And don't flirt too much with that pretty girl 
 from Banda ; I smell trouble there, and we've 
 had enough already. In short, if it's in the 
 nature of a young rip like yourself to keep out 
 of mischief generally, do it." 
 
 He swung off the bulwark. 
 
 " Do it ! " he said, with the red flash showing 
 up for an instant in his eye ; and was gone. 
 
 As for me, I stayed in the bows till lunch, 
 alternately watching Justus Richter turn over 
 the leaves of his learned book, and looking at 
 the grim, goblin peaks of New Guinea. And I 
 wondered which of the two, after all, concealed 
 the more, and the darker secrets. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 IT was, of course, hardly to be expected that 
 I should take Vincent Gore's counsels 
 about Isola too literally. When a girl goes out 
 of her way to give you a warning of a plot against 
 you — when she almost faints because she sees you 
 in a boat with your head tied up — when she 
 revives because you do not appear to be very 
 badly hurt after all, and comes up on deck 
 in the quiet hour of the afternoon with the 
 obvious intention of hearing all about every- 
 thing — ^you would be an insensible brute if you 
 did not instantly find a chair, place it as near 
 as possible to the darling's own, and proceed 
 at once to offer up your thanks, your excuses 
 (for having fought at all) and your earnest 
 assurances that no harm has come or is coming 
 of the whole affair, for her acceptance and 
 consideration. 
 
 I was not an insensible brute. I did all these 
 things, and found that they were not ill received. 
 
 134 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 135 
 
 It was almost the first time I had really had the 
 chance of a satisfactory talk with the lady of the 
 island, and I was resolved not to waste my oppor- 
 tunity. After all, the voyage was a short one ; 
 in four or five days we should have reached 
 Simpsonhaven, and then who knew that I should 
 ever see this English flower of the East again ? 
 
 English she undoubtedly was ; her accent was 
 that of the cultured classes at home, her simple, 
 frank demeanour was the demeanour of the 
 young English girl of good family and upbring- 
 ing — and yet she was tropic of the tropics, too ; 
 to nothing reared among the fogs and snows of 
 Britain could that starry sweetness, that white 
 magnolia bloom have belonged. 
 
 It was fascinating to an eye trained as mine 
 had been of late in shades of descent and strange 
 comminglings of race, to see how the two in- 
 fluences of England and of Italy, working together 
 in the languorous world of the Spice Islands, 
 had shaped the person and the mind of this 
 girl. She was her mother in soul, her father and 
 her home in body. ... I guessed (and I may 
 say that time proved me to be right) that Isola's 
 mother had been by far the stronger character 
 of the two ; that her Neapohtan father had 
 brought little more to the match than his facile 
 Italian beautv. She had known how to love. 
 
136 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 it seemed — Margaret Ravenna, dead and gone. 
 Did Isola Ravenna, alive, know, too ? 
 
 She was wearing her mother's wedding ring, 
 I saw, on the third finger of her right hand, a 
 fancy that I never cared about, in girls ; still, 
 it showed a pretty feeling. . . . 
 
 Well ! I suppose everyone who has ever 
 loved — which is to say, everyone who has passed 
 through life alive and not dead — must have 
 experienced the embarrassment, the difficulty 
 that comes from talking with someone whose 
 personality so obsesses you that you cannot 
 hear her words for thinking of her. I missed 
 quite a good deal of what Isola Bella said in 
 answer to my tale of the duel ; but I picked up 
 the threads just in time at the last. 
 
 ..." And I was almost sure he would guess 
 who told you, because — you must have noticed 
 it — he watches me all the time." 
 
 It became absolutely necessary to ask questions 
 here. 
 
 "Watches you! Who? What cheek!" 
 
 " Herr Richter ; I was telling you about him," 
 said the girl. I felt as one feels who steps at 
 night upon a top stair that is not there. Some- 
 thing that was missing jarred me — jarred me 
 badly. Why did she not laugh as a girl should 
 laugh when a man forgets her words for her ? 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 137 
 
 Why did she not coquet — ever so Httle ? If 
 I knew a girl from a green goose — and I thought 
 I did, on the whole — it was not because she could 
 not . . . with those eyelashes ! 
 
 But she spoke very quietly, as a woman thrice 
 her age might have spoken, and she looked at 
 the slight, firm hands in her lap, and at the 
 memorial wedding-ring on her right hand, rather 
 than at me. 
 
 " I don't think you heard. He is a friend of 
 Mr. Schultz's." 
 
 " Oh," I said, without much interest. When 
 Isola Bella was within twenty inches of me, I 
 was not inclined to trouble about fat German 
 Fraus and their husbands, and the problems 
 affecting either. 
 
 " He is a relation, I believe," went on Isola. 
 " He is even rather like him — much fatter, and 
 rather younger, but one sees it. . . . Well, he 
 watches me ; it is almost insulting. I believe " 
 — she looked nervously about her — " if you could 
 see everywhere, you would find he was watching 
 me now." 
 
 " Oh, nonsense ! " I assured her, getting up 
 nevertheless to take a walk round the deck- 
 house and come back. " There's not a soul. 
 We are on the sunny side of the ship and it's 
 three o'clock — nothing but you or I or a 
 
138 Red Bob of the Bismareks 
 
 salamander could stick the heat. They're all 
 in their cabins with their coats off, snoozing." 
 
 Isola's eyes were fixed on the pale-blue curtain 
 of an open port in the deckhouse some distance 
 away. 
 
 " I thought I saw it move," she said. 
 
 I looked, but could see no movement. 
 
 " Anyhow," I said, " we can't be heard. I 
 want to talk to you about yourself. Miss Siddis 
 told me what a lovely name you have. Isola ! 
 Isola BeUa ! " 
 
 She made no answer. She was looking out to 
 sea. There was a volcano island coming nearer 
 and nearer as we steamed ; a tall, wicked horn 
 that pricked up out of the blue water all alone, 
 smoking ominously. 
 
 " That must be Vulcan Island," she said 
 presently. " I have heard of it." 
 
 " Isola Bella," I repeated again, very softly. 
 " A beautiful name — Isola." 
 
 Now she looked at me ; she looked as straight 
 and as coldly as young Diana might have looked 
 at a venturesome huntsman, trespassing on her 
 forest grounds. And yet there was something 
 behind the look — a shadow of pain — for me ? 
 For herself ? 
 
 " You must not call me by that name," she 
 said. 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 139 
 
 " Very well," I said. " But I won't call you 
 by any name, in that case, until you are less 
 cruel." 
 
 She did not seem to hear me ; and yet I knew 
 she was thinking of me. In another moment 
 she had risen from her seat, and flitted down the 
 deck companion. There was nothing left of 
 her but the faintest scent of sandalwood. 
 
 " Well," I said, looking after her, with a feeling 
 of depression I could not account for, " I've 
 met some girls — but — but — but that " 
 
 I did not want to finish the thought ; in fact, 
 I did not want to think at all, so I went to look 
 for some work. There was small difficulty about 
 that, when Red Bob was aboard. One had only 
 to show oneself, in order to be pinned down at 
 once upon a task likely to last on till the next 
 meal. Gore accommodated me at once with a 
 mass of unverified facts and figures urgently 
 needing legitimation, and I grubbed among the 
 ruins of departed empires till the dressing-bell 
 rang. 
 
 I remember that I changed and went in to 
 dinner feeling unusually light-hearted. The 
 nameless depression caused by Miss Ravenna's 
 manner had altogether passed away. What did 
 her manner, or even her words signify, when her 
 actions were what they were ? Perhaps I was 
 
140 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 absurdly vain, perhaps not — but either way, I 
 was sure that my safety, my welfare, were matters 
 of concern to her, and that she had risked con- 
 siderable annoyance to secure them. Things 
 being so, it was a good world, and the weather 
 was improving, and iced sweet soup, with fruit 
 in it, though German, was not to be despised. 
 
 How I remember all about that dinner — even 
 what the menu was ! I could tell you just what 
 sort of a pale, garnished roast the military-looking 
 steward handed over my shoulder, and just what 
 extraordinary pieces of pigs and giblets and 
 sausages closed the meal. There was a gap among 
 the diners that night — someone was ill, or on 
 extra duty — I don't know what — but the result 
 was that Wolff and I, usually separate, were side 
 by side, with only an empty chair between, and 
 that we were talking — a thing we had never done 
 before. We were talking about girls, I remember, 
 and Wolff was setting forth, in flat South German, 
 the superior beauty of the ladies of Munich, first, 
 over Germany in particular, and then over the 
 world in general. Next to them, he was pleased 
 to say, the Danes were the handsomest girls ; 
 and he had rather a weakness — acquired in Argen- 
 tina — for a pretty Spanish girl of sixteen or so. 
 
 " Hear the married man, the fast and securely 
 married man ! " mocked Hahn from the other 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 141 
 
 side of the table. " Now, Wolff, shall I the 
 charming little Frau, when we in Friedrich 
 Wilhelmshaven arrive, tell ? " 
 
 " The charming little Frau, she is the most 
 charming of them all ! " declared Wolff, blushing, 
 but maintaining his ground stoutly. 
 
 I was a little surprised, for he was not appar- 
 ently older than myself, if so old, and I had not 
 been regarding him in the light of a married man. 
 
 " What, you have already a wife ? " I asked 
 him. 
 
 " Yes — yes," he said, with a pleasant grin. 
 " See now, if you doubt, there is my ring. We 
 Germans wear a marriage ring, men and women 
 too ; we are not like you English, who are 
 ashamed of that honourable state." 
 
 " But " I said. I had a glass of wine on 
 
 my right ; for some reason that I could not have 
 defined, I lifted it, and drank it down. . . . 
 
 " But — ^you wear it on the wrong hand. Or 
 perhaps," I went on, in a strange hurry, " German 
 men wear wedding-rings on the right hand, and 
 women on the left, like ours." 
 
 " No, no, no," said Wolff, shaking his head 
 slowly from side to side. " German women and 
 German men wear the wedding-ring on the right 
 hand. The left hand is for the betrothal ring 
 only." 
 
142 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 I was calm now — as calm as I had been at 
 Kronprinzhaven in the dawn of yesterday morn- 
 ing, when I had stood up against Hahn with a 
 pistol in my hand, knowing that the next five 
 seconds would decide whether I was to die or live. 
 
 " An Englishwoman," I said, turning to Wolff 
 as he sat contemplating the shining ring on his 
 plump third finger — " an Englishwoman, married 
 to a German — would she wear the ring on the 
 right hand or the left ? " 
 
 His reply was indifferent, and yet it came — to 
 my senses — quick as the shot of Hahn's pistol, in 
 the dawn beneath the forests of Kronprinzhaven, 
 the day before. 
 
 " Naturally, she would wear it on the right, 
 since that is the custom of the country of her 
 man." 
 
 Hahn had missed me, or touched me only, in 
 that deadly minute at Kronprinzhaven. Here, 
 at the dining-table of the AJzelia, Wolff shot 
 home. I was hit. 
 
 When one is shot, one does not scream. One 
 bears the pain. That was all I could think of 
 for a moment — that, and the pain itself. I did 
 not even know what it was that I had learned in 
 those few moments ; I simply took it in with 
 every pore of my mind, and felt it, as I had never 
 felt any agony in the course of my existence. 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 143 
 
 I could have thanked God aloud that the captain 
 rose at this minute, and set most of us moving 
 out of the hot saloon on to the cooler deck, so 
 that I was able to swing round out of my seat 
 without unnecessary hurry, and get away. 
 
 There was only one thought in my mind, and 
 it drove me like a leaf in the wind down the 
 alleyway leading from the saloon to the deck 
 cabins, after the white, green-belted dress of 
 I sola. I caught her up just as she was entering 
 her cabin. I remember how hot it was in that 
 narrow passage, and how the inevitable ship 
 smell of mattresses, apples and fresh paint seemed 
 in the confined space to catch and wring me by the 
 nose. I remember how the overhead electric 
 hght in its cut-crystal bell shone down upon the 
 waves of Isola's black hair, and edged them with 
 a mockery of white. . . . 
 
 " You told me," I said, without preface, " that 
 I must not call you Isola — Isola Bella. What 
 name am I to address you by ? " 
 
 I am not sure that she understood — fully — 
 but she looked at me with an expression in her 
 eyes that was like the look of a mother over a 
 child that is hurt — she, nineteen years of age, 
 scarce out of pinafores and school. . . . 
 
 "You must call me Frau Schultz," she said, 
 and went into her cabin and closed the door. 
 
144 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 As I was coming up the main companion, Red 
 Bob met me. 
 
 " Come out and see Vulcan Island," he said. 
 " She's playing up finely to-night." 
 
 I saw my face in a mirror as we passed. It 
 looked quiet, and — somehow — not like mine. 
 " That is Paul Corbet," I said to myself, as the 
 hawky young face flitted by in the bright light 
 of the stairway, beside the handsome elder head 
 of Gore. " Something has happened to him," 
 I said. . . . 
 
 I saw that Gore was looking at me. 
 
 " You weU ? " he asked. 
 
 "Yes," I answered. "Perfectly." He said 
 nothing more, but looked at me again, and I 
 knew he knew that something had happened. 
 
 That is the advantage of being with a man. 
 A woman would have sympathized ; would have 
 talked, at least. Gore did neither. He went 
 out on deck with me, and pointed to Vulcan 
 Island, glowing red and evil against a splendid 
 starry sky. 
 
 " She's at it," he said. She was ; a growl of 
 thunder that seemed to shake one's vitals sounded 
 across the water as he spoke, and a leaping burst 
 of fire, unbearably golden, opened out like a 
 flower from the garden of Death upon the summit 
 of the terrible island. 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 145 
 
 " How far off is it ? " I asked. My voice 
 didn't sound quite right ; it was a tone or two 
 higher than usual, but Gore took no notice. 
 
 ** About eleven miles," he said. " She throws 
 pretty straight up and down as a rule ; not so 
 dangerous as she looks. Do you know who 
 named her ? " 
 
 " No," I said. (Isola— Isola Bella ! What was 
 it the song said that kept running through my 
 head : 
 
 " And it's never, never, never, Douglas Gordon, 
 Never, never, never on earth I'll come to thee I ") 
 
 Douglas Gordon's girl was engaged to someone 
 else, and they ran away together, and were 
 drowned in each other's arms. But what would 
 Douglas Gordon have done if she had been 
 married ? 
 
 The story of Vincent Gore came up before me 
 in a red flash like the flash of Vulcan Island, and 
 died down as the volcano fire sank into its cone. 
 Not Isola. Never the Diana of the mountain. 
 Married or single, she was not that kind. . . . 
 
 " It was a Dutchman found it, and gave it its 
 name, some good few years ago," said Gore. 
 ** Willem Corneliszoon Schouten. Look at it." 
 
 I looked, with all the interest I could bring 
 to bear. The flame rose and sank ; small 
 rivers of fire began to trickle down towards the 
 
 10 
 
146 Red Bob of the Bismareks 
 
 sea. Every few minutes came that heart-shaking 
 thunder of the mountain's inner voice. Here, 
 on that lonely, untravelled sea, beside the dark 
 coasts where no one ever landed, it was strangely 
 moving ; and more than ever, it gave one the 
 feeling that I had already experienced of being 
 at the very ends of the earth. 
 
 " Does anyone live there ? " I asked, trying 
 to speak and act as usual, and — I think — succeed- 
 ing well enough. 
 
 " Not on the island itself," said Gore. " There 
 are two others in the group ; a few natives 
 live on those. Dangerous beggars, of course. 
 There's scarcely a spot where you could be ship- 
 wrecked, from Geelvink Bay right along, without 
 being eaten aHve if you got ashore." 
 
 " Why," I said, waking to momentary interest, 
 " the Germans have had this place since 1885 ! " 
 
 " Right," he answered, " but they haven't 
 done more than sit on the edge of it anywhere. 
 If we'd been making the usual trip, we should 
 have called at two or three ports with big names, 
 already, and we've got a lot of them to call at 
 yet — sounds well, but they're nothing on earth 
 but a jetty and a copra-shed, with perhaps a 
 mission house somewhere or other close by. I 
 tell you, the Germans are only holding this 
 country by the tip of its tail." 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 147 
 
 " Are they ? " I said, and then, as it struck me 
 I must talk — must seem quite as usual : "Is it 
 worth holding ? " 
 
 Red Bob laughed a little. 
 
 " It is worth it," he said, his lean, sharp 
 profile — the very type of a true sea-rover's face 
 — showing still and black against the glare of 
 Schouten's burning mountain. " I wish our 
 slice was as good. They're pretty near the same 
 size, if you take in the Bismarcks and the 
 Louisiades — each share is about twice as big as 
 England. But the Germans have got the best 
 ports, and the best navigable rivers. The Fly's 
 a showy river with a gigantic estuary, but it 
 doesn't begin to compare with the Kaiserin 
 Augusta for use. You remember — that big 
 mouth we passed, when the water was 
 yellow for miles. That's it. Smallish steamers 
 can go up for two hundred miles, big ocean 
 liners for forty. Fine plantation country all 
 the way." 
 
 " Who lives there ? " I asked, picturing brown 
 plantation houses and orderly groves of palms. 
 
 " A rather bad lot of man-eaters. Nearly got 
 me and Warburton once. You've heard of 
 Warburton ; he was knocked on the head by a 
 stone club in Rubiana." 
 
 " What's in the country besides rivers ? " I 
 
 10* 
 
148 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 asked. I did not care in the least what was in 
 the country ; but it seemed well to talk. 
 
 " Anything you like to name," answered Red 
 Bob. " Gold. Lots of it — but they can't find 
 it. We could, but we won't. Other metals — 
 sticking with 'em. Gems I suspect, and so do 
 other people. Woods that will make your for- 
 tune in six months, if you get a fair chance at 
 them — which in a German colony you won't. 
 Birds of Paradise, worth three pounds apiece in 
 Simpsonhaven ; worth anything you like at home. 
 Gums that no one's investigated yet ; probably 
 valuable. Sandalwood — ours is cut out, but 
 theirs isn't, and the Chinese are giving big 
 money for it. Land — land, my boy, that will 
 grow cocoanuts a year quicker than the Federated 
 Malay States, that they make such a song about, 
 and rubber a year and a half quicker. Labour, 
 plenty of it, and on the spot. A bit of country 
 twice as big as England, that's four-fifths un- 
 known, but the bit that is known is quite enough 
 to make you want more. Oh, yes, worth having. 
 I think old Jan Corneliszoon Schouten must have 
 thought so, in the days when he spent so long 
 exploring and coasting about — but, after all, it 
 was only the western half of the country that 
 Holland took. Till eighty-five, nobody seemed 
 to want this place. Then they began the game 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 149 
 
 of grab — but you know how we took it up and 
 dropped it, and how Germany cut in and left us 
 with only the inferior slice to take, in the end." 
 
 I did not speak. None of these things appeared 
 to me to matter in* the least. Who cared that 
 German New Guinea had better natural advan- 
 tages than British, and didn't use them ? 
 Cleopatra's cry over Antony was ringing through 
 my head : " Married. He's married." I had 
 seen Lily Brunton act it. The dead despair of 
 her voice was in my ears, the black despair of 
 her eyes, as she stood with her back to the lights 
 of her palace room, and said to the empty air : 
 " Married. . . . Married. . . ." 
 
 That was how one felt. Lily Brunton knew. 
 
 I don't know when we passed the volcano. 
 I don't know how long Red Bob stood watching 
 on the deck, or whether he knew when I left 
 him. I said nothing, but slipped away in the 
 dusk and went to my cabin, where I snapped out 
 the light, and lay with my face turned up towards 
 the boards of the higher berth, trying to hold 
 on to myself, and to think. 
 
 I had only known this girl for a few days, argued 
 one side of my mind. 
 
 It was unreasonable to suppose that she should 
 have taken any serious hold on my life — im- 
 possible, rather. One did not suffer agonies 
 
150 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 because a girl one had only met last week turned 
 out to be married to someone else. . . . 
 
 Answered Nature, with a throb of anguish : 
 " One did !— one did ! " 
 
 Well, allowing that — allowing anything you 
 liked about the present state of affairs — it 
 would not last. There had been others. What 
 about , and , and little ? 
 
 Answered Paul Corbet, under the torture: 
 " Nothing about them. They were different." 
 
 But surely, one had said that before ? 
 
 One had, because one thought it. This time 
 one didn't think it. One knew. 
 
 " Very well," said Common Sense, getting 
 angry, " have it your own way. If things are 
 so, what are you going to do about it ? " 
 
 " Going to have the devil of a life, said Paul 
 Corbet to Paul Corbet's Common Sense. 
 Going to hate music, because she's in it, and 
 flowers, because they are she, and the sea because 
 she lived on it, and mountains, because she was 
 born among them. Going to hate most things, 
 including everything pleasant, because they will 
 prick one at every turn with : * Do you re- 
 member ? ' Never going to have a wife. Never 
 going to have a home. Going to travel for 
 ever, like the Wandering Jew, or Red Bob." 
 
 " Why, bless my soul ! " said Common Sense, 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 151 
 
 losing its temper altogether, " how long is it 
 since I heard you say that if there was anything 
 on earth you hated it was home, and that the 
 thought of wives and children made you sick ? " 
 
 " About a hundred years," answered Paul 
 Corbet, grown old in a week. 
 
 And in any case, it was other men's wives and 
 children I was thinking of. As for that, their 
 homes and wives and children make me sick 
 
 still. My wife, my home, my children I 
 
 had to stop here ; thought seemed fused in 
 pain. 
 
 My home, I went on, would be — ^with her 
 
 There was no following that thought. None 
 — if sanity were to be kept. 
 
 " You have the whole world," puled Common 
 Sense, growing weaker. " You have everything 
 —else." 
 
 " The world and everything else are not worth 
 her," I answered. And Common Sense fled 
 away. 
 
 I lay long awake, thinking, and the sum of my 
 thoughts was that my life was not going to be 
 happy. I did not know anyone whose life was 
 happy, now I came to think of it, but I had 
 always fancied that I was to be an exception. 
 One does fancy so at twenty-three. And all 
 my wishes, of late, had met with such fairy-tale 
 
152 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 fulfilment, as soon as uttered, that this fierce 
 check seemed incredibly unjust and cruel. 
 
 They say that men under torture have been 
 known to sleep through sheer exhaustion. I 
 slept at last. 
 
 Nothing in my life has ever seemed to me less 
 like life and more like a dream, than that slow 
 progress down the long, long shores of New 
 Guinea after leaving Vulcan Island. Gradually, 
 as the coast turned southwards, we turned south- 
 wards too, till we were no longer off North, but 
 off East New Guinea, creeping down the tail of 
 the country in the direction of the British 
 end. Ports with grand German names, and 
 fine jetties where nobody (to all appearance) 
 lived or even intended to live ; where palm 
 trees, swinging outwards to the deep blue, gem- 
 like water, seemed to bear their fruit, dry it and 
 cut it, and leave it piled for the steamer, without 
 other aid than that of one small, black savage 
 in a scarlet loin-cloth, peeping alarmedly from 
 behind the trunk of a tree. Ports where white 
 nuns in white dresses came down to meet the 
 boat, from mission convents perched on little 
 guarded islands ; where gorgeous seas of moun- 
 tain, coloured in those wonderful New Guinea 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 153 
 
 blues that no one can venture to describe, tossed 
 defiant waves about, above, behind the little 
 strips of planted country, flaunting menace and 
 defiance from every crest of the wicked, unknown 
 peaks where never yet a white man's foot had 
 trod. Ports where the steamer, on coming to a 
 halt, was instantly surrounded by curious carved 
 canoes, loaded deep with green and yellow 
 bananas, and paddled by wild brown creatures 
 lowering from under a mop of woolly hair, beads 
 and a strip of bark their only dress. One port 
 where there were houses with red roofs, and 
 offices, and a melancholy attempt at civilization 
 which didn't seem to have penetrated more than 
 a half-hour's ride back from the shore. All these 
 things came and went, and passed, like the 
 visions of a fevered night. I saw them, these 
 places at the end of nowhere, which had been my 
 dream for as many years as I could recall — and 
 they impressed me, and interested me, not so 
 much as the sailing of one liner from the Mersey 
 used to do in Liverpool long ago. I called it 
 long ago, because, indeed, it seemed so to be. 
 
 I saw Isola every day of these days, which were, 
 after all, few in actual number, and I never spoke 
 to her. For a man of my age, or youth, I think 
 this showed some self-restraint ; perhaps a little 
 more self-restraint than others in similar 
 
154 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 condition would have displayed. I thought her 
 changed and quiet ; she looked at me some- 
 times, when I passed her on deck, but she did 
 not speak to me. I think she stayed a great deal 
 in her cabin, and was seldom out ; but as I said, 
 this period is not very clear in my mind. There 
 is no use writing about what I felt and went on 
 feeling. It was clear to me that that had to be 
 borne, and it was borne. 
 
 If I could have been amused by anything, the 
 sufferings undergone by Red Bob on account of, 
 and by means of. Miss Siddis would assuredly 
 have done it. That small person, with her 
 (doubtfully) crooked person, her (possibly) 
 oblique eye, and her certainly matrimonial 
 intentions, was never, from our leaving the 
 stormier seas and coming into the sheltered 
 part of the coast, off guard. She did not alarm 
 her victim with the frankness of advance she had 
 at first displayed, but none the less — rather the 
 more — did she haunt his footsteps, morning, 
 lunch-time, dinner-time and evening-walk-time, 
 with the meekness of a mouse and the deadly 
 persistence of a cat. I have seen Red Bob 
 come down to his cabin, literally sweating with 
 dismay, after a stern chase round and round 
 the deck, in which Miss Siddis, by dint of un- 
 sportsmanlike dodging through deck cabins and 
 
Red Bob of the Bismareks 155 
 
 under bridge ladders, had succeeded in over- 
 hauling him and riddling him with shot. I 
 have seen him, when he wanted to get to the 
 bath of a morning, waiting for half an hour just 
 inside his cabin door, breathing hard with fear, 
 and finall)^ going out with a dash that would 
 have done credit to a forlorn hope charging a 
 glacis under fire — because Miss Siddis's cabin 
 was near the bath, and because she always hap- 
 pened to be " simmering and bubbling about," 
 as he put it, when he went for his shower. I 
 have been under considerable apprehension that 
 he would really take the chance of sharks and 
 alligators by jumping overboard when I caught 
 the wild-cat-seized-in-your-arms look in his eye, 
 on the occasion (not a solitary one) of his being 
 pinned in by Miss Siddis right up at the nose of 
 the ship, where there was no escape or retreat. 
 She never, so far as I could make out, said any- 
 thing calculated to alarm ; but she soothed, 
 and simmered, and stuck to him till she had him 
 almost in a state of nervous prostration. 
 
 I mention this, because, absurd as it all was, 
 it had a serious effect upon our fortunes, es- 
 pecially upon mine. If either of us — Red Bob 
 in particular — ^had endured, instead of escaping 
 from, the attentions and the talk of Miss Siddis, 
 things would have been known to us that were 
 
156 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 not known, and troubles that followed on our 
 ignorance — on mine especially — never would have 
 happened. For myself, I shrank from her con- 
 versation now as I might have shrunk from acid 
 laid on a wound. I knew she would talk to me 
 about Isola, and Isola's husband ; I judged 
 her likely to give me a full account of the 
 wedding, if she got the least encouragement, 
 down to the last orange flower and last bit of 
 cake. And there was nothing from which I 
 would more readily have fled to the very ends 
 of the earth (if, indeed, German Guinea itself 
 was not the end) than any mention of the man 
 who had been before me. She was married. 
 That was all, and more than all, I wanted to 
 know. 
 
 So the voyage wore itself out and we came to 
 Simpsonshaven, later known to the world as 
 Rabaul, the capital of all Kaiser Wilhelms Land, 
 situated on the great island which had once been 
 New Ireland, hard by New Britain, and was 
 now Neu Pommern, next to Neu Mecklenburg. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 I KNOW now what I did not know when 
 we entered the harbour of Rabaul, that 
 I was sickening, on that day, for an attack of 
 fever. New Guinea does not belie its looks. 
 Its hard, gaudy loveliness is the loveliness of 
 the tiger, and like the tiger, it hides talons 
 beneath its velvet and gold. 
 
 Through a sunset of blood-red and liver- 
 purple — a slaughter-house sunset that stained 
 the sky from west to east — we steamed into 
 Simpsonshafen, and up to the town of Rabaul. 
 I say again that I had fever coming on, but even 
 so — even making allowance for the cloud of wild, 
 dark thoughts that settle on the mind of the 
 fever-stricken as vultures settle on a corpse — 
 I see Rabaul as a place of evil beauty. I have 
 never been there again, but I know that the 
 picture stamped on my mind, that evening of 
 sinister sunset, will last as long as I shall. 
 
 Rabaul has been heard of often since then, 
 after a fashion that none of us dreamed about 
 
 157 i 
 
158 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 in those days, unless, indeed. Red Bob . . . but 
 of that I cannot speak, since I do not know. 
 It is always described as a spot of surpassing 
 loveliness. There may be times when it deserves 
 such praise, but on the evening when the AJzelia 
 steamed in, it struck me as the wickedest-looking 
 spot between Capricorn and Cancer. 
 
 The town lies in the hollow of an old volcano 
 crater, walled with heavy forests. It is held 
 tight in the elbow-curve of the bay, so that not 
 a breath of Heaven's fresh outer air from the 
 sea can visit it. 
 
 From the great black finger of the jetty that 
 runs pointing out to sea, as if in silent warning 
 of unseen dangers on the land, the streets run 
 straight and narrow, thickly overhung with 
 boulevarding of tropic trees — flamboyant, with. 
 its drips of blood-coloured flowers ; mango, 
 hanging heavy-scented fruit beneath a gloomy 
 cave of leafage ; casuarina, the grave-tree of the 
 Pacific, that mourns with every faintest stir of 
 breeze, like an ^olian harp set on a tomb. . . . 
 There are rows of handsome ofiices and houses, 
 and stores, and Government buildings, standing 
 on forests of white or black legs, Hke creeping 
 things. There is a heavy scent in the air, of 
 gums and woods and foliage, and wet, raw 
 earth, and rain ... it is almost always raining 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 159 
 
 in Rabaul, and the rain is always warm, and the 
 ground steams under the sun when the rain is 
 over. Outside the town, in the oily waters of 
 the bay — that bay that is never moved by any 
 storm, for the harbourage of Rabaul is the pride 
 of the Bismarcks — stand up two dagger-shaped 
 islands, like some strange form of beacon. Do 
 you wish to read their warning ? Glance to 
 the right of them, and you will see an ugly sight : 
 a low, mischievous-looking crater, with its lip 
 broken down towards the sea ; a crater that lies 
 Hke an ulcer on the face of the land, crusted with 
 Hvid yellow and death-grey among the springing 
 green. Within the memory of men no older 
 than Red Bob that crater had spat out a low 
 island or two and altered all the harbour levels ; 
 in that year the sea turned hot and the fish died, 
 and were thrown up on the land. There was no 
 settlement in Simpsonshafen then, nor in the 
 days further back when the great beacon islands 
 were cast out. But there are those who say that 
 no settlement should ever have been put there, 
 and prophesy the fate of Pompeii and St. Pierre 
 for Rabaul — one of these days. 
 
 In the gloom of a pouring dusk we disembarked, 
 and went to look for shelter. I sola was in the 
 saloon as we passed through, and so was Mabel 
 Siddis. The malign imp who had already 
 
160 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 mingled so much of comedy with the small 
 tragedy of my sorrows, was on hand again, to 
 block Red Bob's pathway with the one thing 
 on earth he feared, and to spoil my last vision 
 of Isola with a ludicrous picture of the undaunted 
 Mabel craning her head back to look up at Gore's 
 mighty height, and squinting quite perceptibly 
 at him, as she held on to his hand, and assuring 
 him they were quite certain to meet again, in 
 that misfit pretty-woman's voice of hers. As 
 for me, I took three steps across the saloon to 
 where the girl who was not for me was sitting 
 under a window, her ivory face strangely pale 
 in the gloom of the falling rain. I took her hand 
 for a moment — it was only a moment, indeed, 
 yet our fingers trailed and slipped from one 
 another ; they did not fall — and I said boldly : 
 
 " Good-bye, Isola Bella. I'd have loved you 
 if I could ; and if ever you want a friend, I'll 
 come, dead or alive." 
 
 " Good-bye," she said. " It has — been — a 
 pleasant voyage." 
 
 I left her, with the dusk settling down about 
 her motionless head. The stewards were coming 
 to turn on the lights ; they had not yet reached 
 the saloon ; on the deck, white star after white 
 star sprang up. I saw nothing of what I had 
 dreaded ; no husband waiting for Isola, 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 161 
 
 With the strangeness of coming fever on me, 
 I walked out into the town. We looked for 
 lodging everywhere ; for hotels, boarding- 
 houses, apartments ; for anywhere, at last, where 
 two wet, houseless travellers could find shelter. 
 There was no such place. The capital of Kaiser 
 Wilhelms Land had no accommodation for 
 strangers ; did not like them ; did not want 
 them ; abandoned them to sleep under houses 
 among the piles, and feed out of rubbish-bins, 
 if they so chose. It would not put them up. 
 It would not even feed them. We could buy 
 not so much as a piece of bread, or a glass of 
 beer in all the inhospitable town. 
 
 " Just the same," said Red Bob. " I rather 
 anticipated this, but I thought I'd a friend I 
 could put up with. It seems he has been cleared 
 out ; I suppose for harbouring just such objection- 
 able characters as me. . . . We must try back for 
 Herbertshohe ; it's ten miles down the coast, but 
 they will give you a bed and a bite there." 
 
 I burst out laughing, for the fever was growing 
 in me, and I saw the darkening town of Rabaul 
 circled with haloes of molten red. 
 
 " It's the devil's town," I said. " See the two 
 horns sticking up as we came in ? " I laughed 
 again ; it seemed to me I had said a thing very 
 clever. 
 
 II 
 
162 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " Oh, that's it, is it ? " said Red Bob, and put 
 his hand on my forehead. " Nice kettle of 
 fish ; you ought to be in bed." 
 
