mop his bald head
with a trade handkerchief. "But that partnership yarn of hers was too
big to swallow, though it gave them the excuse for a few more drinks."

"There is nothing irregular about it. It is an ordinary business
transaction." Sheldon strove to act as though such transactions were
quite the commonplace thing on plantations in the Solomons. "She
invested something like fifteen hundred pounds in Berande--"

"So she said."

"And she has gone to Sydney on business for the plantation."

"Oh, no, she hasn't."

"I beg pardon?" Sheldon queried.

"I said she hasn't, that's all."

"But didn't the _Upolu_ sail? I could have sworn I saw her smoke last
Tuesday afternoon, late, as she passed Savo."

"The _Upolu_ sailed all right." Captain Auckland sipped his whisky with
provoking slowness. "Only Miss Lackland wasn't a passenger."

"Then where is she?"

"At Guvutu, last I saw of her. She was going to Sydney to buy a
schooner, wasn't she?"

"Yes, yes."

"That's what she said. Well, she's bought one, though I wouldn't give
her ten shillings for it if a nor'wester blows up, and it's about time we
had one. This has been too long a spell of good weather to last."

"If you came here to excite my curiosity, old man," Sheldon said, "you've
certainly succeeded. Now go ahead and tell me in a straightforward way
what has happened. What schooner? Where is it? How did she happen to
buy it?"

"First, the schooner _Martha_," the skipper answered, checking his
replies off on his fingers. "Second, the _Martha_ is on the outside reef
at Poonga-Poonga, looted clean of everything portable, and ready to go to
pieces with the first bit of lively sea. And third, Miss Lackland bought
her at auction. She was knocked down to her for fifty-five quid by the
third-assistant-resident-commissioner. I ought to know. I bid fifty
myself, for Morgan and Raff. My word, weren't they hot! I told them to
go to the devil, and that it was their fault for limiting me to fifty
quid when they thought the chance to salve the _Martha_ was worth more.
You see, they weren't expecting competition. Fulcrum Brothers had no
representative present, neither had Fires, Philp Company, and the only
man to be afraid of was Nielsen's agent, Squires, and him they got drunk
and sound asleep over in Guvutu.

"'Twenty,' says I, for my bid. 'Twenty-five,' says the little girl.
'Thirty,' says I. 'Forty,' says she. 'Fifty,' says I. 'Fifty-fiv