Jack London 
Before Adam 
Jack LONDON

ADVENTURE


BY


JACK LONDON

Adventure By Jack London.

Shadow POET 2021

CONTENTS

Chapter 1. Something To Be Done Chapter 2. Something Is Done Chapter 3. The Jessie


Chapter 4. Joan Lackland

Chapter 5. She Would A Planter Be Chapter 6. Tempest


Chapter 7. A Hard-Bitten Gang Chapter 8. Local Colour

Chapter 9. As Between A Man And A Woman Chapter 10. A Message From Boucher Chapter 11. The Port Adams Crowd

Chapter 12. Mr. Morgan And Mr. Raff Chapter 13. The Logic Of Youth Chapter 14. The Martha

Chapter 15. A Discourse On Manners

Chapter 16. The Girl Who Had Not Grown Up Chapter 17. “Your” Miss Lackland

Chapter 18. Making The Books Come True Chapter 19. The Lost Toy


Chapter 20. A Man-Talk
Chapter 21. Contraband


Chapter 22. Gogoomy Finishes Along Kwaque Altogether Chapter 23. A Message From The Bush

Chapter 24. In The Bush Chapter 25. The Head-Hunters Chapter 26. Burning Daylight Chapter 27. Modern Duelling Chapter 28. Capitulation

We are those fools who could not rest In the dull earth we left behind,

But burned with passion for the West, And drank strange frenzy from its wind. The world where wise men live at ease

Fades from our unregretful eyes, And blind across uncharted seas

We stagger on our enterprise.” “THE SHIP OF FOOLS.”


C
HAPTER
1. S
OMETHING
T
O
B
E
D
ONE

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.