VANDERDECKEN

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 536, 13 December 1928, Page 5

VANDERDECKEN

*- By

H. DE VERE STACPOOLE.

CHAPTER XXV (Continued! “Well, what about it?**. “1 should have stopped her so that you might have got back to ’Frisco.^ “But I didn’t want to go to ’Frisco. “Why, you said the day we first had you on board that you could get back on some ship.” “Oh. did I? I’d forgot —well. I wouldn’t, have gone in the freightei, to ’Frisco of all places.” “I didn’t know that. From what, you said I should have stopped her. “Why didn’t you?” “Well,” said her, “I didn’t want to lose you. Hank and me didn t want you to go off and leave us, you d been such a good chum.” “Well, forget it. I didn’t want to leave you, either. Not me! . Why, this trip is the best holiday I’ve had for years. If that’s all you have to bother about, forget it.” “There’s something else,” said he. “The McGinnis crowd is pretty suro to blow along down after us and ihere’ll be a fight, sure. You see. tv&’re held here by that sand; that will give them time to get on our tracks.” “If they come, we’ll have to fight them,” said Tommie. “But, if you ask I don’t think there’s much fight in that lot. by what you say of them ” “They’re toughs, all the same. I’m telling you, and I want you to choose right now—we can stay here and risk it, or push out and away back and hut you down at Santa Barbara, give us the word.”

Tommie considered deeply for a moment. Then she said: “I’m not afraid. I reckon we can match them if it comes to scratching. No, we’ll stick. You see, there’s two things you can’t put me back in Santa Barbara without the whcle of this business coming out aud Hank Fisher and Bud du Cane being guyed to death Your ship is kifown, Althusen and that lot will give evidence —you can’t put me hack out of the Wear Jack anyhow.” Then how are you to get hack, asked he. • I’ve been trying to think that long enough,” said Tommie. “You remember the rat in the flower-pot—some-thing or another will turn up, or I’ll have to do some more thinking.” "Do you know what I’m thinking?” asked Shan. "I’m thinking there’s not many would stick this out just to save a couple of men from being guyed.” “Maybe —I don’t know. Anyhow the other thing is I want to see the end of this business and that stuff got out of the sand and handed back to its owners. Lord, can’t you see? If we turned back now we’d he quitters, and I don’t know what you’d do with yourself; bu; I tell you what I d do with myself. I’d take to making lace for a living—or go as mother's help—paugh!” “God!” said Shan, “give me your fist.” Tommie held out her fist aud they shook. CHAPTER XXVI.—HANK. Hank, as before mentioned, was a man of resource; there was nothing much he could not do with his hands backed by his head. In two hours ou board the Wear Jack he had found the materials for and constructed three tent-poles; in the sail-room, and by sacrificing the awning, he had obtained the necessary canvas; ropes and pegs evolved themselves from nowhere as if by magic. Then in some way, and from the interior of

the Wear Jack, he managed to get planking, not much, but enough for his purpose. While he worked on these matters, George superintended the removal of stores, bully beef, canned tomatoes, canned kippered herrings, biscuits, butter, tea, condensed milk, rice. He sent two Chinks ashore with a boat-load; then, when they came back, the rest of the stuff was loaded into the boat, together with the tent-poles and canvas and blankets. Last came a small bundle containing Tommie’s night things and toothbrush. Then they pushed off. Shan helped in the unloading of the boat and then they set to raising the tents. In this section of the bay there were two breaks in the line of cliffs, a north and a south break. Hank drew the line of the tents between the breaks and at right angles to the cliffs, so as to escape, as much as possible, the hot land wind when it blew. Also he put a long distance between each tent. Tommie’s was nearest the cliffs, the Chinks’ nearest the sea. By sunset the canvas was up, a fire lit, a breaker filled with fresh water from the issue in the cliff, and the stores piled to leeward of the middle tent. Hank had even brought mosquito netting and a plan for using it in the tents. He seemed to have forgotten nothing, till Tommie opened her bundle. "Where’s my book?” asked Tommie. Hank hit himself on the forehead. •Blest if I haven’t forgot it! Chucklehead—say! I ll put off right now and fetch 'it.” Oh, it 11 wait,” said the other.

