Hell's Hatches

in that connection. There were two or three things that were pretty well bound to happen, and if they hadn't come about one way, there is little doubt that they would have done so

ine immediately, and, for another, because, completely played out by thirty-six hours at the wheel without relief, he had sunk into a sleep from which he had not rallied for over two days. Similar considerations would have prevented my seeing Rona. Besides being in quarantine she was in a state of raving delirium, which would have made it impossible for her to convey coherent

s before the schooner anchored, his remains had not been buried at sea. This, it appeared, had been largely due to the protests of some sort of a Kanaka girl the Skipper had had with him. According to the Bo'sun's statement (fine upstanding fellow that looked like some kind of a Java man), she had gone plumb off her chump. Tried to knife the Mate first, and then plumped down by the Skipper's remains and threatened to stic

en the Mate-he was exuding alcohol from every pore-absolutely reeking with it. Almost made a man drunk to breathe the air down to leeward of him. Seemed to have been on one glorious spree all the way from-somewhere up Solomon-way, he thought it was. Harried the niggers like a fiend, according to the Bo'sun. Clubbed three or four of them to death for not stepping lively enough to his orders. Lucky thing the Skipper had scuppered all but one of the guns the first day out. But not all the booze he had soaked up had effected the nerve of the Mate. Kept his head and hi

l Australia! Crooked as they make 'em-but how he could ride! Sent off to the Islands four or five years back for raising some sort of hell. His old Ticket-of-Leave had given him away when they came to strip him for a bath. No possible mistake

actually helped to put the great and only Hartley Allen to bed, was proving almost too much for him. It was certainly not less than three separate times that he ass

unt he had tackled. Intense nervous strain-that was the one thing written all over the man. Face was starting to bloat a bit from the heat by the time I saw it first; but, even so, it still showed the

very slowly to hide the agitation aroused by this significant intelligence. "Isn't that about the way a man would

is, though, we didn't give the matter very much attention. That chap was dead-finished,-while the other white man and the girl-to say nothing of forty or fifty niggers-were alive. Then, with t

I interrupted. "How was that?

ial.... And of course we couldn't allow her to leave the Station until her period of quarantine was over. Had to take her away from the body by main force. She fought the whole lot of us with tooth and nail and a wicked little curly-bladed dagger. St

ing out of a fit when we left her, but was quite over her raving-wasn't even sobbing aloud. She was coming out of her hysteria-getting rational again. Her eyes, though still wild and almost throwing off sparks of anger, were quite

had fulfilled its purpose, too-up to night before last. To make it perfectly secure, it had been constructed without windows-nothing but a two-by-two hole up against the twelve-foot-high ceiling admitted light and ai

ivable way she could have got out (the attendant is absolutely trustworthy, and the key was not in his hands more than a minute or two anyway), we would have been forced to conclude that the girl had reached it with wings-had not we found the lower four or five feet of wall marked with the prints of the to

e could account for the toe-prints on the wall, though it is quite possible that, after failing to pull off the trick in that fashion-it's a stunt that looks dead hopeless for anything but a monkey,-she managed it with a straight spring, high enough to get her fingers over the ledge

wl through the hole, out over the eaves and on top of the roof; but she did it, else she could never have jumped across the big banyan, where we found some twigs broken at the point she hit, and some wisps of silk floss. The other side of

r with which to mount on the other side. To be sure of clearing the barbed wire, she had climbed to a firm perch fully twenty-five feet from the ground, and made her final jump from there. Lucki

tion she had taken. As she had seemed plumb daft about the dead Skipper, we figured that she had probably broken out with the idea of going to his grave, and perhaps making an end of herself there. If that was it, she failed. There were no signs whatever of her having bee

ed on it. Well, when we found that lying on the bank of Ross Creek, just a bit inland of the town, we felt so sure that it marked the jumping-off place for her in more ways than one. For that

anxious about it, he would gladly put in a word for me with the Chief. I would have to show good reason for my request, of course. Perhaps, if it chanced that I was able to shed any light on how the schooner came to get into such a mess-I cut him short by saying that I might call at the Quarantine Station when

e Great Barrier. And in case she did get through, I was quite prepared to learn that both of the white men and the girl had succumbed to the plague. But to be told that, after the schooner had avoided disaster, and all three of them the plague, that the two upon whom my interest and

