Page:Barbour--Joan of the ilsand.djvu/269

Rh he smiled faintly in spite of his pain and weakness.

"What's happened?" he asked in a whisper.

"One or two things," replied Keith evasively. "You lie still, old son. You're a sick man."

"Am I?" Chester said wearily; and a few moments later he fell asleep.

Going into the kitchen Joan was astonished to find Maromi standing bewildered among the wreckage.

"You clear up here plenty soon," she said.

The black rolled his eyes, as though wondering whether order could ever be created out of such chaos, but he began by setting the kitchen table on its legs; and then, settling down to his task, the house boy made strange noises, which he doubtless understood to be singing. Clearly, so far as he was concerned, it was a matter for rejoicing that the family had come home again.

With the assistance of Peter Pan, Keith straightened the furniture, threw into a pile all the things that were hopelessly broken, and, after a full hour's work, made the place look less like a ruin. One of the first things he did was to see whether the store had been ransacked, and to his great surprise he found the place intact. It was a large cupboard, forming the division between the kitchen and the living room, and in the darkness the blacks had evidently failed to grasp the topography of the place. Incidentally the fact that it had not been sacked was circumstantial evidence that Maromi had