Evening Star Newspaper, April 20, 1924, Page 61

THE A Heritage of Vengeance, the Son Without Hate and the Call of the Half-Wild in Polynesia. T may be that some men czn hold Batred In thelr hearts like a secret spring in a rock; that they actually do carry out femd znd grievance and retributive ven- Kesmoe after many years. But the men must be men of sour and bitter stratp—very different from Henry of Vitongo. He grew up under the shad- ow of an unsatisfied wrong without once swearing a vendetta or taking @ blood oath. Henry was half Samoan—the gen- tlest, most tolerant and peaceadle stock In all the jumbled racial chem- istry of this world And Henry him- self was the laziest, most hopelessty easy-going and unconsidering young- ster that ever drowsed and dreamed and played away the hours on the fringe of a jeweled beach. He had no hatred, only sunshine and laugh- ter in his heart: Henry of Vitongo. That was not all his name, of course. Ho had inherited the estate and the lawful designation of his father. - In the garden of the ramshackle, jig-saw homestead—imported plce- roeal from Australia—stood a weath- er-beaten marble tomb—imported bedily from Hawail. Betwecn the jungle that ran over in tangled green and the lagoon that frothed in cream and blue, there it had stood for eighteen years; and from its ornately carven epitaph, the half-caste boy had first learned his letters: HENRY GORDON SHOESMITH b. Scotland 1847 Vitongo, Sept. 6, 1598. man’s work shall be manifest.” I. Cor. TII And underneath lay the tractor of Vitongo—the tough o.d, far-wandcring Scot, who had founded home and family and fortune in this restful island nook; who had been brought to his last rest treacherously and terribly—slain by unknown hand. “Unknown.” be it said at once, in| the official = e only; for no person had ever been tricd for the deed. | “Unproven” would be more exact; for In private talk, the mur- derer had been charged, condemned long since. “Tu'u ia mo paga,” said Henry; Wwhich means, it is nothing, it is for- gotten—it should not count. He climbed ashore and sat shaking the wet from his straight black hllr: and gleaming in the sun like a| bronzed merman. “Eighteen year, | tha's awful long time,” said Henry of Vitongo. His cousin Gordon scowled down at him. “A long time don't change the fact. 12 you was a man, Henry Shoesmith— the ‘alf of a man—!" “Ah, tha's it.” smiled Henry quictly, without malicc. “Tha's why—eh? I am only ‘alf a man beside vou." A neat way of recalling that Gordon's mother had married a white; where- fore Gordon was a quarter-caste, | cellege-taught in New Zealand, and ‘wore celluloid collars and satin ties and altogether comported himself with the dominant race. “Tu'u la mo paga,” repcated Henry. The other bit his lip. It was his ‘vehement annoyance that this grace- less young scamp should have fallen into the best part of the Shoesmith possessions. It was almost equally annoying that the scamp chould care so little to augment those holdings, to deploy them with social gestures— ©r even Lo protect them, as appeared. “Tdst'n to me,” he said, severely. “Everybody knows who killed your father. Everybody knows it was the same h-wicked, h-wicked man who is trying fo thieve away the rest of vour land now!" a “Every made an * * Hn’flf pillowed himself on the warm sand and continued to mile indolently out across the smil- ing bay, “He will do it, too—unless you fight. He has bought up all the notes of your foolisn borrowings in Apla d raised the amount by tricks and false claims. Oh-h, a cunning d-he- vil' *Ave you forgotten?’ Gordon's voice fell a sinister note—- “Your tather had loaned him much money. Somebody—somebody—cut your fath- ers throat as ho slept, and thieved all those papers of those loans! Eh? And now this same man comes again to r-r-rob you. Only this time he doss not need to use a knife—Henry ! Shoesmith!” Gordon called upon him. “Henry Shocsmith; do you remember that kuife?" Something like a cloud passed over Tienry’s face; something like a shud- der took him, as when z damp wind turns the breadfruit leaf. Did he not remember that knife? It was the substance of every evil vision he had bad from childhood. He always saw it as it hung over his fathers bed— a Malay kris, really, though Henry never knew it as such; one of the grelios the shrewd old trader had gath- ered in his travels before be settled down as an island patriarch: a thing . with & wavy blade and a handle set i \n golored stones that glittered—glit- \ tered dreadfully. He always saw it : glittering through a red mist since the morning when, as a mere toddler, he Bhad been first to discover the ¥tragedy. “List'n. I know where that knife .ls kep’t I know three men in Apla ‘who bave seen it. The stones are :very vaiu-sble, and Joranson needs - money agaln, as ho did beforo— He ¥has tried to sell it—Joranson the Dane!” Still Henry made no response. “You could find that knife if you .searched on board bis trading cut- frter, ® * * I you dared!” said Gor- {sdon, with s spurt of suger. “Hoh! But yeu do pot dare. Even when €Tito §8 walting there for you. A bean- ‘i tifyl gtr) i Tito—the daughter of Jo- Cwanson. She fears ‘em. and every , night be bests her with a bamboo * i original | nearly | tried and | |moner-making middle class. | zood God: you should blush for your- | serer™ coward,” he said, stung into full- throated native speech. “I1 am'sprung from the sced of Alipia Nalletat— ‘Alipta who dled in the sea! He was a great chief of Samoa, and Samoans are not cowards!™ “Samoans are not cowards, but thou knowest what white folks say of them? They are quit-ters,” returned Gordon, bitterly. “They will not fight. They quit! They cannot carry through anything, even in their own defense. ® ® ¢ And so it is with thes, who art no,Samoan. What art thou? Only a fishman and a fool. Only swimming and joking and {idling while thy blood-enemy goes unslain and unpun- *“It {9 not for a Samoan to have a blood-enemy. It is not the custom of the country to slay anybody.” “It is the custom to ask justice! Only as nearest of kin you must ask the court yourself. * * * Come now, Henry, let me take your case,” plead- ed Gordon. “We can so easy prove that Joranson did it, and we can leave the killlng to the English judge. He will ‘ave Joranson ‘anged by the neck. And then you can marry Tito —and Joranson's cutter and all that is Joranson's will be yours!” he added eagerly. Henry lay back on the beach again with one arm thrown over to shade his brow. But while he regarded the importunate visitor, in the pooled depths of his eyes ran a tiny flicker- ing light which might have recalled— which did recall—the temper of that able Scotch trader, his father. “Gor-don Shoesmith,” he said, slow- 0 away. You are smart-man and lawyer-man. You are thinking if lanything ‘appens to me you will be| | next to own Vitongo—eh? Any any | |'ow if you stir up bloody row you| make me fight to kecp Vitongo for you-—h? List'n, 1 am maybe fool, but I am not—fool! Go away, Gordon | Shoesmith.” | * % % 2 | HY,'.\'R\' of Vitongo was that curious | modern product-—-seldom noticed— the man midway east and west, whose |heritage swings between two pasts as wide apart as the poles. It was a re- | markable share in the heritage, and the world's indirect tribute to a noble | native race, that as a half-caste of Samoa he need never be ashamed of it Pride or race is so rare with mixed bloods; still rarer when granted by white to dark. Only among descend- ants of certain American Indian tribes of the Maoris and kindred | Polynesian branches through the is- | lands, will you find such pride held and acknowledged. And this was Henry's. Not but he knew well enough the ways of a saddle-tinted society—like Gordon and Gordon’s womenfalk, who anxiously aped the manners of a hy, To these striving relatives of Hen- many things seemed essential; invitations at Government House, land and profits and the tricks aof commerce. To Henry nothing in life seemed important except the living. It always had been so with him. Since his orphaned bovhood he had been a scandal to his kind. 1In his school days at the Marist Mission he had offered a sad problem to those earnest saints who shed a pale cast of culture on the riotous tropics. When Brother Leo used to catch him play- ing truant with garlanded madcaps at the jumping-rock—he would shake an angry finger at the eifin face and explode a six-barreled German word which signified, in approximate mean- ing, a “throw-back.” i | “That is what you are, Henry Shog- smith. You belong a gentieman—no? —4cith a fine home and a trading store. And you act as a little pagan. Ach, such conduct displeasing to the Brother Leo had hit the truth. Hen- ry of Vitongo was a born pagan. To ride the breaker, to chase the rainbow fish, to beguile the hours, nourished