“I guess I’ll be busy enough for a while not to want books. You can fetch it to-morrow.” If Hank had known the consequences of delay, he would have fetched it there and then, but he didn’t. He went to attend to the fire. The fire was built of dry seaweed, bits of a broken-up packing-case and fragments of wreck wood, and when the kettle was boiled over it and tea made, the sun had set and the stars were looking down on the beach. After supper Tommie went off to her tent, leaving the men to smoke. The two Chinks, who had built a microscopic fire of their own, were seated close to it talking, maybe of China and home. The wind had died out and through the warm night the sound of the waves all down the beach came like a lullaby. Hank was giving his ideas of how they should start in the morning attacking the sand, when Shan, who had been smoking silently, suddenly cut in. “I’ve told her,” said he. “What you say?” asked Hank. “I’ve told her all about myself and who I am, and the chances, told her when you chaps went off for the stores. Told her it’s possible McGinnis may light down on us before we’ve done, seeing the work before us ou that sand, and there’ll maybe be fighting she oughtn’t to be mixed up in.” “B’ gosh!” said Hank. “I never thought of that. What diet she say?” "Oh, she said, ’Let him come.’

“Lord, she’s a peach.” “She’s more than that,” said Shan. Wouldn't listen to anything about turning back, said we’d be quitters if we dropped it now.” “Well, I’m going for a breather before turning in.” He tapped his pipe out and, rising, walked off down along the sea edge. George laughed. He was laughing at the size of Shan compared to the size of Tommie, and the quaint idea that had suddenly come to him, the idea that Shan, of all people, had become gone on her. George could view the matter in a detached way, for though T.C. appealed to him as an individual, he scarcely considered her as a girl. A lot of little signs and symptoms collected themselves together in his head, capped by the tone of those words. “She’s more than that.” Yes, it was highly probable that the heart-punch had come to S.K. Why not? Tommie as an anchor wasn’t much, as far as_size went, yet as far as character arid heart —who could tell? All the Indications were in her favour. “She’s a peach,” murmured Hank, half aloud, half to himself. Hullo, thought George, has old Hank gone half-cracked on her too! Then aloud: “You mean Tommie?” “Yep,” “Oh, she’s not so bad.”

“And I went and forgot her book! Bud, d’you remember to-day. when we were all standing like a lot of lost hoodlums, going to turn our backs on this proposition, and the way she yanked us round? It came on me then.” “W'hat?” “1 dunno. Bud, say ” “Yes?” “She’s great. It came on me today like a belt on the head with a sandbag. It came to me before. Remember the day she was first aboard and wouldn’t put back, wanting to save our faces? Well, that hit me, but the jaw punch got me today, and just now when she trundled off to her tent, lugging that blanket behind her, I seemed to get one in the solar plexus that near sent me through the ropes. But. I’m on my back, being counted out.” “Oh, talk sense,” said Bud. “We’ve too much work on hand to be carrying on with girls. Tie a knot in it. Hank, till we’re clear of this place, anyhow. Besides, it’s ten to one there’s some other chap after her.” A form loomed up coming toward them. It was Shan. CHAPTER XXVII. —THE SAND.

At seven the next morning the digging began. At six, when Hank turned out of the tent, the aspect of the beach had changed. A north wind, rising before midnight, had blown steadily and strongly unheard and unheeded by the snoring sleepers in the tents. It died out after dawn.

Hank called George to look. Here and there away across the sands white spots were visible, some like the tops of gigantic mushrooms. One quite close to them showed as the top of a whale's skull. Further on a huge rib hinted of itself. There were little sand-drifts on the windward side of the tents. “Wind’s been shifting the sand,” said George; “it’s all over me.” His hair was full of sand and his pockets. Hank was in the same condition. Tommie came out of her tent blinking at the sun. “Say. I’m all sand,” said Tommie.

“Wind's been blowing,” said Hank; “look at the bones.” The sand seemed lower over the cache. Shan gave it as his opinion that it was at least a foot lower. Then without more ado they began to dig, using the two spades and one of the shovels improvised by Hank. Shan. Hank and one of the Chinks were the diggers. They had divided themselves into two gangs, George, Tommie and the other Chink forming the second gang; and they, having seen the work started, went off to prepare breakfast. (To be continued.)