“And we went and did it,” Sparrowhawk said solemnly, and then emitted a series of chuckling noises.  “We laid over, starboard tack, and I pinched the Emily against the spit.  ‘Go about,’ Captain Munster yells at me; ‘go about, or you’ll have me aground!’ He yelled other things, much worse.  But I didn’t mind.  I missed stays, pretty as you please, and the Flibberty drifted down on him and fouled him, and we went ashore together in as nice a mess as you ever want to see.  Miss Lackland transferred the recruits, and the trick was done.”

“But where was she during the nor’wester?” Sheldon asked.

“At Langa-Langa.  Ran up there as it was coming on, and laid there the whole week and traded for grub with the niggers.  When we got to Tulagi, there she was waiting for us and scrapping with Burnett.  I tell you, Mr. Sheldon, she’s a wonder, that girl, a perfect wonder.”

Munster refilled his glass, and while Sheldon glanced across at Joan’s house, anxious for her coming, Sparrowhawk took up the tale.

“Gritty!  She’s the grittiest thing, man or woman, that ever blew into the Solomons.  You should have seen Poonga-Poonga the morning we arrived—­Sniders popping on the beach and in the mangroves, war-drums booming in the bush, and signal-smokes raising everywhere.  ’It’s all up,’ says Captain Munster.”

“Yes, that’s what I said,” declared that mariner.

“Of course it was all up.  You could see it with half an eye and hear it with one ear.”

“‘Up your granny,’ she says to him,” Sparrowhawk went on. “’Why, we haven’t arrived yet, much less got started.  Wait till the anchor’s down before you get afraid.’”

“That’s what she said to me,” Munster proclaimed.  “And of course it made me mad so that I didn’t care what happened.  We tried to send a boat ashore for a pow-wow, but it was fired upon.  And every once and a while some nigger’d take a long shot at us out of the mangroves.”

“They was only a quarter of a mile off,” Sparrowhawk explained, “and it was damned nasty.  ‘Don’t shoot unless they try to board,’ was Miss Lackland’s orders; but the dirty niggers wouldn’t board.  They just lay off in the bush and plugged away.  That night we held a council of war in the Flibberty’s cabin.  ‘What we want,’ says Miss Lackland, ’is a hostage.’”

“‘That’s what they do in books,’ I said, thinking to laugh her away from her folly,” Munster interrupted. “‘True,’ says she, ’and have you never seen the books come true?’ I shook my head.  ’Then you’re not too old to learn,’ says she.  ‘I’ll tell you one thing right now,’ says I, ’and that is I’ll be blowed if you catch me ashore in the night-time stealing niggers in a place like this.’”

“You didn’t say blowed,” Sparrowhawk corrected.  “You said you’d be damned.”

“That’s what I did, and I meant it, too.”

“‘Nobody asked you to go ashore,’ says she, quick as lightning,” Sparrowhawk grinned.  “And she said more.  She said, ’And if I catch you going ashore without orders there’ll be trouble—­understand, Captain Munster?’”