 The town was dancing round me by now, and I 
 became conscious of a red-hot spine, also of 
 the fact that my legs — not my feet, they were all 
 right — my legs were double-jointed, and did not 
 work properly. This, for some curious reason, 
 made me extremely cold. It did not matter 
 — nothing mattered — but I could hardly speak 
 without biting my tongue, my teeth chattered 
 so. I assured Red Bob that I was all right, and 
 that he had the loveliest dark eyes I had ever seen 
 in a human face, only that I feared that ivory 
 tint of skin meant deHcacy of some kind. ... I 
 remember still how he stopped under a dripping 
 mango tree to shout with laughter, and how he 
 bundled me at once into something that was 
 standing there — a sort of little truck on a tram- 
 Hne — ran it down to the wharf at a smart trot, 
 and carted me, in a second or two (or so I thought) 
 on to the deck of a small schooner, that gHttered 
 very wet under the lights. Somebody was put 
 in a cabin after that — myself, I thought — and 
 some other people began fighting in German 
 outside. There was a talk about marks by and 
 by, and someone called someone else a robber, 
 and then — immediately it seemed — there was a 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 163 
 
 fresh sea-breeze blowing on my face, and blocks 
 creaking, and a boom swinging across the deck. 
 After which, I dreamed bad dreams for a 
 week. 
 
 " Harrh ! " came a bloodthirsty shout, over 
 my shoulder. 
 
 I sat up suddenly. A kitchen-stove-coloured 
 savage, with huge nostrils, and glaring black- 
 glass eyes, was standing at the head of my long 
 chair, scratching his head with one hand, and 
 holding out a cup of soup with the other. 
 
 " Harrh ! " he yelled again, as if I were a 
 prisoner taken in battle, and about to be slain. 
 " You have one-fellow soof ? " 
 
 He shook the cup of soup at me with such 
 vigour that some of it splashed out over my 
 pyjamas. 
 
 " Oh, it's you. Bo," I said, reaching for the cup. 
 The savage of New Britain is scarcely a restful 
 type of attendant for a sick-room ; but Gore and 
 I were not out to find fault with any conditions 
 that gave us a roof over our heads, and a " boy " 
 to work for us, just then. I had been fairly ill 
 for a few days, and was recovering. To-day I 
 had so far returned to myself that I was able, 
 lying out on the verandah, to take note of 
 
 II* 
 
164 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 where I was, and wonder at the oddity of the 
 place 
 
 Herbertshohe, one of the many futile aban- 
 doned capitals of Kaiser Wilhelms Land, lies 
 some ten miles from Rabaul, along the New 
 Britain coast. I do not know how Gore had 
 obtained leave for himself and me to camp in a 
 forgotten wreck of an hotel there ; probably he 
 had more friends than I knew of, or than it was 
 judicious to speak about, in the country. At 
 all events, he had carried me there, on the night 
 of our arrival, and here we still remained, in a 
 structure that looked like somebody's cardboard 
 model of a hotel he had intended to build, 
 and didn't — a crazy, two-story contrivance of 
 carved, flimsy woodwork, deformed with odd 
 gables and bows, all placed at the front. I had 
 a queer fancy that it had been constructed solely 
 for the purpose of being photographed, in order 
 to make somebody beheve something — no matter 
 what — about the prosperity of German rule in 
 Kaiser Wilhelms Land. At all events, it could 
 never, even in the days when Herbertshohe was 
 the place of the Governor's residence, have been 
 a paying proposition ; and now, when the capital 
 had escaped yet again, and gone to hide itself 
 round the corner of Gazelle Peninsula (its fifth 
 attempt at finding a quiet home) not even a 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 165 
 
 Government official drawing up a report to send 
 to Berlin could have mentioned the Hotel 
 Friedrichsruhe as an asset of the place. 
 
 Nobody lived there. There was a sort of 
 hotel, carefully described as a private club, in 
 order to discourage the passing traveller, a little 
 way further on, and if you were a German, you 
 stayed there. But the " Friedrichsruhe " was 
 left to rats, centipedes, cockroaches and travel- 
 ling English. You could camp among its decay- 
 ing furniture, in its paintless, dropping-to-pieces 
 rooms, for a sum that would have given you 
 lodging in the " Savoy " at home ; you could find 
 your own boy, and send across to the " club " 
 for a stray meal, which might be accorded you 
 and might not, and you could pay for it at double 
 the prices of Berlin. So much the Kaiser's 
 Government allowed you, in the Bismarck 
 Archipelago. You could not travel about ; when 
 you had polluted the country with your presence 
 for two or three weeks, you would get notice to 
 the effect that strangers were not permitted 
 to take up residence there, and you would then 
 — if you were not Red Bob, or Red Bob's com- 
 panion in adventure — hasten obediently on to 
 the Prinz Sigismund, when she came in from 
 Singapore, and steam away to Australia. 
 
 But if you were Red Bob, or Paul Corbet, you 
 
166 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 would not contemplate doing anything of the 
 kind. 
 
 Bo, having given me the soup, left the verandah 
 in two bounds that shook its crazy structure 
 from end to end. Outside, he let loose a hideous 
 war-whoop, and then went off to wash dishes. 
 I lay on my long chair, congratulating myself on 
 the return of a normal temperature, and looking 
 out across the roadway to the sea beyond the belt 
 of palms — a hot-weather sea of curiously trans- 
 parent blues and greens, like inlay of Venice glass. 
 There was grass on both sides of the road ; there 
 were low bushes here and there ; there were 
 palms everywhere. Grass, palms and under- 
 growth alike, forced by the hot rains of a German 
 New Guinea December, were verdigris-green 
 in colour, and so sappy and wet and juicy that 
 they looked like one enormous salad. 
 
 I saw bullock-carts crawling down the road as 
 I lay and drank my soup — box-like vehicles 
 drawn by grey, long-horned buffaloes with rings 
 in their noses. I saw a plump German or two, 
 in neat white suits, passing by from the sleepy 
 stores, or the sleepy, small post-office, or the 
 sleepy Government offices that had been built 
 for a capital, and were obviously misfits for the 
 dead little town of Herbertshohe. I saw New 
 Britain natives going by in gangs, from the great 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 167 
 
 cocoanut plantations. They were mostly like 
 Bo — blacklead in colour, instead of the brown that 
 one saw on the neighbouring mainland, and 
 attired, like Bo, in the Governmentally regulated 
 dress of a loin cloth and a singlet. They were 
 singularly ill-looking savages, sulky and heavy- 
 faced, and with a certain black fierceness latent 
 somewhere, that I had not noticed among the 
 tribes of New Guinea itself. Indeed, the 
 Papuan of the mainland, man-eater, prisoner- 
 torturer, and general all-round villain though he 
 may be, has certain endearing qualities — a sense 
 of humour, a liking for pleasure and fun, a sort 
 of rough hospitality, that lead you into easy 
 friendship with him, if you are much in his 
 society. But the man who could be friendly 
 with a New Britain savage has yet to be born. 
 As the mainland Papuan is the tiger of the 
 human race — treacherous, bloodthirsty, yet 
 fascinating in his own way — so the New Britainer 
 is the bison ; ugly as a bison, black-faced and 
 fire-eyed as a bison, and as a bison intractable and 
 untamable. The mailed fist of Germany drove 
 him to plantation work by a- system of merciless 
 taxes, and kept him to it by physical force — there 
 was never anything of the man-and-brother 
 method in the deaUngs of Germany with its 
 colonies — but through all, he remained what he 
 
168 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 is : the last, worst savage on the face of the 
 earth. 
 
 I had finished my invalid's ration, and was 
 wondering where Gore could have disappeared 
 to all afternoon, and how soon he meant to come 
 back, when I heard the tramp, tramp of bare feet 
 — military bare feet — on the verandah. I sat up. 
 It was Hahn, my old acquaintance of the duel, 
 with his police, marching somewhere or other 
 (he was a Government officer of fairly high 
 standing) and calling in on the way to see me. 
 
 " Well, my nut, how are you this afternoon ? " 
 he shouted cheerily. Hahn prided himself on 
 the accuracy of his English slang. " I have to 
 march these beggars up to Toma, and I have 
 at the club for some beers to give me heart just 
 now called in. When will you be fit again ? " 
 
 He seated himself astride the remnant of a 
 chair, and roared an order, in the true Prussian 
 bellow, at his police, who were standing at 
 " Attention." They dismissed, and squatted 
 down outside. 
 
 " Why do you speak to them in English ? " 
 I asked somewhat wickedly, for I knew. 
 
 " I speak to them in pigeon-English," replied 
 Hahn, " because it is the nearest to their own 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 169 
 
 savage speech. Right German it is impossible 
 to teach them. We have tried since 1885. 
 When our Governor a good many years ago came 
 here, he said in his opening speech that if he could 
 that pigeon-English from Kaiser Wilhelms Land 
 and the Bismarcks chuck out, he would think he 
 had done a good deed for Germany, if he did 
 nothing more in his stay. But the mind of the 
 savage can't grasp a language so far removed from 
 his habit of thought as the cultured German. 
 So we have allowed him to retain the tongue that 
 had spread over the archipelago already, through 
 its eminent suitabiHty to the ignorance of the 
 savage mind." 
 
 " I see," was all my reply. I did see. Al- 
 ready, during the trip down the coast of Kaiser 
 Wilhelms Land, I had had full opportunity of 
 understanding the danger — to Germany — of the 
 system that forced every newly imported officer 
 to learn pigeon-English immediately on his 
 arrival, and talk to his soldier-police in the 
 language of a neighbouring, rival European 
 power. For myself, however — since I did not 
 pretend to Vincent Gore's linguistic abilities — 
 it promised well. Gore was not likely to require 
 me to learn a new savage dialect every week, 
 when pigeon-English was spoken everywhere 
 along the coast. 
 
170 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 Where was Gore, by the way, and what was he 
 doing ? Now that I recollected, I had not seen 
 him since breakfast. . . . 
 
 To my surprise, Hahn spoke my own thoughts. 
 
 " Where is that chief of yours ? I thought I 
 saw him going down to the Company's launch." 
 
 " Perhaps," I said, leaning back on my pillow 
 to shade my eyes from the light of the westering 
 sun on the sea. " I don't know where he has 
 gone." 
 
 " So," said Hahn, obviously not believing me. 
 He stopped talking for a minute, and began to 
 roll a cigarette. Somehow, I recalled a fragment 
 of counsel once thrown to me by Red Bob : 
 
 " Better make your own cigarettes. They 
 take the place of a snuff-box, on occasion. You 
 remember how all the old diplomats used to take 
 snuff — because it gave them time to think when 
 talking. . . ." 
 
 " Have you seen Herr Richter since you 
 came ? " asked the young officer presently. I 
 have often noticed the naivete of the German 
 stare. They will ask you a diplomatic question, 
 and then spoil its effect by a stare of such 
 curiosity and keenness that it would put a baby 
 on its guard. Hahn gave me just such a look 
 as he spoke. Therefore, I picked my way in 
 replying : 
 
Red Bob of the Bismareks 171 
 
 " Why, no. I've been pretty ill, off and on. 
 Is he here ? " 
 
 " Certainly not. His residence is in Rabaul," 
 replied Hahn. I don't know why, but the answer 
 convinced me that Richter had been — as the 
 Americans say — " snooping around " in the 
 neighbourhood of our residence, and did not 
 want anyone to know it. 
 
 " If he should take the trouble to give you 
 advice about your movements, you had better 
 accept it, you can bet," declared Hahn. " Herr 
 Richter himself is a very learned man, and has 
 much knowledge about the aboriginals of Neu 
 Pommern. Yes, my boy." 
 
 He grinned under his gold moustache, and 
 offered me a cigarette. ... I guessed then, and 
 know now, that Hahn was told off to hamper our 
 movements, and find out our plans ; but somehow 
 or other I never could help liking him. He 
 didn't do it well, in the first place. And then he 
 was always jolly about it. And then I had shot off 
 the tip of his ear, which endears a man to you. . . . 
 
 " Look here," I said, " I don't know the first 
 thing about Gore and his plans. I do what I'm 
 told, no more. I'm his secretary. You go and 
 ask him anything you want to know, my son, and 
 take what you can get ; you can keep it all, with 
 my compliments." 
 
172 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " The Httle English bull-terrier again," said 
 Hahn, folding his arms on the back of his chair, 
 and grinning more. " Fowl, thou canst bite, 
 but thou art no diplomatist." 
 
 " In the first place, I'm five feet nine," I said, 
 " though I don't carry as much beef as you — and 
 in the second, the people who picked you for 
 fighting got a very poor brand of diplomacy in 
 with the packet." 
 
 " Fowl," said the young officer, looking at 
 me over his folded arms, " you know too much. 
 I fear myself. Fowl, thou wilt have to a first-class 
 saloon, outside cabin berth by the Prinz Sigis- 
 mund to Sydney buy. A single ticket, my boy." 
 
 " Get out," I said. " The British Association 
 and the Royal Society would excommunicate 
 you like the cardinal and the jackdaw of Rheims, 
 if you stopped a man like Vincent Gore at his 
 work." 
 
 " Did you hear about the wife of Herr 
 Richter ? " asked Hahn, suddenly changing the 
 subject. 
 
 " Your boss ? " I asked. 
 
 " Boss ? " queried the expert in slang, inno- 
 cently. " What is that ? " 
 
 " What Justus Richter is," I countered. 
 " WeU ? Didn't know he had a wife." 
 
 " Nor did we," declared Hahn, with a romantic 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 173 
 
 tone in his voice, which I beHeve to have been 
 perfectly genuine. Before 191 4, we had occa- 
 sional chances of seeing the romantic side of the 
 German character — the side that produced 
 " Werther " and the bread-and-butter. . . . 
 
 " None of us here in Kaiser Wilhelms Land 
 knew," he went on. " Richter had been married, 
 oh many years ago, and a widower for many 
 years had been. And two years ago, when he 
 was going to Singapore by Java, the ship stopped 
 at Ceram. And in Ceram there was cholera. 
 Herr Richter got this cholera, and they put him 
 ashore in Banda, thinking that he very shortly 
 should die. Now in Banda there was no one 
 should take him in, for they were all much 
 afraid of a cholera patient, and I think he would 
 have died at once, but that a lady — the wife of a 
 Spanish settler — Herr Gott, Powl, you are 
 ill " 
 
 " Pm a little — weak — from this dashed fever," 
 I said. " I only want to put my head down ; 
 it's dizzy. Go on." 
 
 " Now ! This lady was not young, but she 
 was good-hearted and so was her husband, though 
 he was a man very rude in temper at times. 
 And when she heard of Richter, she and her 
 husband said : * This is a good work to do, so we 
 shall take the stranger in.' And him they took." 
 
174 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " Yes ? " I said. The sun was creeping down 
 the white-hot sky ; green parrots were awaking 
 from the lethargy of the afternoon, and begin- 
 ning to wrangle feebly under the domes of the 
 mango trees. Hahn's soldier-police were grunt- 
 ing pigeon-English to each other on the steps of 
 the verandah. I noticed these things ; I noticed 
 that a sulky grey buffalo, with horns like levelled 
 spears, was trying to steal bananas over a fence 
 some yards away . . . and yet I knew what was 
 coming. 
 
 " She nursed him through that terrible illness," 
 went on Hahn, the intense light from the sea 
 contracting the pupils of his blue eyes to little 
 pin-points of black, and making his very eyebrows 
 glitter. " And at the last, he was in collapse. 
 Now out of collapse recovers hardly ever any 
 man. So Richter, who is of just and noble 
 instincts, said to her : ^ I am dying ; before I 
 die I would a will make, and leave my plantation 
 in German New Guinea, and the money I there 
 have invested, to you, because you alone have 
 runned this so fearful risk on my account, and 
 have saved me that I do not die like a dog on the 
 jetty.' And the lady said : ' Right ! ' But 
 see then, Fowl, I am blowed if they could find 
 a notary who would come into that house, for 
 there is very few in the place and they had wives 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 175 
 
 and children, and they would not run such a 
 risk. Then Richter he was dying further, and 
 he could speak, but he said : ' A pastor must not 
 have fear of death. Send for a pastor, and you bet,' 
 he said, ' I will manage that thing.' Also, the 
 lady sent for the pastor, and Richter said : * Give 
 me some more cognac,' and they gave him. 
 
 * Now,' says he, * bring down your daughter who 
 has come home from school this week, and I will 
 marry her before I die, and the plantation 
 shall be hers and yours, but be quick,' he says 
 to her, * for I go.' But the lady was very quick 
 indeed, for she was most poor, and she desired 
 the plantation, and after a little she brings the 
 daughter down, who is crying very much for 
 fright of the death, and the pastor her to him 
 fast and well marries. Then Richter says : 
 
 * That is well done, and now read me some of 
 the Bible, for it's many years I haven't been at 
 a church, and one doesn't know how far these 
 things may or may not be true.' And the 
 pastor he reads to him, and he prays — Herr 
 Gott, he prays so strong that Richter falls in a 
 good sleep, and the next day he is better." 
 
 I knew it all now. 
 
 " But, Powl, it's the most romantic story — 
 for then the girl is sent back to school, and 
 Richter said : * I am glad that I am not to die, 
 
176 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 since that is a most beautiful bride, but since 
 she was never by me courted, she shall courted 
 be.' And back to German New Guinea he goes, 
 but he never told Donna Ravenna his name was 
 not Schultz only, it was Justus Schultz Richter." 
 
 Hahn suddenly pulled himself up here, and 
 appeared to consider, looking at me thought- 
 fully, and pulling his moustache. 
 
 " You needn't worry," I told him. " If you 
 think I can't guess why your Lecoq-Sherlock- 
 Holmes-Schultz-Richter was masquerading about 
 the Dutch Islands under a false name " 
 
 " It was his own name ! " 
 
 " Well, the wrong end of his own name, then — 
 you're jolly well wrong. F can imagine quite 
 easily. Drive on." 
 
 " You want some more quinine," commented 
 Hahn, looking curiously at me. " You are 
 yellow — aren't thou yellow just, old churl ! " 
 
 " Go on while I'm taking it," I said, reaching 
 for the bottle. 
 
 " Now see then, in the marriage service, of 
 course the surname isn't used, but when Donna 
 Ravenna and her daughter heard the bridegroom 
 who was at the point of dying say * Justus 
 Schultz ' they took no notice, and the bride 
 after him said, ' Justus Schultz.' So that was 
 the Christian names, all right. And when he 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 177 
 
 was better, and ready to go, he had thought that 
 he would tell Donna Ravenna, at the point of 
 leaving, ' I am not Schultz only, I am Justus 
 Schultz Richter of New Guinea, and a man of 
 much more importance than you have supposed, 
 though in the interests of ' " 
 
 " Secret service," I cut in. 
 
 " Of diplomacy," corrected Hahn, " in those 
 interests he had travelled under another name. 
 But Donna Ravenna, not long after, paid with 
 her life for that noble hospitality. She, also her 
 husband, died of the cholera. Then Richter 
 went away, most deeply annoyed and to the 
 bottom of his heart grieved." 
 
 " He had some reason," I commented. The 
 quinine I had swallowed was not more bitter in 
 my mouth than the whole of Hahn's story to 
 my mind, but I did not choose that he should 
 see me grimace, over the one more than over 
 the other. 
 
 " Also," continued Hahn, '* again, in six 
 months, he returned to Banda, where now the 
 girl had come back for a little while, and with a 
 governess friend was living, to wait for him. 
 But he told her that she should meet Schultz 
 in New Guinea, and she, who had no re- 
 membrance of him — since a man in collapse of 
 cholera is no more like the same one in health 
 
 Z3 
 
178 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 than I am like a dead fish on the shore — she said 
 she to New Guinea with Miss Siddis would go. 
 For you understand, there was now no money 
 left for her, and she had not one thing that she 
 could do. ' If he is a good man, as I think,' 
 said she, ' I will try and like him, because, after 
 all, I am his wife in law,' and she embarked." 
 
 Hahn laughed a little, sent a surprisingly 
 vivid curse at one of his men who had dared to 
 fall asleep, and went on : 
 
 " Then Richter went with her all the voyage, 
 and not anyone knew he was the Schultz she had 
 married. So right romantic is this man, who has 
 indeed some grey hair, but the heart of a 
 child " 
 
 I thought of the gory affair at Kronprinz- 
 haven, undoubtedly got up by this same child- 
 hearted creature of romance, and if I had felt 
 like grinning, would certainly have grinned. 
 
 " And not till they came to Rabaul, and were 
 in the house of the lady to whom Miss Siddis 
 is governess, didn't he speak. So now we all 
 look for a merry wedding in the church, because 
 the bride will have it, though she is indeed 
 married before, and then a happy home on the 
 plantation for Richter, with his so-beautiful 
 young wife." 
 
 " They aren't married again yet ? " I asked, 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 179 
 
 with great leaps of the heart that turned me 
 sick. 
 
 " No, but to-morrow I think they will be. 
 This pretty girl is a little sad at leaving all her 
 home ; still, by and by she will be more heartful. 
 Also, Powl, I have talked to you too long, my 
 nut ; you are looking worse. If I do not take 
 those poHce of mine on to Toma, I shall not be 
 there before the evening rain. So long, ta-ta, 
 see you soon." 
 
 He tilted his white helmet forward on his 
 brow, bellowed to his police, kicked one or two 
 of them to encourage the rest, and marched off 
 down the muddy road between the ranks of 
 palms. 
 
 We were nearly at the longest day, it being 
 December ; still, the swift dusk of equatorial 
 lands had fairly pounced upon the town before 
 Gore came home, a Httle after seven. He 
 struck a match and lit the verandah lamp. 
 
 ** Oh," he said, looking at me, with the in- 
 evitable cigar drooping from one corner of his 
 mouth. Then, " Indeed ! " Then he sat down 
 on the rickety Austrian chair, and bellowed for 
 tea. 
 
 Bo answered with a howl that would have 
 done credit to a warrior in the act of decapitating 
 an enemy, and bounded on to the verandah. 
 
 12* 
 
180 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " You catchum one-fellow tea, quick ! " or- 
 dered Red Bob. " You catchum bulimacow 
 (meat), bread. ... As usual," he said. (Bo 
 had taken the verandah in three leaps, and was 
 gone to make up the fire in an outhouse.) " As 
 usual, not a bite to be had since six this morning." 
 
 " You've been in Rabaul," I stated, being 
 familiar with the inhospitable ways of the 
 German capital. 
 
 " I have," said Red Bob, leaning back in the 
 chair with his long legs stretching across half 
 the verandah. He looked at me under his 
 eyebrows, but never a question did he ask. 
 
 So of course I had to burst out. 
 
 " I suppose you're surprised to see me dressed 
 again ? " (Which I was, down to the pin in 
 my tie.) 
 
 " No," said Red Bob. " I'm not much in 
 the way of being surprised at things." 
 
 " Well," I rushed on, " I've dressed because 
 I'm going to Rabaul to-night." 
 
 " Who lent you the aeroplane, and can you 
 run it yourself ? " asked Gore, with every appear- 
 ance of interest. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " Only that the launch has come back, and 
 doesn't run again till she's wanted to." 
 
 " I don't care," I said. " I'll hire a cutter 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 181 
 
 or a schooner. I'm going to get to Rabaul 
 to-night." 
 
 " They won't hire us any boats. That's 
 what I've been looking up to-day." 
 
 " What ! " 
 
 " Won't hire us anything that floats or 
 
 " What for, in the name of common sense ? " 
 
 " Name of Wilhelm II., more likely. We've 
 bumped up against him somehow." 
 
 " Then I'll walk." 
 
 " By land," said Gore indifferently, " I take 
 it to be thirty miles." 
 
 " Then," I said, breathing hard, " I'll go down 
 to the jetty to-morrow, at daylight, and if the 
 launch isn't running, I'll make it run, if I have 
 to shoot the engineer." 
 
 " I see your point," said Gore, smoking lazily, 
 " but it's an unnecessary trip. She's dis- 
 appeared." 
 
 " Good God 1 Where ? — and how do 
 
 you ? " 
 
 " Oh, the yarn's all over Rabaul. Wedding 
 was fixed for the day after to-morrow — formal 
 wedding, that is — lady was staying with the 
 Hirschmanns, who employ Miss Siddi^ lady 
 disappears and can't be found. No one seen her 
 since yesterday afternoon." 
 
182 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " Then," I said, getting to my feet and hold- 
 ing on by the back of the couch — for I felt a 
 little unsteady — " there's all the more reason 
 why I should go and find her, dead or alive." 
 
 " And give her over to her husband. Just 
 so," said Gore, puffing pleasantly. " Where's 
 that cannibal with the tea ? " 
 
 I said something strong in contradiction. 
 
 " Yes, but you see," said Red Bob, " to find 
 her in this country would mean just that, no- 
 thing else. The whole community's against 
 her — what right has a silly Httle foreign girl 
 to take a dishke to one of the most prominent 
 citizens in the colony, especially when she's 
 tied to him by a legal ceremony already ? That's 
 the way they look at it. Nobody would give 
 her a hand." 
 
 " Where do you think — what do you think ? 
 Do you think she's ? " 
 
 " Oh, no," said Gore, answering my question 
 as if I had put it in words. " I don't think she 
 has. I don't like thinking, anyhow. I prefer 
 to know. Can't say I know in this case, but I've 
 an idea or two." 
 
 " For God's sake, tell me if you have," I 
 said, sitting down on the couch again. The 
 great white stars among the palm trees seemed 
 to be dancing about ; the floor was heaving like 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 183 
 
 a steamer deck in a heavy sea. I was not so 
 strong as I had thought, it seemed. 
 
 Gore looked at me. 
 
 " It's a bad business, and a tangle," he said ; 
 « but " 
 
 " It is not a bad business," I interrupted. 
 " If you think it's a parallel case to— to any- 
 thing you " 
 
 " We'll leave it at that, if you please," inter- 
 rupted Red Bob, with something slightly dan- 
 gerous in his voice. " I was going to say I think 
 the young woman's made back to Friedrich 
 Wilhelmshaven way. You see, the Afzelia*s 
 still lying at the jetty — going to sail on the home 
 voyage to-morrow morning ; and if she could 
 stow away on board, she'd be all right. I don't 
 see what else she can have done. Every house 
 about Rabaul has been searched, and as to 
 getting off into the bush, she must know she'd 
 be eaten if she got away five miles behind the 
 town. Besides " 
 
 ** It looks as if you might be right," I said 
 doubtfully. 
 
 " Well, you'll have every opportunity of find- 
 ing out. We have to board the Afzelia when 
 she calls here to-morrow morning. I'm trying 
 back to Friedrich Wilhelmshaven myself." 
 
 " What on earth for ? " 
 
184 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " You hurry up with that tray, Bo. Put him 
 there. Catch me two-fellow teaspoon, you black 
 villain — why do you always forget the spoons ? 
 . . . I'll tell you what for when I've fed. My 
 lunch and dinner to-day have been the smell of 
 the meals in those dashed ' clubs ' in Rabaul. 
 Some of these days " 
 
 He stopped to fill his mouth with meat. 
 
 " Some of these days," he went on, " there'll 
 be restaurants in Rabaul where a stranger can 
 actually buy a bite of food. And bars, where he 
 can get an iced beer. And in those days the fat 
 inhabitants won't set their tables where you can 
 watch them eating, and then snigger at you 
 as you pass. No, my son." 
 
 " Why not ? " I asked. 
 
 " At all events," said Red Bob, " their beef 
 is worthy of a noble race — when you get it. 
 You're well enough to eat a meal to-night ; 
 come on and feed before we talk. I'm going to 
 tell you about the Schouten pearls." 
 
 I found I was well enough, and that I felt 
 another man when the food was down. Bo 
 cleared the table in a series of jerks and jumps 
 while we settled ourselves on the upper verandah 
 of the house. It was none too secure, but you 
 could not be overheard on it. 
 
 " Well," said Red Bob, stretching his legs out 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 185 
 
 comfortably before him, " this is how it stands 
 in a nutshell. Our friend, Willem Corneliszoon 
 Schouten, sailed from New Hanover to Vulcan 
 Island, on the mainland. He didn't make a 
 bee-line, though ; at one time he ran pretty 
 close in to New Britain. And he stayed a devil 
 of a time about there — all things considered. 
 And he used to stop at the islands now and 
 then — the ship's log tells about it. He would 
 go away from his men, and trade with the natives 
 all by himself ; wonder was he didn't get killed 
 and cooked half a dozen times over. Now the 
 last time I was here, a year or two ago, I was 
 following up Schouten's tracks a bit, for no par- 
 ticular reason — you see, at that time I'd never 
 been to Holland or heard of Helga Maria ; wish 
 I had ; it would have saved me a trip across 
 the world and back. I was just taking ethno- 
 logical notes, and followed his route. Well, 
 on one of the islands — a good-sized place, marked 
 on the map and named — I found a rock carving. 
 Of course, I thought I'd struck something lucky 
 about native history, and I cleared it out — it 
 was in wonderfully good condition, being under- 
 neath an overhang. What do you guess it was ? " 
 
 " Something about Schouten ? " I hazarded. 
 
 " You can judge. It was an arrow ; and a 
 row of little roundish things that might have 
 
186 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 been commas, or drops of rain, or almost any- 
 thing you might choose to say. And a bit of 
 ornamental carving that looked Celtic " 
 
 " Celtic ! " I exclaimed. No matter what 
 his private troubles were, any man who had spent 
 some months in the company of Vincent Gore 
 was bound to rise to that as a trout to a fly. 
 Celtic ! In a Papuo-Melanesian island ! 
 
 " I didn't say it was, I said it looked Celtic," 
 went on Gore imperturbably. "As it turned 
 out, the thing was Dutch, and seventeenth- 
 century at that. Of course, I took a rubbing of 
 the stone before I went. And then I sailed for 
 a little bit of an island, further out in the direc- 
 tion of the Admiralties, where Schouten's log 
 mentions that they called. He says there were 
 no natives there, but that they got some cocoa- 
 nuts and oysters. It was an uninteresting place — 
 I didn't stay. 
 
 " After that I went home. And, as I told you, 
 I went for a trip to Holland and amused myself 
 looking up the history of the old Dutch navi- 
 gators, Schouten in particular. That was the 
 time when I ran across the history of Helga 
 Maria Van Oosterdyck, and saw her portrait. 
 Now let me show you something." 
 
 Out of a small oilskin case he produced the 
 photograph of the Dutch lady which I had already 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 187 
 
 seen, also a neat Indian-ink copy of a " rubbing " 
 taken from an inscription. 
 
 " Do you see anything ? " he asked. 
 
 At first I did not ; then . . . 
 
 " By Jove ! " I exclaimed. 
 
 " See it ? " 
 
 " Yes, rather — they're identical.'' 
 
 " What ? " 
 
 " Why, the carving and that monogram of 
 pearls at the end of Helga Maria's necklace." 
 
 Gore looked at me and smoked. Presently 
 he reached out a long arm for the carving, opened 
 out a chart of New Britain, and set the paper on 
 it. 
 
 " I took the bearings of the arrow," he said. 
 " See where it points." 
 
 It pointed to a blank on the map, so far as I 
 could see. 
 
 ** That's not as blank as it looks," said Gore. 
 ** This region is worse charted than any other 
 place in the world. There's an islet right in 
 the line of the arrow. The islet where the 
 cocoanuts and oysters were got." 
 
 " Lord ! " I said, getting to my feet, " why, it's 
 as clear as daylight." I felt more excited than 
 I would have believed, ten minutes ago, I could 
 ever feel over anything that was not connected 
 with I sola. 
 
188 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " Of course," went on Red Bob, " the best 
 way to make for Aroko Island, where the inscrip- 
 tion is, would have been by Rabaul, getting a 
 schooner there, and sailing round the head of 
 New Britain, and a bit back. But . . . they 
 aren't by way of wanting strangers in Rabaul 
 at any time, and just now they want them less 
 than usual. Every schooner, every cutter, every 
 launch — everything with a keel on it — was en- 
 gaged otherwise. Or it had to go on the slip 
 for repairs. Or the owner was away, and no 
 one could hire it in his absence, and nobody 
 knew when he would return. Result — nothing 
 doing." 
 
 " What's the meaning of it all ? " I asked. 
 
 " That's a big question, young Paul. Bigger 
 than I can answer — at present. Rr haul's the 
 capital, and a naval station. . . . Well, I was 
 given to understand that I might be tolerated 
 over at Friedrich Wilhelmshaven — what a dashed 
 sort of name to give a town — on the mainland 
 of New Guinea ; that is, old Richter came to 
 me, and explained that it was twice as good for 
 ethnological study of any kind, and he'd be 
 delighted to help me, in the interests of science, 
 to settle there for my stay. And the Governor 
 said so, too. Therefore, knowing when I was 
 beaten, I cleared. It's not as good a way to get 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 189 
 
 to Schouten's little preserve, but it will have to 
 do." 
 
 " And about Miss Ravenna ? " I asked. 
 
 " About Frau Richter ? Nothing about her 
 till we find her, and then — time enough when 
 we do. Don't cross bridges before we come to 
 them. You'd better turn in, if you're going to 
 be fit to travel to-morrow." 
 
 " I have come to it," I said, getting to my feet, 
 though I was shaking a little with the effects of 
 the fever, and with something else too. " Do 
 you think I'm going to leave Rabaul just on a 
 chance — with her — Gore. Those black brutes 
 would have her if she went just a few miles back 
 — in her terror. ... If I can't do something, 
 I— I " 
 
 To the present hour I cannot say whether I 
 meant it or not. I was " seeing red," I had lost 
 self-control through the fever . . . but still, 
 it was an irrational and a useless thing to catch 
 up a chair, and throw it through the glass door 
 of the adjoining bedroom. I can only hope I 
 may have supposed that the door was open. 
 
 At any rate, the sound of the smashing glass, 
 and the fall of the chair on the floor, seemed to 
 do me good, and I felt calmer. 
 
 Gore did not turn a hair. He remained where 
 he was, with his legs stretched out, smoking. 
 
190 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " As you were observing . . . ? " he remarked. 
 
 " I said — I said that I must do something. I 
 can't leave it to chance." 
 
 "You needn't," said Red Bob. "She's all 
 right. Has that automatic of yours been cleaned 
 since you took ill ? " 
 
 " Yes. I made Bo do it. What makes you 
 think she is ? " 
 
 "I never think," said Red Bob. "Go to 
 bed." And not another word could I get out 
 of him. 
 
