“There is Guvutu,” she suggested.

He shook his head.

“There’s nothing there but fever and five white men who are drinking themselves to death.  I couldn’t permit it.”

“Oh thank you,” she said quietly.  “I guess I’ll start to-day.—­Viaburi!  You go along Noa Noah, speak ’m come along me.”

Noa Noah was her head sailor, who had been boatswain of the Miele.

“Where are you going?” Sheldon asked in surprise.—­“Vlaburi!  You stop.”

“To Guvutu—­immediately,” was her reply.

“But I won’t permit it.”

“That is why I am going.  You said it once before, and it is something I cannot brook.”

“What?” He was bewildered by her sudden anger.  “If I have offended in any way—­”

“Viaburi, you fetch ’m one fella Noa Noah along me,” she commanded.

The black boy started to obey.

“Viaburi!  You no stop I break ’m head belong you.  And now, Miss Lackland, I insist—­you must explain.  What have I said or done to merit this?”

“You have presumed, you have dared—­”

She choked and swallowed, and could not go on.

Sheldon looked the picture of despair.

“I confess my head is going around with it all,” he said.  “If you could only be explicit.”

“As explicit as you were when you told me that you would not permit me to go to Guvutu?”

“But what’s wrong with that?”

“But you have no right—­no man has the right—­to tell me what he will permit or not permit.  I’m too old to have a guardian, nor did I sail all the way to the Solomons to find one.”

“A gentleman is every woman’s guardian.”

“Well, I’m not every woman—­that’s all.  Will you kindly allow me to send your boy for Noa Noah?  I wish him to launch the whale-boat.  Or shall I go myself for him?”

Both were now on their feet, she with flushed cheeks and angry eyes, he, puzzled, vexed, and alarmed.  The black boy stood like a statue—­a plum-black statue—­taking no interest in the transactions of these incomprehensible whites, but dreaming with calm eyes of a certain bush village high on the jungle slopes of Malaita, with blue smoke curling up from the grass houses against the gray background of an oncoming mountain-squall.

“But you won’t do anything so foolish—­” he began.

“There you go again,” she cried.

“I didn’t mean it that way, and you know I didn’t.”  He was speaking slowly and gravely.  “And that other thing, that not permitting—­it is only a manner of speaking.  Of course I am not your guardian.  You know you can go to Guvutu if you want to”—­“or to the devil,” he was almost tempted to add.  “Only, I should deeply regret it, that is all.  And I am very sorry that I should have said anything that hurt you.  Remember, I am an Englishman.”

Joan smiled and sat down again.