at nature's ripe breast and sleeping there without doubt or care —no books had taught him this; no books could teach him better. Ac- cepting the white man's religion and the white man’s deadly contact, but still he was at heart unchanged sinoce a golden, olden age; neither laboring, owning nor coveting; harming none, envying mome and hating mnobody— these Henry ioved, too, and lovingly underatood. All of which was harmless enough, to be sure—all of which involved nothing worse' than the talk and the acandal aforesaid—to the fateful moment when he learned that he loved, and hopelessly loved, pretty Tito Joran- som. * o+ * “A beautiful girl is Tito, the daugh- ter of Joranson the Dane. Every night he beats her with a bamboo stick. She only waits for a strong man.” Well, whatever any one might say or think of it, Henry certainly had done his best to qualify. Had he not enlarged Vitongo store at reckless cost? Had he not plunged with a bold financlal gesture on three trading ventures to Savail? Had he not mortgaged and borrowed right and left in order to gamble disas- trously in copra and ococos—all at Joranson’s own cunning suggestion, and all for the single purposs of proving himself a strong man and a gentleman by every half-caste stand- ard and a worthy candidate for a son- in-law? His effort had falled. It had worse than failed, for Joranson was coming this very night to demand 3 settle- ment. Henry dreaded it. How ter- ribly he dreaded it. oaly one could have guessed who had ingrained in his make-up the obscure inhibitions of Polynesia—primitive without savage- who do no figh hey cannot carry through anything, even in their own behalf.” Here and now he was going to have to meet the crisis of life—to square life and love somehow with the reputed murderer of his father! Lgtick. She is only waiting for some ‘atrong man to take ber away from him, But she wiil not wait long for Jou when she knows you are a cow- arqr Heury sat wp at last. "7 am wot * k k% SUCE was the case of Henry Shoe- smith on this particular morning of Bis twenty-third year. It was mot & good case but it ry—wise without wisdom; the MDI" finally drove him out of his dreams into making some sort of a show for himself. He hurried to the big house. He donned a pair of dove-gray panta He 1aid out a shirt with pearl but- tons. Better still, from a battered cowhide trunk he unearthed old yel- low shoes, a jacket of black alpaca and a venerable silk walstcoat sprig- xed with forget-me-nots. Once he had nearly strangled himself with a collar button and had set a warped straw hat to top the glory, he felt like an armored knight; very gentle- manly, indeed. Then he marched over to the store, where he relieved his Niue-boy clerk and sold three yards of caligo for a total profit of ten pence ha'-penny and felt him- self a business man. The moral uplift sustained him all day long: until swift tropic night began to pour in against the land: until a lantern on Jaranson's cutter cocked its baleful and expectant eye at him across Vitongo bay; until he crept down cautiously to avoid his dear cousin, Gordon—who doubtless would be watching and spying some- where among the palm trees—and paddled out in his little outrigger proa on the dappling phosphorescence of the lagoon to achieve his destiny. Tito was waiting for him. Some- how, he had been surs that Tito would be wating and he was glad, though inwardly quaking. In a way, this encounter was worse than the prospect of his ordeal with Joranson, for a half-caste courtship is hedged with infinite ceremony, and he never had addressed actually a dozen words to his lady love. He could seo her gown as a lighter patch there on the forward deck. So he put on his shoes —instruments of torture, which he bad saved to the last moment—and climbed aboard over the cutter's rail. “A good even' to you, Miss Joran- son “A good even', Mis-ter Shoesmith.” He swept off his hat with a flour- ish. She ‘made him a curtsey In the grand manner of the saddle- tinted aristocracy. But both of them rather spoiled the effect by turning an anxious glance toward the after cabin, where their common ogre sat alone at his dinner. Their volces were hushed “I did not fin' you at the pi'ture theater las’ Thursday night” began Henry politely. “No. That was the same n-ight the dance of the Ladies’ Tuina Club,” re- turned Tito primly. As a matter of fact, Henry had not gono to the