 But I knew him well enough, and trusted him 
 enough, to get on board the AJzelia next morning 
 with a comparatively quiet mind. And the 
 blue, blue heights of New Britain, above the long 
 levels of the glassy sea, faded away behind us. 
 How soon they were to be seen again and under 
 what strange circumstances I did not guess, nor 
 indeed would I have believed, had anybody told 
 me. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 AT Friedrich Wilhelmshaven, with its red- 
 and-white \aLlas a-tiptoe on concrete 
 piles, its miles of noble cocoanuts spreading away 
 in star-shaped avenues far behind the town, its 
 exquisite harbour, where blue lanes of water 
 wound in and out among green palmy points, and 
 gay country cottages stood up alone on islands 
 like a poet's dream — things looked brighter than 
 at Rabaul. The paralysis that had mysteriously 
 affected the shipping of German New Guinea 
 mysteriously disappeared when we passed from 
 under the lee of Gazelle Peninsula. They would 
 hire boats at Friedrich Wilhelmshaven, for a 
 consideration. They would help one to recruit 
 a crew, for a consideration. In Friedrich Wil- 
 helmshaven (place cursed of ships' pursers and 
 others who had frequently to write its name) 
 they did not, like Rabaul, and the " rude Carin- 
 thian boor " : 
 
 " Against the houseless stranger shut the door." 
 
 On the contrary, they invited you to stay in a 
 neat little bungalow hotel, and were glad to get 
 
 191 
 
192 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 your money. They were ready to do business 
 with you ; to ask you into their houses (with 
 discretion, and provided the Government 
 officials at Rabaul did not object) ; to show you 
 round, and let you admire the road, and the 
 wharf, and the plantations, fruit of their country's 
 occupation since 1885. No grey warships ran in 
 and out of Friedrich Wilhelmshaven, on mysteri- 
 ous errands, as they ran in and out of Herberts- 
 hohe and Rabaul. No air of secrecy, of something 
 to be hidden — something from which inquiring 
 strangers must be loudly " shoo'ed " away — 
 hung about the mainland town. ... I suppose 
 my mind was too full of Isola to take any special 
 notice of these things at the time, but afterwards, 
 in the days of Armageddon, they came back to 
 me. As for Red Bob, I fancy — now — that what 
 he did not know or guess about the matter was 
 not worth knowing. The peaceful folk away 
 south of us, in the British division of New Guinea, 
 might have slept less soundly in their beds had 
 they shared his knowledge. 
 
 All these things, however, have nothing to 
 do with my story, except as they affected our stay 
 in German Guinea. We found, as I have said, 
 that Friedrich Wilhelmshaven was somewhat 
 more hospitable than Rabaul, and we were able 
 to make immediate arrangements for our voyage 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 193 
 
 to the islands lying north of New Britain. Ethno- 
 logical research was supposed to be the object 
 of our trip. In reality, and at long last, it was 
 to be the wildest, most dangerous and delightful 
 pirate picnic that ever gladdened the heart of 
 an adventurous youth. 
 
 This seemed to me the kind of thing I had come 
 out to see. I had honestly done my work for 
 Gore through all our journeying ; nevertheless, 
 the secretary business had been against the grain. 
 I did not really care a stone celt about the history 
 of races ; shapes of skulls, and deductions to be 
 made therefrom, never kept me from a moment's 
 sleep ; nor did I find any joy in the fact that a 
 couple of root words used in Madagascar cropped 
 up again in Geelvink Bay. I saw what these 
 things indicated, but I did not care. It seemed 
 to me that all that sort of thing had happened too 
 long ago to possess any vital interest, in a world 
 that was full of new, untried adventures and 
 delights. 
 
 In my secret heart, I thought it an amazing 
 thing that a jolly, splendid fellow like Red Bob 
 should care for such musty stuff, while there was 
 a gun left in the world to shoot with, or an island 
 to explore. ... I am older now. I understand 
 that the study of ethnology was simply Red Bob's 
 spiritual tobacco. Every man it seems, must 
 
 13 
 
194 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 have spiritual tobacco of some kind, when he is 
 past the age that needs no narcotic. Things 
 happen to people as life goes on — horrible things 
 mostly — and though the things pass over, the 
 memory does not. That is where the tobacco 
 comes in — the interest or pursuit that keeps a 
 man from thinking. With some people it's prize 
 pigs. With lots and lots it is gardens. A great 
 many seem to find mysterious solace and soothing 
 in committee-meetings — which seems to me as if 
 one should eat dry biscuits to allay thirst, like 
 Lewis Carroll's " Alice." Red Bob turned his 
 love of adventure and travel to scientific uses ; 
 to other uses too, I fancy ; but that I shall never 
 know now. At all events, comparative ethnology 
 was his narcotic. I suppose there are worse 
 ones. 
 
 Only one thing troubled me in those delightful 
 hours of preparing for our adventure — the fact 
 that I had heard nothing more of Isola. If she 
 had stowed away on the AJz.elia, she kept herself 
 invisible and no one suspected it. If she was still 
 in Rabaul, she was in good hiding. German 
 New Guinea was of opinion, on the whole, that 
 she had either drowned herself, or run away into 
 the bush — ^which would come to the same in the 
 end. A launch had come through from Rabaul 
 on the day of our arrival, bringing no news of the 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 195 
 
 bride, but reporting the bridegroom as half 
 distracted, and searching every gully and old 
 volcano cup about the capital, with teams of 
 plantation boys spurred on by the promise of 
 big rewards. ... If I had not trusted Red Bob 
 as I trusted no one else on earth, I should have 
 gone out of my mind with anxiety. But that 
 trust, backed up as it was by the " radiograms " 
 that inevitably pass between two people living in 
 intimate association, assured me of what I wanted 
 to know. I was as certain that Red Bob could 
 put his finger on the missing bride when he liked 
 as I was sure of the sun rising in the morning. 
 
 Next day we sailed out of Friedrich Wilhelms- 
 haven harbour, and I could have sung for delight. 
 
 " It's beginning at last," I kept saying to 
 myself, as our little schooner flew through the 
 water under a heavy breeze, heading out from 
 under the Ottilien and Bismarck Ranges, towards 
 Long and Lotten and Umboi, and all the smaller 
 unnamed islands that tangle themselves about the 
 end of New Britain. 
 
 What " it " might be, I did not specify. I 
 did not need to. I don't know that Robinson 
 Crusoe could have told you — or Sir John Mande- 
 ville — or Ulysses — or any sailor lad who ever loved 
 
 13* 
 
196 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 the taste of blown spindrift on his mouth, and 
 the leap of a deck beneath his foot — yet they all 
 knew it, and wanted it, even as I. 
 
 Everything on board the schooner was " it." 
 The Winchester rifles slung on the bulkheads 
 of the tiny cabin ; the outfit of long bush knife, 
 cartridge-belt, and .48 Colt revolver, in a leather 
 holster, worn by Gore and myself ; the crew, 
 naked New Britainers with fierce bison eyes 
 glowing under bison-like shocks of hair ; the 
 wild, wonderful ranges of New Guinea that 
 opened out behind us as we sailed ; the scarcely- 
 charted ocean, and coast-lines but tentatively 
 marked, of the regions to which we had set our 
 dancing bow. Even the narrowness and in- 
 convenience of the little Cecilie, after all those 
 months of luxurious travel on great steamers, 
 where not the most imaginative youth in the 
 world could have felt adventurous or brave. For 
 adventure does not consort with seven-course 
 dinners and electric-lighted state-rooms ; nor 
 does the proximity of the most dangerous coasts 
 and worst cannibal savages in the world suggest 
 any kind of daring, when comfortably viewed at 
 a distance of some miles, from the deck of a 
 regular liner. 
 
 But now. Red Bob was captain, and I was mate, 
 of a little cockle-shell manned by black savages 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 197 
 
 who had eaten human flesh, and were doubtless 
 ready to do so again if the chance presented 
 itself. We were tossing about on an ocean of 
 which no good charts were to be had. We were 
 going to unknown islands, which we had to find 
 for ourselves. Our food was tinned and bagged 
 stuff from Friedrich Wilhelmshaven, to be cooked 
 in a galley like a sentry-box by Bo, whose attain- 
 ments did not soar much above the point he had 
 mentioned that day at breakfast — namely, that 
 he " no savvy this blooming hegg ! he savvy 
 plenty cook 'em tin meat, cookem one-fellow 
 man ! " 
 
 Yes, undoubtedly " it " had begun. 
 
 Our native crew, though the roughest of 
 savages, had had some teaching from white men 
 and could handle a boat well enough. We let 
 them run the Cecilie that morning, Red Bob and 
 I steering by turns. While one held the wheel 
 the other stood alongside, and, safe from all 
 possible overhearing, we revelled — at least, I 
 can answer for myself — in being able to speak 
 loudly and freely of our plans. It was true that 
 most of the crew knew pigeon-English, but the 
 following of a connected conversation in ordinary 
 language is not within the New Britain native's 
 powers. 
 
 " First," said Red Bob, standing with bare 
 
198 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 feet apart on the deck, and leaning to the Cecilie^s 
 heavy Hst, as he turned the wheel in his hands, 
 " we go to the island where the inscription is. 
 I've got the bearings of the arrow, but I must see 
 it again, to avoid any possibility of mistake. 
 That's down fairly near the north coast of New 
 Britain. Best way would have been round 
 Gazelle Peninsula, if we hadn't been blocked — 
 however, this is quite feasible. After that, we 
 make for Schouten's pearl island as quick as we 
 can go. Then — we shall see." 
 
 " How are you going to get the pearls ? " I 
 asked. The huge coastline of New Guinea 
 was fading behind us into the pale, thin blue 
 of distance ; ahead, bright islands, purple as 
 vdstaria flowers, were pricking up out of the sea. 
 A December squall of fierce, hot rain had just 
 swept over us ; the decks were wet and shining, 
 and over to windward the sea was silver with 
 new sun. 
 
 Red Bob laughed. 
 
 " You may well ask," he said " You don't 
 suppose one could bring diving gear through 
 the customs at Friedrich Wilhelmshaven or 
 Rabaul without questions being asked that would 
 be pretty hard to answer." 
 
 " No," I said, " and, by the way, suppose 
 we get it all right, aren't we pearl-poaching ? " 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 199 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Gore, laughing till his eyes 
 were nothing but two blue slits in a mass of 
 wrinkles. " You may certainly call it that. 
 Pearl-poaching and smuggling are about the 
 two forms of dishonesty that you may commit 
 without being dishonest. It's up to you not to 
 get caught, that's all. Koppi, you black villain, 
 if you make that sheet fast I'll throw you over- 
 board. . . . Well, about the diving gear ; it's 
 down in the hold, labelled, * Trade goods.' A 
 friend of mine managed that for me at Friedrich 
 Wilhelmshaven. Same friend who got me the 
 boys." 
 
 " Are they safe ? " I asked. 
 
 " Reasonably so," said Gore. " I've done what 
 I can. Couldn't get quite all of them from 
 separate districts, but three out of the five are 
 strangers to each other. All the same, sleep with 
 your belt on, and overhaul your pistol now and 
 then. This chmate's the deuce on gunnery. I 
 don't know that I admire that automatic of 
 yours. They're a little too fine for these 
 equatorial countries. Have known 'em jam." 
 
 " Not mine," I said. " It's looked after, and 
 I can shoot to a hair with it. I can't do with 
 that beastly kicking old navy pattern." 
 
 " It has its points," said Gore. We talked 
 no more for a while. 
 
200 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 The Cecilie, Hke Gore's revolver, had her 
 points, but she was not the nicest of sailers on 
 a foUov^ring wind. I grew restless as the day 
 went on over the slowness of our progress. 
 It seemed to me, with such a breeze, we should 
 have been out of sight of New Guinea before 
 dark. But the afternoon wore on ; the purple 
 islands turned to palm-fringed green, and then 
 faded to blue behind us ; the wide, open sea 
 grew wider, and glowed like a golden shield 
 with the unbearable glory of the westering sun — 
 and still the coasts of Kaiser Wilhelms Land, high 
 and far and blue, stood up in the sky behind. 
 
 " I think the dashed place is tied to us," let 
 out Red Bob, looking over his shoulder yet again, 
 as we made another tack. 
 
 " Pity we haven't an engine," I said, leaning 
 on the rail to keep my footing, as we lay over. 
 " Of course, the objection about an engineer 
 coming along — Talking of things coming 
 along, there's a launch behind." 
 
 " Take the wheel," was Gore's reply. He 
 dived below, brought up a glass, and fixed the 
 oncoming boat with his eye. 
 
 " Not a Government launch," was his verdict. 
 " Whatever she is, she's signalling. We may 
 as well heave to." 
 
 With slatting sails and heaving deck, we 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 201 
 
 waited. I will confess that I did not feel alto- 
 gether comfortable in view of the errand we 
 were on. The pearls of Willem Corneliszoon 
 Schouten seemed likely to weigh as heavy upon 
 our enterprise as a belt of gold upon a swdmming 
 sailor. What if — supposing 
 
 The launch, which seemed to be a swift one, 
 overhauled us rapidly, jumping through the seas 
 with tremendous smother and foam. We could 
 not see who was on board, beyond her steersman. 
 
 She ran under our lee and stopped her engine. 
 Out of the little engine-room came a lean, yellow- 
 ish man in a worn khaki suit — a man I had seen 
 in Friedrich Wilhelmshaven at work in a boat- 
 shed. 
 
 " I've got your Malay fellow on board," he 
 shouted in German. " He was very anxious not 
 to miss you, but there's not another launch in 
 the country would have caught you, after such 
 a start. Hallo, you Hendrik, come on out ! " 
 
 Of course I knew that we had no Malay in 
 our service, and didn't intend having any. Of 
 course Gore knew it too. But we had both 
 been accustomed to walk warily of late, and 
 neither of us contradicted the launch-driver. 
 
 " My Malay, have you ? " said Gore. " Well, 
 bring him out." 
 
 " You don't seem glad to see him, after all 
 
202 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 the trouble he took to get here in time," ob- 
 served the engineer. " He paid me not so much 
 either." All this time the launch was plunging 
 and dipping fearfully alongside the Cecilie, and 
 the Cecilie, wallowing in the trough of the sea, 
 threatened every now and then to slew round 
 and cut the other down with her shining copper 
 keel. The wind was getting up, too. I noticed 
 that the engineer could scarcely keep his footing 
 on the deck of the launch. 
 
 " He had no business to be late," was Gore's 
 reply. " Corbet, have you any silver ? I sup- 
 pose Hendrik has run through all his cash." 
 
 " I suppose the beggar has," was my diplo- 
 matic reply, the while I wondered who in the 
 wide world Hendrik could possibly be. " Yes, 
 IVe a few marks." 
 
 " Thirty marks more, that's my fair due ; I 
 wouldn't have set the engine going, only he 
 promised his master would pay," declared the 
 man. 
 
 I threw him the money and he stepped from 
 in front of the cabin door. 
 
 " Now, come out, thou ! " he shouted. " He 
 has paid, but if he had not, I would have taken 
 thee back ; thou art a rascal who has got into 
 trouble, so I believe." 
 
 Out of the little cabin of the launch stepped — 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 203 
 
 not indeed a Malay, but a Malay half-caste ; 
 a handsome, slender, nervous-looking lad, with 
 sleek black hair, and an olive brown skin. He 
 had a wide felt hat on, that shaded his face. I 
 rather thought, in spite of the hat, that I had met 
 him somewhere before — probably among the 
 islands of Dutch Malaysia, where half-castes 
 are as common as flies in summer. 
 
 The Jacob's ladder was swaying about dan- 
 gerously, but he came up it lightly enough, and 
 sprang down from the bulwark to the deck. 
 His bundle — a wad of clothing tied up in a sack — 
 was slung after him by the launch-driver. 
 
 " Good evening, gentlemen," called the latter, 
 evidently mollified by the thirty marks. " A 
 pleasant voyage ! " 
 
 " Good evening," I replied, feeling as if, for 
 the first time in my Hfe, the motion of a vessel 
 were making me sick, or at least giddy. What 
 did it all mean ? 
 
 The half-caste had disappeared, and Gore did 
 not seem minded to explain his presence. 
 
 " Get her under way at once," he ordered. 
 " The sooner we're clear of all these reefs the 
 better, at this hour of the evening." 
 
 Indeed, the water about the Cecilie was marbled 
 in many places with the beautiful patches of 
 malachite green that all South Sea men dread. 
 
204 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 We got her on her course again, not without 
 much howHng and stamping about on the part 
 of the crew, and a httle hard language on ours. 
 When the pretty Httle ship was flying once more 
 close up into the wind, with New Guinea fading 
 away on her starboard quarter. Red Bob drew 
 me to him with the lift of a finger. 
 
 " This is a nice business, upon my soul," he 
 said, with a graver countenance than I had ever 
 seen him adopt before. 
 
 " Who is he ? " I asked. 
 
 " Don't you know ? " 
 
 " I've seen him before, I think, but — no, I 
 don't " 
 
 " You monumental young ass, it's Frau 
 Richter ! " 
 
 " Lord Almighty ! " I said. There seemed to 
 be nothing else to say. Isola — ^here — in that dis- 
 guise. The skies seemed crumbling above me. 
 
 " Why, I thought," somehow I found breath 
 to say, " I thought you knew where she was ! " 
 
 " I did," said Gore. " I didn't want to tell 
 you till we were well away, because I was dead 
 certain you couldn't be kept from going to see 
 her, and giving her away to the amiable people 
 who knew what was good for her better than 
 she did herself — or thought they did. She came 
 up to Friedrich Wilhelmshaven on the Ajzelia 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 205 
 
 with us. The stewardess knew her well — used 
 to call at Banda — and she hid her in her own 
 cabin. She meant to get back to Banda, and ask 
 some of her mother's old friends to take her 
 in. Seems she couldn't stand Richter at any 
 price, not so much because she thought him 
 unpleasant — he's a man who has some good 
 points, if you know him — but because of a young 
 idiot who had turned her head. You. Told 
 me — she did — that she never meant to have 
 anything to do with Richter, or with any man ; 
 means to go into a convent, and spend the rest 
 of her life expiating her sin " 
 
 " Her what ? " 
 
 " Sin. Sin of having taken a fancy to a young 
 ass like you, when she'd vowed to love and obey 
 someone else, who did not prove lovable or 
 obeyable. There, we've talked enough, with the 
 girl down in the cabin wondering what's going 
 to become of her. Go on and see what's hap- 
 pened, while I take the wheel. There are too 
 many horse-heads about these waters to leave 
 it to the boys." 
 
 I did not wait to be told twice. Three steps 
 took me down into the cabin, a small, blue- 
 painted place with a narrow table and two 
 lockers, a swinging tray and swinging lamp, and 
 a strongly pervading smell of cockroach. 
 
206 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 Isola sat at the table. She was in a loose 
 cotton gown ; her sack of clothing lay open on 
 the locker top, and the khaki coat and trousers 
 in which she had come aboard were invisible, 
 whatever she had done with them. I suspected 
 that she had simply flung her dress over them, 
 the moment she found herself alone. 
 
 Her hair — her lovely hair ! — was cut short 
 round her neck. Her face and hands seemed 
 to have been stained with some brown dye. 
 It had been very well done ; I never should have 
 suspected the ruse, had I not seen her in her 
 natural ivory fairness. Deprived of the fairness, 
 with her fine, falcon-like cast of feature and her 
 black Italian hair and eyes, she made the most 
 convincing half-caste one could imagine. Her 
 slight, active figure, helped by the loose coat 
 she wore, had been (I remembered) perfectly 
 boyish in appearance when we saw her in the 
 launch ; and the slender hands and feet were 
 not too conspicuous in a youth supposed to be 
 of Malayan blood. On the whole the disguise 
 was excellent. Sitting there at the cabin table, 
 in her loose dress, v^th her big eyes shining out 
 from under the short, heavy hair, she simply 
 looked a half-caste island girl, of unusual 
 beauty and refinement — to anyone untrained 
 in the true signs of race. 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 207 
 
 In the unsteady, ill-smelling little cabin, with 
 the wide seas of New Guinea swinging beneath 
 our keel, I stood at the other side of the table 
 and looked at her — the girl I loved who was not 
 for me ; yet who — thank God ! — was not for 
 anyone else either, so it seemed. I could think 
 of nothing else but that for a moment. Then 
 suddenly it occurred to me — selfish brute ! — 
 that she must be wearied, perhaps hungry and 
 thirsty, that she was certainly in some grave 
 trouble, and that I had not yet done anything 
 but stare like the idiot Red Bob had just called 
 me. 
 
 " Isola ! " I said, taking her hands in mine — 
 they were chilly for all the warmth of the even- 
 ing — " you must be tired and famished — and 
 
 What has happened ? Gore told me — Bo ! get 
 some tea, along galley plenty-plenty quick. 
 What's the matter ? Why didn't you get away 
 on the AJzelia ? Do you know where we are 
 going ? It's a terrible place, not fit for " 
 
 " You said," she answered, looking at me with 
 a light of perfect confidence in her beautiful 
 eyes, " you said, * If you want me, I'll come to 
 you, alive or dead.' And I did want you terribly. 
 But I heard that you were dying — and I was 
 afraid to let you know, because you would have 
 tried to come " 
 
208 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 "What awful rot!" I exclaimed. "I had 
 only a touch of fever." 
 
 " They said you were very ill," she replied. 
 '* So I had to do what I could. . . . When I 
 found out that Herr Richter was not Schultz's 
 friend, but Schultz himself — if you had ever seen 
 a man in that awful cholera collapse, you would 
 understand how easily " 
 
 " I have," I interrupted — for Gore had 
 chanced on an adventure or two in Singapore 
 that I have said nothing about. " I have, and I 
 can understand his own mother wouldn't know 
 him, if she only saw him then." 
 
 " It came — it came — as a dreadful shock," 
 she said. " For you see, I did not like him, and 
 I knew, or guessed, at any rate, he had been a 
 cruel enemy to you. He can be cruel ! People 
 who knew him on his plantation have told me 
 things. . . . And I realized that I simply 
 couldn't, after all. But I had no money, or 
 hardly any, and no one in Rabaul was on my side ; 
 he is very popular there ; they say ' he has such 
 fine qualities.' Perhaps he has ; it was a fine 
 thing enough to do as he did, when he thought 
 he was dying, just in order to repay my parents 
 — oh, my poor dear mammie and dad ! . . . 
 But it wasn't a fine thing to hold nie to it whether 
 I hked it or not — when I said I had changed 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 209 
 
 my mind — told him I did not care — said I would 
 rather wash clothes or scrub floors for a living. 
 He just laughed and said that no one in that 
 country would give me clothes to wash, and 
 nobody would give me money to get away ; 
 and that girls were always silly about marrying 
 older men, but the older men made the best 
 husbands, and for my own sake — Oh, I'm too 
 tired to tell it all." 
 
 Her little dark head was drooping back against 
 the bulkhead ; she looked worn out. 
 
 " You shan't speak another word," I said. 
 " You shall have some tea " (the war-whoop 
 of Bo announced that it was on its way from the 
 galley), " and you shall go right off to sleep 
 in that little cabin — it's lucky we have one — 
 and to-morrow, when you are quite rested, you 
 can tell me anything you like." 
 
 Red Bob was still steering when I came up, his 
 eyes set on a distant island. 
 
 " Well ? " he said, shifting a spoke in his lean, 
 brown hands. 
 
 I told him all that Isola had said. 
 
 " H'm I " was his comment. " More behind, 
 of course. Richter must have found out and 
 come after her. You remember they said there 
 was a launch just in from Rabaul. . . . Clever 
 little hussy that she is ; never saw a better 
 
 14 
 
210 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 disguise in my life, and I've seen some. Yes . . . 
 some." 
 
 He stood with the spokes in his hands, looking 
 a long way out across the sea — further, I thought, 
 than eye could carry him ; back into strange 
 happenings and places of which I had never 
 known anything. 
 
 " Well," he said presently, " it's an awkward 
 position." 
 
 " Not a bit," I contradicted. " There's that 
 small cabin — ^we can shift our things out of it 
 in two minutes, and sleep on the lockers." 
 
 " That wasn't what I meant. You can surely 
 understand that the trip we've started on isn't 
 likely to be a picnic for ladies." 
 
 " If you send her back," I said, " you send me 
 too. I — I won't desert her — if I were to be 
 hanged for it." 
 
 " No one wants you to desert her, young 
 fire-eater," answered Gore. " The only question 
 is, whether we shouldn't give up our own trip 
 and run her down to Brisbane, or back to Banda, 
 or something of that kind. There are objections 
 to that, however. . . . 
 
 " Let her have her night's rest, and then we'll 
 hold a council of war." 
 
 So it was settled. I found Isola asleep on the 
 locker cushions when I went back to the cabin ; 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 211 
 
 she was evidently worn out with trouble and 
 fatigue. I took care not to wake her in shifting 
 my things and Gore's out of the small inner 
 cabin. When it was ready — a poor little place 
 it was, with a narrow bunk, and a washstand, and 
 just space besides, to stand on the floor — I placed 
 her bundle on the rack, went back into the cabin, 
 and lifted her up very gently indeed from the 
 locker. She was so tired that she never waked 
 as I carried her into the cabin and placed her on 
 the bed. There I left her sleeping the naive, 
 innocent sleep of a child. After all, she was but 
 nineteen, and young for that — too young, by 
 far, for all the trouble that had fallen on her 
 dehcate head. 
 
 Isola, even as a runaway in desperate straits, 
 was Isola of the island still. There are many 
 sweet white tropic flowers at Friedrich Wil- 
 helmshaven ; some of them must have been 
 concealed about her dress, for the perfume of 
 fresh petals met my senses as I laid her on her 
 bed. And the loose white robe that she had flung 
 over her boyish disguise was fastened with a 
 ribbon of forest green. 
 
 Next morning she was up and about as early as 
 we were, and when Bo brought in the breakfast, 
 with his usual shout, she was ready to pour out 
 the tea, and help the tinned meat, hot and 
 
 14* 
 
212 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 glutinous on its iron plate. She looked very 
 bright and fresh, and as happy as a child on a 
 picnic. We were clear of reefs for the present, 
 so one of the boys took the wheel while Gore 
 and I came down to breakfast. Nothing was 
 talked of but the weather and the ship while 
 we were eating, but when the table had been 
 cleared, Red Bob, with the courtly manner that 
 he used towards all women, handed Isola to 
 the most comfortable seat, and asked her per- 
 mission to smoke. 
 
 " We'll have some talking to do," he said, 
 " and I can talk better with a cigar. But if you 
 mind " 
 
 " Oh no, I smoke a little myself sometimes," 
 she said. " Father never used to mind ladies 
 smoking ; it's so common in his country." 
 
 I oifered her a cigarette ; she took it, and 
 smoked away in the daintiest manner possible, 
 curled up on the locker seat, while Gore and I 
 lighted our cigars. 
 
 " Well," said Red Bob, puffing away with deep 
 satisfaction, " we want to know just what's 
 happened. When I last heard of you, the 
 stewardess had you pretty close. What let the 
 cat out of the bag ? " 
 
 " Just an accident," said Isola regretfully. 
 '^ But for that, I'd have been into Dutch terri- 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 213 
 
 tory by this time. The AJzelia lay at the wharf 
 all day and the heat in that small cabin was 
 fearful. I couldn't stand it when the night came, 
 so I got into some clothes belonging to a Malay 
 steward, and darkened my face and hands, and 
 went for a walk ashore." 
 
 " Where did you go ? " asked Gore, narrowing 
 his eyes as he looked at her. 
 
 Isola, for no reason that I could see, turned 
 slowly pink. 
 
 " Not very far," she said. 
 
 " As far as the hotel ? " 
 
 " Not much farther." 
 
 " Oh," said Red Bob, watching the pinkness 
 spread. " Well, go on." 
 
 " When I was coming back," she said, " I 
 saw him." 
 
 " Richter ? " 
 
 " Yes. I saw him walking about, in the 
 shadow, up and down, looking at the boat and the 
 wharf. I was so frightened that I didn't dare to 
 go near her. You see, they were taking on cargo, 
 and there were big lamps, acetylene or something 
 very bright, and no one could come or go without 
 being seen. He must have found out or guessed 
 somehow, and followed in that big launch that 
 came in two days after us ; and he was looking 
 for me. And the look of his face terrified me so 
 
214 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 that I ran away in among the palms, and stayed 
 there all night. But in the morning, when I 
 came back, the ship was gone. So there I was, 
 left, and I had hardly any money, and I didn't 
 dare let myself be seen — but I meant to wait, 
 and come to you for help. Then I heard people 
 talking, and oh ! — they said you had sailed that 
 afternoon. And then a file of native police 
 came down the road. Something — I don't know 
 what — made me hide from them in a clump of 
 bushes. They passed quite near, and I heard 
 them saying to each other in pigeon-English that 
 they would soon find the ' one-fellow Mary 
 belong Master,' and they would * catchem fast 
 for Master.' When I heard that, I felt sick. 
 I waited till they were gone, and then took all 
 the money I had left, and ran to the place where 
 I knew that launch was, and bargained with the 
 man. I had only twenty marks left, and he 
 wanted fifty, so I told him my master would 
 pay him the rest. And — and that's all." 
 
 " About enough," said Red Bob, taking his 
 cigar out of his mouth, and looking at it as if it 
 were somehow at fault. " You did the right 
 thing. We'll stand by you, never fear." 
 
 " If you will let me be your cook," said Isola 
 timidly. " I can cook quite well-^and wash and 
 mend your clothes. ... I only want to keep out 
 
Red Bob of the Bismareks 215 
 
 of his way till I find some way of living. It's 
 having none that makes me so helpless." 
 
 " Cook ! " I said indignantly. " Cook and 
 wash ! I should like to see you doing it — or my 
 letting you ! " 
 
 " Keep your hair on, young Corbet," said 
 Gore. " If Frau Richter, as I suppose we must 
 call her, wants to cook, and mend and so on, 
 by all means let her. People are happier 
 employed." 
 
 " Thank you," said Isola, with a glance that 
 made me angry v^th Gore for having earned it. 
 Of course he was in the right. I saw that as soon 
 as I took time to think. She would be a hundred 
 times more contented, if she were allowed to do 
 something — or fancy she was doing something — 
 for us. 
 
 " Well," said Gore, fixing his passionless, blue 
 cat-eyes on Isola and on me. " It seems that the 
 best thing we can do is to go on — for the present, 
 at any rate. No one is looking for a Malay lad ; 
 they're looking for a white girl. By and by 
 they'll give her up, and then we can come back 
 with you, and get you aboard the Banda boat." 
 
 " Thank you, more than I can say," said the 
 girl, in a low voice. " Both of you . . . you 
 are very good. I — I am going into a convent 
 when I get to any place where I can. Pm not 
 
216 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 a Catholic — mother was Church of England — 
 but there are Protestant convents too." 
 
 " I hope you'll never do anything so horrible ! " 
 I cried indignantly ; but I do not think she heard 
 me, for she had left the cabin. 
 
 " There are worse things," said Gore, inspecting 
 the ash on the end of his cigar as closely as if he 
 were estimating its ratio to the volume of smoke. 
 
 " I can't imagine anything worse than mewing 
 yourself up for life like that." 
 
 " Have you ever," said Gore, " heard of that 
 part of the Pacific where they all have the 
 D.S.O. ? " 
 
 " Distinguished Service Order ? No." 
 
 " That sort of D.S.O. isn't the Distinguished 
 Service Order. It's the Done-Something-or- 
 Other. There are groups of islands where every 
 white man has it. I've seen 'em. Places where 
 all the whites are sort of runaways. Men — and 
 women. They don't — on the whole — seem to 
 find it an enjoyable life." 
 
 I wanted to speak, but my lips found no words. 
 With his uncanny power of divination, he had 
 seen the vision of the coral island in the far South 
 Seas that had flashed across my brain — the 
 beautiful girl, tied only by a fiction of the law 
 to another man, who was to be the angel of the 
 dream. . . . 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 217 
 
 Well, since we had been running all the previous 
 day through islands that were like a foretaste 
 of Paradise on earth — islands steeped to the 
 shores in romance and loneliness — the guess 
 was not such a very difficult one. 
 
 " Another thing," went on the cold voice 
 beside me. " If you are going to carry off any 
 one's wdfe — even your own — to the ends of the 
 earth, you can't do it for nothing. Elopements 
 are not a cheap form of amusement. They 
 cost about one-and-a-half times as much as 
 getting married, if you do it economically. If 
 you do the thing in any sort of style, it's more 
 than three times as expensive. And the income, 
 afterwards, doesn't go near as far as a married 
 man's income. You need much more to live 
 at the same rate. Somehow the lady you elope 
 with never is what they used to call a ' notable ' 
 woman about a house." 
 
 " I never heard such beastly cold-blooded " 
 
 I began. 
 
 Gore looked at me with half a smile. 
 
 " Facts are cold-blooded things," he said. 
 " What about taking your trick at the 
 wheel ? " 
 
 I took it, and while I was steering the little 
 schooner — an easy job enough this morning — 
 my thoughts had leisure to roam beyond the 
 
218 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 deck and the wheel-spokes. Where were we 
 sailing ? What was to be the end ? I thought 
 and thought, till I let the Cecilie come up so far 
 into the wind that I nearly put her into irons — 
 but I saw no clear path ahead. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 " npHINGS wiU diy straight if you only 
 1 let 'em alone." That was one of 
 Gore's pet proverbs, and it kept repeating itself 
 to me, over and over again, in the next few days. 
 Things did seem to be drying straight. Isola 
 had slipped into her own place on board the ship 
 with wonderful quickness and adaptability ; that 
 element of gay boyishness, which I had somehow 
 divined to exist in her character, came out in the 
 sunshine of safety and friendship, and she 
 became the very life of the ship. I was angry 
 at first that Gore allowed her to work so much 
 as she did — cooking little messes in the galley, 
 sewing and mending, even washing clothes. I 
 would have treated her, had I had my way, like 
 the lady in the nursery-rhyme, who was invited 
 by her lover to : 
 
 Sit on a cushion, and sew a fine team, 
 
 And feed upon itrawbcrrics, sugar and cream. 
 
 But Gore, wiser in knowledge of the world, 
 let her use her hands as much as she liked, thus 
 
 219 
 
220 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 keeping her from over-use of her mind. You 
 cannot brood on your misfortunes when you 
 are beating up " puff taloons," that stand-by of 
 the eggless kitchen, or putting patches on some- 
 body's old trousers. And Isola loved to work for 
 us. I think she had an idea that she was in some 
 way repaying us for her rescue. As if her pre- 
 sence had not been sufficient repayment for all 
 the service that a man could give — for all a man's 
 life, and everything that was his ! 
 
