any different kinds of a fool he had made of
himself. It was an impossible situation, and yet no more impossible than
the previous one, and no more impossible than the one that would have
obtained had she gone off on her own and bought Pari-Sulay. He had never
seen a more independent woman who stood more in need of a protector than
this boy-minded girl who had landed on his beach with eight picturesque
savages, a long-barrelled revolver, a bag of gold, and a gaudy
merchandise of imagined romance and adventure.

He had never read of anything to compare with it. The fictionists, as
usual, were exceeded by fact. The whole thing was too preposterous to be
true. He gnawed his moustache and smoked cigarette after cigarette.
Satan, back from a prowl around the compound, ran up to him and touched
his hand with a cold, damp nose. Sheldon caressed the animal's ears,
then threw himself into a chair and laughed heartily. What would the
Commissioner of the Solomons think? What would his people at home think?
And in the one breath he was glad that the partnership had been effected
and sorry that Joan Lackland had ever come to the Solomons. Then he went
inside and looked at himself in a hand-mirror. He studied the reflection
long and thoughtfully and wonderingly.

CHAPTER XIV--THE MARTHA

They were deep in a game of billiards the next morning, after the eleven
o'clock breakfast, when Viaburi entered and announced,--

"Big fella schooner close up."

Even as he spoke, they heard the rumble of chain through hawse-pipe, and
from the veranda saw a big black-painted schooner, swinging to her just-
caught anchor.

"It's a Yankee," Joan cried. "See that bow! Look at that elliptical
stern! Ah, I thought so--" as the Stars and Stripes fluttered to the
mast-head.

Noa Noah, at Sheldon's direction, ran the Union Jack up the flagstaff.

"Now what is an American vessel doing down here?" Joan asked. "It's not
a yacht, though I'll wager she can sail. Look! Her name! What is it?"

"_Martha_, San Francisco," Sheldon read, looking through the telescope.
"It's the first Yankee I ever heard of in the Solomons. They are coming
ashore, whoever they are. And, by Jove, look at those men at the oars.
It's an all-white crew. Now what reason brings them here?"

"They're not proper sailors," Joan commented. "I'd be ashamed of a crew
of black-boys that pulled in such fashion. Look at that fellow in the
bow--the one just jum