Well, there was only one thing for him to do.  He must meet her on her own basis of boyhood, and not make the mistake of treating her as a woman.  He wondered if he could love the woman she would be when her nature awoke; and he wondered if he could love her just as she was and himself wake her up.  After all, whatever it was, she had come to fill quite a large place in his life, as he had discovered that afternoon while scanning the sea between the squalls.  Then he remembered the accounts of Berande, and the cropper that was coming, and scowled.

He became aware that she was speaking.

“I beg pardon,” he said.  “What’s that you were saying?”

“You weren’t listening to a word—­I knew it,” she chided.  “I was saying that the condition of the Flibberty-Gibbet was disgraceful, and that to-morrow, when you’ve told the skipper and not hurt his feelings, I am going to take my men out and give her an overhauling.  We’ll scrub her bottom, too.  Why, there’s whiskers on her copper four inches long.  I saw it when she rolled.  Don’t forget, I’m going cruising on the Flibberty some day, even if I have to run away with her.”

While at their coffee on the veranda, Satan raised a commotion in the compound near the beach gate, and Sheldon finally rescued a mauled and frightened black and dragged him on the porch for interrogation.

“What fella marster you belong?” he demanded.  “What name you come along this fella place sun he go down?”

“Me b’long Boucher.  Too many boy belong along Port Adams stop along my fella marster.  Too much walk about.”

The black drew a scrap of notepaper from under his belt and passed it over.  Sheldon scanned it hurriedly.

“It’s from Boucher,” he explained, “the fellow who took Packard’s place.  Packard was the one I told you about who was killed by his boat’s-crew.  He says the Port Adams crowd is out—­fifty of them, in big canoes—­and camping on his beach.  They’ve killed half a dozen of his pigs already, and seem to be looking for trouble.  And he’s afraid they may connect with the fifteen runaways from Lunga.”

“In which case?” she queried.

“In which case Billy Pape will be compelled to send Boucher’s successor.  It’s Pape’s station, you know.  I wish I knew what to do.  I don’t like to leave you here alone.”

“Take me along then.”

He smiled and shook his head.

“Then you’d better take my men along,” she advised.  “They’re good shots, and they’re not afraid of anything—­except Utami, and he’s afraid of ghosts.”

The big bell was rung, and fifty black boys carried the whale-boat down to the water.  The regular boat’s-crew manned her, and Matauare and three other Tahitians, belted with cartridges and armed with rifles, sat in the stern-sheets where Sheldon stood at the steering-oar.

“My, I wish I could go with you,” Joan said wistfully, as the boat shoved off.