The
discovery seemed to have been made on the spur of the moment. "She is
only a girl," he repeated with greater solemnity.
"A dashed pretty one, and a good traveller," Tudor laughed. "She
certainly has spunk, eh, Sheldon?"
"Yes, she is brave," was the reluctant answer for Sheldon did not feel
disposed to talk about her.
"That's the American of it," Tudor went on. "Push, and go, and energy,
and independence. What do you think, skipper?"
"I think she is young, very young, only a girl," replied the captain of
the _Minerva_, continuing to stare into the blackness that hid the sea.
The blackness seemed suddenly to increase in density, and they stumbled
up the beach, feeling their way to the gate.
"Watch out for nuts," Sheldon warned, as the first blast of the squall
shrieked through the palms. They joined hands and staggered up the path,
with the ripe cocoanuts thudding in a monstrous rain all around them.
They gained the veranda, where they sat in silence over their whisky,
each man staring straight out to sea, where the wildly swinging riding-
light of the _Minerva_ could be seen in the lulls of the driving rain.
Somewhere out there, Sheldon reflected, was Joan Lackland, the girl who
had not grown up, the woman good to look upon, with only a boy's mind and
a boy's desires, leaving Berande amid storm and conflict in much the same
manner that she had first arrived, in the stern-sheets of her whale-boat,
Adamu Adam steering, her savage crew bending to the oars.
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