picture theater; neither Lad Tito gone to the dance. These Wwere company conventions, to which they desperately clung. “Business 'as been good today,” ob- served Henry, fanning himself. “Cop- ra is up again. I think there will be much money in the villages this sea- | son. “Yes. And much gay time in Apia,” agreed Tito. “Two weddings will be soon—and a christan’ party.” As a matter of fact business and parties were equally far from them: but they were saying the proper things. ° $x x4 (QUT on the broad horizon grew a faint halo, luminous with coming moonlight. It made a background for Tito's filletbound head. Higher yet hung two quivering points of radi- ance. Henry thought they must be fireflies caught in the dusky web of her hair. Then he saw they were stars, and presently, as a wonderful and very dear and very intimate rev- elation, théy showed him her face. A flawless face, of a beauty that would have matched a Reni Madon- na—the soft, rich, almost Latin beau- ty of her type. Henry knew its loveliness. But now as he looked down at the tremulous mouth, the glorious great eyes uplifted and dwelling in his by the starlight— now in a dizzy sweep of tenderncas he knew something else; her wistful appeal; her troudble that answered his own trouble—the same timid and passionate longing clouded with the same complex of doubts and misgiv- ings and imposed restraints possessed each of them. She pink stuff. On her arms, smooth and firm as copper cast as flesh, and over her superb shoulders she had tied 2 wooly shawl. By one ear dangled a bunch of ribjon, and she went mincing in dallroom slippers—velvet with jet trimmings—the kind that knock about all the shelves of the Pacific in job-lot consignments for the colonial trade. Her whole splen- aid body, made for sun and freedom and the embrace of cresting seas, had been pinched and frilled and tricked out in a pathetic attempt at fashion. With sudden enlightenment Henry recognized the pathos—not, as anoth- er might have donme, the absurdity, of it; suddenly this girl who had wore a tight frock of some | seemed an ®nattainable mystery seemed & mystery no more. Sho was %0 delightfully embarrassed; 8o exqui- sitely uncomfortable—it thriled him. Surely her feet must hurt even ‘worse than his own ' For Tito herself was just another | product. She, too, had been taken as a child from her native mother and run through a mission. She, too, had submitted to the ideals of some gloomy suburb half a world away— like West Ham, perhaps, or Dulwich, or wherever the good sisters of the Papautu Girls' School hail from: and she had not made more of it than Henry Shoesmith. He was aware of that at once, by voice and eya and the throb of a woman's breast— things not taught in missions Surely. must have called her a little pagan, too! “Tito—!" he cried. and would have reached to her. But his collar button nipped him in time. After all, it is hard to discard a gentlemanly train- ing: he had come braced and belted in such gentlemanly style. “Miss Joran-son,” he corrected. “You look aroun’ -this place—eh?" He swept a stiff arm @ver the bay. “From shore te shore You know?" “Yes,” she sald, innocently Mis-ter Shoesmith. I know. tongo.” “You like ft™ “Yes," she said Shoesmith. It is very pretty. very es'pensive” “It gives me gr-reat pleasure,” he smmered, “if you will accept per invoice—I mean—it you will do me the ‘onor——" With choking eagerness he tried to capture an eligible half-cast formula. “Dear Miss Joran-son; list'n. All this is mine. This plantation; with a fine ‘ome and a trading store. 1 own Vitongo myself—" \ “Like the devil you do!” The words fell upon them with the force of a club. They started apart. And there at the hatchway of the little cabin stood their ogre; the white man—ths inevitable white man who always has appeared in just that manner to the gentler peo- ples of the earth, who always does stand at the hatchway—grim and masterfal “I heard you, Henry. I been walt- ing for you. Come inside here and cool oft. His voice grated om the humorous note more compelling than any threat. Tito he passed over with- out a glance. At the first turn of his big hand she vanished aft like a wraith. “Henry, he repeated, with formidable pleasantry, “don’t be backward, my boy. Did I not tell you to come In here? You're late.” * % % % 'ORANSON was one of those figures that have made the South Sea the last far-flung, picturesque