"Yes, my own men here, the very house-boys, the cook that at the present moment is making such delicious rolls, thanks to you. Not more than three months ago eleven of them sneaked a whale-boat and ran for Malaita. Nine of them belonged to Malaita. Two were bushmen from San Cristoval. They were fools--the two from San Cristoval, I mean; so would any two Malaita men be who trusted themselves in a boat with nine from San Cristoval." "Yes?" she asked eagerly. "Then what happened?" "The nine Malaita men ate the two from San Cristoval, all except the heads, which are too valuable for mere eating. They stowed them away in the stern-locker till they landed. And those two heads are now in some bush village back of Langa Langa." She clapped her hands and her eyes sparkled. "They are really and truly cannibals! And just think, this is the twentieth century! And I thought romance and adventure were fossilized!" He looked at her with mild amusement. "What is the matter now?" she queried. "Oh, nothing, only I don't fancy being eaten by a lot of filthy niggers is the least bit romantic." "No, of course not," she admitted. "But to be among them, controlling them, directing them, two hundred of them, and to escape being eaten by them--that, at least, if it isn't romantic, is certainly the quintessence of adventure. And adventure and romance are allied, you know." "By the same token, to go into a nigger's stomach should be the quintessence of adventure," he retorted. "I don't think you have any romance in you," she exclaimed. "You're just dull and sombre and sordid like the business men at home. I don't know why you're here at all. You should be at home placidly vegetating as a banker's clerk or--or--" "A shopkeeper's assistant, thank you." "Yes, that--anything. What under the sun are you doing here on the edge of things?" "Earning my bread and butter, trying to get on in the world." "'By the bitter road the younger son must tread, Ere he win to hearth and saddle of his own,'" she quoted. "Why, if that isn't romantic, then nothing is romantic. Think of all the younger sons out over the world, on a myriad of adventures winning to those same hearths and saddles. And here you are in the thick of it, doing it, and here am I in the thick of it, doing it." "I--I beg pardon," he drawled. "Well, I'm a younger daughter, then," she amended; "and I have no hearth nor saddle--I haven't anybody or anything--and I'm just as far on the edge of things as you are." "In your case, then, I'll admit there is a bit of romance," he confessed. He could not help but think of the preceding nights, and of her sleeping in the hammock on the veranda, under mosquito curtains, her bodyguard of Tahitian sailors stretched out at the far corner of the veranda within call. He had been too helpless to resist, but now he resolved she should have his couch inside while he would take the hammock.