Adventure | Page 3

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This etext was prepared by David Price, [email protected] From
the 1911 Thomas Nelson and Sons edition

ADVENTURE

by Jack London


CHAPTER I
--SOMETHING TO BE DONE

He was a very sick white man. He rode pick-a-back on a woolly-
headed, black-skinned savage, the lobes of whose ears had been pierced
and stretched until one had torn out, while the other carried a circular
block of carved wood three inches in diameter. The torn ear had been
pierced again, but this time not so ambitiously, for the hole
accommodated no more than a short clay pipe. The man-horse was
greasy and dirty, and naked save for an exceedingly narrow and dirty
loin-cloth; but the white man clung to him closely and desperately. At
times, from weakness, his head drooped and rested on the woolly pate.
At other times he lifted his head and stared with swimming eyes at the
cocoanut palms that reeled and swung in the shimmering heat. He was
clad in a thin undershirt and a strip of cotton cloth, that wrapped about
his waist and descended to his knees. On his head was a battered
Stetson, known to the trade as a Baden-Powell. About his middle was
strapped a belt, which carried a large-calibred automatic pistol and
several spare clips, loaded and ready for quick work.
The rear was brought up by a black boy of fourteen or fifteen, who
carried medicine bottles, a pail of hot water, and various other hospital
appurtenances. They passed out of the compound through a small
wicker gate, and went on under the blazing sun, winding about among
new-planted cocoanuts that threw no shade. There was not a breath of
wind, and the superheated, stagnant air was heavy with pestilence.
From the direction they were going arose a wild clamour, as of lost
souls wailing and of men in torment. A long, low shed showed ahead,
grass-walled and grass-thatched, and it was from here that the noise

proceeded. There were shrieks and screams, some unmistakably of
grief, others unmistakably of unendurable pain. As the white man drew
closer he could hear a low and continuous moaning and groaning. He
shuddered at the thought of entering, and for a moment was quite
certain that he was going to faint. For that most dreaded of Solomon
Island scourges, dysentery, had struck Berande plantation, and he was
all alone to cope with it. Also, he was afflicted himself.
By stooping close, still on man-back, he managed to pass through the
low doorway. He took a small bottle from his follower, and sniffed
strong ammonia to clear his senses for the ordeal. Then he shouted,
"Shut up!" and the clamour stilled. A raised platform of forest slabs, six
feet wide, with a slight pitch, extended the full length of the shed.
Alongside of it was a yard-wide run-way. Stretched on the platform,
side by side and crowded close, lay a score of blacks. That they were
low in the order of human life was apparent at a glance. They were
man-eaters. Their faces were asymmetrical, bestial; their bodies were
ugly and ape-like. They wore nose-rings of clam-shell and turtle-shell,
and from the ends of their noses which were also pierced, projected
horns of beads strung on stiff wire. Their ears were pierced and
distended to accommodate wooden plugs and sticks, pipes, and all
manner of barbaric ornaments. Their faces and bodies were tattooed or
scarred in hideous designs. In their sickness they wore no clothing, not
even loin-cloths, though they retained their shell armlets, their bead
necklaces, and their leather belts, between which and the skin were
thrust naked knives. The bodies of many were covered with horrible
sores. Swarms of flies rose and settled, or flew back and forth in
clouds.
The white man went down the line, dosing each man with medicine. To
some he gave chlorodyne. He was