 Red Bob allowed coolly that my lady of the 
 nutmeg island was quite useful to us, after all. 
 Our crew was small for the size of the ship, and 
 so stupid that not one of them could be trusted 
 to shorten a sail under the orders of another, or to 
 steer unless Gore or myself was on deck. We 
 had arranged to keep watch and watch through- 
 out ; but the coming of Isola made it possible 
 for us to get a good spell of unbroken sleep now 
 and again, since she could steer as well as I could. 
 Girls brought up on small islands learn these 
 things early ; when I heard how much travel by 
 cutter and schooner had to be done in the Banda 
 group, I wondered less at Isola Bella's handiness 
 on board ship. As for the cooking, I did not care 
 what I ate, but Gore, who perhaps thought more 
 about the dish than I did, as he thought less about 
 the maker of it, declared that since Isola took 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 221 
 
 command of the galley, the meals were really fit 
 for human beings. 
 
 So, over warm, blue, windy seas, through days 
 of sun on the white, salt-sparkling decks, through 
 afternoons of flying scud and squall, when we all 
 ran barefoot about the ship, shouting to each 
 other, and helping our useless boys to make or 
 shorten sail, nights of diamond starshine, when 
 the Cecilie went through the water softly as a 
 swimming seal, and Isola and Red Bob and I 
 lay shoeless and hatless on the planks, watching 
 the sway of the topmast up in the velvet blue, 
 and telling and hearing strange yarns of adventure 
 from one another, we sailed to Schouten's island 
 through the unknown seas. We met no ships 
 upon the way ; this part of the Bismarck Archi- 
 pelago is almost as lonely, and very near as badly 
 marked and charted, as it was in the days when 
 old Willem CorneHszoon Schouten, of Hoorn 
 in Holland, bravely took his castle-bowed ship 
 where no man else had been. The strange 
 detachment from all things on the land that 
 comes to those who go down to the sea in sailing 
 ships came upon us three. Our voyage was near 
 five hundred miles in a straight line, and the 
 amount of beating we had to do made it infinitely 
 longer, not to speak of the days when there was 
 no wind at all, and the Cecilie lay slamming 
 
222 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 about in the trough of great glassy Pacific swells, 
 spilling everything spillable, and casting loose 
 everything that was not fast tied up. But we 
 felt no impatience. The spirit of the sailing 
 ship had touched us one and all ; the things of 
 the land were not ; time was wiped out, and the 
 hour in which we lived was all of life we knew. 
 
 I am well aware that there may be people 
 ready to blame Red Bob and myself for taking 
 Isola on such a trip ; and certainly, as Gore 
 himself had said, it was like to be no picnic for 
 ladies. But those who live in safe, settled 
 countries can scarcely realize the difference made 
 in many points of view by travel in places where 
 life is cheaply held, and adventure is so common 
 that it almost ceases to be adventure at all. 
 Certainly, apart from questions of propriety, 
 neither Gore nor myself would have thought of 
 inviting Isola to come with us, and share in the 
 risks we knew we should have to run, in hunting 
 for Schouten's island and his pearls. But when 
 circumstances drove her, as they had, to take 
 refuge with us, we accepted the circumstances. 
 Undoubtedly, the best thing to do was to keep 
 her out of sight for a while ; and there could be 
 no surer way of doing it than by taking her with 
 us to the unknown seas. Later on, when we had 
 all had time to look round us and think what was 
 
 5# 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 223 
 
 best to be done, the matter of her future could be 
 discussed. Now was not the time. 
 
 As for scandal, Mrs. Grundy has small sway at 
 the ends of the earth, where white women are 
 so few that the woman who objected to un- 
 chaperoned travel would very seldom be able to 
 travel at all. No one was likely to " say things " 
 about Isola's voyage in company with a middle- 
 aged man like Gore, and myself, in a quarter of 
 the world where solitary white women may at 
 any time have to take passage on small, slow- 
 sailing vessels run only by the owner and his 
 native crew. I did not suppose that Richter 
 would be pleased to hear — if he ever did hear — 
 that his missing bride had run off in a ship with 
 two men ; but I knew the Pacific world by this 
 time far too well to suppose that he or anyone 
 else would think ill of her on that account. 
 
 There is no use telling how long our voyage 
 lasted, or just where it took us, when it was done. 
 It is enough to say that one warm, windy after- 
 noon we sighted a row of palm-tree tops pricking 
 up out of the sea like pins, and knew, from the 
 distance and the bearings of the place, that we 
 had come upon Schouten's island. 
 
 The palms grew higher and higher out of the 
 water as we sailed in, and soon we could see a 
 dazzling line of sand below them, and a reef 
 
224 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 covered with foam, and within the reef a wide, 
 pale-green lagoon. It was a staring, solitary 
 place, that looked as if no one had ever been there 
 since the beginning of time. You could see right 
 across it from side to side, for the tall cocoa- 
 palms were the only things that grew there, save 
 for a little underbrush. Sand, and white palm- 
 trunks, and thin, blue, dancing shadows, and sun 
 and sun — this was Schouten's island. 
 
 " Well chosen, wasn't it ? " said Gore, with 
 the glass at his eye. '* Not the sort of place 
 anyone would ever settle on, or land on either, 
 if they could help it." 
 
 " How did you happen to land yourself ? " I 
 asked. Isola was beside us, listening with 
 interest ; I remember how gay and boyish she 
 looked with her short, curling hair and sailor 
 blouse, worn over a brief skirt of some kind of 
 coarse cotton stuff. She had shoes on to-day ; 
 we had all put them on, regretfully, in antici- 
 pation of having to land. 
 
 " Something in Schouten's log. Had a fancy 
 to stand where that fine old boy stood, three 
 hundred years ago, and look out at the sea as 
 he looked at it — wondering, I suppose, what 
 might lie beyond the skyline where he had never 
 been — or anyone else. Ah ! it was a fine thing 
 to live in those days." 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 225 
 
 "They didn't think of it as we do," I said. 
 " Schouten was a lot more interested in cutting 
 out the big Company's monopoly of the trade 
 routes than in geographical problems. Those 
 just came in." 
 
 " I suppose," said Isola, " in another hundred 
 years they'll be envying us for having any out- 
 of-the-way, strange, unknown places to go to, 
 and saying that we didn't appreciate what we 
 had." 
 
 " Bo ! Kaipa ! Lalik ! Lower away one- 
 fellow boat 1 Hurry up, now, or by-'n-by I 
 been break you blooming cocoanut," ordered Red 
 Bob. " Ready to go ashore, Mrs. Ravenna ? " 
 
 For by common consent we had fallen into this 
 compromise of a title. I could not bear to hear 
 her addressed by Richter's name, and Gore 
 steadily set his face against allowing her to be 
 called Miss. 
 
 " Ay, ay. Captain," answered Isola, saluting 
 merrily, " we're all ready for the fun." 
 
 " You can't all go," said Gore. " No leaving 
 the schooner alone with these beggars. They 
 are behaving well enough, but it's ingrained in 
 the nature of the New Britain native to cut off 
 his employer whenever he can, if you take him 
 sailoring. Not a month since a crew of them did 
 it close up to Rabaul. . . . Mrs. Ravenna, I'll 
 
 15 
 
226 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 take you first, and then you can wait at the rock, 
 and show it to Corbet here, while I stay aboard. 
 Corbet " — he spoke a Httle apart — " keep your 
 eyes skinned. These beggars are always nasty 
 near land." 
 
 " Right," I said. I saw them pull off in the 
 boat with a couple of the boys, and resigned my- 
 self to wait for Gore's return. The crew, how- 
 ever, seemed to me to be nothing worse than a 
 little lazy and stupid, and that they always were. 
 I did not think they would have made any attempt 
 to run off, even if they had been left alone. 
 
 The island was small, as I have said, and so 
 flat that one could easily see all over it. I saw 
 Isola and Gore walk together to a spot some 
 few hundred yards away, stop, and bend over 
 something, examining it. Then Gore returned 
 alone. 
 
 " All right," he hailed, as he came down to 
 the beach. " You can go as soon as I'm on 
 board." 
 
 I thought all these precautions rather super- 
 fluous, considering the way our rough black crew 
 had behaved up to the present, but I explained 
 things, to my own satisfaction at all events, by 
 reflecting that Red Bob wasn't as young as he 
 used to be, and that middle-aged men are apt 
 to become — well, not nervous ; one could not 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 227 
 
 apply such an adjective to Gore — but what one 
 might call, if one chose to coin a word, somewhat 
 " precautious." 
 
 The dingy ferried me across the lagoon, and 
 left me on the beach. I suppose, if Gore and I 
 had come alone, I should have been thinking, 
 as I set foot on that lonely shore, of the brave 
 old explorer who had been there three hundred 
 years before me — who, like the Ancient Mariner : 
 
 Was the first who ever burst 
 Into that silent sea. 
 
 But as things had turned out, Willem Cornelis- 
 zoon Schouten was occupying my mind scarce 
 at all. Isola Bella — Isola Richter — Ravenna, or 
 whatever her name might be — for I was resolved 
 not to think of her by that of the man who had 
 married her — left little room in my thoughts 
 for anything else. 
 
 She was standing by a sort of rockery of coral 
 — a pile of white boulders that looked like huge 
 Turkish sponges suddenly turned to stone. 
 There were green vines twining about the 
 boulders, with pink flowers on them, and of course 
 she had got some of the flowers by this time, 
 and was trying to place them in her hair. 
 
 " It's so short," she said piteously. " I wish 
 I hadn't had to cut it. It makes me look so 
 hideous." 
 
 I5' 
 
228 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " It's rather more becoming than the long 
 hair was, if you want to know," I said con- 
 soHngly. " Long hair can't curl like that, and 
 your curls are lovely." 
 
 " Are they ? " said Isola, pulling them out 
 about her face. " I'm glad you think so." 
 
 " Oh, Isola ! " I burst out, " we never can 
 have a talk on that schooner ; let's have a minute 
 to talk now. Isola — if you could get rid of that 
 brute. . . ." 
 
 I broke off for a minute. All had indeed been 
 said between us — without words — but it was 
 nevertheless hard to speak out in plain prose 
 what both of us understood. 
 
 Isola paused, with the pink convolvulus flowers 
 falling from her dark curls, and her hand half 
 raised to adjust them. ... I have only to close 
 my eyes and I see the picture before me, clear 
 as some exquisite painting limned on crystal — 
 for no colours that were ever put on dingy 
 canvas or paper could reproduce the hues of that 
 coral island and its surroundings. Isola with 
 her little boyish figure, cheeks kissed to red by 
 the salt sea-winds, and black curls edged with 
 gold — the coral sea, blue as blue fire, for back- 
 ground to her small, dark head, and above it 
 the swaying leaves of cocoa-palms, flashing back 
 flame to the flaming sun from their varnished 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 229 
 
 fronds of enamel-green. . . . One might have 
 painted it on stained glass, with the sun shining 
 through ; not on anything more dull and earthly. 
 
 *' I can't," she said, in answer to my words. 
 " I don't see any way. Yes, I understand, but 
 it isn't any good. As for him, he'll live for ever, 
 just because — because — Oh, I don't want to 
 say wicked things ! " 
 
 " He won't live for ever," was all the consola- 
 tion I could find. 
 
 " He must be fifty — people die when they get 
 near sixty as often as not, so perhaps, perhaps 
 
 after all " ; and somehow, when I looked at 
 
 the sea and sky, their glory seemed to have 
 faded ever so little. I thought the evening 
 must be coming on. 
 
 Isola was silent ; the wind blew up strong from 
 the sea, and whistled in the swinging leaves of 
 the palms. I ripped a strand from one of them — 
 I was in the mood when one feels like tearing and 
 destroying — and twisted it in my hands as I 
 sought to find words. But I, too, was struck 
 with silence. 
 
 In that moment a hail came across the water 
 from Red Bob, who, as I have told before, had 
 a voice that would carry the better part of a 
 mile. 
 
 " Hurry up 1 " it said. " Getting late." 
 
230 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 We had both forgotten about Willem Cor- 
 neliszoon Schouten and his stone ! 
 
 " Oh ! " cried Isola, suddenly waking up, 
 " how stupid and selfish I am ! Look, this is 
 it ; it's really wonderful." 
 
 She stooped down a little, and showed me the 
 slanting under face of one of the boulders. 
 Coral rock is easy to carve and shape. This had 
 been tooled off smooth in a place where neither 
 sun nor rain fell directly on it, and there, cut so 
 deep into the white mass of " brainstone " that 
 all three hundred years had not effaced it, was 
 the curious, twisted monogram of Schouten, 
 also a row of dots that — to my mind — might have 
 been anything at all — and an arrow. 
 
 I did wake to interest at that ; I should have 
 been a stone myself if I had not. While I was 
 examining the inscription and feeling it with my 
 finger-tips, Isola fell a-dreaming over it, her 
 eyes full of something sweet, yet very sad. 
 
 " And she never married him," I heard her say 
 to herself. " I wonder — did she marry anyone 
 else ? Do you know if she did ? " 
 
 " Gore never told me," I said. Nor had he ; 
 nor do I know to this day whether the Helga 
 Maria of Schouten's young dreams died a maiden 
 or a wife. 
 
 " Why can't people be allowed to be happy ? " 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 231 
 
 said Isola, leaning on to the coral boulder and 
 looking out to the hyacinth-coloured sea. (I 
 had been right about the time ; the afternoon 
 was indeed beginning to darken ever so little.) 
 
 " If we're going to discuss the origin of evil, 
 we'd better go back to the ship to do it at leisure," 
 I said somewhat hardly ; for I was suffering too 
 much not to be cruel. And as Gore had already 
 hailed us a second time, we went. 
 
 The sun had not yet sunk when we got clear 
 of the lagoon. Red Bob set a new course, gave 
 me the wheel, and went below for a while. When 
 he came back he joined Isola, who was seated 
 on the cover of the main hatch, and began to 
 talk to her. I have spoken before of the delicate 
 courtesy always shown to women by Vincent 
 Gore — even to such gadfly creatures as Mabel 
 Siddis — but I have said nothing as yet of the 
 curious new side of his character revealed to me 
 by this voyage in the company of Isola Ravenna. 
 Unconsciously, I had been classing him as hard 
 all through ; a man with nothing warm about 
 him but his temper, and nothing soft about him 
 at all. . . . Since the girl had joined our com- 
 pany, however, I had seen a new Vincent Gore — 
 the father. 
 
 The story of the crippled daughter, told while 
 we voyaged down the coast in the Jfzelia, had 
 
232 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 interested me as a dramatic tale, and as nothing 
 more. I did not visuaHze it in any way. But 
 now — now that I had daily and hourly oppor- 
 tunity of seeing Red Bob in company with a 
 young and friendless girl, I understood what 
 girlhood and young womanhood meant to him, 
 and that was something quite other than what 
 they meant to me. I loved Isola ; I would have 
 died for her instantly and gladly in any dis- 
 agreeable way that might have presented itself. 
 But I loved her for what she, as one beautiful 
 girl out of the millions in the world, meant to 
 me, Paul Corbet. Vincent Gore hked her and 
 cared for her for the sake of all young girlhood ; 
 and this because he was the father of a girl. I 
 don't know how I understood all this, but I did 
 understand it, and it helped me, moreover, to 
 see his quest of Schouten's pearls in a newer and 
 wider light — as a determined effort to lift one 
 girl, unusually helpless, out of the path of the 
 dragons of wretchedness, want and worse, that 
 harry and tear all moneyless women. . . . Were 
 not all Isola's troubles, from first to last, due to 
 these same dragons of moneylessness ? Had 
 not they chased her into a marriage that she 
 feared ; driven her to a bridegroom for whom 
 she had no love ; blocked her pathway when she 
 had striven to escape from him ? Did they not 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 233 
 
 stand across her hfe, even yet, barring her from 
 all free choice and action ? What was she going 
 to do — what were we going to do for her — when 
 this voyage of flight should be over ? 
 
 From where I stood at the wheel I could see 
 her clearly, sitting on the hatch beside Red Bob 
 and looking up at him with a bright confidence 
 and quiet repose of manner that she seemed to 
 keep for him alone. Did I envy it to him ? . . . 
 Well, on second thoughts, I did not. That 
 Isola was never quite at ease with me was perhaps 
 no matter for regret. When one is two and 
 twenty, one does not envy the special privileges 
 of five-and-forty. They come too high. 
 
 Red Bob, at that moment, was doing what she 
 certainly would never have allowed me to do — 
 buckling a neat red leather belt about her waist 
 and adjusting something on the left-hand side. 
 I remembered seeing a few of those same belts 
 among our " trade goods," but I could not make 
 out what the addition was, until Gore got up 
 and walked away, with some light, half-jesting 
 remark. Isola sat still, looking at her new adorn- 
 ment. My eyes followed hers, and saw, with 
 something of a shock, that it was a revolver 
 holster, made like ours, and doubtless filled like 
 ours. But I reminded myself that that was a 
 precaution which should have been taken long 
 
234 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 ago^more as a formality than anything else ; 
 most people in the Bismarcks wear revolvers, 
 away from the settlements — and dismissed it 
 from my mind. 
 
 Dark came down before long, and we anchored 
 for the night, as was the custom of Schouten and 
 of Cook, and as was also ours. In these far, 
 little-known, ill-charted seas, men travel even 
 now as they did three hundred years ago, and 
 take no risks in the darkness. 
 
 Gore told me that we were very near the pearl 
 island indicated by the arrow on Schouten's 
 rock, and that we had better get the diving-gear 
 in order. When he had been to the island 
 before, he said, he had at the time been vaguely 
 struck by its resemblance to some of the cele- 
 brated pearl-bearing atolls of the Eastern Pacific. 
 He knew that no one in German New Guinea 
 or the Bismarcks was even aware of its exist- 
 ence — small wonder, for it was in the loneliest 
 and least travelled region of all these seas, off 
 every possible steamer or sailing-vessel route. 
 That it was the island mentioned in certain of 
 Schouten's diaries as " Rica de Perlas " (named, 
 doubtless, from some old Spanish tradition, as 
 the elusive Rica de Plata and Rica de Oro Islands 
 were) he did not doubt. The arrow, cut with 
 infinite care to a certain point of the compass? 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 235 
 
 showed its direction clearly, and there was no 
 other land between. 
 
 " Why do you think he made a memorandum 
 in such a curious way ? " asked Isola, as we were 
 busy overhauling the diving gear on deck, after 
 tea. 
 
 " Because," said Gore, heaving up a great 
 Muntz metal helmet, to look at the valve, " he 
 was afraid that something might happen which, 
 as a matter of fact, did happen." 
 
 " What ? " 
 
 " Loss of his ship there. He lost them both — 
 one burned on the way to Batavia, and one 
 confiscated with everything on board. You see, 
 Schouten was an old sailor ; he'd probably been 
 shipwrecked in his time, and knew how difficult 
 it was for a sailor, especially in those days of end- 
 less voyages, to keep any of his goods together. 
 He insured himself against loss or forgetting by 
 his plan. And yet he never came back to get 
 the rest of the pearls." 
 
 " Perhaps he took them all," I suggested. 
 
 " No," said Isola instantly, " there would have 
 been no reason for leaving guide-marks behind 
 him, if he had." 
 
 " Right," said Red Bob, setting down the 
 helmet and turning his attention to an enormous 
 pair of boots, soled with sheet-lead. " Lucky 
 
236 Red Bob of the Bismareks 
 
 these weren't made for the Jap trade, Corbet, 
 they'd never have fitted you. I suppose you're 
 jumping for the first turn ; just as well ; you'll 
 need proper * tending.' " 
 
 " I can tend," observed Isola modestly. 
 
 " You can ? But of course, Banda's one of 
 the best pearling-grounds in Malaysia," com- 
 mented Gore. " How did you learn ? " 
 
 " Father had a lugger for two years, when I 
 was only fourteen to sixteen ; he had it more 
 for fun than for anything else," she confessed, 
 " but he used to go down lots of times, and I 
 always tended for him, after the first. Either of 
 you will be quite safe if you leave me on top, 
 Mr. Gore." 
 
 " That's good ; it will almost double the work 
 we can do, because a diver must have rest," said 
 Gore. " Talking of rest, suppose you all turn in ; 
 it's turn out at sunrise to-morrow." 
 
 It was. We were all up and about before the 
 side-lights of the schooner were out next morn- 
 ing. The east was just turning to raspberry pink 
 as we sat down to breakfast in the small saloon, 
 and the dawn-wind was blowing the blue curtains 
 of the ports straight in. We had the Cecilie 
 under way as soon as it was clear enough to see 
 the coral reefs. The wind was in our favour, 
 and the journey was a short one. Before ten 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 237 
 
 o'clock we were in sight of the nameless atoll 
 island that Gore had pencilled upon our chart ; 
 and the secret of Schouten's pearls lay almost 
 in our grasp. 
 
 I suppose, when I come to think it out, that 
 very few people among the millions of the world 
 have ever seen an atoll, or know what it is like; 
 but it really seems strange to me — since those 
 days — that anyone should need a description. 
 So much have atolls and reefs and islands, barriers, 
 horse-heads and vigias, entered into my everyday 
 life since then, that I can scarce conceive of any- 
 one who does not know all about them. 
 
 Still. ... An atoll is a circular, or partly 
 circular, coral reef, enclosing an inner space of 
 shallow water. It may take the form of a mere 
 ring of foam in the sea ; it may again be a per- 
 ceptible belt of white rocks ; or it may — hke 
 Schouten's atoll — be an actual coral island shaped 
 like a ring : a garland of beautiful foliage edged 
 with whitest sand, encircling a clear green lake, 
 all set in the blue of the deep surrounding sea, 
 like a device in emeralds and ivory set in a turquoise 
 shield. 
 
 I could not help exclaiming when I saw it ; it 
 seemed to me the eighth wonder of the world 
 . . . but Red Bob and Isola both took it very 
 coolly ; nothing in the shape of coral was a novelty 
 
238 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 to either. The black crew, however, seemed 
 pleased at the sight ; one of them pointed to the 
 cocoanuts swinging aloft among the palms, and 
 explained in pigeon-English that this was a good 
 place, and that they wanted to stay there a long 
 time, and eat cocoanuts and fish. 
 
 " They're right about it's being a good place. 
 I never saw a likelier spot," said Gore. 
 
 " Nor I," agreed Isola practically. " Two to 
 twenty fathoms, I should think — sheltered water, 
 small passage through the reef, low island. . . , 
 Yes, it does look well." 
 
 We had the dingy out in no time, and brought 
 all the boys ashore with us, since there was safe 
 anchorage for the schooner, and we needed their 
 help with the gear. First of all. Gore produced 
 his water-glass — a kerosene-tin v^dth the ends 
 cut out, and a piece of window-glass substituted 
 — and we rowed into the middle of the lagoon in 
 the dingy, to make an inspection. Both Isola 
 and myself, by this time, were a good deal excited ; 
 I think we shouted to each other and to Gore, 
 and moved about in the boat more than was 
 absolutely necessary, hanging suicidally over the 
 gunwale, and trying to see where the shell was, 
 if any. Gore, meantime, with a countenance of 
 stone, was looking through the glass, lowering it 
 every now and then into the water, and inspect- 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 239 
 
 ing the bottom through the bit of window-pane 
 which gave him a clear view, unobstructed by 
 ripples. The light in the lagoon was blinding ; 
 the sand blazed like white-hot metal in a furnace, 
 the leaves of the palm-trees glittered as they 
 sv^oing, far up in the hard hot blue ; in the shallow 
 water where we were cruising about, the dancing 
 diamond-nets of sun and ripple were really too 
 bright to look at, and the water itself was warmer 
 than the air. 
 
 . . . Gore drew himself up from the gunwale, 
 and handed the glass to Isola. His face had 
 turned a little pale — or perhaps it was only the 
 green reflection from the sea. 
 
 " Look ! " he said. Isola seized the glass — 
 she was trembling with excitement by this time 
 — and buried her face in it. She came up again 
 in a moment, all pink. 
 
 "Paul, Paul, look!" she cried. "Oh, look 
 at the sheU ! " 
 
 Even at that moment I was not too much 
 excited to notice that she had called me by my 
 Christian name. 
 
 I took my turn, and there, on the sandy bottom 
 of the lagoon were the beds of pearl-shell — masses 
 of them, acres of them, it seemed. They glowed 
 in entrancing colours through the water — lilac 
 gnd purple and emerald-green — but I knew well 
 
240 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 enough that they would be plain grey when lifted 
 out of that deceiving medium. There they were, 
 set tight as dinner-plates, piled over and over on 
 each other, to I do not know what thickness — 
 an accumulation such as few pearl-seekers indeed 
 have seen, in these days of universal exploration. 
 
 We drifted slowly into shallower water, and 
 now no glass was needed. Undoubtedly, " Rica 
 de Perlas " if this were indeed the place, deserved 
 its name. 
 
 " It's a fortune," said Gore. " Half a dozen 
 fortunes. . . . Corbet, have you a cigar about 
 you ? " 
 
 " Only some cigarettes," I said, handing them 
 over. We all lit up, and smoked, drifting to and 
 fro about the still waters of the pearl lagoon 
 which were only moved by the slight current 
 setting out through the opening in the reef. 
 
 " There will be pearls," stated Gore, and I 
 thought, for a moment, I saw the famous red light 
 gleam in his eye. 
 
 " Oh, yes," agreed Isola, with the prettiest 
 air of professional knowledge. " Just the place 
 for big ones. Some of those shells look as if they 
 had been there for hundreds of years. Did you 
 see them, all crusty and worm-eaten and grown 
 over ? " 
 
 " I did," said Gore, drawing at my cigarette 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 241 
 
 rather as if he felt it insufficient. Suddenly he 
 turned to me. 
 
 " Paul Corbet," he said, " that mill-owning 
 father of yours was right when he said you had 
 no head for business. You haven't enough for 
 a third-grade clerk in a fourth-rate bucket- 
 shop." 
 
 " Why not ? " I asked. Isola looked rather hurt. 
 
 " Because," said Red Bob, taking the oars, and 
 beginning to pull back to shore with long, power- 
 ful strokes, " you've never yet had the sense to 
 ask me where you come in." 
 
 " I didn't know that I came in at all," was my 
 answer ; but all the same, I felt my heart begin- 
 ning to throb in quick, sharp beats. ... I could 
 see in a moment all that " coming in " might 
 mean to me — and to someone else — if only the 
 lions in the path could be scared away. 
 
 " You thought," stated Gore, " that I was 
 going to trust you absolutely, let you take your 
 share of risk and work, and give you just your 
 salary for it ? " 
 
 " I did," was my answer. 
 
 " I'm sorry, then, that you should have had 
 such a dashed poor opinion of me," was his reply. 
 Characteristically, he dropped the subject there, 
 and we rowed back to land, carried the dingy 
 across the strip of beach, and rejoined the waiting 
 
 i6 
 
242 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 boys on the far side, without any further refer- 
 ence to the matter. But all the same, I knew Red 
 Bob, and I knew that my days of dependence on 
 another were all but done. 
 
 We sailed the schooner into the lagoon, and 
 Gore got the diving gear and the pumping 
 machinery out. Shallow though the place was, 
 we needed the dress to work it ; and this set me 
 wondering how pearls and pearl-shells had been 
 obtained in the days before the diver's dress. 
 Gore was of the opinion that Schouten had 
 Eastern Pacific sailors with him when he visited 
 the place. They were good for anything up to 
 fifteen fathom, sometimes more, he said ; but 
 you had to pick New Britain boys very carefully 
 before you found any that were of real use. 
 
 Our two native divers, therefore, were not 
 wanted ; and they were sent back to the beach 
 while we got to work with the gear. The crew 
 and Bo seemed to enjoy their idle afternoon ; 
 they sat beneath the palm-trees, fishing, singing, 
 talking, and drinking green cocoanuts till dark. 
 If we had had an idea what their talk was 
 about. . . . 
 
 But I think we were all a little mad on pearls 
 that day, and nothing else found room in our 
 minds. I begged to be allowed to go down first, 
 and Isola promised to tend me herself. 
 
Red Bob of the Bismareks 243 
 
 " She may, while I watch her,'' said Gore 
 bluntly. " I'll not risk anyone's life on hear- 
 say." 
 
 I got myself into the diver's heavy woollens — 
 always necessary for under-water work in the 
 hottest climates — and Isola and Gore between 
 them pushed and pulled and shoved me into the 
 dress, which is not so easy to get into as it seems. 
 Then Gore, taking a wrench for buttonhook, 
 buttoned me up with engine-nuts. After that 
 he put the huge metal helmet and corselet on, 
 and screwed these also into place. I began to 
 wonder if, and how, I should ever get out of the 
 dress again. Followed a pair of boots with 
 twenty pounds of lead on the soles ; followed a 
 double locket round my neck, of eighty. 
 
 They had tied a rope round my waist some 
 time ago. (" Always put on the rope as soon 
 as your diver is into the dress," warned Gore, 
 and Isola said with dignity, " I know that ! ") 
 Now they slung the ladder over the side, and Gore 
 asked me : " Can you walk ? " 
 
 I could, just — but I felt like a fly that has 
 fallen into a treacle-pot, and can scarcely drag 
 its weighted limbs and wings along. 
 
 Gore told me what to do with the signal cord, 
 and how to manage the valve ; also how to land 
 on my feet, instead of on my head — a thing most 
 
 i6* 
 
244 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 beginners do. Then he helped me over the bul- 
 wark, and told Isola, " Screw him down ! " 
 
 It sounded like directions to an undertaker, 
 and — I must say — the screwing down, even 
 though Isola did it, felt as one would imagine 
 the same process would feel to a corpse, if the 
 latter retained any power of sensation. Red 
 Bob was taking no chances ; he watched the 
 girl narrowly as she screwed on the glass of my 
 helmet, shutting out the fresh sea-air, and closing 
 away all sound. I could see her and Gore now, 
 but I could not hear them ; their good-byes 
 were given in pantomime. . . ." In with the 
 coffin ! " I said to myself, and signalled to let 
 
 go- 
 
 With all that weight of lead, I landed on the 
 
 bottom like a bird coming home to a bough. 
 The makers of diving dresses know what they are 
 about. 
 
 It was dim and green down there, but there 
 was plenty of light enough to see the shell — to 
 see the schooner too, a dark hull hanging above 
 my head, with her cable stretching down from 
 the bows. It was not at all agreeable — this 
 diving. I felt swelled and asthmatic ; I could 
 not manage the valve easily, and my ears were 
 painful. However, these were trifles. I lifted 
 all the shell I could, put it in the sack I had 
 
Red Bob of the Bismareks 245 
 
 brought, and signalled " Pull up ! " It was 
 pulled up, emptied and lowered, and I filled it 
 again. I worked for twenty minutes or so, and 
 then found I was being hauled to the surface 
 
 " Long enough for the first time," said Gore, 
 and I found it was. I was glad to take off the 
 heavy gear and let him have his turn. 
 
 " Now you see the advantage of letting you 
 go down first," said Gore. " I've made sure that 
 I can trust Mrs. Ravenna with the tending, so 
 we can work in turn." 
 
 He went down next, and Isola, at the pump, 
 kept sharp look-out for signals, supplying the 
 air with the style of a practised hand. I spoke 
 to her once, but she answered gravely, " You 
 must not talk to a tender," and I was mute. 
 
 We worked for a good part of the day, with a 
 brief halt for lunch, and by the time the sun began 
 to climb down the sky, we had collected a splendid 
 heap of shell. 
 
 " Time to stop now," said Gore. " We've 
 both done all that amateurs could — or should — 
 do in a day." 
 
 He might have said that he had, for he had 
 been down three times to my one, using his great 
 strength to the utmost in gathering and sending 
 up the shell, at a rate that I could not hope to 
 rival. Strong as he was, I think he was weary. 
 
246 Red Bob of the Bismareks 
 
 But for all that he did not rest. Nothing would 
 do him but we must open our shell at once ; and 
 I was not inclined to balk him. 
 
 Pearl oysters are not like the oyster of 
 commerce ; they open almost at a touch, and 
 when you have slit the muscle the two halves 
 fall apart. With tin tubs and knives, we laboured 
 furiously till dusk, and our labour went not un- 
 rewarded. I cannot describe the excitement of 
 feeling for pearls in the slimy mantle of the fish 
 — of eagerly examining the shell for adherent 
 buttons or baroques — of closing the finger-tips 
 round something that felt like a gem, pulling it 
 out into the light, and finding — perhaps a dull 
 blob of chalky stuff, perhaps a bit of coral that 
 had got into the shell, perhaps a fair, round, 
 shining pearl, fit for the hand of a queen. It 
 was the bravest sort of hunting ! 
 
 Towards dusk, we put the unexamined shell 
 away in a heap by itself, threw the debris over- 
 board, and counted our gains. There were seven 
 large pearls of splendid lustre, each as big as a 
 marrowrfat pea ; there were thirty of medium 
 size, but good ; forty or fifty small ones, well 
 worth setting, and about a cupful of seed pearl. 
 
 I was just a shade disappointed with the after- 
 noon's work, for I had expected to find a pearl in 
 every shell, and a big one in every six or seven ; 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 247 
 
 but Red Bob said it was incredible luck, and that 
 the place must be exceptionally rich. 
 
 " Never touched, either," he said, " that is, 
 not since Willem Corneliszoon got the pearls 
 for Helga Maria, who didn't marry him, here." 
 
 He put away the pearls in a Httle case of soft 
 leather, underneath his shirt, and went to the 
 bulwarks to shout at the crew. 
 
 " Time they came over," he said. " We may 
 as well get these decks washed up and 
 have tea." 
 
 The crew had the dingy with them, and I saw 
 them shove her down the sand, and get into her. 
 They rowed her carelessly, splashing about and 
 shouting. It struck me that they were what 
 one would call " a bit above their boots," and I 
 wondered for a moment if it was possible they had 
 smuggled any drink away with them. But, 
 remembering that the New Britain native is 
 seldom civilized enough to care for spirits, I 
 ascribed their gaiety to the effects of an after- 
 noon's liberty on shore. 
 
 I was just going below after Isola, when I was 
 startled by a burst of swearing from Red Bob. 
 I jumped back on deck, and saw the dingy 
 reared up on a coral " horse-head," and the crew, 
 with loud cries, swimming to the ship. 
 
 " They've stove her bottom in with their 
 
248 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 dashed fooHng ! " shouted Gore, rapping out 
 " language " as a Maxim raps out bullets. 
 
 They had ; and we were now reduced to the 
 yawl, a heavy, unhandy boat not well suited for 
 light ferrying about the lagoon. 
 
 " Keep that girl below while I talk to them," 
 ordered Red Bob, once more showing the danger- 
 signal in his eye. " There's more in this 
 than " 
 
 I heard no more, for I was anxious to spare 
 Isola the scene that I knew would follow. In a 
 moment I was down the companion, and rapping 
 at the door of her tiny cabin. She came out at 
 once. 
 