frontier. Joranson the Dane, they called him. The name had lost its original meaning; the mdn himself had long since molded to the prevailing trader type, colonial in speech and Yankee in oath. He seldem needed a weapon nowadays; he preferred a court order. He no longer beat the native over the head and sold him “Yes, vi- “Oh, yes. Mis-ter And some time or other. somebody | ts Vitongo. | into slavery; he gave him credit and sold him into debt. And occasionally, when luck was kind, he caught some & tless helr of one of his former foes and squeezed the life out of him with a very special satisfaction As in the case of Henry Shoesmith. “You was saying you owned some- thing; and 1 was saying vou did, nix” ¢ ¢ Powerful—built on a huge, loose scaffolding of bone and muscle—he was still in steel-hard condition. Only hls gray hair and his gray face betrayed him. He had a face gridironed like a devil's, and slitted eyes with a cold spark In them. “You'll find it by these papers, Henry,” he remarked, as he tossed out a sheaf of documents on the tiny cabin table. “You don't own nothing. | Them notes of yours went to pro- teat, d' 3 see? All you got to do is sign ¥'r assets to me—all assets,” he added amiably. Henry gasped. “You mean—Vitongo?" “The whole outfit” “Vitongo——'" “What t' devil else did you expect? Henry could hardly have told; but even with Gordon's warning ho never ! had expected this. He never bhad thought of Vitongo itself as a plece of property—something you buy and | sell. Vitongo was the land—hls| birthplace; the soil to which he be-! longed. It stunned him. He wanted to resist. Uncounted centuries debarred him. He was the man of color, and against him stood the white man, armed with the white man's power and backed by the white man's code. He was the predestined victim. He had no choice but to obey, in a sort of helpless trance But the worst was at the last, when the business was done, when the name had been signed. a ~That'll be ail, Henry. Just ome thing while you go.” Joranson bent a look on the boy like chill lightning. “Just one point. You got a devil of a nerve hanging around that kid of mine. Oh,’I seen ¥'; and you drop it, 4 3 hear—or I'll skin you alive. She'll fetch a white husband any time, that girl—and by —— I have no more tarbrush in my family. Now you clear! Henry cleared. With that glance plercing his shoulder blades, with that final insult in his ears, he scut- tled up the after-companion and stum- bled on deck. And there Tito mot him again. Out to seaward the moon had swung high, the swelling moon of Samoan nights, like a vast, golden breadfruit in the sky. It gave light—light to show off silks and satins and tricked- out finery and mincing steps, perhaps ~—plenty of light for grand manners. But Henry did not think of them; and neither, somehow, did Tito. She met him at once, ber hands fluttering to- ward his, her lips breathing little SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON. D. C, APRIL 20, 1924—PART 5. HE PAGAN BY JOHN RUSSELL. spoken in their liquid native tongue, made for love and the low murmur of love, soft as the call of wild pigeons in the mating season. “Nay, weep not. I cannot bear that!” Again ho saw her face, 5o near to his, and again came to him the glory and the wonder of woman, loved and loving—the amazing revelation of it. “You heard? Then it is aiso known to you that I have nothing any more, Tito. No house. No plantation. I am a beggar. I do not remember if I have even any claim om the clan of my dead mother. Perhaps her village would give me a home in charity— but that is all” T know,” sho repeated. “It makes no change. We have ourselves—thou and L” Very different was her speech now; very different its simple message, which struck back to its ultimate source. “No harm is done to us while wo both live. Only tell me where you will go for shelter and what you mean to do. Be quick—before he stirs!" * k% ENRY looked down tho ladder. The ogre was busied below at something. He looked to sea The cutter had been anchored just inside the passage of the reef, in deep water; it was quiet outside—only an easy rolling of ground-swell. Last he looked toward the land; its shore a thin strip of silver a quarter mile off; its shoulders rising in a great silvered sweep from height to height, by crag and jungle and forest to the star- tipped basaitic peaks above. “Would vou seek me out then? Would you follow?” he questioned eagerly. “Perhaps.” She smiled a little, shy- ly. “But I would be sure you are safe.” With one arm he caught her close to him. They did not kiss; that ca- ress, unknown to the east, is still a curious invention of the west. But he felt the heat of her heart against his, tripping twice as fast as his own—a marvelous fact. “Turn vour eyes to Vitongo, yonder” he said. “Do you see the shape of that big candlenut tree on the hill? #o. Not beside my house. Away to the right Do you see the cloud of its many blossoms— pale and clustering?’ “Yes,” she answered, near his cheek. “Up past that tree runs a ravine. It is wild and rocky and overgrown. Few bave ever climbed it But I know the path, and up beyond the palms—beyond the taro and the ba- nana groves—Is a flat place in the mountain-side. There as a child I once built me a little fale for a play- Touse; a hut—hidden among the vine: There one is always safe.” Yes" “Nobody comes so far. Nobody can ever find us. We can Ilve on the sweet mountain fruits and water in the brooks, taking nothing that be- longs to any one—staying all to our- selves—thou and L” Very different phrases of pity. He reached to her, and this time—collar button or mo collar button—this time he did mot draw away. “Tito, Tito!” he whispered, with the appeal of shame and suffering. “I know,” she soothed. “I know— I know. I was listening. But do not weoep.” Unconsciously they had was this courtship; very different the offer he made. , “Tito—let us go there!” “Now™™ He nodded. “But my father would kill us! He would see us going.” She gestured forward where Henry's proa was tied, past the forward cabin hatch. “He will stop us!™ “1 do not mean that way." “How then?" He pointed across the bay. She drew a quick breath as she under- stood. “There may be sharka!™ “What do we care for sharks—we two?" he demanded. An instant they clung—while the splendor of the thought gained and . |glowed in them—while they walted, palpitant, on the urge of it. Came a warning sound from the cabin. Hen- ry gripped the neckband of his ex- pensive shirt. Tito’'s arm slid with @ start of ripping stuffa. “Make haste!” Alas for the true ladies of Papautu School; also, alas for the prim young gentlemen of the Marist Mission! Alas for high heels and waistcoats sprig- ged with forget-me-nots; for ribboms and shawls and frills and fal-lals and the dove-gray suitings of fashion— and once more alas for the polite teachings of West Ham, the uplift of the rule of three and the “Book of Sacred Gems” and many other things 50 very, very essential to morals and imported propriety. All forgotten. All abandoned within three seconds! Only the moon was witness, with unveiled face. But the moon was a Samoan moon: the mellowest, most tolerant and kindly scamp of a moon —quite used to beaming on youth and lovers since a golden, olden age. It stared with all its might on Vitonge bay and never blushed at all But perhaps, with & certain whimsy, perdape it might have emiled to see those two youngsters kickicg free so earnestly and eagerly—emerging from thelr flnery at last, a pair of superb, silver-bronze chrysalides, clad in their own native garb—Henry with his kilted lava-lava and Tito with her dainty ahul Thereafter, it had a parting glimpse of them for just a wink as they stood hand in hand at the cutter's stern—ere they went overboard into the warm ylelding sea The clean, double scoop of their dive raised a Startled challenge be- hind them. Followed hasty footsteps upon the ladder and presently one son made out their two dark heads, surging for shore. His dinghy still lay on deck, but he ®id not wait to launch it. Darting down through the cabin, he came forward at a jump and cut the lashing of Henry's outrigger cance. Tho fugitives were hardly a hundred feet to the good when he be- gan to dig out Few persons had ! ever succeeded in getting much of a lead on Joranson. * % %t 'WEEN the pursuer dashed nto thelr wake Henry dropped back to cover the retreat. But he need not have bothered. Joranson wanted something he cofld hit soon and hit hard; Joranson took after him first of jall. The proa bore down on Henry in hissing spurts of foam and the opening of that affray was a viclous swipe with a paddle. Henry ducked—came up out of reach. Joranson whirled like a wa- ter-beetle and struck again, and again. Henry slipped from under. This was sport for a fisherman. He could