The Greatest Adventures Boxed Set: Jack London Edition. Jack London

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СКАЧАТЬ say, Grief,” he blurted out, “the boy’s all right. Call the whole thing off, and let’s forget it in a final nightcap.”

      Grief showed signs of debating, but Deacon cried:

      “No; I won’t permit it. I’m not a quitter. If it’s Karo-Karo, it’s Karo-Karo. There’s nothing more to it.”

      “Right,” said Grief, as he began the shuffle. “If he’s the right stuff to go to Karo-Karo, Karo-Karo won’t do him any harm.”

      The game was close and hard. Three times they divided the deck between them and “cards” was not scored. At the beginning of the fifth and last deal, Deacon needed three points to go out, and Grief needed four. “Cards” alone would put Deacon out, and he played for “cards”. He no longer muttered or cursed, and played his best game of the evening. Incidentally he gathered in the two black aces and the ace of hearts.

      “I suppose you can name the four cards I hold,” he challenged, as the last of the deal was exhausted and he picked up his hand.

      Grief nodded.

      “Then name them.”

      “The knave of spades, the deuce of spades, the tray of hearts, and the ace of diamonds,” Grief answered.

      Those behind Deacon and looking at his hand made no sign. Yet the naming had been correct.

      “I fancy you play casino better than I,” Deacon acknowledged. “I can name only three of yours, a knave, an ace, and big casino.”

      “Wrong. There aren’t five aces in the deck. You’ve taken in three and you hold the fourth in your hand now.”

      “By Jove, you’re right,” Deacon admitted. “I did scoop in three. Anyway, I’ll make ‘cards’ on you. That’s all I need.”

      “I’ll let you save little casino——” Grief paused to calculate. “Yes, and the ace as well, and still I’ll make ‘cards’ and go out with big casino. Play.”

      “No ‘cards’ and I win!” Deacon exulted as the last of the hand was played. “I go out on little casino and the four aces. ‘Big casino’ and ‘spades’ only bring you to twenty.”

      Grief shook his head. “Some mistake, I’m afraid.”

      “No,” Deacon declared positively. “I counted every card I took in. That’s the one thing I was correct on. I’ve twenty-six, and you’ve twenty-six.”

      “Count again,” Grief said.

      Carefully and slowly, with trembling fingers, Deacon counted the cards he had taken. There were twenty-five. He reached over to the corner of the table, took up the rules Grief had written, folded them, and put them in his pocket. Then he emptied his glass, and stood up. Captain Donovan looked at his watch, yawned, and also arose.

      “Going aboard, Captain?” Deacon asked.

      “Yes,” was the answer. “What time shall I send the whaleboat for you?”

      “I’ll go with you now. We’ll pick up my luggage from the Billy as we go by, I was sailing on her for Babo in the morning.”

      Deacon shook hands all around, after receiving a final pledge of good luck on Karo-Karo.

      “Does Tom Butler play cards?” he asked Grief.

      “Solitaire,” was the answer.

      “Then I’ll teach him double solitaire.” Deacon turned toward the door, where Captain Donovan waited, and added with a sigh, “And I fancy he’ll skin me, too, if he plays like the rest of you island men.”

      The Feathers of the Sun

       Table of Contents

       I

       II

       III

       IV

       V

       VI

       VII

       VIII

      I

       Table of Contents

      It was the island of Fitu-Iva—the last independent Polynesian stronghold in the South Seas. Three factors conduced to Fitu-Iva’s independence. The first and second were its isolation and the warlikeness of its population. But these would not have saved it in the end had it not been for the fact that Japan, France, Great Britain, Germany, and the United States discovered its desirableness simultaneously. It was like gamins scrambling for a penny. They got in one another’s way. The war vessels of the five Powers cluttered Fitu-Iva’s one small harbour. There were rumours of war and threats of war. Over its morning toast all the world read columns about Fitu-Iva. As a Yankee blue jacket epitomized it at the time, they all got their feet in the trough at once.

      So it was that Fitu-Iva escaped even a joint protectorate, and King Tulifau, otherwise Tui Tulifau, continued to dispense the high justice and the low in the frame-house palace built for him by a Sydney trader out of California redwood. Not only was Tui Tulifau every inch a king, but he was every second a king. When he had ruled fifty-eight years and five months, he was only fifty-eight years and three months old. That is to say, he had ruled over five million seconds more than he had breathed, having been crowned two months before he was born.

      He was a kingly king, a royal figure of a man, standing six feet and a half, and, without being excessively fat, weighing three hundred and twenty pounds. But this was not unusual for Polynesian “chief stock.” Sepeli, his queen, was six feet three inches and weighed two hundred and sixty, while her brother, Uiliami, who commanded the army in the intervals of resignation from the premiership, topped her by an inch and notched her an even half-hundredweight. Tui Tulifau was a merry soul, a great feaster and drinker. So were all his people merry souls, save in anger, when, on occasion, they could be guilty even of throwing dead pigs at those who made them wroth. Nevertheless, on occasion, they could fight like Maoris, as piratical sandalwood traders and Blackbirders in the old days learned to their cost.

      II

       Table СКАЧАТЬ