 " What is it ? " she asked. 
 
 " Mr. Gore is talking to the boys ; don't be 
 alarmed," I said. 
 
 " I did not hear " she began, and then 
 
 broke off, for such a tornado of sound arose on 
 deck as drowned both our voices. Gore's great 
 voice, bellowing the language of the sea — wild, 
 cannibal yells from five terrified savages — stamp- 
 ing, scurrying and thumping all round and round 
 the decks — the sound of heavy blows from a 
 rope, coupled with requests to " take that ! " and 
 assurances that the operator meant to " teach " 
 several persons unnamed to lose good boats — an 
 offer that, under the circumstances, seemed at 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 249 
 
 least superfluous — all this, breaking at once like 
 a thunderstorm over our heads, was enough to 
 bewilder and terrify any girl, even one brought 
 up in the wild, equatorial lands. . . . 
 
 " Come into the cabin," I shouted in her ear, 
 trying to engage her attention — for Red Bob 
 was talking very freely. " They've lost the 
 dingy, and Mr. Gore is a good deal annoyed 
 about it. Come and tell me what you think 
 about the pearls we've got." I drew her into 
 the cabin, and closed the door, to shut out the 
 noise from above. The storm, however, proved 
 a brief one. In a very few minutes, Gore came 
 down, rather out of breath, and looking 
 satisfied. 
 
 " I've put the fear of God into them," he 
 remarked. " They needed it." He took the 
 " Travels of Sir John Mandeville " from the box 
 that represented our library, and coiled his long 
 legs up on the locker tops, to read. 
 
 Next morning, to my astonishment, he did not 
 get out the diving gear again. Instead, he went 
 off in the yawl — the only boat we had besides 
 the dingy — to see what damage had been 
 done to the latter. He came back whistling 
 " La Donna e mobile " and looking notably 
 cheerful. This made me feel a trifle uneasy, 
 since I judged it to be an effect got up for the 
 
250 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 benefit of Isola, and I took the first opportunity 
 that presented itself of finding him alone. He 
 was still whistling " La Donna e mobile " — 
 very well, with variations. 
 
 " What's wrong ? " I asked, without preface. 
 
 Gore, sitting astride the old-fashioned wooden 
 bulwark, made no answer for a moment. He 
 went on whistling. Something seemed to have 
 put him in spirits. And yet it was not exactly 
 spirits either. 
 
 I saw that he had taken his revolver out of its 
 holster, was unloading it, and replacing the 
 cartridges with fresh ones. 
 
 " Oh," I said. " So that's it." 
 
 " That's it," said Gore, continuing to whistle. 
 He threw the chambers of the revolver open 
 and shut two or three times, with a loose 
 movement of the wrist, and dropped a little 
 oil on the lock. 
 
 " How did you find out ? " I asked. It is a 
 curious fact that nothing whatever had been said, 
 and yet I knew mutiny was in the air as well as 
 I knew that the water of the sea was beneath the 
 deck on which I stood. 
 
 " Dingy looked like it," he said, dropping 
 the cartridges one by one into their chambers, 
 and snapping the breech shut. " It was a bit 
 too careless. She's useless, keel ripped off her 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 251 
 
 on the coral. And then, when I took the boat 
 over this morning — you might have observed 
 that I took all the crew v^ith me — I saw she had 
 been tampered with. Not much ; fellow who 
 did it must have been interrupted before he had 
 time to do any harm, and he wasn't clever on his 
 job, anyway. But there's been an attempt." 
 
 He had put the revolver into its holster now, 
 and was swinging one leg out over the water, 
 looking at the toe of his worn canvas shoe as he 
 did so. 
 
 " Why ! " I exclaimed, remembering the after- 
 noon when he had fastened the revolver belt 
 round Isola's waist, " you must have been 
 expecting something of the kind all along ? " 
 
 « Who— me ? Not exactly," said Gore. " Or 
 rather — perhaps. I think I did it on general 
 principles. No trusting these beggars." 
 
 " They seemed all right up to this," I said. 
 
 " That's when you want to watch 'em," said 
 Gore. " I've been thinking they were a bit too 
 biddable. Take my word for it, a New Britainer's 
 best when he's his natural self, and that's a 
 cheeky bounder." 
 
 There was a moment's silence ; the outgoing 
 tide rippled gurghngly against the schooner's 
 keel. 
 
 I stuck my hands deep down into my pockets. 
 
252 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " I wish to God she wasn't here," I said, 
 staring at the deck. 
 
 " Wishing to God or the devil either won't 
 make any difference now. We did what we 
 thought was the best thing. Also, the case isn't 
 particularly black. They have no firearms ; 
 we've warning that they mean to seize the 
 schooner and scrag us, and it's up to us not to 
 let them." 
 
 " What about the pearls ? " 
 
 " There," said Gore, inspecting the worn toes 
 of his shoe again and lifting it up to feel whether 
 his sock was really coming through, " there you 
 have the difficulty. The longer we stay in this 
 place, where either you or I must always be 
 awake and on watch, the more risk we run of a 
 surprise. And the more risk she runs." 
 
 " It's not to be thought of," I said, with my 
 blood running cold for all the heat of the morning. 
 
 " I judge not. Yet it does go against the grain 
 to turn and run for Friedrich-et cetera, just 
 because these black brutes have taken a turn that 
 I could belt out of them. If only " 
 
 " The risk's too great, for her." 
 
 " It is. . . . Well, the lagoon won't run away. 
 And to carry on with a job that keeps either you 
 or me out of the fighting line half the time, 
 with the one who's in the fighting line bound to 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 253 
 
 look after the one who isn't, or drown him — 
 that can't be done. Not — as things are." 
 
 Neither of us expressed regret at having Isola 
 with us — we should have been brutes if we had ; 
 but I think in the mind of Red Bob and myself 
 alike there was a bitter, unspoken longing to see 
 the thiilg out, " belt " the plotting crew into 
 another frame of mind, and work the lagoon, if 
 necessary, pistol in hand. . . . Well, that could 
 not be. What we had to do was to get back 
 to civilization, and return — when circumstances 
 allowed — with a better crew. 
 
 Armed as we were, we knew that we could keep 
 the brutes in hand through the ordinary work 
 of a voyage — it was the pearling that had become 
 impossible. 
 
 *' How are we going to explain things to 
 Isola ? " I asked. 
 
 " When in doubt, tell the truth," quoted 
 Red Bob. " She's no ninnyhammer of a girl." 
 
 " Curse the black beasts," I said, looking at 
 the group of sulky, bison-like savages squatted 
 on the small forecastle-head, smoking in turn from 
 a bamboo pipe, " I hate being done by them." 
 
 " So do I, my boy, but there's nothing else 
 for it. Tell Mrs. Ravenna to keep her revolver 
 on all the time ; but explain to her that there's 
 no real need for alarm. We'll take the ship 
 
254 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 out inside of an hour, make for Rabaul — it's a 
 good bit nearer than Frederickdashithaven — 
 and keep the crew too busy to hatch mischief. 
 If we can ship a decenter lot, we might finish 
 the job yet." 
 
 " But what about Isola ? You can't take her 
 back into Rabaul, where that Richter is." 
 
 " No," said Red Bob, " several times no. 
 Because, you see, if he can bring any evidence of 
 any residence together that may show something 
 like consent — why, then, an attempt to break 
 the marriage would not have much to stand on." 
 
 " I understand," I answered. " But — do you 
 think — can there be any way of breaking it ? " 
 
 " Never said there was," replied Red Bob. 
 " Also, I never said there was not. But if there 
 is, why the further off she is kept from Richter 
 the better. No, no taking her . . . visibly . . . 
 to Rabaul." 
 
 " Then what would you do ? " 
 
 " Easy as pie. Keep her dark till we ship a 
 crew, and then run her to an Australian port, and 
 board her out with someone reliable." 
 
 " I wish I had your head," I said. 
 
 " You haven't much of your own, it's true ; 
 still, I've met with young idiots I liked less. 
 Don't let the crew know you suspect anything ; 
 call them up and get the ship under way ; we 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 255 
 
 want to be well clear of these reefs before 
 dark." 
 
 I was going forward to do his bidding when 
 I was suddenly struck by something curious about 
 the aspect of the sky, as seen through the long 
 gap in the palms that was made by the entrance 
 to the atoll. Not all atolls have a break in the 
 ring, but one might say that most have, and 
 this was one of the majority. 
 
 " Look at that," I said, turning round. 
 
 Gore looked at it, and said something between 
 his teeth in Spanish. 
 
 " Is that a ' gooba ' ? " I asked. I had heard 
 something of these New Guinea blows — too big 
 for a squall, too small for a hurricane — but I had 
 not yet seen one. 
 
 " It is," said Gore, looking at the dark, parasol- 
 shaped cloud that was spreading upwards from the 
 horizon like some strange black dawn. " It is, 
 and we shan't get out to-night." 
 
 " What about the ship ? " 
 
 " Safe enough in here, unless she drags her 
 moorings, and she won't do that." He threw 
 a glance aloft to see that everything was safely 
 stowed. " We must make the best of it," he 
 said. " Keep a look-out while I go and search 
 the forecastle for knives and clubs. I took their 
 ordinary knives away this afternoon, but they 
 
256 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 probably have a second lot hidden away some- 
 where." 
 
 The thing happened so quickly that I cannot 
 tell it without becoming bewildered. I cannot 
 even now realize that the whole ghastly affair 
 did not occupy ten minutes from start to finish 
 — the first part of it scarcely one. At something 
 like five o'clock I was sitting quietly on the 
 coaming of the main hatch ; Isola had just come 
 up from the saloon and was looking with interest 
 at the " gooba " as it climbed the sky, Gore was 
 stooping to get in through the low, narrow hatch- 
 way of the forecastle where the crew slept and 
 kept their goods. The crew were smoking on 
 the forecastle-head. We had a sound ship under 
 us, full of goods and provisions, we were well 
 armed, and thought we were going to make a 
 safe and comfortable voyage down to Rabaul, 
 just keeping a little extra watch over our New 
 Britain savages. ... At ten minutes past five 
 we were homeless, wrecked, and cast away ; 
 Gore was wounded, I was defenceless, and 
 Isola 
 
 But let me tell the story as well as I can. 
 
 Gore, as I said, stooped down to enter the 
 forecastle. There were no men inside it, and 
 
Red Bob of the Bismareks 257 
 
 the crew, sitting up on the forecastle-head, 
 were some distance away and apparently busy 
 in the most peaceful fashion with their big 
 bamboo pipe. They took no notice of him or 
 of anything else, until he had finished his search 
 and was bending to come out again, with his face 
 turned towards the deck. Then, with a leap so 
 quick that it seemed as if he had suddenly doubled 
 himself, and appeared in two places at once, one 
 of them reached the break of the forecastle, and 
 struck at the back of Gore's skull with an iron 
 belaying-pin. 
 
 Quick as he was, I was a shade quicker. I had 
 my automatic pistol out of my belt before the 
 blow fell, and I aimed on the rise of the barrel. 
 ... It missed fire. 
 
 One thinks quickly in such moments. I had 
 time to remember Red Bob's warning against 
 the use of these pistols in equatorial countries 
 while I was tearing at the magazine and striking 
 the breech in one frantic effort to knock out the 
 jammed cartridge. Then I felt a revolver pushed 
 into my hand, and seized it without waiting to 
 look where it came from. I took the length 
 of the deck in three jumps, saw Red Bob lying 
 insensible on the planking, and shot the nigger 
 who did it clean through the head. Then I 
 seized Gore by the legs, and began dragging him 
 
 17 
 
258 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 ■ ■ ' ' ' , ., , 
 
 to the side of the ship, where the boat was. I 
 had one arm round him and Isola — I don't 
 know how she came there — and I pushed her 
 half behind me, as I backed to the side of the 
 ship. 
 
 '' Get over ! " I yelled. I had to yell, for the 
 six savages — Bo, our own man, among them — 
 were howling like devils let loose from hell. 
 Four of them had got tomahawks, which they 
 must have looted from the trade goods in the 
 hold, and kept hidden ; the others were armed 
 with iron belaying-pins from the rail. While 
 Isola was climbing down into the boat, I kept 
 the savages at bay with the revolver she had 
 handed me ; but it had only five shots left, and 
 there were six men. . . . 
 
 I was conscious that something was happening 
 besides the mutiny ; it did not, however, make 
 much impression on me, even though I felt a 
 sudden, fierce clap of wind and rain strike the 
 schooner and heel her half over, and though I 
 was drenched through in an instant, as if I had 
 been dipped in the sea. I was too much engaged 
 with my six New Britainers, who, wise fighters 
 that they were, were rapidly spreading them- 
 selves out into a fan with the intention of 
 scattering my fire, and, no doubt, of surrounding 
 me. I got two of them in two shots, and missed 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 259 
 
 the third, because the schooner at the moment 
 of my pulling the trigger gave a fearful leap 
 like a wounded horse. The fourth shot was 
 never fired. I had not had time to aim before 
 we were all flung to the deck by a crash that 
 shook every timber in the Cecilte, and that was 
 instantly followed by a torrent of sea-water 
 washing from end to end. The ship recovered 
 a little, after the shock, rose slightly, and seemed 
 to shake the water off her decks as a dog might 
 shake itself ; but again she staggered, beat herself 
 on the cruel reef that we had struck, and 
 smothered the waist and forecastle in foam. 
 
 " We've struck — she's dragged " I cried, 
 
 I do not know to whom, for Isola was in the boat 
 below, and Red Bob was still lying without life 
 on the deck, rolling to and fro like a corpse. 
 The lash of the " gooba " almost knocked me 
 down again as I rose ; rain was coming straight 
 along through the air like a river lifted off the 
 ground ; the calm lagoon was a mass of beaten 
 foam, and the palm-trees bent to the gale like 
 fishing-rods when a fish pulls from below. The 
 four New Britain natives, terrified by the disaster 
 that they had brought on themselves (we learned 
 afterwards that they had been preparing a rapid 
 get-away by severing almost through the moor- 
 ings) began jumping up and down on the deck 
 
 i7« 
 
260 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 and crying out pitifully. They even attempted 
 to rush the boat, while I dragged Red Bob 
 over the bulwarks, but I dropped the first with 
 one of my two remaining cartridges, and the 
 rest, warned by his fate, kept off. The mutineer 
 spirit was all out of them now ; they saw they 
 were wrecked, and knew no swimmer could live 
 in the sea that was getting up. . . . 
 
 I never knew till weeks afterwards how much 
 thinking I did in the few seconds occupied in 
 getting Gore up to the gunwale of the boat, and 
 heaving him in. It was not plain to me then 
 why I beckoned to one of the mutineers to 
 accompany me ; but I did — it was the recreant 
 Bo, as things happened — and he seized the 
 chance eagerly. Over into the boat he went, 
 lowered her down with me, and launched her 
 into the white, boiling, battering sea below 
 the ship. 
 
 We were barely able to fend her off from the 
 hull, for the doomed Cecilie was rolling terribly, 
 but we got safely away and pushed off into the 
 storm. 
 
 It was already abating ; these " goobas " of 
 New Guinea are short and sharp. The rain was 
 passing over, the palm-trees lifting up their 
 battered heads a little, as we pulled over towards 
 the shore. By the time we reached it, the worst 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 261 
 
 of the " gooba " was fairly spent, and the waves 
 that ran up the strand were slackening in their 
 fierceness, so that we could beach the boat 
 without much trouble. But where was the 
 Cecilie P 
 
 Sunk, in the deepest part of the lagoon ; gone 
 to the bottom, with the five mutineers in her. 
 There was nothing to be seen, where the schooner 
 had lain ten minutes before, but a raffle of foam 
 breaking on a reef, and one small black head 
 fighting the waves. It did not fight long. 
 
 " Sark he catchum," yelled Bo, through the 
 wind, as the black point disappeared. I watched, 
 but there were no more. 
 
 When I turned round. Red Bob was sitting up 
 on the beach, very wet and sandy, feeling his 
 head. His fingers were red when they came 
 away. 
 
 " Did they get the ship ? " he inquired, with 
 perfect coolness, taking a dripping handkerchief 
 out of his pocket, and tying it round his head. 
 " I don't remember after someone knocked mc 
 over." 
 
 " She dragged, went on the reef and sank," I 
 said. " They must have meddled with the 
 cable.'' 
 
 " You all right ? " inquired Red Bob of Isola, 
 who was sitting on the sand beside him. 
 
262 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " Yes," said Isola. " I've got no clothes," she 
 added, " except these." 
 
 " Tie that knot for me, will you ? " said Gore. 
 " Crew all gone ? " 
 
 " All except Bo, I brought him along," I said. 
 
 " Right. We'll want him before we're 
 through. I hope the boat wasn't lowered stern 
 foremost, and the stores spilled." 
 
 " Stores ? " I asked. " She was got down all 
 right." 
 
 " I don't," said Gore, " allow boats to be kept 
 unprovisioned in any ship that I command. 
 That's common sense. We have two beakers of 
 water, a keg of beef, a ten-pound tin of biscuit, 
 a pound of tobacco, pound of tea, packet of 
 matches, sealed in tin, compass and box of 
 quinine." 
 
 " Then we can make for the nearest settle- 
 ment ? " I said. 
 
 " We can. The * gooba ' seems to be over." 
 
 Here Isola, to my astonishment, burst out 
 laughing. 
 
 " I can't — can't — help it," she said, half 
 giggling, half sobbing. " It seems too absurd. 
 We've been shipwrecked — and all sorts of awful 
 things have happened — and here we are sitting 
 under the palm-trees talking like a tea-party." 
 
 " What way do you think we ought to talk ? " 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 263 
 
 asked Red Bob. " I've been shipwrecked before, 
 and it was pretty much the same as this. Do 
 you expect people to say * Gadzooks ' and ' By 
 my halidom,' because they've been spilled out 
 of a ship ? " 
 
 " Me want my kai-kai," observed Bo, by way of 
 diversion. The rain was quite over now, and the 
 ruffled lagoon was sobbing itself to sleep like a 
 naughty child. 
 
 " Do you realize, my friend, that you did your 
 best to commit piracy and murder half an hour 
 ago ? " demanded Gore. " Do you under- 
 stand that you ought to be hung, if there was a 
 tree on the island that one could hang you to — 
 cocoanuts having no hangable branches ? " 
 
 " Me wantum kai-kai," repeated Bo, unmoved. 
 
 Only people who have been through like ad- 
 ventures will believe me, I suppose, when I say 
 that all three of us burst out laughing at the New 
 Britainer's cool demand. 
 
 " He's quite right, it's near tea-time," com- 
 mented Gore, " You go catchum cocoanut, 
 plenty quick ! " 
 
 " Never," he advised, " let anything interfere 
 with your regular meals if you can help it ; not 
 even a shipwreck. Bo, you go and catch plenty 
 crab when you finish. We'll make you earn your 
 living — ^you scurvy brute." 
 
264 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " Me no brooss," complained Bo, as he moved 
 away, his amour propre being apparently wounded 
 by the epithet. The New Britainer is curiously 
 touchy on the question of personal abuse, what- 
 ever he may have done to earn it. 
 
 Everything we had on was wet through, and 
 there was no possibility of sun-drying for to-day, 
 but Gore, with the matches out of the boat, 
 and wood from underneath a fallen palm, had a 
 fire going before long, and we dried ourselves 
 at that as well as we could. He declared his 
 wound was nothing, and Isola, when she had 
 examined and washed it carefully for him, gave 
 it as her verdict that the bone was not in any 
 way damaged. By the light of the fire we sat 
 down to feed, looking, I suppose, very like an 
 ordinary picnic-party, and afterwards Bo was 
 made to dig a big hole in the sand for shelter 
 from the wind. 
 
 " There'll be no more rain to-night," said 
 Gore ; and he proved right. It was a fine night 
 of stars ; the lagoon was as still as a marble tank 
 in a palace ; as we lay in the shelter of the pit, 
 protected by the sails of the boat, we could hear 
 the fish leap in the water, and the ripples talking 
 strangely on the sand. Isola, at her end of the 
 shelter, seemed to rest quietly, but once in the 
 night she sat suddenly up, made as if to throw 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 265 
 
 back the long hair that she had shorn away, and 
 cried out : " Paul, why did you kill them ? 
 There's blood on your hands ! " 
 
 I watched her, but did not answer, for I saw 
 that she still slept. She sank back on the sand in 
 another moment, and her eyes closed again. 
 There was some night-bird hidden among the 
 palms ; it waked up and cried for a little while 
 in a complaining, bitter tone. Then it was 
 silent ; and the ripples whispered strange wicked 
 secrets to each other on the beach, and the sea 
 breathed deep, outside the barrier reef. I 
 thought the morning would never come ; but 
 it came at last, low and red among the palm 
 trunks, and our castaway life had begun. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 " IVfEU KONIGSBERGSHAFEN is the 
 ^ ^ place," said Red Bob, as we sailed 
 out of Schouten's ill-starred lagoon, leaving 
 the bones of the Cecilie and the bones of her 
 destroyers lying side by side at the bottom of the 
 sea. " With a fair wind, we aren't three days 
 from the coast of New Britain — wrong coast, of 
 course, not the settled side, but it'll do at a pinch. 
 Neu Konigsbergshafen is a settlement, or rather a 
 plantation, where we can refit and get provisions ; 
 after that, if there is no ship likely to call, we could 
 go on to Rabaul round the head of the island, 
 and if we wanted to get Mrs. Ravenna away 
 without any bother, why, she'd only have to get 
 herself up a la Malay again for a couple of days." 
 " Who lives at Neu Konigsbergshafen ? " 
 asked Isola. 
 
 " Beyer, rather a good friend of mine. He 
 grows rubber and copra, and a bit of coffee. 
 Very lonely place, no other white man for fifty 
 or sixty miles — but as pretty a spot as you'd like 
 
 266 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 267 
 
 to see. Beyer has a wife ; half-caste woman, 
 but a decent sort. She'll look after Mrs. Ravenna. 
 You'll be a little cramped running down to the 
 coast," he said, turning to Isola with a kindly 
 smile, " but we'll do our best for you ; there's 
 no man alive who wouldn't do his best, and a bit 
 more, for such a plucky girl as you." 
 
 " She is brave," I said proudly — somehow, 
 since Gore's talk about possibilities of breaking 
 the marriage, I had felt more than ever that I 
 had an actual right to be proud of her. " She's 
 as good as another man in the boat." And 
 indeed it was useful to have a third hand to steer, 
 or help with the sails when necessary. Bo, a 
 house-boy pure and simple, proved very little 
 use. With the amazingly brief memory of the 
 savage he had quite forgotten the part he had 
 taken in the mutiny, and though our memories 
 were longer, we chose to forget it too, since we 
 thought he might be valuable to us in many ways 
 while coasting along New Britain. 
 
 We rigged up a little shelter for Isola, and did 
 our best to make her as comfortable as circum- 
 stances permitted during the voyage. I do not 
 really think she felt the boat journey to be a 
 serious hardship. In the first place, it was not 
 long — we were extraordinarily lucky in the matter 
 of wind, and the yawl proving a good sailer, we 
 
268 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 sighted the coast of New Britain in two days 
 and a half. Further, she had been accustomed 
 for many weeks to roughing it in our company, 
 and at the best, though a thoroughly refined girl, 
 was no fine lady. Gore and I ran the boat in 
 turns, gave out the rations and kept a look-out 
 for sails, of which we saw and expected to see 
 none. As for Bo, he spent his time between 
 sleeping at the bottom of the boat, and begging 
 for tobacco — of which we gave him little, not 
 knowing how long it might be before we could 
 get any more ourselves. 
 
 About the middle of the third day, a long blue 
 cloud arose in the horizon, and for the second 
 time — but under what altered circumstances ! 
 — ^we approached the coast of the great island of 
 New Britain. Coming on it from this side 
 and in such a way, one realized its size better than 
 one did from the steamer approach to Rabaul. 
 
 " Four hundred miles or so in length, isn't 
 it ? " I said, looking at the long panorama of 
 peaks and ranges unfolding as we sailed in. " Is 
 it fertile country ? " 
 
 " Plant an old shoe in it, and it'll come up a 
 crop of Wellington boots inside of six weeks," 
 was Gore's reply. " Healthy ? Very fair, for 
 the tropics. Good rainfall, magnificent forests, 
 hill country, plain country, rivers, ranges, 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 269 
 
 minerals. Harbours by the dozen. Fine place 
 for road-making ; New Guinea's a bit of a 
 problem in that way, but the Germans have 
 motor-roads along quite a lot of the New Britain 
 coast, and here and there inland. 
 
 " Is it settled pretty well ? Bless you, no, 
 nor explored. Nothing known about the natives 
 in the far interior except that they are brutes. 
 Why ? Ask the Kaiser. They've only had a 
 quarter of a century at it, you know. In another 
 two hundred years, they'll be getting quite a 
 move on, I dare say." 
 
 We ran in and on towards the great island, the 
 boat flying under all sail as if she were as hungry 
 for ihe land as we undoubtedly were ; and soon I 
 began to see that Gore's description of Neu 
 Konigsbergshafen was not unjustified. It was 
 a beautiful, a sweet and gentle-looking spot. 
 The cruel loveliness of New Guinea was not 
 here, nor the dark, wet picturesqueness of vol- 
 canic Rabaul. This coast was vivid blue and 
 green, with sloping peaks, not too high, and 
 pleasant grassy lawns running down from the 
 mountain spurs to the sea. It had not the 
 frowning massiveness of the German Guinea coast 
 — the tier on tier of the black, high ranges, leaping 
 behind one another into the very vault of heaven, 
 and barring off the interior with a Titan wall of 
 
270 Red Bob of the Bismareks 
 
 rock and precipice and densely tangled forest. 
 No, here one could almost sense the narrowness 
 of the long, indented island, feel its accessibility, 
 and understand, with its deep, fine harbours and 
 rich coast-lands, that it might mean much to 
 commerce some day. 
 
 " What a parrot-coloured place ! " was Isola's 
 comment as we ran towards Neu Konigsbergs- 
 hafen bay. She was right. The wondrous blue 
 of those rounded hills was parrot blue, the green 
 of the lawns and the forests and the springing 
 palms was just that vivid powdery green that one 
 sees on a parrot's wings. The bay itself was 
 paved with still water in colour like a huge 
 emerald, and the coral-sand shore curved about 
 it, white as a crescent moon. 
 
 " It is very, very pretty, but not so pretty as 
 my ' Banda Neira,' " said the girl, looking with 
 wide, dark eyes at the scimitar-shaped beach, and 
 the tall, leaning palms that hung over it. 
 
 " Master, be good place this, but plenty bad 
 boy he stop along here," declared Bo, raising 
 himself from the bottom of the boat to look about 
 him. " I no savvy that fellow bushman stop 
 here. I too much fright along him." 
 
 " By and by you too much fright along me ; 
 you hold your tongue," was Gore's reply. I 
 could see he did not want to alarm Isola unneces- 
 
Red Bob of the Bismareks 271 
 
 sarily. Bo squatted on the gunwale, holding 
 on with his black toes like a monkey, and stared 
 hard at the place, as we came up. He was chew- 
 ing tobacco, and he spat and spat continually in 
 the water, with a vigour that seemed to be the 
 expression of some unspoken feeling. 
 
 Who does not know the New Britain and New 
 Guinea natives does not know or guess how 
 much can be expressed after this simple and 
 disgusting fashion. Bo's spitting, it seemed to 
 me, was of a kind entirely unfavourable to Neu 
 Konigsbergshafen. 
 
 There was a little pier of piled white coral 
 rock built out into the deepest part of the bay. 
 We ran the boat up to this, tied up, and most 
 thankfully disembarked. Even two days in an 
 open boat is enough to stiffen the limbs, and weary 
 the mind with a feehng of confinement. Isola's 
 first action on getting to shore was characteristic. 
 She went straight to a frangipani tree, buried 
 her face in its clusters of creamy, perfumed stars, 
 and said, " The darlings ! how I have missed 
 them ! " Her hands were full of blossoms in 
 another minute ; she was sticking them in her 
 hair, dropping them down her dress, smelling 
 them, all but eating them. 
 
 " Missus he plenty like along 'em frowers," 
 observed Bo, looking at her in some astonishment 
 
272 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " That one he no good for kai-kai, Missus, one- 
 fellow waster (oyster) he more better. Plenty 
 stop." 
 
 Indeed, the rocks up to high water were covered 
 with fine edible oysters. Bo was anxious to stop 
 and sample them at once, and we told him he 
 might do so, as we wanted someone to stay with 
 the boat while we went up to the plantation. 
 New Britain natives are very thievish, and it was 
 ten to one we might find all movables taken out 
 of the yawl if we left her without any guard. 
 So we gave Bo a tomahawk for protection, and 
 charged him not to let any of the plantation boys 
 approach the boat. 
 
 " Of course, they're tamed and civilized boys 
 on a plantation, more or less," said Gore ; " but 
 I wouldn't trust them near my stores." 
 
 We left the pier behind, passed through the 
 belt of cocoanuts that circled the bay, and came 
 out on a most lovely avenue of shorn grass, 
 bordered by magnificent flowering trees. There 
 were coral trees, like bouquets of scarlet geranium, 
 forty feet high and fifty feet across ; kapok trees, 
 with flowers like golden stars, and hard brown 
 pods upon their branches, bursting open to show 
 the silky- white cotton within. There were 
 frangipanis, mangoes, green as nothing but a 
 mango tree can be ; trees like an acacia, with 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 273 
 
 drooping flowers of pink and white ; trees that 
 I could not and cannot tell the name of, but 
 that were as tall as an English lime, and had 
 bunches of blossom like heliotrope in appearance, 
 smelling like new-mown hay. All these had been 
 planted about the same time, perhaps eight years 
 before, and set in two orderly ranks along the 
 cleared ground leading to the house. In the 
 New Britain climate, five years will make you a 
 glorious avenue at any time. This was more 
 than glorious. We all exclaimed with ad- 
 miration when we saw it. 
 
 The walk up to the house was a pretty long one, 
 and we had time to notice, as we went, that the 
 place seemed to be holidaying, for not a boy was 
 at work on any part of the plantation. The 
 shining rows of coffee bushes looked rather ill- 
 weeded ; somebody had carelessly abandoned 
 hoes and clearing-knives here and there among 
 them, and the iron was red with rust. Among 
 the star-shaped avenues of rubber, radiating out 
 towards the horizon every way one looked, 
 there was no one busy tapping the trees ; no 
 small white-metal cans were hung against the 
 trunks, filling up with milky latex. The door 
 of the copra house was shut ; a great heap of 
 unopened cocoanuts was piled up against it. 
 And still there were no boys. 
 
 i8 
 
274 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 I began to feel that there was something about 
 this I did not altogether like. 
 
 We walked on up to the house, which was a 
 neat little wooden bungalow with an iron roof 
 hidden away in a cluster of mango trees. Here, 
 at least, it seemed there was someone, for the 
 door was open, and fowls were clucking and 
 strutting about in a pleasant, homely way. Gore 
 took a step aside, and cast a look at their feed- 
 dish. It was empty and scraped, and the water 
 trough had not a drop in it. 
 
 " Wait a bit," he said, and carried the trough 
 to a tank. The fowls collected about him, 
 clucking wildly. He filled the trough, and they 
 fought with one another to get at it. He stood 
 watching them narrowly. 
 
 " How kind you are to animals," said Isola, 
 looking at him with simple admiration. 
 
 " Do you think," she went on, putting her 
 hand up to her head, which was covered only by 
 a hat of rudely. plaited palm leaves, and looking 
 down at her stained and tattered dress, " do you 
 think Mr. Beyer's wife will be able to spare me 
 some clothes ? I feel such a disgraceful object 
 that I'm almost ashamed to go in and ask 
 her ! " 
 
 " Suppose you don't," said Gore, catching 
 quickly at the suggestion '' Suppose you stop 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 275 
 
 here for a minute with Corbet, while I go up 
 to the house and tell the Beyers we're coming. 
 Then, if you feel very badly about being seen by 
 strangers in such a state, I'll bring you down 
 a dress." 
 
 " Thank you," said Isola. " How kind you 
 always are ! " 
 
 " Stay here with her," said Gore, throwing 
 me a glance. I stayed. We sat down on the 
 edge of the trough — for our legs felt shaky 
 after the days in the boat — and I tried hard not 
 to remain silent. I tried to talk about every- 
 thing — about the avenue, the pretty situation 
 of the house, the range of bright blue hills 
 behind, the fowls, the rubber trees. . . . Isola 
 kept breaking in with remarks about Beyer and 
 his wife, what they could give us in the way of 
 clothes and food, whether there would be a 
 schooner along presently or not, but I talked 
 fast and answered nothing. I think she must 
 have felt me rather rude. 
 
 Presently Gore came out of the verandah, and 
 walked down the steps. He seemed out of breath, 
 as if he had been doing hard work. 
 
 " Lord, I am hot," he said, and made straight 
 or the tank, where he stayed, running the water 
 over his hands and arms for quite a little while. 
 Then he came up to us. 
 
 i8* 
 
276 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " I'm sorry to say," he said, " the Beyers 
 aren't here. They seem to have gone away." 
 
 " Gone ? Where to ? " asked Isola dis- 
 appointedly. 
 
 " I can't say. Gone for good, I should 
 think." 
 
 " Gone home, you mean ? " 
 
 " I suppose so," said Gore, without looking 
 at her. " Yes, I should think they have. The 
 place will no doubt be taken over by someone 
 else. It's disappointing, but people are apt to 
 come and go suddenly in these places. It isn't 
 as civilized as your Banda Neira." 
 
 " What are we going to do ? " asked Isola. 
 Her pretty, pale face was a shade paler with dis- 
 appointment ; I could see how she had counted 
 on this little oasis of civilization, though she was 
 too plucky to complain when it was snatched 
 from her. 
 
 " Borrow a few things, and get back to the 
 boat," answered Gore. " You can come in, 
 if you like. The house is almost all locked 
 up." 
 
 I thought I had heard his feet tramping 
 through more rooms than one while we were 
 waiting outside, but I made no comment. I 
 knew by some unnamed sense that Red Bob 
 was anxious to have a word apart with me, and 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 277 
 
 all my wits were engaged in getting it. Isola 
 was walking up the path to the house, pausing 
 now and then to admire the bushes of flowering 
 plants that had been set on each side of the 
 path. I stayed aside for a minute, and asked : 
 " What is it ? " 
 
 Gore, with his eyes narrowed till they looked 
 more than ever like a cat's, told me in a word ; 
 and the sunlight of the glorious day seemed to 
 die out in horror as he spoke. 
 