have played it all night FEach time he drew the chase farther aside from Tito. It kept him cheered to think that Tito was drawing away with every stroke. But there was very lit- tle cheer next instant to encounter Tito herself gliding back almost into his arms. To find their whole plan defeated. To hear her despairing cry: | “The sharks, Henry! The sharke are lcome! Look out for the sharks!” Between them and the belted dark there passed a phantom—the merest phosphorescent presence through the water. No mistaking that lean, long ghost. No mistaking the cruel wedge ofa fin that gleamed at.the same time inshore from them. Joranson spied it almost as soon as they did, and his jubilant bellow confirmed it. Here was the sort of amusement that suif- ed Joranson—the sort of punishment he might have planned himselt® He | dropped his paddle and got to his feet, and as Henry instinctively lifted Tito toward the proa for support and es-; caps from the greater terror, he slashed at them. Bleeding, stupefield, Henry blinked up at him. Joranson held a singular object. Ho had a weapon in his fist; a thing with a wavy blade and a hilt {set in colored stones that glittered— glittered dreadfully above them. Henry saw it. Heny knew it. It was the substance of every evil dream he had had eince childhood—it whs the Malay kris with which Henry Gordon | Shoesmith had been slain! And at the same time bevond the looming figure of the murdered—over yonder on Vitongo shore, between the jungle and the lagoon—at the same time he saw 2 marble shaft like a pallid, ac- cusing finger in the moonlight; the tomb of Henry Gordon Shoesrfith, on which was graven, as he knew so well, the letters of that prophetic epitaph: “Fivery man's work shall bo made manifest.” “Keep off, I tell you! By —, you try your tarbrush tricks on me—try 'em on the devil™ With horrible mirth—Joranson slashed once more. And then it happened; as it was bound to happen. Something snapped in Henry's breast. Some pent re- serve seemed to burst and to flood through every vein—some secret spring of his being. He stiffened in the water, tense and tingling, and in a voice which might have recalled— which did recall-the temper of that tough old Scotch trader, his father: “Darn you, Joranson, you big white murdering devil™ he =aid, evenly, without a trace of accent. “TI'm going to get you'™ Laying held on the proa’s thwart, he threw his whole strength back- ward and simply spilled the little craft over, outrigger and all. Joran- son felt himself going. With a snarl he drove at Henry's throat, point fore- most. Henry warded. They met, locked and went under in a spangled smother. The rest was convulsion. The two went reeling through a dim immensity; three fathoms deep where the shadowy corals lay; back to the surface in a furious spatter of sea-fire. As they rose, Henry called to Tito to take to the wrecked canoe. He had a glimpse of her clinging there—safe. After that he gave him- self to the job on hagd—exultantly. With his right a®m he hung about the enomy’s neck. With the other he fended. He did not strike a blow. He did not need to. All he required was the knife, the pledge of destiny and of victory with which—once he had won it, once he had wrested it from Joranson's falling grip—he could meet and scatter a dozen sharks. Gordon was there to greet them. Naturally, Gordon was there, vehe- menently excited from his long, spy- ing vigil on Vitongo strand. “W’at was it? W’at 'appened?” he cried. His sharp little eyes roved from Henry to Tito in stricken astonish- ment as they stepped ashore, drip- ping, from the righted proa. “T ‘eard something. Where is Joranson? Did you 'ave an accident “Yes,” sald Henry, quietly. “An ac- cident. The sharks, you understand.” “You mean they got 'im! Joran- son? Gordon's tone rose to a squeal of dismay. “But in that case—but if that is so—!" He saw<all his schemes ruined—all his hopes of Vi- he added, suspiciously. *“¥onm let “im drown. You will ‘ave to explain.” Henry smiled Having done his best to bs a half-caste that memor- able night—having actually been a white man for a brief, tremendous moment—he was now, and at last. and for time to come, a Samoan. With a contemptuous gesture, he flicked the Malay kris into the sand at Gordon's feet. The quarter-caste snatched it up and clutched it to him. *“Tt is very valu-able™ he panted. Keep it,” said Henry, thereby seal- ing the silence of