"London, Jack - Adventure" - читать интересную книгу автора (London Jack)

said to be working along the coast on the lookout to steal a canoe
and get away to his own island.

Viaburi brought two lighted lanterns to the white man for
inspection. He glanced at them and saw that they were burning
brightly with clear, broad flames, and nodded his head. One was
hoisted up to the gaff of the flagstaff, and the other was placed
on the wide veranda. They were the leading lights to the Berande
anchorage, and every night in the year they were so inspected and
hung out.

He rolled back on his couch with a sigh of relief. The day's work
was done. A rifle lay on the couch beside him. His revolver was
within reach of his hand. An hour passed, during which he did not
move. He lay in a state of half-slumber, half-coma. He became
suddenly alert. A creak on the back veranda was the cause. The
room was L-shaped; the corner in which stood his couch was dim, but
the hanging lamp in the main part of the room, over the billiard
table and just around the corner, so that it did not shine on him,
was burning brightly. Likewise the verandas were well lighted. He
waited without movement. The creaks were repeated, and he knew
several men lurked outside.

"What name?" he cried sharply.

The house, raised a dozen feet above the ground, shook on its pile
foundations to the rush of retreating footsteps.

"They're getting bold," he muttered. "Something will have to be
done."

The full moon rose over Malaita and shone down on Berande. Nothing
stirred in the windless air. From the hospital still proceeded the
moaning of the sick. In the grass-thatched barracks nearly two
hundred woolly-headed man-eaters slept off the weariness of the
day's toil, though several lifted their heads to listen to the
curses of one who cursed the white man who never slept. On the
four verandas of the house the lanterns burned. Inside, between
rifle and revolver, the man himself moaned and tossed in intervals
of troubled sleep.



CHAPTER II--SOMETHING IS DONE



In the morning David Sheldon decided that he was worse. That he
was appreciably weaker there was no doubt, and there were other
symptoms that were unfavourable. He began his rounds looking for