istered a second and stronger dose? He would have had a hundred opportunities to do that had he desired to. Rona's attacks on the Mate, indicating the deadliest hatred, seemed to prove that her first suspicions of hi

lready told. I had never let myself think of her in terms of physical possession, though the sheer animal attraction of the girl was beyond anything I had ever experienced in a woman. But her appeal to the artistic side of me had been stronger even than that. Just as the thrill

e's bowstring. It was almost as hard to think of the flaming, soaring spirit of her as quenched, as it was to believe that the matchless perfection, the supple gracefulness of her body-shooting alligators to see if any of them had been enjoying anything extra-special in tucker lately! I could not pursue that line of thought any further. I agreed with the Doctor that the fact that the girl had parted with

nd Ranga were out of quarantine, and then let things shape as they would; but always assuming that, in case the former could not satisfy me he was innocent of Bell's death, I should

dmitted he had been living in the Kai colony for months would not have to be smuggled

' to cut an' run for it. If ye're not back ag'in by the time I'm gettin' awa', than I'll be sendin' it in for ye on the Company's

Kai origin could not be ignored. If I was to have an exhibition of paintings in Sydney, then why was I stopping off in Townsville? On that point-since I didn't want to go into the Cora affair with anyone until I knew how things were going to shape-I had hardly been able to reassure the old sceptic. I might

t but have a salutary effect on my nerves to get quite beyond the attraction I felt that Quarantine Station would have for me if I lingered within physical reach of it. Nothing but absinthe, and more absinthe, and then more absinthe, could be depended upon to relieve my nerves once they were fully wrought up, as I knew they must be if I remained in Townsville in en

e I have taken to set them down. My reply to Captain Tancred fo

e had already stowed in the waiting boat. "I know no one whose opinion on my daubs I'd rather have than yours. But I'll pay my little visit ashore

o the contrary, indeed, the town was agog with the dramatic suddenness of the arrival of the plague ship and its astonishing sequel. But as no one had been allowed to see any of the survivors, such accounts as were current were only those which had been

ndred plague-stricken niggers. That one circumstance in itself was wonderful enough, but when, on top of it, the announcement was made that the hero was none other than the former idol of sporting Australia, the Hon. Hartley Allen, popular imagination w

g, were dispatching telegrams of congratulation to a man who was still muttering in his drunken sleep behind the walls of the Townsville Quarantine Station. Sydney was competing with Brisbane for the honour of being the first to bestow the "Freedom of the City" upon the man both of them had had some share in transporting. A special from Sydney to th

aised against the Hon. Hartley Allen and the noblest traditions of Australia. As I elbowed my way out again, I wondered just what the Charters Towers miner, who had manifested his exuberant approval by slapping me on the back, would have thought-nay, what he would have done-had he known that the

ero that "Slant" Allen was becoming, even before he roused from the heavy sleep which had held him ever since he collapsed over the wheel as the Cora came to anchor. That circumstance, I told myself, complicated my task beyond measure, though I couldn't, of course, allow it to make any difference in my pr

n Allen's lawless breast to seal my mouth for good and all, now that he had so much to lose by the truth's coming out? The feeling that such would be the case-that the dizzily mounting fortunes of the ex-beach-comber would ultimately impel him

own a slide made from a smear they had taken of the late Skipper's blood. The bacteriologist had seen to that immediately the body was landed. It showed no traces whatever of plague bacilli. I could be quite assured on that point. The Chief was unwilling to hazard an opinion as to what the real cause of the man's death might have been. He seemed rather to regret that he had failed to order a post-mortem. Allen was still sleeping heavily, but would be right as a trivet beyond a doubt as soon as he woke up and gave them a chance to sweat some of the

before that classic was run? Entries closed some time ago, of course. He'd have to square it with the stewards some way. They might make a special exception, seeing who A

My mind had been torn with doubt over a number of things that day.... It was a relief to be

ll ye're clean awa'." The look on the old boy's face was a study when, a few days later, after the tugs had nosed his ship into her berth at the Circular Quay, I stalked brazenly off down the gangway, with no more regard for the two Bobbies guarding the dock gate than they had for me. He had exacted two promises fr

ppearance at the Exhibition could not have been better timed. The affair had been extremely well handled from the first. I had been sending pictures to Sydney from all parts of the South Seas for the last eighteen months, packing