this smart, black- mailing cousin of his forever. “But still what are you going tn do?” whined Gordon, “We must lay information of some kin'.” “Perhaps,” sald Henry of Vitongo. “Tomorrow is time enough. For to- night—ta'u ia mo paga” With the girl he turned away; already they were heading back into the night whero the soft cymballing of paim- fronds made bridal music and pigeons murmured sleepy love notes under the accomplice moon. “Tu'n ia mo paga.” sald Henry, which means it is forgot- ton—it should not count. (Copyright, 1924) The Panorama Camera. HERE is a panorama camera cap- able of photographing the whole sweep of the horizon on one film. It is built like the ordinary panorama camera n that it makes a strip pio- ture on a plece of film noticeably longer than it is wide, but there the resemblance ceases. In the ordinary panorama camera machine the lens, sei on a pivot, swings slow or fast, as the operator chooses, throwing a brush of light across the film until the whole arc of its field Is covered. With the improved camera the whole box moves. A cog track, cir- cular in shape, crowns the tripod Similar cogs on the under side of the box play in these and carry the camera in a complete cirale, or such part of it as the photographer may wish to use The camera is driven around the turntable by clockwork. Inside the camera, in the back, are two spools, as in most film cameras. On one of thgse spools the roll of film, sixteen feet long and ten inches to a foot in width, is placed. A strip of black paper cighteen inches long extends from the loose end of this roll of film, across the back of the box to the other spool. Both these #pools are actuated by another alock- work, which unwinds the full spindic and winds it on the other one, keep- ing both at exactly equal rates of speed, so that thers is no buckling or other interfgrence with the film This strip of Sim then movea fn an opposite direction to that which the Dbox takes in its revolution round the tripod turntable. The.lens s sta tionary and ends in 2 narrow, per- pendicular slit ten inches high and less than a quarter of an inch ir width. This painta, as with a brush, a bar of even light across the film giving an equal exposure to all parts —in fact, the bacg end of a lens of® this kind, In photographic parlance, | is called & “brush.” Thus prepared the photographer takes off the “loaded” back side of the machine, in which the fitm fs protected by a slide that closes au- tomatically, presses & button and a ground-glass focusing screen slides up into place. On this he focuses his picture as with an ordinary bellows machine, replaces his film carrier and is ready to take the picture. But no, he is not ready! He must first figure the speed at which the lens and the ‘box ars to move round the section of a circle which he wishes to photograph. Having done this, he must figure at what speed the film shall move across the back of that camera, also in motion, 80 as to produce a clear, full negative 'Poor focus, undertiming. overtiming and uneven exposurs all must be eliminated. Tn short, this sort of panorama photography {9 mno game for the man in a hurry. Having caleulated all this by means of proportion tables, he sets his lens, takes the two bulbs with which each camera is provided, one in each hand, presses them both and the picture begins to be made. Now ome of these bulbs starts tne clockwork mechanism, the other opens the shutter. When the camera has completed the whole circle or the segment for which it is set the clockwork stops automatically and the shutter closes in the flash of an eye. A film sixteen feet long or any fraction thereof can be made at ome exposure by this really’ remarkable machine. Senegal's Giant Tree. 7, 1= reportea that at Dakar, in Lower Senegal, is an enormous baobab tree, whose trunk measures tully seventy-five feet in ecircum- ference at the base. The fruit of the baobab, which grows abundantly in Senegal, is called “monkey bread.” It is used by the natives fer curdling milk and as a specific for certain digeases. Decoctions of the dried leaves arc also used 83 medicine From the bark strong cords aro made and the gum that exudes frorh it is employed as a salve. The root eomprebensive roar of rage exploded |tongo overwhelmed in Henry's In-|of the young baobab is sometimes over Vitongo. Prom the rail Joran-|credible good fortune. “Ah, no—no” eaten by the matives