He clapped his hands, and Lalaperu came running.
“Here, you!” he ordered; “go along barracks, bring ’m black fella Mary, plenty too much, altogether.”
A few minutes later the dozen black women of Berande were ranged before him. He looked them over critically, finally selecting one that was young, comely as such creatures went, and whose body bore no signs of skin-disease.
“What name, you?” he demanded. “Sangui?”
“Me Mahua,” was the answer.
“All right, you fella Mahua. You finish cook along boys. You stop along white Mary. All the time you stop along. You savvee?”
“Me savvee,” she grunted, and obeyed his gesture to go to the grass house immediately.
“What name?” he asked Viaburi, who had just come out of the grass house.
“Big fella sick,” was the answer. “White fella Mary talk ’m too much allee time. Allee time talk ’m big fella schooner.”
Sheldon nodded. He understood. It was the loss of the Martha that had brought on the fever. The fever would have come sooner or later, he knew; but her disappointment had precipitated it. He lighted a cigarette, and in the curling smoke of it caught visions of his English mother, and wondered if she would understand how her son could love a woman who cried because she could not be skipper of a schooner in the cannibal isles.