gan, when they were seated, "is _is_ she
your partner or ain't she? That's what I want to know."

"She is," Sheldon assured him.

"Well, who'd have believed it!" Oleson glanced appealingly at Dr.
Welshmere, and back again at Sheldon. "I've seen a few unlikely things
in these Solomons--rats two feet long, butterflies the Commissioner hunts
with a shot-gun, ear-ornaments that would shame the devil, and
head-hunting devils that make the devil look like an angel. I've seen
them and got used to them, but this young woman of yours--"

"Miss Lackland is my partner and part-owner of Berande," Sheldon
interrupted.

"So she said," the irate skipper dashed on. "But she had no papers to
show for it. How was I to know? And then there was that load of ivory
nuts-eight tons of them."

"For heaven's sake begin at the--" Sheldon tried to interrupt.

"And then she's hired them drunken loafers, three of the worst scoundrels
that ever disgraced the Solomons--fifteen quid a month each--what d'ye
think of that? And sailed away with them, too! Phew!--You might give me
a drink. The missionary won't mind. I've been on his teetotal hooker
four days now, and I'm perishing."

Dr. Welshmere nodded in reply to Sheldon's look of inquiry, and Viaburi
was dispatched for the whisky and siphons.

"It is evident, Captain Oleson," Sheldon remarked to that refreshed
mariner, "that Miss Lackland has run away with your boat. Now please
give a plain statement of what occurred."

"Right O; here goes. I'd just come in on the _Flibberty_. She was on
board before I dropped the hook--in that whale-boat of hers with her gang
of Tahiti heathens--that big Adamu Adam and the rest. 'Don't drop the
anchor, Captain Oleson,' she sang out. 'I want you to get under way for
Poonga-Poonga.' I looked to see if she'd been drinking. What was I to
think? I was rounding up at the time, alongside the shoal--a ticklish
place--head-sails running down and losing way, so I says, 'Excuse me,
Miss Lackland,' and yells for'ard, 'Let go!'

"'You might have listened to me and saved yourself trouble,' says she,
climbing over the rail and squinting along for'ard and seeing the first
shackle flip out and stop. 'There's fifteen fathom,' says she; 'you may
as well turn your men to and heave up.'

"And then we had it out. I didn't believe her. I didn't think you'd
take her on as a partner, and I told her as much and wanted proof. She
got high and mighty, and I t