Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 April 1920 — WHITE MAN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WHITE MAN

By George Agnew Chamberlain

Author of "How." ” Through Stained Ciao.” “John Bogardua," etc.

Oepyrlffbt, 1919, The Bobbs-MerrUl Company CHAPTER X.—A dinner for which they had both dressed in European style Is interrupted by the sound of a chantey. White Man knew. Andrea suspedted. Then when he sent her to her hut she knew that the “other man” was approaching. From her hut Andrea hears the stranger (a tenor who bad disappeared after a short career which had made him famous) sing the aria from “Faust,” and his wonderful voice attracted her. Then seeing his horribly mutilated face she is overwhelmed with terror. He knocks her down and carries tier to his boat and to his craal. CHAPTER Xl.—Arriving there Andrea 4s attacked by MacCloster, the “other man." She repels him, wounding him seriously with a club, and as he falls sha hears the whirr of an airplane motor and Is overjoyed when White Man appears. He rescues her, in the act destroying the craal and killing MacCloster. CHAPTER Xll.—Trevor at first is bitterly angry over Andrea's disregard of his request to ignore MacCloster, but she explains how the latter’s marvelous voice enthralled her and* is forgiven, Trevor recognizing that his life Is bound up .with hers whatever betide. They reach home safely, conveyed by crew, whom Trevor Impresses into service.

CHAPTER XIII. Andrea did not awake until Trevor withdrew his arm, which was when they were already In sight of their home landing. • By the time she reached the camp she was In no mood to welcome the astonishing sight of three white men calmly taking a siesta in Trevor’s most comfortable chairs, their helmets and ■dolmans tossed aside and their shortsleeved undershirts unbuttoned at the neck. The only thing to be discerned In their favor was that they were all freshly shaven. It did not cheer her to see that upon catching sight of them, Trevor’s face cleared. “Who are the Interlopers?” she . asked shortly. eyebrows went up. “Interlopers, Apdrea Pellor?” he asked with a * smile. Tfaen his face turned grim. “Win you do what I ask this time?” •he Inquired. She stifled the feeling of rebellion that immediately rose In her at this Tecurrence of his<lghtlng voice. “Yes,” she said meekly. “Please slip quietly to your room, have your tea and bath alone and dress In your smartest khaki outfit, leggings and all. When you have done that, please wait till I come.” Andrea could not resist a single shot. “Yes,” she said demurely, “just Tor a change I’ll go and have my tea — and bath —alone.” Trevor ignored the hit. “Good girl,” lie said, his attention already swerving to his snoring guests. “And you won’t tell me who they -are?” asked Andrea. “Or don’t you know?” He fixed her with a meaning stare. “Certainly I know,” he said, “for I sent for them at considerable expense and trouble. Also I may as well tell you now that one of them at least is a priest of the Church of England.” A flame of color stained Andrea’s cheeks and her eyes went suddenly •wide. Things were moving and only by a tremendous effort did she catch up with them. “Great expense," she murmured. “Something under three pounds, I suppose.” Undoubtedly a hit but also ignored by Trevor, whose mind was intent on far more weighty affairs. He shrugged his shoulders and pointed to her but with his chin, an expressive but most reprehensible adoption of native habit. She took the hint, nevertheless, and as she started he said, “Please remember. Please don’t yourself this time, will you?” The tone of his voice was a great improvement on all that had gone before. She threw him a smile over her shoulder and proceeded to cross to her hut on exaggerated tiptoe. Trevor did not bother to awake his quests; he went straight to his room and gave himself up to a long-drawn-out orgy of tea; hot bath, sharp razor and clean clothes; to say nothing of the cleansing, anointing and bandaging of his many burns and wounds. When, hours later, he had completed

the complex operation to the best oi his ability if not entirely to the satisfaction of his vanity he opened his door a crack and looked out. The three guests were awake and reading. । They seemed quite comfortable as well as quite at home, a bottle and three I glasses having magically accrued to ! the table In their midst. It seemed a shame to disturb them at that particular moment and Trevor decided not to. He dosed the door, barred it, disconnected the alarm gong and left his room by the covered way. It is a matter of record that while this same inclosed alley was certainly not over thirty paces in length and could have been traversed In half as many seconds, it took him exactly thirty minutes to get from his end of the passage to Andrea’s door—and knock. She opened to him at one® and the sight of her made him tremble. Never before had she seemed so altogether adequate to every demand of life. He looked upon her -lovely tumbled hair that was still laughing from its bath; on her deep blue eyes, each cuddling a devil of mischief; on her adorable nose, always sniffing for trouble; on her red lips, ready to call a man on; and on her hard fists, backed by sturdy youth, still more ready to keep him off, and felt the bones of his determination turning to water. She stood with her feet slightly straddled, her hands stuffed in the side pockets of her khaki jacket—a pose often assumed by professional fighters. He glanced nervously about her room and deciding that he would feel more at home and perhaps more secure in his own, asked her to precede him there. She consented and upon arrival made naturally for the couch. , “I think,” said Trevor hastily, “you had better sit here—for a change.” He drew out a straight-backed chair by the table. She cast him an Inquiring glance but sat down without reriiark. Trevor did not sit; he paced up and down before her till she could stand it no longer; then she said brightly, “Now I know how our old cat used to feel, watching the canary swing on bls trapeze.” “Extraordinary inverted coincidence,” remarked Trevor. “I feel like the canary.” Both pondered on this rejoinder for some moments; there was something about it that reminded Andrea of “first blood.” Finally she realized that It was her turn to speak. ‘Til let that go for the present,” she said with dignity. “Suppose you say what you’ve got to say.” The man stood squarely before her. “All right,” he said. For a second he hung on the verge of further speech as though he were counting “one, two,

three —go;” then he plunged: “Will you marry me?” Here was a game that Andrea knew from Its infancy to its old age. The first move on its checker board was as fixed as it was easy. “No,” she said promptly and automatically and glanced up with a half-bored look that said: “Your play.” That look was destined to die a sudden death. “Thank God I” said Trevor, fervently, apparently looking into space, but in reality taking In her galvanized start through the corner of one eye. “You see,” he continued. “I’ve come to. my senses and begun to get your point of view. It’s still true that you asked me to bring you, but It’s no less true that you thought you were just going up for a morning breeze, while I knew that once you were in that flying machine it was good-by to a world. If I’d told you that, of course you wouldn’t have come.” “Of course,” said Andrea, faintly. Her heart was aching and inside of her its pulse was drumming an old famlUrr childish refrain of helpless rage. “He didn’t play fair! He didn’t play fair!” “Under the circumstances and acknowledging my fault, I could do no less than offer to marry you in spite of your high station In life. I felt that you might think yourself compromised to such an extent that even my humble person would prove some sort of an amend. It’s a great relief to know that I overestimated the situation all around.” . . ._ .

Andrea realised that the false start had thrown her out of the normal stride of the game and she was ready to clutch at a straw. “Why, I hadn’t thought O™ that —I mean, I’d forgotten It somehow —but I do feel compromised—awfully.” She looked hopefully at his set face. “No need to,” said Trevor briskly. “I’ve got these three missionary chaps hese for witnesses to the fact that we went up in perfectly good faith, that I was forced to a bad landing and got fearfully cut up and burned and that I was only just backing out of death’s door when they turned up and found you Intact.” “Why, White Man!” exclaimed Andrea, “how could you get them to tell that awful He?” “Easily,”; answered Trevor promptly. “They wouldn’t know It was a lie. You see, these missionary chaps will still believe a native; they can’t afford to concede the Immutable fact that a black consistently makes only one constant effort In his life—an effort to give always the answer that he thinks it will please you most to hear. Why, I don’t even have to fix it up with my people. You’d believe the lie yourself if you could understand half they will say.” Andrea’s lips drooped and she shook her head. “No,” she said slowly. “No, I wouldn’t.” She was sitting with her elbows on the table, her cheek against the back of her clasped hands and her eyes following the white man’s nervous movements with a sort of wounded wonder. “So, you see, we can fix it,” he concluded. “These clergymen are the only people in this back country that I could have trusted you with and who will strike just the right family note In your precious world-of-the-things-that-aren’t-done-you-know. I have worked my best for you. I’ve made them come a hundred miles through country they have always thought impassable.” Andrea sat back and let her hands to her lap; for a moment she bowed her head and looked down at them, then she raised her gaze to his face. Her own, while it had been halfhidden, had suddenly lost its look of exuberant youth. It was so pale that her eyes seemed too large for it They dimmed its outlines. “White Man,” she said, “do you mean it?” “Mean what?” “I have seen you kill beasts and men,” said Andrea, “but even so, I couldn’t have believed It of you.” Her voice grew dulled, like water running over silken moss. “I couldn’t have believed that you would hurt me so!” She cast her arms out across the table and dropped her face upon them. With a self-accusing cry, Trevor sprang to her, picked her up and carried her to the couch. She lay in his arms without resisting; her body had surrendered to a laxity that let him pile furs under her head and arrange her limbs as he would. She_was list? less; too tired to fight; too broken to weep. He knelt beside her and took both her hands in his. “Now that you are no longer an irresponsible child,” he said, “now that your stripped self is here to listen, I will tell you how I love you. The child in you might forget; the woman never. I love you in body and in spirit. I love you so that I am ready to stand up and deny freedoih. I love you enough to give you myself and the world —my world of starlit nights and silent spaces that I’ve worshiped so long alone. Yes, I love you enough for that, and I have l to, God help me, for you are in my heart and I can never, never get you oil?.” Andrea looked as if blood were being transfused into her veins with each word. She felt her youth coming back with the sure surge of an advancing tide. Her eyes grew bright and then frightened. “White Manl” she gasped, “Take me quickly; I feel myself growing young again!” He leaped to his feet, caught her up in his arms and shook her; then he surrendered. “Young or old,” he said, “what difference does it make? I love your youth as I already love you& old age. Put your arms around my neck, look into my eyes and tell me you love me, too.” Clinging to him, her head thrown back, her eyes in his, she said, “I love you.” “Again,” commanded Trevor. “I love you.” “And now, my little sweetheart, my own girl, just once more.” “Ah!” begged Andrea, “don’t make me say it again; let me kiss you.” (TO BE CONTINUED.)

“Will You Marry Me?”