 " Beyer and his wife and child are murdered. 
 . . . Must have been done about a week. I 
 got the bodies into a back room, and locked the 
 door. She needn't suspect anything. Take 
 some clothes and food, and come as fast as you 
 can lick down to the beach. I'm going to see 
 if the boat's all right. We oughtn't to have 
 left her, but one couldn't guess. . . . Keep 
 Isola out of sight of the avenue. If the boat's 
 all right, she need know nothing. Don't delay ; 
 there's no knowing where they may be." 
 
 With the last words on his lips he was away 
 down the avenue again, running as few men of 
 his height could have run. I followed Isola 
 on to the verandah, full of uneasiness as to what 
 she might see or suspect. But there was nothing. 
 The living-room into which we entered was 
 tidy ; the furniture undisturbed. This did not 
 
278 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 surprise me, as I knew that the natives would 
 steal nothing but food and weapons ; but I 
 feared to enter any of the bedrooms or pantries. 
 And yet food was absolutely necessary if we 
 were to continue our boat voyage round into the 
 settled districts, perhaps weeks away. 
 
 Isola, knowing nothing, ran in and out every- 
 where, trying the locked doors, exploring the 
 verandahs, and even, to my horror, peeping in 
 through the closed windows here and there. 
 
 " They've shut nearly everything up," she said, 
 " but they are careless people ; they've left the 
 sitting-room and pantry open. Or perhaps some 
 of the boys got at the locks." 
 
 " Take what you want in the way of clothes, 
 and come on," I said. " Gore told us not to 
 — ^not to — miss the tide." 
 
 There was a heap of woman's apparel thrown 
 down roughly in the sitting-room ; Gore, I 
 judged, had put it there. While Isola was 
 turning over the things, filling the deadly silence 
 of the house with her gay chatter as she did so, 
 I busied myself among the few things that were 
 left in the pantry, and flung what I could get 
 into an empty flour-bag. There was not much ; 
 I could see the place had been looted, but the 
 looting had been very hurriedly done, and there 
 were^tins of one thing and another fallen behind 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 279 
 
 parcels, or lying on the floor. I took them all, 
 and stood a moment listening. The heat of 
 the little iron room was terrible ; I had to mop 
 the streams of perspiration that ran down my 
 forehead as I stood. Isola had stopped talking ; 
 I guessed she was trying on clothes. The fowls 
 clucked and scratched in the yard ; a low-lying 
 mango branch swept back and forwards upon 
 the iron roof of the house with a sleepy, soothing 
 noise. There was not a sound. I gathered 
 up my sack and prepared to start. 
 
 At that moment I heard a fierce, indignant 
 shriek from a big sweet-chestnut tree near the 
 house — the cry of the white cockatoo that is 
 common in all these islands. I remembered 
 that these wild cockatoos always cry out at the 
 approach of strangers. Were strangers approach- 
 ing, and who ? 
 
 " Come on," I said to Isola. " I can't wait 
 another minute. Gather up your things ; we'll 
 have to trot." I was in agony to get her out 
 of the place. 
 
 " What a nuisance you and your tides are ! " 
 she answered playfully. " Well, I'm not sorry 
 to get out of the place, for it's the stuffiest house 
 I ever was in. I don't think your Germans can 
 have kept it very clean. Pooh ! " She wrinkled 
 up her nose. 
 
280 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " Come on, come on," I said. " We'll take 
 hands and run." 
 
 We did, carrying our loot in each disengaged 
 hand ; Isola, strange to say, suspected nothing. 
 She told me afterwards that she thought there 
 might be another " gooba " coming, and that 
 we were anxious to get off without alarming her. 
 At all events, she half ran, half walked with me 
 all the way down to the beach, and asked no 
 questions. 
 
 We were met by Gore. His face was so 
 impenetrable that I knew disaster had struck us 
 yet again. 
 
 " Where's the boat ? " I asked. 
 
 " Gone," he replied. " No trace of Bo 
 either. Clear case of New Britain natives on 
 the job." 
 
 " What are we going to do ? " I asked, feeling 
 that we were indeed in a very tight place. Isola 
 looked inquiringly from one to the other. 
 
 " We have the choice of two things," said 
 Gore. " Stay here till the inquiry comes along, 
 which may be to-morrow, and may be in six 
 months ; or start and walk to the nearest settle- 
 ment." 
 
 Isola still watched our faces. She saw by this 
 time that something had happened ; but she 
 had been through too much in the last few weeks 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 281 
 
 to make the woman's common mistake of asking 
 premature questions. 
 
 " How far would that be ? " I asked. 
 
 " I think about a hundred and twenty miles." 
 
 " Is there any road ? " 
 
 " No. Couldn't keep on the shore all the 
 way ; we'd have to branch inland every now and 
 then. There's a third way, but ... It would 
 be a big job." 
 
 " If you are thinking of me," said Isola, speak- 
 ing for the first time ; " you needn't be uneasy. 
 I can walk splendidly, and I will do anything 
 you tell me." 
 
 " Well, then ! " said Red Bob, glancing at her 
 approvingly, " we'll chance it. If we can do 
 something between thirty and forty miles of 
 bush, mostly unknown, in the few days before our 
 provisions give out, we can come down on one of 
 the settled districts at the other side of the island. 
 It takes one through country that has a pretty 
 bad reputation, but " 
 
 " If Mr. Corbet is with me — and you, of 
 course," broke in Isola, " I'm not afraid of any- 
 thing. Paul is so brave. And, of course, so 
 are you." 
 
 Even in the straits we were in Red Bob's eyes 
 twinkled a little over her " of course." 
 
 " We'll do our little best," he said. He took 
 
282 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 out his compass, and looked long and thought- 
 fully at the blue range lifting above us. 
 
 " I see the pass," he pronounced. " Lucky 
 for me I have New Britain in my head. . . • 
 Well, little lady, you're going to be an explorer, 
 it seems. Few women have so much luck." 
 
 " When shall we start ? " she asked. " Do 
 you mean to go right off to-morrow ? " 
 
 " I mean to look for the boat, and if we don't 
 find it, go now," answered Bob. " I have an 
 idea that this is not exactly a healthy place to 
 stop in." 
 
 He forgot, I think, the quickness of the mind 
 he was dealing with. Isola turned pale, and 
 looked at him. 
 
 " Mr. Gore, did you tell me the truth about 
 those Beyers ? " she asked. 
 
 " I did." 
 
 " That they had gone home ? " 
 
 " Yes. Don't you worry about them." 
 
 " What — home did you mean ? " 
 
 " The one you do," said Gore, giving in to 
 the inevitable. " Now, now ! who's going to 
 cry ? Where's our brave explorer who is afraid 
 of nothing ? We can't help them ; their troubles 
 are over. We've ourselves to look after." 
 
 " I didn't mean to," said the girl, struggling 
 against the horror of the situation, " but you 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 283 
 
 don't know — there was a baby's little shoe among 
 the things. Did they " 
 
 " Yes," said Gore plainly. " That's enough. 
 Think no more about it. Come here and help 
 Corbet and me to sort out our provisions." 
 
 She choked a little in her handkerchief, and 
 then pulled herself together bravely, and began 
 to lay out the stores on the flat sand of the beach. 
 We looked at them critically. There was enough 
 and to spare, as far as loading went ; whether 
 enough for our journey, time alone could tell. 
 
 Gore divided the tent caHco, the axes, the 
 meat and biscuits carefully, loading himself 
 with forty pounds of food and me with twenty- 
 five. I had found a few boxes of cartridges 
 among the things abandoned in the pantry, and 
 these we divided between us. Isola, at her earnest 
 request, was given the three blankets to carry. 
 
 " I could carry twice that load, and not feel 
 it," I told Red Bob. 
 
 " Could you ? " he said dryly. " You don't 
 know much about conditions for travel in this 
 part of the world. That delusion of being able 
 to do one's own carrying has made a good few 
 graves in the bush, over Papuasia. You take my 
 word for it, you've got all you'll want there." 
 
 We had worked as rapidly as we could, while 
 we were talking, and our packs were ready in a 
 
284 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 few minutes. Our arms consisted of two re- 
 volvers — Gore's and Isola's, which I carried 
 now ; a tomahawk apiece, and a knife in each of 
 our belts. We had each a husked cocoanut 
 for drinking and for carrying water in later on. 
 Our venture was in truth a desperate one, but 
 all that forethought could do, under the circum- 
 stances, had been done. It only remained to 
 search for the boat — a forlorn hope indeed. 
 While Gore went off to look, I stayed with Isola. 
 I think none of us were surprised when he 
 returned an hour later with a sinister piece of 
 news. The yawl was beached half a mile down, 
 and burned to ashes. 
 
 We were standing on the beach when the 
 preparations were completed ; the sun was 
 climbing down the western sky, and the waters 
 of the bay, cool green in the morning, were now 
 one sheet of blazing brass. There was not a 
 breath of wind to stir the drooping plumes of 
 the palm trees ; in the shallow water near the 
 shore you could see them reflected as in a glass. 
 It was astonishingly quiet ; even the birds in 
 the forest seemed to have ceased their chuckling 
 and calling, and the frogs in the marshy ground 
 below the palms, that had been bleating to each 
 other like goats when we came in, were now 
 still as death. 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 285 
 
 We stood and listened, and then from far off 
 came a sound that made my blood crisp in my 
 veins. It was only the call of a cockatoo — an 
 angry, frightened scream — but I knew, or thought 
 I did, what it portended. So did Red Bob ; 
 he swung round and led the way into the forest 
 without another word. 
 
 " Paul 1 " said a soft voice, almost in my ear. 
 
 I turned and saw Isola, like a dim ghost in the 
 dawn, wrapped in her blanket, and standing close 
 behind me. It was my watch, the last of the 
 night. Day was coming quickly. The fire of 
 the evening before, dead out, looked like a snow- 
 drift of ash beneath its sheltering log ; the pale 
 bamboo trunks showed like frosted silver. It 
 was a grey, ghostly hour, up here in the heart 
 of the unknown New Britain ranges, with the 
 memory of hardships and dangers scarcely passed 
 behind us, and the thought of new perils to 
 confront us with the coming day. 
 
 " What is it ? " I answered, laying my hand 
 instinctively on the butt of the revolver I wore 
 night and day. 
 
 " I am almost sure," she said, " that there's 
 someone hidden back in the bamboos. I heard 
 a creeping sound — didn't you ? " 
 
286 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " I thought so, but 1 couldn't be sure," I 
 answered. In these last few nights, when Gore 
 and I took turns to keep watch and watch over 
 our camp, I had learned what all night sentries 
 know — that you are apt occasionally to hear 
 sounds that do not exist. I had been listening 
 to the sound mentioned by Isola for some time, 
 and really could not make up my mind whether it 
 was fancy or not. But her words solved the doubt. 
 
 " Wake up Gore quietly," I said, covering 
 the clump of bamboo with my pistol. I heard 
 her steal behind me ; no other sound reached 
 my ear, but in two seconds Red Bob was standing 
 beside me, awake and ready. 
 
 " Natives ? " he said, in an almost soundless 
 whisper. 
 
 " I think so," I answered. We both remained 
 motionless for a minute or two, and then the 
 creeping sound began again. It seemed decidedly 
 nearer. 
 
 " Don't fire," whispered Gore. " Stop where 
 you are." 
 
 He Hstened again, bent forward like a wild 
 cat about to spring, and then made one tre- 
 mendous leap right into the brushwood. 
 
 The young bamboos cracked under his weight 
 like pencils ; the feathery foliage parted like 
 a wave when a diver springs into it head fore- 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 287 
 
 most. A fearful yell followed his leap, and a 
 struggle instantly began among the leaves, shaking 
 the bamboo clump to the very top of its limber, 
 hundred-foot-high stems. I could see black 
 legs waving among the green, but I did not 
 dare to fire, for fear I might hit Gore himself ; 
 the white and black seemed inextricably tied up 
 together. . . . Backwards, like a tarantula drag- 
 ging a hornet to its den, came Red Bob out of 
 the bush, hauling at something — something 
 black and very much agitated — something that 
 fought hard and howled loudly, first in native 
 and then in pigeon-English : 
 
 " Master ! master ! you lettem me go ! Master, 
 I no stealem you boat ! You no killem me ! " 
 
 It was Bo ! 
 
 Gore let go his legs, and he tumbled on the 
 ground, a heap of misery and fright. I suppose 
 we must have been a hard-hearted lot, for we all 
 three burst out laughing. It was the first laugh 
 we had enjoyed for many a day, and I think it 
 did us good. It seemed to do Bo some good, too, 
 for he sat up, dashed his bison-like shock of hair 
 out of his eyes, and said : 
 
 " You givem kai-kai, you givem kobacco. Me 
 want." 
 
 " You talk first," said Gore, standing over him. 
 ** What for you steal my boat ? " 
 
288 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " Fore God, master, I no stealem one-fellow 
 boat belong you. That black swine he stealem. 
 I no savvy fight that fellow, I see him come, very 
 quick I go another-fellow place. I think, more 
 better for me." 
 
 " Where he take my boat ? " 
 
 " He puttem fire along him, burn him alto- 
 gether. By-n-by he want to come back, kai- 
 kai altogether master, but master he been go away 
 too quick. Me come behind master all a way. 
 Me too much hungry, no catchem plenty thing 
 along booss." 
 
 It was getting light by now ; one could see 
 the shining of the dew on the bamboo stems, 
 fine as hoar-frost on a pane ; and the great flags 
 of the wild bananas glittered like a green velvet 
 robe a-sprinkle with diamonds. We had camped 
 for the night in a small bit of clearing on the top 
 of a ridge ; and now that the sun was up, we could 
 see, through gaps in the netted foliage, a wonder- 
 ful ocean of softly-swelling ranges, blue and 
 purple and warm green, thickly forested, like 
 those through which we had been cutting and 
 crawling our painful way for a whole toilsome 
 week ; furrowed deeply with river gorges and 
 here and there showing park-like spaces dotted 
 with solitary, stately trees, and clothed with 
 richest grass. One could hardlv believe that 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 289 
 
 some of these lovely lawns were not the work of 
 men — white men — and that one would not see, 
 by and by, some castled wall peeping up among 
 the swelling trees, or hear the sound of a hunting- 
 horn winding among the glades where the rivers 
 ran. 
 
 And yet ... no white man's eyes had looked 
 upon these hills and valleys until this day ; and 
 it was above all things likely that no others would 
 look upon them for many a year to come. We 
 knew what the barriers were through which we 
 had passed so far ; how that hard week's journey- 
 ing, on carefully doled-out food, had carried us 
 scarce twenty miles of the five-and-thirty we had 
 to cover ; how we had climbed slowly up and 
 down endless heights, cutting our way step by 
 step with the knives carried by Gore and myself ; 
 how we had tried for an easy road up river-beds, 
 and been turned back ; how we had been bogged 
 in sago swamps full of leeches and alligators, and 
 crossed river after river, dangerously, on single 
 logs thrown from bank to bank. These were 
 obstacles indeed ; and yet the worst was still 
 before us. The country ahead was the district 
 of the most danger, though easier to traverse 
 than that through which we had passed, was the 
 district of the most dangerous natives in New 
 Britain — natives who had massacred and killed 
 
 «9 
 
290 Red Bob of the Bismareks 
 
 more than one party of missionaries and recruit- 
 ers — and we could scarcely hope to avoid coming 
 into collision with them. So far, through Gore's 
 wonderful knowledge of New Britain (scanty as 
 it was, it was more than any other white man at 
 that time possessed), we had been able to pick out 
 a route that took us through thinly inhabited 
 places, and the few natives we had seen had not 
 been hostile — indeed, they had been willing to 
 trade a little, and had sold us certain invaluable 
 bundles of yams for a little of our tobacco. 
 But now we were approaching the districts that 
 were specially fertile and desirable, according 
 to native ideas, and we knew well that there would 
 in all probability be trouble before we got across 
 to the white men's settlements. 
 
 Under the circumstances. Bo was really a 
 godsend. He was not to be trusted for guard 
 duty, but he could carry, get water, build fires, 
 and in other ways save Gore and myself from 
 unnecessary work ; a matter of much import- 
 ance, when each one of us was going simply 
 " on his pluck," as they used to say — how long 
 ago it seemed ! — in Flanagan's gymnasium where 
 the fights came off. 
 
 If I said that Isola had kept her beauty through 
 this terrible march I should be telling a lie. 
 She had not ; she was thin, worn, and yellow. 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 291 
 
 No woman can keep her looks when she is worked 
 to the uttermost point, and poorly fed to boot. 
 For the sake of the whole party, Gore had asked 
 from her the uttermost she could do, since her 
 pace must necessarily be the pace of all, and she 
 had nobly responded. Not a word of complaint 
 had left her lips since we started, even though 
 I knew her to be so weary every night that she 
 moaned and sighed in her sleep. 
 
 I should never have had the heart to drive her 
 on as Red Bob did — to see her stumble with 
 weariness when we came near camping-time, 
 and to take her by the hand and simply help her 
 on, instead of letting her lie down and rest, as 
 her tired, dark eyes so eloquently begged she might 
 do— to wake her in the morning if she slept long, 
 through fatigue, and tell her that she must be up 
 and going. . . . Yet I knew it to be necessary. 
 If our small stock of food ran out, we should be 
 compelled to seek the native villages, and trade 
 with them ; and that was a resort so desperate 
 that any alternative was safer. 
 
 A week ago I should have said that I would 
 carry Isola if necessary — carry her from one side 
 of New Britain to the other. Was I not young 
 and strong, and could I not have run round the 
 whole of Schouten's island with her small, light 
 figure in my arms, if I had wished ? 
 
292 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 But I had learned what Red Bob meant when 
 he spoke of the difficulty of doing your own 
 carrying in Papuasia. In those steaming 
 thickets and swamps, where sweat poured down 
 your back, and into your eyes, all day long, and 
 your clothes were soaked through from dawn 
 to dusk — up those terrible precipices, where you 
 hung on by trailing vines, and crept slowly from 
 peak to peak of stone — through the river-beds, 
 jumping from stone to stone till every muscle 
 cried out in weariness, even a twenty-five pound 
 load, made up to thirty by weapons and car- 
 tridges, was hatefully, miserably heavy. Our 
 loads lessened as we went on, since we ate our 
 meat and biscuits day by day ; but the canvas 
 that we stretched for a tent at night to keep off 
 the furious mountain rains, and the knives for 
 trade, and our few clothes and belongings re- 
 mained. . . . Long before we had crossed the 
 first of the many ranges that rose behind the 
 coast I had come to the conclusion that carrying 
 in tropic climates was a job for niggers, and for 
 no one else. We had taken even the blankets 
 from Isola after the first hour's walk — taken her 
 small parcel of clothing, which she declared 
 weighed nothing at all. She was anxious to be 
 allowed to help, if ever so little, but we knew 
 better than to let her. 
 
Red Bob of the Bismareks 293 
 
 And now here was Bo, good for a fifty-pound 
 load, if needs were, not affected by the cHmate, 
 not particularly Hable to fever (Gore had dosed 
 us with five grains of quinine regularly every 
 day, and it had so far kept off malaria, but there 
 was no knowing how long that would last, for we 
 were terribly tormented by mosquitoes at night), 
 and exceedingly anxious to join himself to our 
 party again. 
 
 We accepted him readily, gave him a portion 
 of our small stock of food, and the tobacco he 
 begged for, and asked him questions about the 
 natives who had taken our boat. But he had 
 little to tell, having bolted into the bush at the 
 first sign of danger. It seemed clear, however, 
 that the band who burned the boat were the same 
 lot who had murdered Beyer and his wife and 
 child a few days before ; and so far as we could 
 make out, they were the plantation boys them- 
 selves — Beyer having made the mistake of recruit- 
 ing his labour in his own neighbourhood. It is 
 a cheap and easy plan, but one that many planters 
 have found only too dear in the end. 
 
 Bo did not know the country we were passing 
 through, but he informed us that the " boy who 
 stop out there," pointing to the ranges ahead, 
 was " countryman belong him," and that he could 
 get us safely through, supposing his tribe were not 
 
294 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " making dance." If they were, he thought 
 there might be some difficulty. 
 
 We were too glad to have a guide and inter- 
 preter, however, to trouble much over details, 
 and that day's walk was begun with better spirits 
 than any of us had known since starting. . . . 
 If we could have seen the end ! . . . 
 
 Bo, laden with most of our goods, and carrying 
 them with an ease that I felt to be almost a per- 
 sonal insult, marched first, down the thickly 
 forested slope that led to the first river valley, 
 slashing the way open as he went with his big 
 clearing-knife. Isola came after, very pale and 
 thin, but with the same brave light always in her 
 eyes and a step that had grown more active than 
 ever in this last week of hard climbing. Her 
 dress, kilted up above the kne^, was a mass of rags ; 
 her head was protected by a sort of mat of 
 plaited palm, and her hair, beginning to grow 
 again, was tied up in a tight bunch of curls at the 
 back of her head, so that the lawyer vines and 
 thorny-edged palm leaves should not catch and 
 tear it as she went. I followed her, and Red 
 Bob came last ; in places like the interior of 
 New Britain, you put your best man in the 
 rear, and Red Bob never made any bones about 
 classifying himself as the best of the party. 
 
 I don't know whether we were all " fey," or 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 295 
 
 not, but the fact remains that we were amaz- 
 ingly cheerful through that day and on the next 
 one too. Bo seemed, in spite of his disclaimer, 
 to know or guess something about the country 
 for on the second morning he led us to a place 
 that none of us would have found without his 
 help — a narrow, rocky ravine that seemed to 
 promise nothing, but that widened out by 
 degrees into a deep canon, trending towards the 
 point of the compass where we wanted to go, 
 and in that pathless land making the best path 
 we had enjoyed since we started. Of course 
 there was a river at the bottom of the canon, and 
 of course we had to jump and wade, and go round 
 spits of land ; but we got on. By the time it was 
 late enough to begin looking about for a camping- 
 place, we had covered about seven miles, accord- 
 ing to Red Bob — far and away the best day's 
 work we had done — and the settled districts, so 
 we calculated, were no more than two days' 
 march away — perhaps even less ; it all depended 
 on the sort of road we got. 
 
 Making camp in the wilderness, one does not 
 wait for dark, or even dusk. While the sun is 
 yet well above the horizon, one must begin to 
 look about ; to find some spot where there is 
 water within reasonable distance, where there is 
 ground suitable for pitching a tent, and where 
 
296 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 you can find shelter from a possible storm, 
 without closing yourself in so much as to be 
 easily taken by a rush of enemies. 
 
 We began looking early, but no suitable spot 
 appeared at once. As the sun slipped down the 
 sky, with the dismaying speed it always shows 
 when you are counting every minute of light, 
 we looked more and more eagerly, but still the 
 forested slopes that had followed on the canon 
 continued, and still there was not a place where 
 one could have pitched a tent. But all of a 
 sudden, just as Red Bob was making up his mind, 
 I think, to camp on a slope rather than to go on 
 any further, we came upon a tableland of open 
 grass, scattered with just a few large trees, and 
 sloping a little down to a central stream. 
 
 " Might have been made for us," said Gore, 
 shading his eyes from the dropping sun with one 
 hand, while he looked at the little plain. 
 " Camp in the middle of those trees nicely. 
 No chance of a sudden surprise. Stir yourselves 
 and come on ; it's farther than it looks." 
 
 We stirred ourselves to some purpose, and 
 reached the clump of big trees in a few minutes. 
 Beyond it, only a little way off across the grass, 
 came the forest again ; on one side, not the side 
 we were approaching, was a bright green, marshy 
 patch of land, on which, as we came up, the 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 297 
 
 declining sun seemed to cast strange shadows. 
 . . . Were they queer plants that were growing 
 there, among the mud and water ? Were they 
 the remains of buried or cut-down trees, with 
 long stiff branches still remaining ? Were 
 they 
 
 " Run ! " said Gore suddenly, picking up 
 Isola like a Sabine wife or a sack of potatoes, and 
 slinging her across his shoulder. He began to 
 run as he spoke, rapidly covering the ground in 
 the direction of the forest, and glancing over his 
 shoulder now and then as he ran. I saw he had 
 got his revolver in his hand. . . . 
 
 I looked behind me — it was time — and I saw 
 that the strange things in the marsh had risen up 
 with one accord, and were charging towards us, 
 and that they were neither plants nor trees, but 
 buffaloes — big grey buffaloes with spear-like 
 horns a good two yards across. 
 
 *' They are escapes," I thought, as I took to 
 my heels. Bo running and yelling behind me. 
 '' Escapes from the settlements — wild for years. 
 . . . You cannot stop a charging buffalo. . . . 
 They will follow you till they kill. 
 
 " But all the same," my thoughts ran, " one 
 must have a shot. Ah ! " Gore had fired as he 
 ran, I don't know how. His shot hit a big bull, 
 and it roared like the Last Trump, fell on one 
 
298 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 knee, got up again, and came thundering on, 
 snorting " Och ! och ! " as it went, and fully 
 determined to exact vengeance. 
 
 I am a good shot — perhaps I have said so before 
 — but I am not at my best running hard, with or 
 without a girl over my shoulder. I will freely 
 allow I could not have hit that bull as Gore hit 
 it. But I knew I could " dead him," as Toddie 
 would have said, if I stopped ; so I did stop, and 
 put a .45 bullet through his eye. You should 
 have heard the crash he made as he dropped ; 
 he almost turned a somersault. I had to run 
 faster now — I couldn't ; yet I did — and reach 
 cover before the others came along ; they were 
 coming fast. I couldn't see where Red Bob 
 and his burden had gone to, and the light was 
 failing, but I caught sight of a narrow opening in 
 the forest, and made for it. . . . It was a track ; 
 at any other moment I should have thought of 
 what the track meant and avoided it, or at least 
 followed it cautiously. But you cannot be 
 cautious with a herd of furious buffalo galloping 
 at your heels. I made along the track as fast as 
 I could, through the growing gloom of the 
 sunset ; saw a rocky cliff rise up in front of me ; 
 noticed that it had steps hewn in the rock, 
 scrambled up the steps like a monkey (they were 
 not exactly on the pattern of a villa staircase), 
 
Red Bob of the Bismareks 299 
 
 and found myself, with Bo behind me, on the top 
 of the rocky plateau, and right in the heart of the 
 one thing we had been trying to avoid all along — 
 a New Britain native village. 
 
 At first the buffaloes continued to occupy 
 my thoughts. I looked down and saw that the 
 herd had gone " Och "-ing and trampling by, 
 and also that there was no possible means by 
 which they could get up the rock, which seemed 
 to me a natural fortress of a very high order. 
 Then I looked about me, and realized, with a 
 jump of the heart, that we were " in for it." 
 
 Crowds of savages were collecting from every 
 side. Gore and Isola — who was on her feet 
 again — ^were surrounded by a crowd of creatures 
 more like wild beasts than human beings — things 
 with fiery eyes and huge monkey lips ; things 
 dressed in mere fringes of bark and leaves, and 
 wearing necklaces of dogs' teeth and human 
 teeth about their necks. Another crowd had 
 collected about myself, and six or seven were 
 hanging round Bo, pinching his arms and legs. 
 I do not think it was the trifling pain caused by 
 this operation that induced our solitary carrier 
 to howl as he did ; probably he knew that the 
 pinching betokened more interest in his physical 
 condition than a kindly hospitality could 
 account for. 
 
 ' • • • 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 SINCE they did not seem to be doing any 
 harm to our carrier, beyond pinching him 
 to see how much fat he had on him, I left 
 him to himself for the present, and joined Red 
 Bob and Isola, who were standing together 
 in the middle of the village. A crowd of chatter- 
 ing natives had collected about them, and were 
 shoving and fingering them more than can have 
 been pleasant — the women were especially annoy- 
 ing in their attempts to snatch away various 
 pieces of clothing from Isola — but so far no 
 attack had been made, and none seemed in 
 contemplation. 
 
 " Can we get quietly away, do you think ? " 
 I asked Red Bob. 
 
 " We'll try," he said, with a cheerful 
 countenance. 
 
 I looked round the open space, dotted with 
 huts, that seemed to constitute the village ; 
 it was small enough in all conscience — I do not 
 think there were twenty houses scattered about 
 
 300 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 301 
 
 the clearing — but I saw, at a rough guess, that 
 there must be near two hundred men present, 
 with thirty or forty women. Plainly, we had 
 intruded on some sort of a gathering ; a savage 
 " at home," including all the " people who 
 belonged " in the immediate neighbourhood. 
 The village was in every way inferior to the 
 wonderful native towns of New Guinea, of 
 which I had seen one or two at Geelvink Bay. 
 Here were no stately assembly-houses, eighty 
 feet from floor to ridge-pole, built with curious 
 towers and spires and deep verandahs, and all 
 made out of forest material, without so much as 
 one European nail used from start to finish. 
 Here were no long streets as wide as Piccadilly, 
 with fine, verandahed houses set at regular 
 intervals, and beautiful, red-foliaged trees planted 
 in between. Before us, in this typical New 
 Britain town, was simply a huddle of brown 
 roofs set almost on the ground, rubbish scattered 
 everywhere, dogs and pigs scampering freely 
 about. 
 
 Ugly black women, shockingly dirty and 
 clothed only in a ragged fringe of leaves, were 
 walking about with babies like monkeys held 
 in their arms, or slung on their backs in a net. 
 Men, short, hairy, and sturdy, with eyes sunk 
 under deep eaves of heavy brow, and a strange, 
 
302 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 half-startled, half-fierce expression, which I was 
 to know hereafter as the typical look of the canni- 
 bal, stood in herded groups like wild animals, 
 and stared ceaselessly. A few in the crowd 
 about us fingered their long ironwood spears 
 and kept their hands set tight on their great 
 bows — weapons such as those the English fought 
 with at Crecy and Agincourt, and to the full as 
 deadly. 
 
 " Don't you mind them," I said to Isola, 
 taking my place at her side, and — I fear — almost 
 pushing Gore away — for I could not bear to 
 think that any other man than myself was pro- 
 tecting her. " You need never be uneasy about 
 natives as long as their women are kept in sight. 
 That's so, isn't it ? " 
 
 " It is," said Red Bob. " Is that black donkey 
 of yours able to talk to them .? " 
 
 " Bo, can you talk along this fellow } " I asked, 
 pulling him away from what looked like rather 
 rough usage on the part of the natives. 
 
 " Fore God, master, I no savvy him talk," 
 declared Bo, the whites of his eyes rolling with 
 fear. " Altogether I no savvy him ; he no my 
 people. This fellow man he plenty bad man. 
 Me too much fright along him." 
 
 It had grown quite dark by now, but the 
 cooking-fires which had been lit ail over the 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 303 
 
 village showed the place clearly enough. The 
 women were busy burying yams and sweet 
 potatoes among hot stones ; there were great 
 piles of bananas heaped together here and there, 
 and some kind of mess was being concocted in 
 wooden bowls. The amount of food that had 
 been collected, the coloured leaves, flowers and 
 feathers worn in the heads of the men, and 
 especially the number of people all collected 
 together, seemed to point to a public feast. 
 In the glare of the cooking-fires the wild black 
 figures went constantly to and fro, and I could 
 see that they were getting a good deal excited — 
 whether in prospect of the food or in prospect 
 of something else I could not tell. Red Bob 
 and Isola and I stood bunched together, with 
 that unlucky craven Bo sniffling on the ground 
 at our feet ; he had made up his mind at once 
 that it was all up with the party, and was evidently 
 prepared for the worst. 
 
 " Can we get away ? " asked Isola of Gore. 
 She kept her head and her courage wonderfully, 
 but I felt her hand — her poor little roughened, 
 sunburned hand — steal into mine and stay there. 
 
 Red Bob, as calm as if he had been on the deck 
 of the Empress of Singapore in Liverpool docks, 
 stood rolling a cigarette and looking about him. 
 
 ''If they don't seem likely to show fight, I 
 
304 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 think we can," he said. " Corbet, have you a 
 match left ? Thanks. . . . We can't attempt 
 to fight our way out. Two guns against two 
 hundred bows and spears is not impossible odds 
 in daylight with a clear get-away. In the dark, 
 surrounded by bush you don't know, it's in- 
 sanity. No, our game for the present is peace. 
 Keep edging towards the entrance, talking as 
 we go." 
 
 We did as he directed. We were standing some 
 fifty yards from the rock staircase that led up 
 into the town. Step by step we strolled towards 
 it, stopping altogether now and then, talking as 
 we went, and looking at the preparations for the 
 feast and the dance with an interest that I, 
 at any rate, certainly did not feel. But before 
 we had covered half the distance a party of 
 young fighting men, armed with bows taller 
 than themselves, had strolled between us and 
 the opening. 
 
 " May be chance ; keep going," said Gore. 
 We edged along till we were close to the band 
 of warriors, who looked very ugly when you came 
 near them, and — I must say it — smelt, like 
 KipHng's camel, " most awful vile." The fire- 
 light, leaping high, flickered on their plumy 
 headdresses, and shone from the white necklaces 
 of teeth they wore. I could not help wondering 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 305 
 
 where the teeth came from, and whose would 
 form the next row in those ghastly adornments. 
 
 Quietly and politely, we tried to press through 
 their ranks ; at least, Gore and I did, keeping 
 Isola behind us. I could feel her trembhng, 
 but she did not say a word. 
 
 The warriors did not move. At first they 
 seemed unaware that we were trying to get 
 through ; they shifted and shuffled about in 
 such a way as to block us, and yet it seemed all 
 done by accident. Then Gore took one Hghtly 
 by the arm, and tried to press him aside. In- 
 stantly, as if that had been a signal, the whole 
 body of them — some forty or fifty — massed 
 themselves in front of the opening, thumped 
 the ends of their great bows on the ground, and 
 set forth one loud shout. 
 
 We were prisoners. 
 
 Quietly, without any appearance of hurry, 
 Red Bob drew us back towards the centre of the 
 square. I kept tight hold of Isola. She put 
 her head close to mine for a moment, and 
 whispered to me : 
 
 " Paul, will you shoot me before you die your- 
 self ? Will you promise ? " 
 
 " I promise," I answered. " But it won't be 
 necessary ; none of us are going to die." 
 
 She was silent. 
 
 20 
 
306 Red Bob of the Bismareks 
 
 " Bluff it out till daylight ; that's our best 
 plan," said Gore cheerily. " See me get some 
 supper out of those fellows. Now, don't you 
 worry, little girl ; I know the brutes, and they've 
 no mischief in their heads at this minute. Look 
 at the women and children. They're keeping 
 us for some reason of their own — blessed if I know 
 what it is at this minute, but I'll find out. I 
 know enough sign language to do that. Here, 
 you, Paul, kick that beggar till he stops howling ; 
 it isn't healthy for any of us — and look after your 
 girl till I see the chief. That's the fellow over 
 there, I reckon." 
 
 He strode across the square and walked in 
 among the biggest group of savages, a crowd of 
 men more highly painted and decorated than the 
 rest, who had massed themselves about one 
 tallish, elderly man. His air of confidence seemed 
 to impress them, and they drew aside to let him 
 pass. I saw him take the handkerchief from his 
 neck — a dirty rag enough, but red in colour, 
 and colour goes a long way with niggers — and 
 present it to the chief with the air of one offer- 
 ing a noble gift. The elderly man took it, smelt 
 it, touched it with his tongue, and then twisted 
 it about his head. The other natives closed in 
 round them after this, and I could see little, but 
 I thought that Gore was gesticulating with his 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 307 
 
 hands, and making signs, and that there was a 
 good deal of general chattering among the group. 
 
 By and by he came back, walking across the 
 square with the easy, care-free step of a man who 
 has not a trouble in the world. 
 
 " I made out something," he reported. " I 
 know a few words of several of these confounded 
 dialects of theirs. Sign business helped it along, 
 too. It's pretty mysterious ; dashed if I can 
 make it all out. They told me there was very 
 big fighting in the places where the white men 
 were, and that everybody was going to be killed 
 with guns. That was easy to make out — even 
 you could have done it " — Red Bob never forgot 
 to keep down what he was pleased to call my 
 " fine natural sense of self-appreciation " — " but 
 the next bit was a teaser. He made the sign 
 for innocence again and again, and I believe he 
 meant it. Unless the Germans have gone mad, 
 and are killing the natives for fun — which isn't 
 likely, considering that they are the biggest 
 asset of the country — I can't make it out." 
 
 " Make Bo have a try," I suggested. " His 
 language must be fairly near theirs as he isn't 
 twenty miles from his own place." 
 
 We had some trouble in kicking him up off 
 the ground and setting him to work ; in fact, 
 it took the muzzle of my revolver to persuade 
 
 20* 
 
308 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 him — but in the end he gave in and, trembhng 
 all over, tried his linguistic acquirements on 
 the chief. His report wsls that all the white 
 men were killing everybody, and the chief of 
 the town thought we had been sent to kill him. 
 It was apparently his intention to keep us under 
 observation for a little while and if no reinforce- 
 ments followed us, Bo thought he would probably 
 give orders to have the party eaten. 
 
 " Good hearing," said Red Bob. " I don't 
 know what the row can be down on the coast — 
 sounds as if all New Britain had risen together — 
 but whatever it is, there seems to be so much 
 shooting going on that this beast of a chief is 
 afraid to attack us right away. Isola, my dear, 
 we'll get out of this all right ; there's twice the 
 chance I thought there was five minutes ago. 
 Now for supper. Corbet, I'll do the looking- 
 out while you go among those women and 
 take what you think is a fair share of yams and 
 potatoes ; don't ask, just lift what you need." 
 
 I put the boldest face on that I could, walked 
 in among the women — ^what hideous old hags 
 they were, one and all ! — and loaded myself 
 with food. No objection was made, but the old 
 beldames sat back on their haunches and stared 
 at me with a kind of cruel curiosity that I did 
 not altogether care for. It seemed almost as 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 309 
 
 if they knew a lot of unpleasant things about 
 me and about my party that they didn't choose 
 to say. 
 
 We sat down on the ground and ate, leaving 
 our own stores unopened, by Red Bob's advice. 
 
 " Trouble among natives, eight cases out of 
 ten," he said, " begins by looting. We won't 
 tempt them." 
 
 For many a night after, if I opened my eyes 
 in the dark, I used to see that scene ; the v^dld, 
 cannibal village, with the black figures coming 
 and going in the red glare of the fires ; walls 
 of dark foliage almost meeting overhead ; 
 columns of smoke curling up among the branches 
 as one and another of the natives threw on more 
 fuel, working the blaze up ever higher and higher 
 — for what .? . . . 
 
 I remember even the smell of the place — the 
 odour of damp grass thatch and trampled dust, 
 of spicy leaves and gums in the forest ; of sweet 
 potatoes crumbling in hot ashes, mingling with 
 the horrible insanitary odours that haunt all 
 native villages. I remember the yelps that the 
 savages began to give as they worked themselves 
 up for the dance ; the drugging, benumbing 
 beat of the drums, the sudden bursts of wolf- 
 like howling that began among the dogs hidden 
 under the houses. . . . Were they expecting 
 
310 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 to be fed ? I remember, best of all, beside me 
 in the dusk, the small, white face of Isola, and 
 the clasped hands that told me she was praying ; 
 and above all the fire and the fury down below, 
 the far, high stillness of the stars. 
 
 Not that I felt for a moment we had come to 
 praying and resigning. Like Dame Quickly, 
 I thought there was no need to trouble ourselves 
 about such things — yet. 
 
 We were hardly through our meal when a man 
 advanced towards us, holding a green branch 
 in his hand — the sign of peace. He motioned 
 us to get up and follow him. I saw Gore 
 calculating the chances of making a rush, but the 
 square was hemmed in two deep with fighting 
 men, and what we might have attempted as 
 a forlorn hope, had we been alone, could not 
 be thought of when Isola was there too. We 
 followed the man to a house near one end of 
 the village, a low, thatched building with walls 
 of sago palm, and pointed grass roof. It had 
 a door but no windows, after the fashion of their 
 houses. Into this retreat he led us, showing 
 the way with a torch, and when he had seen all 
 four safely inside, he went away, shutting the 
 door behind him. 
 
 It was, of course, contemptible, viewed in the 
 light of a prison. Anyone could have cut a 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 311 
 
 way out in five minutes with a penknife. But 
 I judged that our guards were to be the village 
 itself, and it was not likely that they would permit 
 us to escape. 
 
 Bo, lying on the ground, gave way to tears 
 again, and expressed his opinion that we were all 
 going to be eaten, just like pigs. Gore and I 
 discussed the situation, but we could only arrive 
 at one conclusion — that we were being held in 
 some way as hostages, and that if the trouble 
 which had evidently occurred on a large scale 
 further on turned against our hosts, we might, 
 as Gore put it, look out for squalls. 
 
 " I don't like their dancing," he said. " Nasty 
 beggars when they dance. Get all worked up. 
 Is there any more tobacco ? " 
 
 " One small piece," I said. 
 
 " I need it," said Gore. " I want to think. 
 Don't you chatter for a bit, Paul, or you, Isola. 
 All you flappers are terrible chatterboxes. Don't 
 flap ; go to sleep. You may want it." 
 
 He leaned up comfortably against the sago 
 wall ; smoked, and fixed his eyes on the low 
 ceiling. 
 
 Meantime, in the square outside something 
 new was preparing, and it sounded, to my in- 
 experienced ears, as if half a dozen liners with 
 syrens in good order, and fifty strong donkeys 
 
812 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 in fine voice, had entered the village and begun 
 a competition against one another. The most 
 extraordinary bellows and brays w^ere arising from 
 outside. " Oom, oom, oom ! " came something 
 like the whistle of the Oceanic ; then, " Ai-ai, 
 ai-ai ! " in a higher note, then a wild burst of 
 " Oomty-ai, oomty-ai ! " leaping from the 
 lowest note to the highest, while all the time the 
 spectral donkeys kept up a steady " Honk-ee, 
 honk-ee ! " and something sharp and thin as the 
 note of a policeman's whistle kept shrilling far 
 above the rest. 
 
 " Lord, I must have a look at this ! " I ex- 
 claimed. " Gore, you must be made of wood if 
 you don't want to know what that is." 
 
 " I knew you couldn't keep from chattering 
 for five minutes if you tried," was his reply. 
 " Think I've never seen a New Britain dance 
 before, or heard one ? That's bamboos." 
 
 I really thought he was making fun of me, 
 even in our serious straits, until I got my eye to 
 a crack in the flimsy sago sheath door, and saw 
 that nearly every man in the place had got either 
 a set of pan-pipes made of different lengths of 
 bamboo, or a single long pipe, or else a section of 
 bamboo trunk as big round as a main drain-pipe 
 — these last furnishing the extraordinary booming 
 noises that dominated all the rest. The savages 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 313 
 
 were dancing as they played — dancing in a solid 
 circle, that went round and round on itself 
 like cattle " milling " when they swim across a 
 stream. They held their heads low to play on 
 their pipes, they lifted their legs till knee almost 
 struck on chin ; they looked less like human 
 beings, and more like prancing, bellowing bisons, 
 than I had ever seen them look yet. I would 
 not give Isola a place at the hole, for I thought by 
 their appearance that they were " working up,"^ 
 as Red Bob had said, and I began to see we were 
 in a tighter place than any of us had supposed. 
 If they got themselves up to the proper point 
 of bloodthirsty excitement before morning, no 
 questions of prudence were likely to restrain them 
 from knocking us on the head. 
 
 I told Isola that the men were playing on 
 bamboos, and that it wasn't particularly inter- 
 esting. Whether she beheved me or not I 
 cannot say ; but she did not try to look out. 
 Silence fell for a Httle while inside the dark 
 brown house ; we saw each other only as shadows 
 stirring faintly in the dark ; we heard nothing 
 but the inhuman honking and hooting of the 
 savage music in the square. 
 
 Presently I heard Red Bob strike a match, and 
 saw him standing up inspecting our prison 
 closely. I watched him with an interest that 
 
314 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 was almost feverish, and I think Isola, and even 
 Bo, watched him too. We all three felt that he 
 was the greatest man of the party ; we felt that 
 if he could not save us, nothing and no one could. 
 It had come to that by now ; each one of us felt 
 that we were in serious danger, and that the sun 
 that had sunk two hours ago behind the unknown 
 forest ranges might never rise for us — unless 
 Red Bob could help. 
 
 I don't really know what I expected him to say 
 or do, but I was horribly disappointed — dis- 
 gusted too— -when I saw that he was turning over 
 a heap of old native dancing-dresses in the corner, 
 and examining them with all the ardour of the 
 ethnologist, just as if (I thought to myself) there 
 had been no horde of blood-lusting brutes work- 
 ing themselves to frenzy outside, and no Isola to 
 save from their fury. 
 
 " What selfish brutes men of science are after 
 all ! " I thought. " All for themselves and their 
 wretched discoveries — as if it really mattered to 
 anyone on earth except a few musty German 
 professors whether one brand of nigger dances 
 and dresses — or undresses — in the same way as 
 another ! Oh, I know your arguments " — my 
 thoughts rambled on — " ' History of Races ' and 
 all that ; but what does history of races really 
 mean to any live human being in the world to- 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 315 
 
 day ? If ever I get out of this alive, I'll have 
 done " 
 
 " Look, look ! " said Isola, " what is he doing ? " 
 
 Gore had put a match to a burned brand out of 
 some old fire, and had stuck it in the ground. It 
 gave light enough for us to see that he was 
 curiously busy with the dancing dresses — select- 
 ing out of the heap a few that looked like large, 
 old-fashioned beehives, or coachman's capes 
 made of straw, examining them with anxious 
 care — yes, actually trying them on. . . . 
 
 It was then that I began to understand that 
 Red Bob might have resources and reserves 
 beyond what I could guess. 
 
 " Corbet," he said presently, his head half 
 muffled in a mass of something like hay, " look 
 out and see if there are any dresses like this in 
 the dance." 
 
 " There is one," I said, peering through the 
 hole. 
 
 " A thing hke a beehive on two feet — you 
 can't see anything but the dress itself, and an 
 ugly mask stuck on top ? " 
 
 " Yes, that's it. The mask looks like a clown's 
 face and a gargoyle off Notre Dame mixed up 
 together." 
 
 " What's the dancer doing ? Hopping round 
 and round ? " 
 
316 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Let Isola take her turn, and watch the dancer. 
 Watch him, both of you, as if your Hves depended 
 on it. See what he does ; what steps he takes." 
 
 We did as he told us. I cut the hole a little 
 larger, so that all three might peep cautiously 
 out together, and Gore came and joined us. 
 
 " Yes," he said with a glance, " it's the Duk- 
 Duk dance. You may be glad it is." 
 
 The Duk-Duk was performing a solemn chassee 
 down the middle of the village, looking, I must 
 say, like the maddest and most horrible figure 
 that ever escaped from a nightmare dream. Its 
 formlessness, and the blank, inhuman mask that 
 topped the shuffling figure, took from it all 
 semblance to a human being, and, strangely 
 enough, seemed to terrify or overawe the natives 
 almost as if they had never seen it before. The 
 Duk-Duk is the goblin of New Britain life ; its 
 appearances in the village dance are always 
 cleverly calculated by the sorcerers for some un- 
 expected moment ; no one knows who is hidden 
 beneath the shuffling beehive with the grisly 
 face on top, and murder often follows on its 
 pointing out of a victim. . . . 
 
 In and out, in and out of the hopping pan-pipe 
 players it went, a thing of horror, speechless, 
 limbless, apparently deaf and blind — ^yet we knew 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 317 
 
 well that a clever sorcerer must be concealed 
 beneath the sinister disguise watching his oppor- 
 tunity to mark down a victim. I saw that the 
 women had hidden their faces on the ground — 
 it is death to them to look upon a Duk-Duk — 
 and that they trembled and burrowed lower into 
 the earth every time the wind of its going passed 
 them. The men v^th the pipes made a shift to 
 pretend they did not notice the hideous thing, 
 but wherever it went by the ranks of the dancers 
 shrank and winced away, as from the swaying 
 scythe of Death itself. 
 
 I watched it, fascinated beyond words. Few 
 people have seen the Duk-Duk dance of New 
 Britain, and of these some have not lived to tell 
 about it. Yet I felt as if we should. I believed 
 in Red Bob. 
 
 When I looked round again, he was busy with 
 one of the dresses, putting it on. 
 
 " Listen to what I say," he said, " and be 
 careful. When the next Duk-Duk comes out — 
 there will be another by and by, perhaps more — 
 I am going to cut through the wall at the back of 
 the hut and join it. You must keep your eye on 
 me, and when I have been dancing for a little, 
 get into the three of the dresses that are left, 
 blacken your feet well with ashes (you'll have to 
 carry your boots under your dress) and come after 
 
318 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 me. Do exactly as the other Duk-Duks are 
 doing, and then dance to the rock stairway and 
 go down it. You see the first Duk-Duk did that, 
 and came back again, more than once. We can't 
 take any baggage, but tie a Httle food about you 
 — so — quickly. Now if this heathen doesn't queer 
 our pitch — Bo, do you understand what we are 
 doing ? " 
 
 " My God, master, me savvy plenty," answered 
 Bo unexpectedly. " Long my village, one time 
 I makem Duk-Duk, I makem kill plenty men." 
 
 " Then we can trust him to play his part. 
 Good business. I thought he would be a diffi- 
 culty. Now, do you understand, and can Isola 
 manage it .? Yes ? Then I'll make a start. 
 Isola can come next, and you two after. And 
 Paul, remember, if things go wrong, shoot, but 
 don't shoot till you have to, for it's a last chance." 
 
 " I understand," I said. Gore took my hand 
 in his and shook it. I understood that, too ; 
 he was saying good-bye, in case " things went 
 wrong." 
 
 We cut a slab or two of the pith-like sago 
 stems out in a couple of minutes, and reconnoitred 
 carefully. On this side there was no guard ; 
 the projection of stone that appeared here and 
 there among the trees explained why — clearly 
 it was inaccessible. Only a few women were 
 
Red Bob of the Bismareks 319 
 
 visible, lying with their faces on the ground, and 
 their arms over their heads. 
 
 " Let's hope they don't peep," laughed Gore. 
 He seemed in excellent spirits. I do not think 
 the man ever knew what fear meant. 
 
 In a moment he had slipped through the open- 
 ing, and was advancing down the square. We 
 rushed to the other side to watch him. He 
 danced as the other Duk-Duks danced — there 
 were two of them now — and before him, as before 
 the others, the ranks of the pipers shrank and 
 quivered, as he passed, and the women moaned 
 when they heard his feet shuffling by. . . . 
 
 It was time to make our move. 
 
 How well I remember the stuffy, dirty smell of 
 the dress when I put it over my head, after seeing 
 Isola and Bo into theirs ! It was wonderfully 
 light, in spite of its size ; and the hideous mask 
 on the top, as I had anticipated, had two small 
 holes through which one could see quite well. 
 I wondered what insanitary beast had worn the 
 dress before I did, and hoped that none of us would 
 get leprosy or anything else that was unpleasant 
 from the manner of our disguise. Then I had 
 not time to think any more, for Isola was out, and 
 making the perilous pass of the square. God, how 
 my heart beat as I watched her ! How loose I 
 kept my finger on the trigger of my revolver ! 
 
320 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 Her coolness was wonderful. On her little 
 blackened feet, she shuffled and chasseed along, 
 exactly as the other Duk-Duks had done, even 
 pausing once or twice to make the hideous 
 " point " from which the savage shrank back so 
 nervously (I judged that any man thus " pointed " 
 stood in imminent danger of the cooking-oven). 
 I saw her near the rock staircase, saw the ranks of 
 warriors part as the sea parts before the stem of 
 a ship, to let her through ; saw that Red Bob 
 followed her closely — or was it one of the other 
 Duk-Duks } For the life of me I could not tell. 
 
 " Now, Bo ! " I whispered, and together we 
 danced out from behind the hut, shuffling along 
 without haste, and weaving in and out among 
 the dancers as we had seen the other Duk-Duks 
 do. The fires leaped and glowed ; the black 
 figures of the piping men " milled " continually, 
 round and round in a circle. " Oom-oom," 
 went the pipes, " Oom-ty, oom-ty, ai-ai, ai-ai ! " 
 The air was full of dust ; everything was seen as 
 in a cloud ; the smell of the dust was like snuff 
 in one's nostrils. I could hardly keep from 
 sneezing. ... Bo and I danced on. The stone 
 stairs were close to us ; we were hopping and 
 skipping down them. . . . 
 
 We had reached the foot, and stood in the 
 dark, leafy wet-smelling track below ; I could 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 321 
 
 just see two Duk-Duk dresses in front of me. I 
 stretched out my hand, and feh for the hand of 
 the nearest. It snatched at me fiercely, and then 
 seized my arm. I had got one of the real ones ! 
 
 One thinks quickly in such moments, and luckily 
 I remembered Red Bob's counsel : " Fire only 
 as a last resort." I drew the long bush-knife 
 from my belt with my free arm, thrust aside 
 the grass of the Duk-Duk dress, and drove the 
 blade through the dancer's ribs. He stopped in 
 the very beginning of a cry, coughed, " Och ! " 
 once, like the buffaloes, and fell down at my feet. 
 Gore had him by the legs in an instant and slung 
 him quietly among the trees. I thought by the 
 movement of his arm as it came up from the cape 
 that he made assurance surer, with his own good 
 knife ; but it was too dark to see. 
 
 We made off down the track, very slowly at 
 first, and dancing as we went, in case we should 
 meet any more of this infernal corps de ha let ; 
 but soon we threw aside our hampering disguises, 
 put on our boots, and taking Isola between us 
 (for the track was a good one, and unusually 
 wide), ran as hard as we could. When we had put 
 a mile or two between ourselves and the village 
 Gore called a halt. We listened, standing in the 
 drip of dew from enormous cottonwoods over- 
 head, and hearing the great green frogs of New 
 
 21 
 
322 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 Britain bleat like goats in the under-brush, and 
 once, a long way off, an alligator belling in a 
 swamp. But of the savages we heard nothing. 
 
 After a little rest, we went on, guided hy Bo, 
 who seemed to know where he was, or at least to 
 guess, as a native sometimes can. Isola's endur- 
 ance was wonderful. She leaned upon my arm, 
 and sometimes took Red Bob's also for a while, 
 but she never once faltered or complained. We 
 went on till near daylight, and then, finding a 
 safe nook among some rocks, slept for a while. 
 Gore and I taking turns to watch. The sun came 
 up, red and rainy-looking, over the outline of a 
 dark blue ridge, not many miles away. Gore 
 looked at it, laughed and clapped me on the back. 
 
 " My boy, we've done it," said he, " for that's 
 the range above the Gore plantation country, 
 and we'll be into the settlement to-night." 
 
 I do not think we should have been, however, 
 had we not chanced upon a buffalo wallowing in 
 a marsh — a tame one this time, obviously not long 
 escaped from the nearest settlement, and with a 
 fresh hole in its nostril — and pressed it into our 
 service, to carry Isola. Being a tame beast of 
 burden, it submitted, after some trials, and for 
 the rest of our march — which we kept up till 
 dusk, with the exception of a couple of hours' 
 spell in the middle of the day — our brave little 
 
Red Bob of the Bismareks 323 
 
 lady went as Evangeline rode in the " beautiful 
 meadows of Grand-Pre." I think we must have 
 made an odd-looking procession — Gore striding 
 along in front, chewing a bit of stick for want of 
 his usual smoke, Bo trotting along behind him, 
 and last, I sola, on the great grey buffalo, with 
 myself walking beside her — a ragged, dirty party, 
 sunburned almost as black as Bo, muddy, torn and 
 sadly in need of a wash. It began to rain in 
 waterspouts before we got to the settlement, and 
 when we came out at last on a range that over- 
 looked green, orderly ranks of palms, and shining 
 woods of rubber trees, we saw the welcome sight 
 through a veil of streaming wet. As for our- 
 selves, nothing could have made us look more 
 draggled than we were. 
 
 Red Bob paused on the crest of the hill and 
 drew a sigh of relief. 
 
 " Well through," he said. " And now to invade 
 Sachs's bungalow, get cleaned and fed, and hear 
 how the world has been going without us all 
 these weeks." 
 
 21' 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 SACHS'S plantation was the furthest back 
 of all the settled districts. It was a 
 place where very few white men came, and no 
 white women ; Sachs himself lived a lonely 
 life with his boys and one overseer, riding a 
 long day down to Kori, the nearest place to 
 his own, when he wished for a little society. 
 
 We were therefore somewhat astonished to 
 see, as we went down the zig-zag pathway 
 leading to the bungalow, that there were white 
 dresses visible on the sheltered side of the 
 verandah, and that temporary cots had been 
 put up here and there, evidently for the 
 accommodation of an unusual number of male 
 visitors. 
 
 " Seems to be rather a run on Sachs's place," 
 said Red Bob, twisting his moustache and looking 
 down at the house with a thoughtful expression. 
 " Seems to have some sport going on, too." 
 
 I had already seen what he pointed out to 
 me with one finger. Sentries. White men 
 with rifles in their hands pacing up and down in 
 front of the house. 
 
 324 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 325 
 
 " But look here ! " I said, pausing to stare. 
 " They're all mad. It's at the back the sentries 
 should be. Down to the front there's nothing 
 but plantations and motor roads between us 
 and Herbertshohe ! " 
 
 Red Bob twisted his moustache some more, 
 and said nothing. He walked a little faster. I 
 hit the buffalo with a bit of lawyer-cane, and 
 urged it on. I was getting very curious. What 
 were all those white people doing down there ? 
 
 " Well, at any rate," whispered Vanity, " there 
 would be all the bigger audience for the sensa- 
 tional tale we had to tell — all the more to admire 
 and wonder at what we had done — ^we, two 
 white men and a woman, who had walked across 
 New Britain, done no small amount of exploring 
 and discovery (for Gore, though I have not 
 mentioned it, had been mapping and estimating 
 all the way, and cursing his ill luck in having 
 no scientific instruments) and met with hair- 
 breadth adventures enough to stir the pulse even 
 of New Britain residents. Already I savoured 
 our triumph. We were going to be heroes ! 
 
 It rained and rained as we went down the in- 
 terminable zig-zags of the path ; red waterfalls 
 poured from every bank and boulder, the ground 
 sent up a spray of rainy spume. The people 
 on the verandah sat in their chairs and watched 
 
326 Red Bob of the Bismareks 
 
 us. In front of the house the armed sentries 
 walked back and forwards ; we could see them 
 at each end as we went down. 
 
 " Sachs ! HoUo, Sachs ! " beUowed Red Bob, 
 in his great bull voice, as we came on to the last 
 turn. " Here's a lost party for you. Have you 
 any room ? " 
 
 Sachs came out on to the verandah — a tall, 
 stout Prussian with a grizzly beard — and eyed 
 us with his hands in his pockets. 
 
 " I don't know," he said in German. 
 
 I began to realize that something had hap- 
 pened, but I could not for the life of me think 
 what. 
 
 Gore did not seem entirely surprised. He 
 told me afterwards that he had guessed at the 
 state of the case as far back as the cannibal 
 village. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I think you have," he said cheerily. 
 " We've got a lady with us, and she is very 
 badly done up. Can you let her go right off 
 to bed ? " 
 
 " I suppose I can," answered Sachs, melting 
 a little. " There are four women here ; they 
 can take care of her, no doubt." 
 
 " Oh, but of course I can ! " cried a well- 
 known — too well-known — voice from a corner 
 of the verandah, and a serge skirt and white 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 327 
 
 blouse, inhabited by a lady with her head held 
 sentimentally on one side, became clearly visible 
 close to the lattice. Then it was that I saw 
 what I had not seen through all the perils of our 
 journeying — ^fear on the face of Red Bob. He 
 turned actually pale. 
 
 " I always knew it," he said to himself. 
 
 " What did you know ? " I asked. But he 
 made no answer ; he only looked at the face and 
 figure of Mabel Siddis, and then once at the 
 forests behind him, and then he walked on. 
 
 We reached the house and walked up on to 
 the verandah — three muddy, wretched-looking 
 objects, with Bo, outside in the rain, very much 
 at an advantage over us owing to his want of 
 clothes. Sachs still remained in the same place, 
 his hands in his pockets. He said nothing at 
 all. The women, plump, tight-haired Germans, 
 exclaimed loudly when they saw Isola. 
 
 " Why, it is Frau Richter ! " they cried. 
 " Ach ! see you there ! " screamed the fattest 
 and tightest-haired, " see then, she is dying ! " 
 
 Isola was not dying, but she had sunk into 
 the nearest chair and quietly fainted away. 
 
 In spite of Miss Siddis's loudly-expressed 
 anxiety to take care of Isola, it was the fat German 
 women who lifted her into a bedroom, shut the 
 door, and ministered to her. Mabel Siddis was 
 
328 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 far too busy clasping her hands and looking 
 sideways (no, it was not quite a squint) at Red 
 Bob, who, for his part, had backed up against 
 the verandah rail and was talking with furious 
 energy to a German trader. 
 
 I don't think he quite knew what he was saying, 
 for he actually began to describe our journey 
 and mention our adventures — a thing he would 
 never have done unasked, except under the dis- 
 turbing influence that now held possession of 
 him. The other men on the verandah listened, 
 but with a curious lack of interest. Gore saw 
 it, and cut the tale short. 
 
 " What's going on here ? " I broke in, for I 
 was getting extremely curious. That something 
 big had happened somewhere I could not doubt. 
 Why, it even seemed to prevent people from 
 being interested in our affairs ! 
 
 The answer came from an unexpected source. 
 Round the corner of the verandah walked a tall 
 figure in military uniform, clinking spurs as it 
 moved. It paused, looked, and greeted me with : 
 
 " Fowl ! " 
 
 " Why, Hahn, is it you ? " I said, glad to see 
 him — I always had an odd sort of liking for the 
 man who had so nearly succeeded in shooting 
 me that morning in Kronprinzhaven. " What's 
 going on about here ? " 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 329 
 
 " War, my nut," said Hahn. 
 
 " War ! I did hear something about a lot 
 of fighting — but it was so confused — which of 
 the tribes are out ? " 
 
 " The tribes that are out, my nut," said Hahn 
 — and in spite of his slang, I recognized a new 
 gravity in his bearing, a seriousness in the once 
 gay and debonair young face — " the tribes that 
 are out are the Germans, the Austrians, the 
 French, the Belgians, the Russians, the Servians 
 and the Turks." 
 
 " Good Lord ! " I said. " Are we at war 
 with you ? " 
 
 " You are. Fowl," said Hahn. 
 
 " Then I suppose Gore and I are your 
 prisoners ? " 
 
 " No," said Sachs, taking his hands out of his 
 pockets at last, and coming forward, " we are 
 yours." I do not write all he said in addition ; 
 it may well be forgiven and forgotten. 
 
 Facts began to rain like branches in a hurri- 
 cane. We heard the history of those two months 
 that we had spent in the wilds — the greatest 
 two months that the world has ever seen. We 
 were told — vsdth a certain amount of personal 
 colouring — the story of the march to Paris, of 
 Liege, of Mons and the Marne and the Aisne. 
 It was later, from other lips, that we heard of 
 
330 Red Bob of the Bismareks 
 
 Rheims and Louvain. We knew before long that 
 German New Guinea was German New Guinea 
 no longer. 
 
 Miss Siddis, between her prudent devotion 
 to her employers' interest (for she was still a 
 governess in a German family, and had come up 
 with them to Sachs's, to be safe from bom- 
 bardment in the towns) and her desire to stand 
 well with us, was a sight worth seeing. She did 
 all that clasped hands and expressive looks could 
 do to show her delight at the success of British 
 arms ; her words, addressed to her patrons in 
 the German language (which she seemed to 
 think Gore and myself did not understand) 
 contained the heartfelt wishes of an earnest 
 soul for a speedy readjustment of things as they 
 had been. ... I was disgusted by her, and 
 withdrew. 
 
 Sachs, I must say, behaved decently enough, 
 all things considered. He agreed to give us 
 room for the night, and to sell us some clothes 
 against a cheque on the bank of New South 
 Wales. Next day, if Isola was well enough, 
 we intended to journey on down to Rabaul 
 with her (since persecution from the man she 
 had married was one of the least likely things 
 in the world to happen now) and report our- 
 selves to the troops in possession. Things had 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 331 
 
 changed considerably for us, and all to the good, 
 during those months of absence from telegrams 
 and news. 
 
 " We weren't pearl-poaching after all, if we'd 
 only known it," said Gore to me that night, 
 when we had put up our cots side by side in a 
 quiet corner of the verandah. " And, by the 
 way, you've never asked me yet, you unbusiness- 
 like young beggar, what your share in the venture 
 was to be. Of course we'll go back and rake the 
 place out as soon as possible ; there's a big 
 fortune in it." 
 
 " If I am entitled to anything," I said, " it 
 can be what you please ; but I don't want to be 
 paid for — for " 
 
 " For backing me out in a row or two — ^no, 
 naturally. You will be paid for taking your 
 part in an illegal, dangerous, discreditable 
 poaching adventure, which fortunately turned 
 up trumps. I propose to give you twenty per 
 cent, of the takings, and if I'm any judge of an 
 atoll, it ought to be a pretty decent little inde- 
 pendence for you — in case you want such a 
 thing, for yourself or anyone else." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " I said excitedly, 
 sitting up in my cot. It was late at night ; the 
 moon had climbed far down the sky and shone 
 in streaks and patches through the grapeless 
 
332 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 vine that Sachs had trained about the enclosing 
 lattice in memory of his Rhineland home. The 
 other men were sleeping on the side that looked 
 down towards the Herbertshohe road ; I don't 
 know what they expected in the way of attack 
 or surprise, but it was well for our quiet con- 
 versation that they had left us alone. 
 
 " I can't quite say what I mean myself ; time 
 must show that," said Gore. " But I got a 
 curious admission out of Isola not very long ago. 
 . . . She referred, quite innocently, to the fact 
 that her impulsive ItaHan papa had overcome her 
 objections to a marriage with a dying cholera 
 patient by violent means. In fact, when he 
 found she was disinclined to do his bidding, and 
 secure the New Guinea plantation for her de- 
 serving family, he took her by the hair, shook 
 her, and boxed her ears, and threatened to shut 
 her up without food." 
 
 "The brute!" I said indignantly. "Wish 
 I had had the chance of boxing his ears — once." 
 
 " Is that all you have to say ? " asked Gore, 
 turning on his pillow and looking at me with the 
 moon full on his strange, brilliant eyes. 
 
 " Well, that's about all you could have done to 
 a man who happened to be her father." 
 
 " I don't mean that. Do you not see — why, 
 man, a marriage under compulsion, especially 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 333 
 
 if the parties don't live together afterwards, is 
 breakable." 
 
 I sprang out of my cot, and plumped myself 
 down on the foot of Gore's. 
 
 " Say that again ! " I exclaimed, drumming 
 on his chest with my fists in my excitement. 
 " Say it again — she isn't married — Oh, Lord ! " 
 
 " Stop acting the goat or you'll have the 
 sentries up here. I never said anything of the 
 kind. She's married all right at this moment. 
 You'd have to bring a suit in the Dutch courts." 
 
 " I'll bring twenty," I said joyously. 
 
 " I don't think Richter will appeal to quite 
 that extent ; if you bring one or two it'll probably 
 meet the case," said Gore dryly. " Whether 
 it'll all be plain sailing or not I can't say ; Miss 
 Siddis — dash her ! — seems to be the only witness, 
 and that won't make things any easier." 
 
 " I'U go and make love to her before break- 
 fast to-morrow morning," I declared. 
 
 " For God's sake, do," said Gore. And so, 
 being very weary, we fell asleep. 
 
 Next morning there was no question of Isola 
 going on. She was in bed, and according to 
 the good German women, bound in common 
 prudence to remain there at least another day. 
 She sent me a pitiful little note begging us not 
 to abandon her, and we decided to wait, though 
 
334 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 both of us were wild to be down in Herberts- 
 hohe, seeing the meaning of war — perhaps even 
 joining in it. . . . 
 
 " It makes no difference," said Sachs gloomily, 
 when we told him of our intentions. " We 
 must all go down soon ; they will order that we 
 go into camp at Rabaul, and after that we leave 
 the country." 
 
 " No, they say that they will respect pro- 
 perty," argued one of the men. " I do not think 
 that our people need have ordered us to go up 
 here and guard the plantations ; we should have 
 been much better fighting down below." 
 
 " Orders, old churl," said Hahn, who had 
 come in from the front of the house. " Here is 
 my Powl. Powl, how are you ? It is a sad 
 thing that you are again my enemy, Powl. 
 Shall we fight another duel, that thou may take 
 off the tip of my other ear ? " 
 
 " I don't mind if I do," I said cheerfully. 
 
 " Nonsense," said Gore. " We'll have no 
 private editions of the European war on this 
 plantation. ..." 
 
 Whether we should have had or not I do not 
 know, but circumstances prevented any chance 
 of Hahn's losing another ear-tip. 
 
 During the morning some mysterious message 
 arrived, in obedience to which he collected his 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 335 
 
 few remaining police, mustered them on the grass 
 outside the house, and marched away down the 
 hill with a laugh and a wave of the hand, as he 
 turned the corner of the road. So, smiling, he 
 marched out of my life. He was killed that 
 very afternoon, in a sniping skirmish near Rabaul. 
 I shall always think, enemies though we were, 
 that there was something about Hahn I could 
 have liked, and liked well. . . . 
 
 But Lord 1 (as Pepys would have said) to 
 see the airs that Mabel Siddis took on, imme- 
 diately it became plain that the whole of the 
 Richter marriage case was hanging on her willing- 
 ness and ability to give evidence ! Gore and I 
 questioned her, and we elicited, with some 
 trouble (for she became very choice and difficult 
 as she went on), the fact that no one but herself 
 had seen any ill-usage, or heard any threats. 
 She would not say definitely that she had seen or 
 heard such things, either ; but she left us in no 
 uncertainty as to the fact, all the same, revelling 
 in the importance of her position. She gave us 
 to understand that if she was to do as we asked 
 her, and set Isola Bella free from the chains 
 wound round her by that unlucky hour in Banda 
 Neira, she must, in some way, profit by it. Of 
 course she did not say this openly, but : 
 
 " Oh no, Mr. Gore ! " she would giggle, shyly 
 
836 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 biting the end of her Httle finger (she had very- 
 small but very ugly hands). " I couldn't say I 
 remember that definitely, but one never knows — 
 one's memory may return — it depends so much on 
 circumstances. I would do anything I could 
 for a friend — I would indeed — and the nearer the 
 friend, the more I would do — indeed I would. 
 That is, if I happened to remember at the 
 right time, but I have such a silly little memory 
 — just like silly little me." 
 
 Gore got away from her at last, and told me, 
 in the course of a quiet walk among the palms 
 of the plantation, that he had no doubt whatever 
 as to her being able to prove the case, if only she 
 chose to do so. 
 
 " It's clear, however, that she must be bought," 
 he said. " Paul, you'll have to tackle her your- 
 self about that ; she — she makes my blood run 
 cold. . . . See here, youngster, don't go too shy 
 on the money part of it. I'll stand by you. 
 You're a perfect young idiot, but, somehow, you're 
 the kind of idiot I like — and — I shall never have 
 a son. . . . What the deuce do you suppose 
 Sachs has done to these rubber trees to make 
 them seed so young ? By the look of the trunks, 
 they shouldn't have been ready till . . . Well, 
 go on and face the dragon, St. George ; I'll skulk 
 here till it's all over." 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 337 
 
 Miss Siddis was sitting out of doors when I 
 found her, under the shade of a wall of young 
 rubber trees. The crimson buds hung down 
 above her head as she sat poking a crochet-needle 
 in and out of some totally useless object meant 
 for somebody's troops ; the broad glory of the 
 leaves made a background that would have better 
 suited a fairer woman than Mabel. I approached 
 her cautiously ; I was bent on getting the matter 
 settled there and then, but I did not like the 
 job. Suppose she had fallen in love with me ? 
 That might be the reason of her reluctance to 
 sever the tie between Isola and Richter. Suppose 
 she was simply spiteful ? Suppose she didn't 
 really remember, and was only pretending she 
 did, to make herself important ? I trembled as 
 I thought how much depended upon all these 
 suppositions, and upon the fantasy of a vain, not 
 dependable woman hke Mabel Siddis. 
 
 She made way for me on her bench, with the 
 mechanical smile that had done duty for so many 
 years, on so many occasions. I found myself, 
 oddly enough, feehng a Httle sorry for her. To 
 fail in the object of your whole life, utterly and 
 humiliatingly, as she had failed — to stake your 
 success, your comfort, and your self-respect, upon 
 the winning of a game, and lose it, was surely a 
 wretched fate. It seemed to me that the place 
 
 22 
 
338 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 of the humblest lay sister in a quiet convent, 
 where every nun had her own fitted niche in life, 
 or the simplest work of teacher, nurse, or even 
 servant, done for itself, and not for ulterior aims, 
 must be a life more worthy of respect. 
 
 I need not have wasted my pity. Mabel Siddis 
 was well able to take care of herself. 
 
 In ten minutes, glancing shyly and modestly 
 down at her work, with a horrible parody of the 
 girlhood that she should have forgotten about 
 long ago — speaking softly, in that misfit pretty 
 voice of hers, as one who would not hurt the wing 
 of a fly, if the fly only behaved itself and did not 
 get in her way — Mabel Siddis had made me under- 
 stand what she demanded for the setting free of 
 Isola, and the making of my happiness. She 
 demanded Red Bob. 
 
 Not that she said so right out — she was far too 
 modest and feminine for that. But she made her 
 meaning very clear ; clear as still waters that run 
 deep, and only half hide the ugly things that lurk 
 within their silken depths. I was to have Isola ; she 
 was to have Vincent Gore. That was the bargain. 
 
 The horrid shrewdness of the woman peeped 
 out in the whole affair. Another would have 
 thought that Red Bob was not attainable by such 
 means ; that no man would marry a woman 
 he had been systematically running away from, 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 339 
 
 just because the happiness of two people could 
 be secured by his doing so. 
 
 And I must confess that for the moment I 
 did not think so either. Women know men 
 better than men know each other. 
 
 I could not keep my face from telling my 
 dismay, when I went back to Gore, a miserable 
 and perplexed ambassador, if ever there was one. 
 He laughed when he saw me. 
 
 " You needn't pull such a face," he said. " I 
 know what she said." 
 
 " You can't ! " I cried. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I do," said Red Bob. " I know all 
 right. Always did know, from the moment I 
 first met her. Felt it coming, somehow." 
 
 " You don't mean to say you care for " I 
 
 began, my eyes widening. 
 
 " I don't. I mean to say she's done it, and 
 that I'll have to do as many a better man has 
 done. Don't look so upset ; it isn't you have got 
 to marry Mabel." 
 
 " But you don't mean " 
 
 " I tell you what I don't mean," said Gore, 
 looking at me with narrowed pupils. " I don't 
 mean to see you and Isola go down the road 
 I went. Not if I can help it by marrying Mabel 
 Siddis. There's not much of my life left, and 
 there's all of yours and hers." 
 
340 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 " But — ^you told me — wouldn't it make some 
 difference to anyone ? " I said lamely. I was 
 circling round the strange confidence he had made 
 on board the Afzelia — the tale of the crippled, 
 beautiful young daughter, " being taken care of " 
 somewhere. 
 
 Gore answered without answering. 
 
 " She'd lose her worst qualities if she were 
 married," he said. I saw him wince over the 
 word, but he went on bravely. " She seems to 
 have been a pretty good governess all her life. 
 She was decent to Isola." 
 
 " Looks like it now," I burst out. 
 
 " She's playing for her own hand. I can see 
 her point of view," said Gore ; and I felt almost 
 frightened to note how mildly he spoke. It 
 seemed as if there were something broken in his 
 character — some spring that had given way. . . . 
 I remembered the day he had fled from the upper 
 deck and taken refuge in my cabin, declaring that 
 " some day a woman like that would run him in, 
 and he wouldn't have pluck enough to hang 
 himself." Well, she had run him in. And I 
 did not anticipate that he would lay violent hands 
 upon himself in consequence. Instead, I had a 
 horrid vision of a wedding — cake, favours, orange 
 flowers, bridesmaids, speeches, champagne — I 
 was sure that the victorious Mabel would spare 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 341 
 
 him no detail — with Gore in the middle of it 
 all, running for his life. 
 
 " Hang it all," I said, " I don't know how you 
 think I can accept such a thing." 
 
 " You've got her to think of," said Gore, and he 
 did not mean Miss Siddis this time. 
 
 " I offered her money," I said, after a silence. 
 " I went high. . . . But she isn't out for that, or 
 not that only. She wants to write Mrs. on her 
 visiting-cards. She wants a celebration — oh, 
 damn her ! " 
 
 " Damning won't help the case," said Gore. 
 " When a thing's done it's done. We'll see Isola 
 safe into Herbertshohe first, and then I'll come 
 back and fix things with Miss Siddis. You can 
 let her know as much — judiciously." 
 
 " You can trust me not to put the rope round 
 your neck before the sentence is passed," I said. 
 " If I saw any other way I'd have you shut up in 
 a lunatic asylum sooner." 
 
 " Don't fluff," said Gore. " I always did say 
 you talked too much." And not another word 
 would he say. 
 
 I carried out my mission to Mabel Siddis judi- 
 ciously, as I had been asked. I was not the man, 
 in any case, to have Red Bob let in for a breach of 
 promise case, if ... I sincerely hoped it would 
 be " if," and yet I did not believe it. For all 
 
342 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 I could see, Bob was doomed. There are no 
 words to say what a selfish beast I felt. 
 
 Miss Siddis minced and " simmered," as Gore 
 used to say, a good deal, but pretended not to 
 understand my meaning. Still, I saw by the way 
 she preened herself that she did. She saw us off 
 when we all three set out next day, and if anything 
 could have made my heart heavier than it was, the 
 way Red Bob kept close to me, to avoid a personal 
 farewell from Mabel, would have done it. 
 
 We had borrowed a horse and buggy, and set 
 off down the long road leading to Herbertshohe, 
 with spirits excited by the prospect of seeing real 
 war, or at least its aftermath. An hour or two 
 after leaving, we met a body of khaki-clad young 
 Australians, marching up to the plantation 
 country, and singing gaily as they went. We 
 stopped to greet them, and to hear the news. 
 There had been another skirmish that day ; not 
 much harm done to anyone. The soldiers 
 thought it would be the last : German New 
 Guinea was settling down peaceably enough to 
 the new occupation. 
 
 " Is there anything to avoid on the way ? '* 
 I asked of one young fellow, aside. He looked at 
 Isola. 
 
 " No," he said. " They're burying some dead 
 men, but it's nothing. . . . The casualties have 
 
Red Bob of the Bismarcks 343 
 
 been very small — very small indeed. You 
 needn't be uneasy about the young lady." 
 
 We drove on. The afternoon sun shot low 
 among the ranks of palms, and laid long golden 
 spears across the dusty road. Green parrots 
 chattered in the leaves and huge, slow, red and 
 blue butterflies sailed past, as peacefully as though 
 no war-storm had struck the isolated, far, strange 
 island of New Britain. A few miles on we came 
 to a turn in the road, where some Germans 
 engaged in carrying cofhns to the graveyard 
 of Herbertshohe had stopped to rest. 
 
 " There are three coffins," said Isola, her dark 
 eyes wide with horror. " It may be people that 
 I know, Paul ; will you stop and let me ask ? " 
 
 The men were strangers to all of us, and they 
 looked sullenly at the three EngHsh people who 
 were driving freely about the land, gloating, 
 no doubt, over the triumph of their countrymen. 
 They answered shortly when Isola spoke. 
 
 " Right Germans, all three," was their answer. 
 " What can it matter to you ? " 
 
 " Tell her," said Red Bob, leaning down with 
 the reins in his hands. And because he was a 
 man whom most people obeyed, they obeyed also. 
 
 " It is Friederichs, Reuss and Richter," said 
 one of the bearers, " and may the everlasting 
 curse " 
 
844 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 I need not add what he said. 
 
 Isola sat still and white till he had done, and 
 then asked : *' Justus Schultz Richter ? " 
 
 " Did you know him ? " asked the man, looking 
 up at her. 
 
 " I was married to him," she said ; " drive on ! " 
 
 Red Bob whipped up the horse and we drove 
 fast. 
 
 " I can't feel sorry," said Isola, looking at 
 me piteously. She drew out her pocket-hand- 
 kerchief and began to cry as she spoke. 
 
 " You've no reason to," said Red Bob, whose 
 face had suddenly taken on an astonishingly 
 bright expression. " No one has any reason to. 
 It cuts the knot — for us all." 
 
 Red Bob was sitting on the front seat of the 
 buggy, while Isola and I occupied the back. I 
 put my arm round her waist, and consoled her 
 as I liked best ; and now she did not repulse me. 
 
 " It's like dancing on a grave," she said, but 
 she crept up closer as she said it. 
 
 And the sun sank low and golden on the sea, 
 where before the port of Herbertshohe, an 
 Australian Hner lay waiting. 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed at The Chapel River Press. Kingston, Surrey. , 
 
Paternoster House, 
 
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 London, E.G. 
 
 July igis. 
 
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 " Oriental Cairo," " Egypt and the English," etc. 
 
 In demy 8r^, doth gilt and gilt top 2 IS. net. 
 With numerous Illustrations. 
 
 One of the greatest men identified with the estabUsh- 
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 some powerful native chiefs had combined with the intention 
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 A yfir, RfvUed and Enlarged Edition. In one vol., demy 8ro, cloth, 16s< net, 
 with upuards of 250 reproductions of Photographs and Dramngs. 
 
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 5 
 
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 27th Editioa 
 
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 6 
 
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 Each in cr. 8vo, cloth gilt 
 
 By AMELIE RIVES 
 
 (Princess Troubetzkoy) 
 
 Shadows of Flames 
 
 By the Author of the very successful novel, "World's End," 
 now in its loth Edition. 
 
 This important novel contains about 592 full pages. 
 
 The enormous success of the author's last novel, "World's 
 End," makes it certain that many thousands of readers will be 
 awaiting the announcement of this new book. It will not 
 disappoint them. From first to last the interest never flags, 
 for it is full of humanity. As in "World's End," a 
 Virginian beauty is the heroine. Sophy is most unhappily 
 married, but is loved nobly by a man separated from an un- 
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 7 
 
NEW 6/- NOVELS 
 
 By JUSTIN HUNTLY MCCARTHY 
 
 Pretty Maids all in a Row 
 
 By the Author of 
 "Needles and Pins," "The Grorgeous Borgia," &c. 
 
 In ** Pretty Maids all in a Row," Mr. Justin Huntly 
 McCarthy has returned to the adventures of his favorite 
 hero, Francois Villon, the great poet and petty thief 
 of fifteenth century Paris, whom he first dealt with in 
 *' If I were King." Mr. McCarthy's second Villon novel, 
 " Needles and Pins," a most successful book, was a 
 sequel to " If I were King," and showed the varied 
 fortunes of the poet after his marriage to " the loveliest 
 lady this side of Heaven." In contrast to this romance, 
 " Pretty Maids All in a Row " plays the part of a pro- 
 logue and tells the story of the tragic and fantastic youth 
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 hearted and romantic youth from the highway leading 
 to the "Garden of the Rose" into the byeways that 
 carried their traveller to the " Court of Miracles." 
 
NEW 6/- NOVELS 
 
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 To Love 
 
 By the Author of *' The Lure of the Little Drum," 
 "Tony Bellew," etc. 
 
 Joan wants to see life: she breaks away from her 
 home in the country and goes to London. She meets a 
 man who arouses her passion, and takes her into his 
 keeping : then] Joan returns to her home and horrifies 
 her relations : she is about to become a mother when a 
 merciful accident happens. Joan in London again works 
 for her living. A young doctor, who had seen her at her 
 home and knew of her experience, had been attracted by 
 her ; he meets her again, falls in love with her and 
 makes her his wife. The story deals with facts as 
 girls find them; glamour is brushed aside. There is 
 common-sense in the novel and a wholesome spirit. 
 Joan finds the way of wilful flesh hard indeed and 
 that a good man's love is a haven. 
 
 The author has already earned for herself a 
 reputation for good work, and, it will be easily under- 
 stood how, with such a study, she has made an 
 absorbingly interesting book. 
 
NEW 6/- NOVELS 
 
 By BEATRICE E. GRIMSHAW 
 
 Red Bob of the Bismarcks 
 
 By the Author of '* When the Red Gods Call," 
 " The Sorcerer's Stone," etc. 
 
 The story is told by the dare-devil son of a Liverpool 
 business man. He finds the Wander-Lust get the upper hand 
 and goes to sea. He enters the service of Vincent Gore (Red 
 Bob) a traveller and remarkable man, and with him sails to 
 German New Guinea to search for pearls. Here they have 
 adventures and help in the escape of a girl (nominally 
 married to a German) with whom the lad has fallen in love. 
 At the time of the story the country has just been annexed by 
 us after the outbreak of the war. Miss Grimshaw writes well and 
 has made a most pleasant and readable volume. It is story 
 and travel combined ; it has the real atmosphere, the author 
 knowing the coasts and the seas so well, and it carries the 
 reader convincingly into little known regions away from the 
 world of strife in Europe. 
 
NEW e/- NOVELS 
 
 By ARABELLA KENEALY 
 
 The Thing wc have 
 Prayed for 
 
 By the Author of "Dr. Janet of Harley Street," 
 "The Way of the Lover," etc., etc. 
 
 Pretty Betty Cooling was exploited by her ambitious, 
 scheming mother to secure the agency of young Lord 
 Repton's estate for her father — and the young peer for 
 herself. 
 
 Great expectations arose from Betty's visit to Swindon 
 Castle, the home of her school-friend, Lady Sally. Her 
 experiences there among a notoriously rapid set ; her 
 trip, unchaperoned, on Repton's yacht ; what happened 
 there ; how Pamela, her cousin, charming and unworldly, 
 became involved in Betty's escapade, and was discovered 
 under anomalous circumstances by Meyrick, the man 
 who loved her ; and how Betty learned that young noble- 
 men who amuse themselves are dangerous fire to play 
 with, make an interesting study in modern mothers and 
 daughters and manners, and an arresting story. Lady 
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 end-of-the-century girl, now fast going out, while Pamela 
 is the delightful Girl-to-come. 
 
NEW e/- NOVELS 
 
 By E. HARDINGHAM QUINN 
 
 The Zandsee 
 
 By the Author of "Sands of the Desert." 
 
 This novel is brimful of colour and sentiment. 
 Its setting is Java, with a picturesque background of 
 native huts and the white villas of a European settle- 
 ment. A young and beautiful woman is something 
 of a mystery. The other women make the worst of it, 
 but the men like her. The son of a very friendly 
 neighbour returns — he had been the Judge when the 
 woman's husband had applied for a divorce, but he did 
 not know that there had been a subsequent trial before 
 another Judge. He hesitates to denounce her, though 
 finding her in close intimacy with his mother : indeed 
 he loves her. Then another man arrives who is ill 
 and is nursed by the woman, but she will not explain. 
 The mystery is afterwards cleared up, and the Judge, 
 with eyes opened, is humbled that she should still 
 consent to marry him. 
 
NEW e/- NOVELS 
 
 By E. W. SAVI 
 
 Sinners All 
 
 By the Author of "The Daughter-in-Law," " Baba and 
 the Black Sheep," etc. 
 
 ••Forbear to judge for we are sinners all." 
 
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 title. It is a human story of 1914, placed in India and 
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 oscillate between the two countries with a charm that 
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 sinner who loves most whom he has wronged most; 
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 to whom, eventually, virtue becomes attractive by its 
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 have sown. There are individuals both Indian and 
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 story becomes touching and unforgettable because of the 
 reality of the emotions it awakens. 
 
 13 
 
NEW 61- NOVELS 
 
 By BRUNO LESSING 
 
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 With illustrations by M. L. BRACKER 
 
 Bruno Lessing has been called " the Kipling of the 
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 to a million readers, among whom Lapidowitz takes 
 first place, and in this book we have the complete 
 story of Lapidowitz the " schnorrer," who, it may be 
 explained, is a member of a Jewish community who 
 lives by his wits. The Hfe of the Ghetto is laid bare 
 with pungent but kindly humour, and with the humour 
 there is more than a measure of pathos. To begin to 
 read will bring laughter which will continue until the 
 end is reached. A more delightful rogue than Lapidowitz 
 has rarely found his way into the pages of a book. 
 Everyone will feel for him a sneaking affection, although 
 strangely enough, he has scarcely one redeeming quality. 
 It is a classic of modern fiction. 
 
 14 
 
NEW 6/. NOVELS 
 
 By F. C. PHILLIPS 
 
 Author of ** As in a Looking Glass," " A Question of Colour," etc. 
 
 and 
 
 ROWLAND STRONG 
 
 Author of "The Marquis of Catilini," etc. 
 
 The White Sin 
 
 This story is altogether fresh and full of in- 
 terest. It is quite modern but quite clean. A Jewish 
 financier of good family and good character assists 
 an aristocratic family, and falls in love with their only 
 daughter. The family despise him, but assent to the 
 marriage, and then do not hesitate to be kept by him. 
 There is an old lover who comes on the scene after 
 the marriage, and the wife, influenced by her parents, 
 neglects her husband and child. Her lover compromises 
 her, and her husband, to enable her to marry him, divorces 
 her, but she has been faithful, as her husband discovers, 
 and they are reunited. Mr. F. C. Phillips is a practical 
 novelist, and this new novel holds the reader from first 
 to last. 
 
NEW 61- NOVELS 
 
 By RICHARD R. STARR 
 
 Married to a Spy 
 
 This up-to-date novel is full of incident, and 
 makes absorbing reading. The wife tells her own 
 story, which opens with her marriage to an English- 
 man with whom she is deeply in love, and whom she 
 trusts completely. Then comes the knowledge that 
 he is a spy and, as she believes, a traitor. There is 
 a beautiful German woman head of a spy system in 
 London who is in constant touch with the husband, 
 and desperately in love with him. An old lover of 
 the wife appears, and, through her suspicions of her 
 husband, she herself becomes involved in a great 
 tangle of events which leads her into many dangers, 
 from which she ultimately escapes to be reconciled 
 to her husband, who has proved his worth. 
 
 i6 
 
NEW e/- NOVELS 
 By EFFIE ADELAIDE ROWLANDS 
 
 The Woman's Fault 
 
 By the Author of 
 Hester Trefusis," "The Man with the Money," etc. 
 
 The story of a rash marriage between a man supposed 
 to be a life-long invalid and a girl who loses her father 
 and her faith in the sweetness of human happiness at one 
 and the same time. Gifted with a musical temperament 
 and a beautiful voice, the heroine adopts the operatic stage as 
 a career, and the man who had married her simply to protect 
 her gives her her freedom, although he loves her devotedly. 
 Her story is made dramatic by the return into her life of 
 the man who had won her love when she was a mere girl, 
 and thereafter complications ensue which the story unfolds. 
 It is one of the best books this popular author has yet 
 written. 
 
 17 
 
NEW 6/- NOVEL. 
 
 By VIOLET TWEEDALE. 
 
 Love or War 
 
 By the Author of 
 *'The Honeycomb of Life," "The Portals of Love," &c. 
 
 The story commences in 19 14 when talk of war is in 
 the air. Lord Cressingham, who fought in the Boer War, 
 has vowed that never again will he take part in a war 
 and shed the blood of a brother man. Quixotic and 
 sincere, he is deeply conscious of nobhsse oblige. For the 
 first time he falls in love, and with a beautiful girl of 
 rare character belonging to his class. Elizabeth, when 
 she goes to his home as a guest to see more of him, all 
 but loves him. When war comes, Cressingham does not 
 go to the front, to the disgust of his friends. His bright 
 attractive brother comes home wounded, and he and 
 Elizabeth fall in love. Cressingham never lets them know 
 he has discovered the truth. He enlists as a private, 
 dropping his title, and sacrifices himself. A group of our 
 English nobility in the present stress is convincingly 
 presented, and the novel will be found not only timely 
 but exceptionally interesting. 
 
 18 
 
JUST PUBLISHED 
 
 AN IMPORTANT NEW NOVEL 
 By GERTRUDE PAGE 
 
 Author of 
 
 "The Edge o' Beyond," "Where the Strange Roads Go Down,' 
 
 etc. 
 
 Follow After 
 
 A Rhodesian Story 
 THREE LARGE EDITIONS have been immediately called for. 
 
 EARLY REVIEWS, 
 
 "Full of stirring incident. Miss Page has the rare gift of story- 
 telling and a capacity of contagious emotion," — Morning Post. 
 
 "The adventures are remarkably up-to-date and striking." — 
 Observer. 
 
 " Another Rhodesian novel such as this author loves to write and 
 her readers still more to read. It is full of insight into human 
 character. "—Evening Standard. 
 
 "Told with graphic power and sincerity." — Globe. 
 
 "A book to read : a breeze, bracing and stimulating, from the land 
 where men came hurrying to England's call."— PaW Mall Gazette. 
 
 " Her work is impregnated with an intense loyalty ; the chief 
 characters, Joe Lathom and Jack Desborough, are both fine characters 
 and well handled." — Athemeum. 
 
 " * Follow After ! ' is amazingly topical. We have nothing but 
 praise for 'Follow Aiierl' "—Illustrated London News. 
 
 "The author has given a fine picture of the marvellous loyalty 
 which impels the true colonist and her own passionate faith."— Cown/ry 
 Life. 
 
 •9 
 
SOME SUCCESSFUL NOVELS 
 
 RECENTLY ISSUED. 
 
 Each in cr. 8vo. cloth gilt, 5/- 
 
 THE TEETH OF THE TIGER ,.aE4Wo. 
 
 By MAURICE LEBLANC 
 The new Arsene Lupin novel. 
 
 "In the best Ars6ne Lupin vein. Need I, can I, say more! The 
 ingenuity of the plots and counter-plots is almost incredible. The vigour, 
 the excitement, the sudden turns and falls of fortune, the sheer intellectual 
 brilliance that the great Arsene applies to the vast and sinister problems 
 confronting him make a rattling good book of a rattling good kind."— 
 New Statesman. 
 
 THE MIRACLE OF LOVE ^.a^uo. 
 
 By COSMO HAMILTON 
 
 •* Mr. Cosmo Hamilton does his theme full justice— his novel will 
 probably be very widely read and will cheer dull lives enormously." — West- 
 minster Gazette. 
 
 "Mr. Hamilton proves again his undoubted qualities both as story 
 teller and delineator of character, and uses the old themes of love and re- 
 nunciation with the happiest results " — Giobe. 
 
 FALL IN! SrdEditioa 
 
 By J. P. MOLYNEUX 
 
 The Morning Post says : — " * Fall In ! ' is to our thinking the best of 
 the many novels that we have read having the South African War for their 
 subject. It is wriittn with a simple and straightforward zeal for the 
 honour, glory and welfare of the Empire, and at the same time describes 
 the fighting with the restraint of a soldier and the vividness of an eye- 
 witness. The love story which binds the book together is an attractive one, 
 because the f>eople that are concerned in it are real people. But it is above 
 all things a war novel, and one that stirs the pulses and uplifts the heart." 
 
 A DUCHESS OF FRANCE 
 
 A Story of Old Versailles 
 
 By PAUL WAINEMAN 
 
 *' Mr. Wainentan launches his story in excellent style, and he does not 
 disappoint the hopes he raises. His narrative is always lively." — Standard. 
 
 ** Paul Waineman has the real gift of bestowing on wig and ruffle just 
 that degree of human interest which makes the novel of costume readable. 
 Paul Waineman manages to keep his entertaining story alive till the last 
 page." — Daily News. 
 
 " A charming story of love, court intrigue, and -the pomp and splendour 
 of • Le Grand Monarque.' The author has nianaged to invest it with the 
 magic of atmosphere." — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
NEW 1/- EDITION 
 
 In crown 8vo, with picture paper cover in colours. 
 
 Weeds 
 
 By OLAVE POTTER and DOUGLAS 8LADEN 
 
 "An excellent novel. A very realistic picture of life as it is lived 
 by a large number of women." — Morning Post. 
 
 "A valuable contribution to the problem of the gentlewoman called 
 upon to earn her living." — Dailv Nervs. 
 
 " Full of vivid descriptions of life and realistic presentations of 
 character : it should prove one of the most notable novels of the season." 
 — Daily Telegrath. 
 
 ALREADY PUBLISHED 
 
 Each in crown 8vo, with picture paper cover in colours. 
 
 THE CLAW By Cynthia Stocklky 
 
 POPPY : The Story of a South African Girl 
 
 By Cynthia Stockley 
 
 TO-DAY AND LOVE By Maud Yardley 
 
 AS YE HAVE SOWN By Dolf Wyllarde 
 
 MAFOOTA By Dolf Wyllarde 
 
 THE CRYSTAL STOPPER By Maurice Leblanc 
 
 In cloth, picture wrappers. 
 
 THE SECOND THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW 
 
 By Jerome K. Jerome 
 
 THE PASSING OF THE THIRD FLOOR BACK 
 
 And other Stories. By Jerome K. Jeromk 
 
 THE PREY OF THE STRONGEST By Morley Roberts 
 
 Jerome K. Jero.me's Original Play 
 
 THE PASSING OF THE THIRD FLOOR BACK 
 
 Id crown 8ro, cloth gilt, with 16 iUttftrations, 2*. 6cl. net. 
 
 lo paper oorer, Is. 6«l« oci. 
 
 21 
 
Hurst S Blackett's 7d. NOVEL SERIES 
 
 Each in small crown 8vo, bound in cloth, gold lettering, 
 excellently printed from NEW TYPE ON GOOD PAPER, 
 with frontispiece illustration and decorative title page on 
 art paper, and with picture wrapper in colours, 7d. net. 
 
 Ne<w Volumes for t9t5. 
 
 HER CONVICT 
 
 WE TWO 
 
 IN THE GOLDEN DAY5 
 
 FOOL OF APRIL 
 
 THE O'FLYNN 
 
 THE ENGLISHWOMAN 
 
 FATE AND DRU5ILLA 
 
 HESTER TREFUSIS 
 
 HEARTS AT WAR 
 
 By M. E. Braddon 
 
 By Edna Lyall 
 
 By Edna Lyall 
 
 By Justin H. McCarthy 
 
 By Justin H. McCarthy 
 
 By Alice and Claude Askew 
 
 By Alice and Claude Askew 
 
 By Effie Adelaide Rowlands 
 
 By Effie Adelaide Rowlands 
 
 HURST & BLACKETT'S Td. NOVELS. 
 
 Volumes already published, 
 
 Mrs. B. M. CROKER 
 
 MADAME ALBANESI 
 
 Drusilla's Point of View 
 Marian Sax 
 A Question of Quality 
 The Strongest of All Thingrs 
 A Vouns: Man from the 
 Country 
 
 ALICE & CLAUDE ASKEW 
 
 Destiny 
 
 The Orchard Close 
 
 M. E. BRADDON 
 
 Dead L^ve has Chains 
 The White House 
 During Her Majesty's Plea- 
 sure 
 
 PRISCILLA CRAVEN 
 
 Circe's Daughter 
 
 Her Own People 
 
 The Youngest Miss Mowbray 
 
 The Company's Servant 
 
 JESSIE FOTHERGILL 
 Lassies of Leverhouse 
 A March In the Ranks 
 
 TOM GALLON 
 Jimmy Quixote 
 
 COSMO HAMILTON 
 
 The Infinite Capacity 
 The Outpost of Eternity 
 
 E. W. HORNUNG 
 Peccavi 
 
 22 
 
Hurst & Blackett's Yd. Novels 
 
 CONTINUED, 
 
 Volumes already published. 
 
 ♦•IOTA" (Mrs. Mannington Mrs. BAILLIE REYNOLDS 
 Caffyn) The ides of March 
 
 Dorlnda and Her Daughter Her Point of View 
 
 WILLIAM LE QUEUX 
 
 The Man from DownitiK 
 
 Street 
 The Price of Power 
 
 RITA" 
 
 The Seventh Dream 
 
 A Man of no Importance 
 
 Countess Daphne 
 
 EDNA LYALL 
 
 Donovan 
 
 justin huntly 
 McCarthy 
 
 The Oorgeous Borgia 
 The King over the Water 
 The God of Love 
 Needles and Pins 
 A Health unto His Majesty 
 A Fair Irish Maid 
 
 ADELINE SERGEANT 
 
 Kitty Holden 
 A Soul Apart 
 Jacobi's Wife 
 
 BEATRICE WHITBY 
 
 Bequeathed 
 
 The Awakening of Mary 
 
 Fenwicli 
 Mary Penwlck's Daughter 
 
 in the Suntime of Her 
 Youth 
 
 MARY E. MANN 
 Moonlight 
 
 CHARLES MARRIOTT 
 
 The Intruding Angel 
 
 Mrs. OLIPHANT 
 
 The Cuckoo In the Nait 
 
 It was a Lover and Hit 
 Laas 
 
 Janet 
 
 AgnM 
 
 PERCY WHITE 
 
 Colonel Daveron 
 
 The House of Intrigue 
 
 Mrs. C. N. WILLIAMSON 
 
 The Turnstile of Night 
 The Silent Battle 
 
 AUGUSTA EVANS WILSON 
 St. hlmo 
 
 33 
 
HURST & BLACKETT'S 
 
 6(1. Copyright Novels 
 
 Well printed from new type on good 
 
 paper, and bound in attractive 
 
 picture covers In colours. 
 
 NEW VOLUMES for I9I5 
 
 COUNTESS DAPHNE 
 
 ON THE HIGH ROAD 
 
 THE DAUGHTER-IN-LAW 
 
 THE RIVER OF DREAMS 
 
 THE KING OVER THE WATER 
 
 THE GOD OF LOVE 
 
 LOVERS OF MADEMOISELLE 
 
 THE PRICE OF POWER 
 
 THE HOUSE OF INTRIGUE 
 
 COLONEL DAVERON 
 
 BALAOO, or The Mysterious Mr. Noel 
 
 HIS BROTHER'S KEEPER 
 EUGENE VIDOCQ 
 FREEDOM 
 
 Rita 
 
 Effie Adelaide Rowlands 
 
 E. W. Savi 
 
 William Westrup 
 
 Justin H. McCarthy 
 
 Justin H. McCarthy 
 
 Clive Holland 
 
 William le Queux 
 
 Percy White 
 
 Percy White 
 
 Gaston Leroux 
 
 Judge M'D. Bodkin 
 
 Dick Donovan 
 
 Alice and Claude Askew 
 
 Owing to the large demand for the following Novels by 
 
 the very popular author, EFFIE ADELAIDE ROWLANDS 
 they are being reprinted :— 
 
 Love Wins Husband and Foe 
 
 Her Heart's Longing Love's Fire 
 
 Her Punishment Hester Trefusis 
 
 The Fault of One A Lovely Woman 
 
 A Umt of Hur9t d Blaokett's 6d. Novels (over 100 titles) will 
 be sent on agmlloatlon. 
 24 
 
YB 32846 
 
 S100I6 
 
 ^^1 
 
 v2> 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA UBRARY