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AdventureModernLib.Net / Êëàññè÷åñêàÿ ïðîçà / London Jack / Adventure - ×òåíèå (Îçíàêîìèòåëüíûé îòðûâîê) (ñòð. 2)
Captain Oleson swore blasphemously, and sent a house-boy to bring whisky and soda. Sheldon glanced at the thermometer. «One hundred and seven,» he said. «Poor Hughie.» Captain Oleson offered him some whisky. «Couldn't think of it-perforation, you know,» Sheldon said. He sent for a boss-boy and ordered a grave to be dug, also some of the packing-cases to be knocked together into a coffin. The blacks did not get coffins. They were buried as they died, being carted on a sheet of galvanized iron, in their nakedness, from the hospital to the hole in the ground. Having given the orders, Sheldon lay back in his chair with closed eyes. «It's ben fair hell, sir,» Captain Oleson began, then broke off to help himself to more whisky. «It's ben fair hell, Mr. Sheldon, I tell you. Contrary winds and calms. We've ben driftin' all about the shop for ten days. There's ten thousand sharks following us for the tucker we've ben throwin' over to them. They was snappin' at the oars when we started to come ashore. I wisht to God a nor'wester'd come along an' blow the Solomons clean to hell.» «We got it from the water-water from Owga creek. Filled my casks with it. How was we to know? I've filled there before an' it was all right. We had sixty recruits-full up; and my crew of fifteen. We've ben buryin' them day an' night. The beggars won't live, damn them! They die out of spite. Only three of my crew left on its legs. Five more down. Seven dead. Oh, hell! What's the good of talkin'?» «How many recruits left?» Sheldon asked. «Lost half. Thirty left. Twenty down, and ten tottering around.» Sheldon sighed. «That means another addition to the hospital. We've got to get them ashore somehow.-Viaburi! Hey, you, Viaburi, ring big fella bell strong fella too much.» The hands, called in from the fields at that unwonted hour, were split into detachments. Some were sent into the woods to cut timber for house-beams, others to cutting cane-grass for thatching, and forty of them lifted a whale-boat above their heads and carried it down to the sea. Sheldon had gritted his teeth, pulled his collapsing soul together, and taken Berande plantation into his fist once more. «Have you seen the barometer?» Captain Oleson asked, pausing at the bottom of the steps on his way to oversee the disembarkation of the sick. «No,» Sheldon answered. «Is it down?» «It's going down.» «Then you'd better sleep aboard to-night,» was Sheldon's judgment. «Never mind the funeral. I'll see to poor Hughie.» «A nigger was kicking the bucket when I dropped anchor.» The captain made the statement as a simple fact, but obviously waited for a suggestion. The other felt a sudden wave of irritation rush through him. «Dump him over,» he cried. «Great God, man! don't you think I've got enough graves ashore?» «I just wanted to know, that was all,» the captain answered, in no wise offended. Sheldon regretted his childishness. «Oh, Captain Oleson,» he called. «If you can see your way to it, come ashore to-morrow and lend me a hand. If you can't, send the mate.» «Right O. I'll come myself. Mr. Johnson's dead, sir. I forgot to tell you-three days ago.» Sheldon watched the Jessie's captain go down the path, with waving arms and loud curses calling upon God to sink the Solomons. Next, Sheldon noted the Jessie rolling lazily on the glassy swell, and beyond, in the north-west, high over Florida Island, an alpine chain of dark-massed clouds. Then he turned to his partner, calling for boys to carry him into the house. But Hughie Drummond had reached the end. His breathing was imperceptible. By mere touch, Sheldon could ascertain that the dying man's temperature was going down. It must have been going down when the thermometer registered one hundred and seven. He had burned out. Sheldon knelt beside him, the house-boys grouped around, their white singlets and loin-cloths peculiarly at variance with their dark skins and savage countenances, their huge ear-plugs and carved and glistening nose-rings. Sheldon tottered to his feet at last, and half-fell into the steamer-chair. Oppressive as the heat had been, it was now even more oppressive. It was difficult to breathe. He panted for air. The faces and naked arms of the house-boys were beaded with sweat. «Marster,» one of them ventured, «big fella wind he come, strong fella too much.» Sheldon nodded his head but did not look. Much as he had loved Hughie Drummond, his death, and the funeral it entailed, seemed an intolerable burden to add to what he was already sinking under. He had a feeling-nay, it was a certitude-that all he had to do was to shut his eyes and let go, and that he would die, sink into immensity of rest. He knew it; it was very simple. All he had to do was close his eyes and let go; for he had reached the stage where he lived by will alone. His weary body seemed torn by the oncoming pangs of dissolution. He was a fool to hang on. He had died a score of deaths already, and what was the use of prolonging it to two-score deaths before he really died. Not only was he not afraid to die, but he desired to die. His weary flesh and weary spirit desired it, and why should the flame of him not go utterly out? But his mind that could will life or death, still pulsed on. He saw the two whale-boats land on the beach, and the sick, on stretchers or pick-a-back, groaning and wailing, go by in lugubrious procession. He saw the wind making on the clouded horizon, and thought of the sick in the hospital. Here was something waiting his hand to be done, and it was not in his nature to lie down and sleep, or die, when any task remained undone. The boss-boys were called and given their orders to rope down the hospital with its two additions. He remembered the spare anchor– chain, new and black-painted, that hung under the house suspended from the floor-beams, and ordered it to be used on the hospital as well. Other boys brought the coffin, a grotesque patchwork of packing-cases, and under his directions they laid Hughie Drummond in it. Half a dozen boys carried it down the beach, while he rode on the back of another, his arms around the black's neck, one hand clutching a prayer-book. While he read the service, the blacks gazed apprehensively at the dark line on the water, above which rolled and tumbled the racing clouds. The first breath of the wind, faint and silken, tonic with life, fanned through his dry-baked body as he finished reading. Then came the second breath of the wind, an angry gust, as the shovels worked rapidly, filling in the sand. So heavy was the gust that Sheldon, still on his feet, seized hold of his man-horse to escape being blown away. The Jessie was blotted out, and a strange ominous sound arose as multitudinous wavelets struck foaming on the beach. It was like the bubbling of some colossal cauldron. From all about could be heard the dull thudding of falling cocoanuts. The tall, delicate-trunked trees twisted and snapped about like whip-lashes. The air seemed filled with their flying leaves, any one of which, stem-on could brain a man. Then came the rain, a deluge, a straight, horizontal sheet that poured along like a river, defying gravitation. The black, with Sheldon mounted on him, plunged ahead into the thick of it, stooping far forward and low to the ground to avoid being toppled over backward. «'He's sleeping out and far to-night,'» Sheldon quoted, as he thought of the dead man in the sand and the rainwater trickling down upon the cold clay. So they fought their way back up the beach. The other blacks caught hold of the man-horse and pulled and tugged. There were among them those whose fondest desire was to drag the rider in the sand and spring upon him and mash him into repulsive nothingness. But the automatic pistol in his belt with its rattling, quick– dealing death, and the automatic, death-defying spirit in the man himself, made them refrain and buckle down to the task of hauling him to safety through the storm. Wet through and exhausted, he was nevertheless surprised at the ease with which he got into a change of clothing. Though he was fearfully weak, he found himself actually feeling better. The disease had spent itself, and the mend had begun. «Now if I don't get the fever,» he said aloud, and at the same moment resolved to go to taking quinine as soon as he was strong enough to dare. He crawled out on the veranda. The rain had ceased, but the wind, which had dwindled to a half-gale, was increasing. A big sea had sprung up, and the mile-long breakers, curling up to the over-fall two hundred yards from shore, were crashing on the beach. The Jessie was plunging madly to two anchors, and every second or third sea broke clear over her bow. Two flags were stiffly undulating from the halyards like squares of flexible sheet-iron. One was blue, the other red. He knew their meaning in the Berande private code-«What are your instructions? Shall I attempt to land boat?» Tacked on the wall, between the signal locker and the billiard rules, was the code itself, by which he verified the signal before making answer. On the flagstaff gaff a boy hoisted a white flag over a red, which stood for-«Run to Neal Island for shelter.» That Captain Oleson had been expecting this signal was apparent by the celerity with which the shackles were knocked out of both anchor-chains. He slipped his anchors, leaving them buoyed to be picked up in better weather. The Jessie swung off under her full staysail, then the foresail, double-reefed, was run up. She was away like a racehorse, clearing Balesuna Shoal with half a cable– length to spare. Just before she rounded the point she was swallowed up in a terrific squall that far out-blew the first. All that night, while squall after squall smote Berande, uprooting trees, overthrowing copra-sheds, and rocking the house on its tall piles, Sheldon slept. He was unaware of the commotion. He never wakened. Nor did he change his position or dream. He awoke, a new man. Furthermore, he was hungry. It was over a week since food had passed his lips. He drank a glass of condensed cream, thinned with water, and by ten o'clock he dared to take a cup of beef-tea. He was cheered, also, by the situation in the hospital. Despite the storm there had been but one death, and there was only one fresh case, while half a dozen boys crawled weakly away to the barracks. He wondered if it was the wind that was blowing the disease away and cleansing the pestilential land. By eleven a messenger arrived from Balesuna village, dispatched by Seelee. The Jessie had gone ashore half-way between the village and Neal Island. It was not till nightfall that two of the crew arrived, reporting the drowning of Captain Oleson and of the one remaining boy. As for the Jessie, from what they told him Sheldon could not but conclude that she was a total loss. Further to hearten him, he was taken by a shivering fit. In half an hour he was burning up. And he knew that at least another day must pass before he could undertake even the smallest dose of quinine. He crawled under a heap of blankets, and a little later found himself laughing aloud. He had surely reached the limit of disaster. Barring earthquake or tidal-wave, the worst had already befallen him. The Flibberty-Gibbet was certainly safe in Mboli Pass. Since nothing worse could happen, things simply had to mend. So it was, shivering under his blankets, that he laughed, until the house– boys, with heads together, marvelled at the devils that were in him. CHAPTER IV-JOAN LACKLAND By the second day of the northwester, Sheldon was in collapse from his fever. It had taken an unfair advantage of his weak state, and though it was only ordinary malarial fever, in forty-eight hours it had run him as low as ten days of fever would have done when he was in condition. But the dysentery had been swept away from Berande. A score of convalescents lingered in the hospital, but they were improving hourly. There had been but one more death-that of the man whose brother had wailed over him instead of brushing the flies away. On the morning of the fourth day of his fever, Sheldon lay on the veranda, gazing dimly out over the raging ocean. The wind was falling, but a mighty sea was still thundering in on Berande beach, the flying spray reaching in as far as the flagstaff mounds, the foaming wash creaming against the gate-posts. He had taken thirty grains of quinine, and the drug was buzzing in his ears like a nest of hornets, making his hands and knees tremble, and causing a sickening palpitation of the stomach. Once, opening his eyes, he saw what he took to be an hallucination. Not far out, and coming in across the Jessie's anchorage, he saw a whale-boat's nose thrust skyward on a smoky crest and disappear naturally, as an actual whale-boat's nose should disappear, as it slid down the back of the sea. He knew that no whale-boat should be out there, and he was quite certain no men in the Solomons were mad enough to be abroad in such a storm. But the hallucination persisted. A minute later, chancing to open his eyes, he saw the whale-boat, full length, and saw right into it as it rose on the face of a wave. He saw six sweeps at work, and in the stern, clearly outlined against the overhanging wall of white, a man who stood erect, gigantic, swaying with his weight on the steering-sweep. This he saw, and an eighth man who crouched in the bow and gazed shoreward. But what startled Sheldon was the sight of a woman in the stern-sheets, between the stroke-oar and the steersman. A woman she was, for a braid of her hair was flying, and she was just in the act of recapturing it and stowing it away beneath a hat that for all the world was like his own «Baden-Powell.» The boat disappeared behind the wave, and rose into view on the face of the following one. Again he looked into it. The men were dark-skinned, and larger than Solomon Islanders, but the woman, he could plainly see, was white. Who she was, and what she was doing there, were thoughts that drifted vaguely through his consciousness. He was too sick to be vitally interested, and, besides, he had a half feeling that it was all a dream; but he noted that the men were resting on their sweeps, while the woman and the steersman were intently watching the run of seas behind them. «Good boatmen,» was Sheldon's verdict, as he saw the boat leap forward on the face of a huge breaker, the sweeps plying swiftly to keep her on that front of the moving mountain of water that raced madly for the shore. It was well done. Part full of water, the boat was flung upon the beach, the men springing out and dragging its nose to the gate-posts. Sheldon had called vainly to the house-boys, who, at the moment, were dosing the remaining patients in the hospital. He knew he was unable to rise up and go down the path to meet the newcomers, so he lay back in the steamer-chair, and watched for ages while they cared for the boat. The woman stood to one side, her hand resting on the gate. Occasionally surges of sea water washed over her feet, which he could see were encased in rubber sea-boots. She scrutinized the house sharply, and for some time she gazed at him steadily. At last, speaking to two of the men, who turned and followed her, she started up the path. Sheldon attempted to rise, got half up out of his chair, and fell back helplessly. He was surprised at the size of the men, who loomed like giants behind her. Both were six-footers, and they were heavy in proportion. He had never seen islanders like them. They were not black like the Solomon Islanders, but light brown; and their features were larger, more regular, and even handsome. The woman-or girl, rather, he decided-walked along the veranda toward him. The two men waited at the head of the steps, watching curiously. The girl was angry; he could see that. Her gray eyes were flashing, and her lips were quivering. That she had a temper, was his thought. But the eyes were striking. He decided that they were not gray after all, or, at least, not all gray. They were large and wide apart, and they looked at him from under level brows. Her face was cameo-like, so clear cut was it. There were other striking things about her-the cowboy Stetson hat, the heavy braids of brown hair, and the long-barrelled 38 Colt's revolver that hung in its holster on her hip. «Pretty hospitality, I must say,» was her greeting, «letting strangers sink or swim in your front yard.» «I-I beg your pardon,» he stammered, by a supreme effort dragging himself to his feet. His legs wobbled under him, and with a suffocating sensation he began sinking to the floor. He was aware of a feeble gratification as he saw solicitude leap into her eyes; then blackness smote him, and at the moment of smiting him his thought was that at last, and for the first time in his life, he had fainted. The ringing of the big bell aroused him. He opened his eyes and found that he was on the couch indoors. A glance at the clock told him that it was six, and from the direction the sun's rays streamed into the room he knew that it was morning. At first he puzzled over something untoward he was sure had happened. Then on the wall he saw a Stetson hat hanging, and beneath it a full cartridge-belt and a long-barrelled 38 Colt's revolver. The slender girth of the belt told its feminine story, and he remembered the whale-boat of the day before and the gray eyes that flashed beneath the level brows. She it must have been who had just rung the bell. The cares of the plantation rushed upon him, and he sat up in bed, clutching at the wall for support as the mosquito screen lurched dizzily around him. He was still sitting there, holding on, with eyes closed, striving to master his giddiness, when he heard her voice. «You'll lie right down again, sir,» she said. It was sharply imperative, a voice used to command. At the same time one hand pressed him back toward the pillow while the other caught him from behind and eased him down. «You've been unconscious for twenty-four hours now,» she went on, «and I have taken charge. When I say the word you'll get up, and not until then. Now, what medicine do you take?-quinine? Here are ten grains. That's right. You'll make a good patient.» «My dear madame,» he began. «You musn't speak,» she interrupted, «that is, in protest. Otherwise, you can talk.» «But the plantation-« «A dead man is of no use on a plantation. Don't you want to know about ME? My vanity is hurt. Here am I, just through my first shipwreck; and here are you, not the least bit curious, talking about your miserable plantation. Can't you see that I am just bursting to tell somebody, anybody, about my shipwreck?» He smiled; it was the first time in weeks. And he smiled, not so much at what she said, as at the way she said it-the whimsical expression of her face, the laughter in her eyes, and the several tiny lines of humour that drew in at the corners. He was curiously wondering as to what her age was, as he said aloud: «Yes, tell me, please.» «That I will not-not now,» she retorted, with a toss of the head. «I'll find somebody to tell my story to who does not have to be asked. Also, I want information. I managed to find out what time to ring the bell to turn the hands to, and that is about all. I don't understand the ridiculous speech of your people. What time do they knock off?» «At eleven-go on again at one.» «That will do, thank you. And now, where do you keep the key to the provisions? I want to feed my men.» «Your men!» he gasped. «On tinned goods! No, no. Let them go out and eat with my boys.» Her eyes flashed as on the day before, and he saw again the imperative expression on her face. «That I won't; my men are MEN. I've been out to your miserable barracks and watched them eat. Faugh! Potatoes! Nothing but potatoes! No salt! Nothing! Only potatoes! I may have been mistaken, but I thought I understood them to say that that was all they ever got to eat. Two meals a day and every day in the week?» He nodded. «Well, my men wouldn't stand that for a single day, much less a whole week. Where is the key?» «Hanging on that clothes-hook under the clock.» He gave it easily enough, but as she was reaching down the key she heard him say: «Fancy niggers and tinned provisions.» This time she really was angry. The blood was in her cheeks as she turned on him. «My men are not niggers. The sooner you understand that the better for our acquaintance. As for the tinned goods, I'll pay for all they eat. Please don't worry about that. Worry is not good for you in your condition. And I won't stay any longer than I have to- –just long enough to get you on your feet, and not go away with the feeling of having deserted a white man.» «You're American, aren't you?» he asked quietly. The question disconcerted her for the moment. «Yes,» she vouchsafed, with a defiant look. «Why?» «Nothing. I merely thought so.» «Anything further?» He shook his head. «Why?» he asked. «Oh, nothing. I thought you might have something pleasant to say.» «My name is Sheldon, David Sheldon,» he said, with direct relevance, holding out a thin hand. Her hand started out impulsively, then checked. «My name is Lackland, Joan Lackland.» The hand went out. «And let us be friends.» «It could not be otherwise-« he began lamely. «And I can feed my men all the tinned goods I want?» she rushed on. «Till the cows come home,» he answered, attempting her own lightness, then adding, «that is, to Berande. You see we don't have any cows at Berande.» She fixed him coldly with her eyes. «Is that a joke?» she demanded. «I really don't know-I-I thought it was, but then, you see, I'm sick.» «You're English, aren't you?» was her next query. «Now that's too much, even for a sick man,» he cried. «You know well enough that I am.» «Oh,» she said absently, «then you are?» He frowned, tightened his lips, then burst into laughter, in which she joined. «It's my own fault,» he confessed. «I shouldn't have baited you. I'll be careful in the future.» «In the meantime go on laughing, and I'll see about breakfast. Is there anything you would fancy?» He shook his head. «It will do you good to eat something. Your fever has burned out, and you are merely weak. Wait a moment.» She hurried out of the room in the direction of the kitchen, tripped at the door in a pair of sandals several sizes too large for her feet, and disappeared in rosy confusion. «By Jove, those are my sandals,» he thought to himself. «The girl hasn't a thing to wear except what she landed on the beach in, and she certainly landed in sea-boots.» CHAPTER V-SHE WOULD A PLANTER BE Sheldon mended rapidly. The fever had burned out, and there was nothing for him to do but gather strength. Joan had taken the cook in hand, and for the first time, as Sheldon remarked, the chop at Berande was white man's chop. With her own hands Joan prepared the sick man's food, and between that and the cheer she brought him, he was able, after two days, to totter feebly out upon the veranda. The situation struck him as strange, and stranger still was the fact that it did not seem strange to the girl at all. She had settled down and taken charge of the household as a matter of course, as if he were her father, or brother, or as if she were a man like himself. «It is just too delightful for anything,» she assured him. «It is like a page out of some romance. Here I come along out of the sea and find a sick man all alone with two hundred slaves-« «Recruits,» he corrected. «Contract labourers. They serve only three years, and they are free agents when they enter upon their contracts.» «Yes, yes,» she hurried on. «-A sick man alone with two hundred recruits on a cannibal island-they are cannibals, aren't they? Or is it all talk?» «Talk!» he said, with a smile. «It's a trifle more than that. Most of my boys are from the bush, and every bushman is a cannibal.» «But not after they become recruits? Surely, the boys you have here wouldn't be guilty.» «They'd eat you if the chance afforded.» «Are you just saying so, on theory, or do you really know?» she asked. «I know.» «Why? What makes you think so? Your own men here?» «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. «You see, I had read and dreamed about romance all my life,» she was saying, «but I never, in my wildest fancies, thought that I should live it. It was all so unexpected. Two years ago I thought there was nothing left to me but. . . .» She faltered, and made a moue of distaste. «Well, the only thing that remained, it seemed to me, was marriage.» «And you preferred a cannibal isle and a cartridge-belt?» he suggested. «I didn't think of the cannibal isle, but the cartridge-belt was blissful.» «You wouldn't dare use the revolver if you were compelled to. Or,» noting the glint in her eyes, «if you did use it, to-well, to hit anything.» She started up suddenly to enter the house. He knew she was going for her revolver. «Never mind,» he said, «here's mine. What can you do with it?» «Shoot the block off your flag-halyards.» He smiled his unbelief. «I don't know the gun,» she said dubiously. «It's a light trigger and you don't have to hold down. Draw fine.» «Yes, yes,» she spoke impatiently. «I know automatics-they jam when they get hot-only I don't know yours.» She looked at it a moment. «It's cocked. Is there a cartridge in the chamber?» She fired, and the block remained intact. «It's a long shot,» he said, with the intention of easing her chagrin. But she bit her lip and fired again. The bullet emitted a sharp shriek as it ricochetted into space. The metal block rattled back and forth. Again and again she fired, till the clip was emptied of its eight cartridges. Six of them were hits. The block still swayed at the gaff-end, but it was battered out of all usefulness. Sheldon was astonished. It was better than he or even Hughie Drummond could have done. The women he had known, when they sporadically fired a rifle or revolver, usually shrieked, shut their eyes, and blazed away into space. «That's really good shooting . . . for a woman,» he said. «You only missed it twice, and it was a strange weapon.» «But I can't make out the two misses,» she complained. «The gun worked beautifully, too. Give me another clip and I'll hit it eight times for anything you wish.» «I don't doubt it. