Adventure by Jack London (best motivational books of all time .txt) đ
- Author: Jack London
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Von Blix was rough and boorish, but Tudor was gracefully easy in everything he did, or looked, or said. His blue eyes sparkled and flashed, his clean-cut mobile features were an index to his slightest shades of feeling and expression. He bubbled with enthusiasms, and his faintest smile or lightest laugh seemed spontaneous and genuine. But it was only occasionally at first that he spoke, for Von Blix told their story and stated their errand.
They were on a gold-hunting expedition. He was the leader, and Tudor was his lieutenant. All handsâand there were twenty-eightâ were shareholders, in varying proportions, in the adventure. Several were sailors, but the large majority were miners, culled from all the camps from Mexico to the Arctic Ocean. It was the old and ever-untiring pursuit of gold, and they had come to the Solomons to get it. Part of them, under the leadership of Tudor, were to go up the Balesuna and penetrate the mountainous heart of Guadalcanar, while the Martha, under Von Blix, sailed away for Malaita to put through similar exploration.
âAnd so,â said Von Blix, âfor Mr. Tudorâs expedition we must have some black-boys. Can we get them from you?â
âOf course we will pay,â Tudor broke in. âYou have only to charge what you consider them worth. You pay them six pounds a year, donât you?â
âIn the first place we canât spare them,â Sheldon answered. âWe are short of them on the plantation as it is.â
âWE?â Tudor asked quickly. âThen you are a firm or a partnership? I understood at Guvutu that you were alone, that you had lost your partner.â
Sheldon inclined his head toward Joan, and as he spoke she felt that he had become a trifle stiff.
âMiss Lackland has become interested in the plantation since then. But to return to the boys. We canât spare them, and besides, they would be of little use. You couldnât get them to accompany you beyond Binu, which is a short dayâs work with the boats from here. They are Malaita-men, and they are afraid of being eaten. They would desert you at the first opportunity. You could get the Binu men to accompany you another dayâs journey, through the grasslands, but at the first roll of the foothills look for them to turn back. They likewise are disinclined to being eaten.â
âIs it as bad as that?â asked Von Blix.
âThe interior of Guadalcanar has never been explored,â Sheldon explained. âThe bushmen are as wild men as are to be found anywhere in the world to-day. I have never seen one. I have never seen a man who has seen one. They never come down to the coast, though their scouting parties occasionally eat a coast native who has wandered too far inland. Nobody knows anything about them. They donât even use tobaccoâhave never learned its use. The Austrian expeditionâscientists, you knowâgot part way in before it was cut to pieces. The monument is up the beach there several miles. Only one man got back to the coast to tell the tale. And now you have all I or any other man knows of the inside of Guadalcanar.â
âBut goldâhave you heard of gold?â Tudor asked impatiently. âDo you know anything about gold?â
Sheldon smiled, while the two visitors hung eagerly upon his words.
âYou can go two miles up the Balesuna and wash colours from the gravel. Iâve done it often. There is gold undoubtedly back in the mountains.â
Tudor and Von Blix looked triumphantly at each other.
âOld Wheatsheafâs yarn was true, then,â Tudor said, and Von Blix nodded. âAnd if Malaita turns out as wellââ
Tudor broke off and looked at Joan.
âIt was the tale of this old beachcomber that brought us here,â he explained. âVon Blix befriended him and was told the secret.â He turned and addressed Sheldon. âI think we shall prove that white men have been through the heart of Guadalcanar long before the time of the Austrian expedition.â
Sheldon shrugged his shoulders.
âWe have never heard of it down here,â he said simply. Then he addressed Von Blix. âAs to the boys, you couldnât use them farther than Binu, and Iâll lend you as many as you want as far as that. How many of your party are going, and how soon will you start?â
âTen,â said Tudor; ânine men and myself.â
âAnd you should be able to start day after to-morrow,â Von Blix said to him. âThe boats should practically be knocked together this afternoon. To-morrow should see the outfit portioned and packed. As for the Martha, Mr. Sheldon, weâll rush the stuff ashore this afternoon and sail by sundown.â
As the two men returned down the path to their boat, Sheldon regarded Joan quizzically.
âThereâs romance for you,â he said, âand adventureâgold-hunting among the cannibals.â
âA title for a book,â she cried. âOr, better yet, âGold-Hunting Among the Head-Hunters.â My! wouldnât it sell!â
âAnd now arenât you sorry you became a cocoanut planter?â he teased. âThink of investing in such an adventure.â
âIf I did,â she retorted, âVon Blix wouldnât be finicky about my joining in the cruise to Malaita.â
âI donât doubt but what he would jump at it.â
âWhat do you think of them?â she asked.
âOh, old Von Blix is all right, a solid sort of chap in his fashion; but Tudor is fly-awayâtoo much on the surface, you know. If it came to being wrecked on a desert island, Iâd prefer Von Blix.â
âI donât quite understand,â Joan objected. âWhat have you against Tudor?â
âYou remember Browningâs âLast Duchessâ?â
She nodded.
âWell, Tudor reminds me of herââ
âBut she was delightful.â
âSo she was. But she was a woman. One expects something different from a manâmore control, you know, more restraint, more deliberation. A man must be more solid, more solid and steady-going and less effervescent. A man of Tudorâs type gets on my nerves. One demands more repose from a man.â
Joan felt that she did not quite agree with his judgment; and, somehow, Sheldon caught her feeling and was disturbed. He remembered noting how her eyes had brightened as she talked with the newcomerâconfound it all, was he getting jealous? he asked himself. Why shouldnât her eyes brighten? What concern was it of his?
A second boat had been lowered, and the outfit of the shore party was landed rapidly. A dozen of the crew put the knocked-down boats together on the beach. There were five of these craftâlean and narrow, with flaring sides, and remarkably long. Each was equipped with three paddles and several iron-shod poles.
âYou chaps certainly seem to know river-work,â Sheldon told one of the carpenters.
The man spat a mouthful of tobacco-juice into the white sand, and answered, -
âWe use âem in Alaska. Theyâre modelled after the Yukon poling-boats, and you can bet your life theyâre crackerjacks. This creekâll be a snap alongside some of them Northern streams. Five hundred pounds in one of them boats, anâ two men can snake it along in a way thatâd surprise you.â
At sunset the Martha broke out her anchor and got under way, dipping her flag and saluting with a bomb gun. The Union Jack ran up and down the staff, and Sheldon replied with his brass signal-cannon. The miners pitched their tents in the compound, and cooked on the beach, while Tudor dined with Joan and Sheldon.
Their guest seemed to have been everywhere and seen everything and met everybody, and, encouraged by Joan, his talk was largely upon his own adventures. He was an adventurer of adventurers, and by his own account had been born into adventure. Descended from old New England stock, his father a consul-general, he had been born in Germany, in which country he had received his early education and his accent. Then, still a boy, he had rejoined his father in Turkey, and accompanied him later to Persia, his father having been appointed Minister to that country.
Tudor had always been a wanderer, and with facile wit and quick vivid description he leaped from episode and place to episode and place, relating his experiences seemingly not because they were his, but for the sake of their bizarreness and uniqueness, for the unusual incident or the laughable situation. He had gone through South American revolutions, been a Rough Rider in Cuba, a scout in South Africa, a war correspondent in the Russo-Japanese war. He had mushed dogs in the Klondike, washed gold from the sands of Nome, and edited a newspaper in San Francisco. The President of the United States was his friend. He was equally at home in the clubs of London and the Continent, the Grand Hotel at Yokohama, and the selectorâs shanties in the Never-Never country. He had shot big game in Siam, pearled in the Paumotus, visited Tolstoy, seen the Passion Play, and crossed the Andes on mule-back; while he was a living directory of the fever holes of West Africa.
Sheldon leaned back in his chair on the veranda, sipping his coffee and listening. In spite of himself he felt touched by the charm of the man who had led so varied a life. And yet Sheldon was not comfortable. It seemed to him that the man addressed himself particularly to Joan. His words and smiles were directed impartially toward both of them, yet Sheldon was certain, had the two men of them been alone, that the conversation would have been along different lines. Tudor had seen the effect on Joan and deliberately continued the flow of reminiscence, netting her in the glamour of romance. Sheldon watched her rapt attention, listened to her spontaneous laughter, quick questions, and passing judgments, and felt grow within him the dawning consciousness that he loved her.
So he was very quiet and almost sad, though at times he was aware of a distinct irritation against his guest, and he even speculated as to what percentage of Tudorâs tale was true and how any of it could be proved or disproved. In this connection, as if the scene had been prepared by a clever playwright, Utami came upon the veranda to report to Joan the capture of a crocodile in the trap they had made for her.
Tudorâs face, illuminated by the match with which he was lighting his cigarette, caught Utamiâs eye, and Utami forgot to report to his mistress.
âHello, Tudor,â he said, with a familiarity that startled Sheldon.
The Polynesianâs hand went out, and Tudor, shaking it, was staring into his face.
âWho is it? â he asked. âI canât see you.â
âUtami.â
âAnd who the dickens is Utami? Where did I ever meet you, my man?â
âYou no forget the Huahine?â Utami chided. âLast time Huahine sail?â
Tudor gripped the Tahitianâs hand a second time and shook it with genuine heartiness.
âThere was only one kanaka who came out of the Huahine that last voyage, and that kanaka was Joe. The deuce take it, man, Iâm glad to see you, though I never heard your new name before.â
âYes, everybody speak me Joe along the Huahine. Utami my name all the time, just the same.â
âBut what are you doing here?â Tudor asked, releasing the sailorâs hand and leaning eagerly forward.
âMe sail along Missie Lackalanna her schooner Miele. We go Tahiti, Raiatea, Tahaa, Bora-Bora, Manua, Tutuila, Apia, Savaii, and Fiji Islandsâplenty
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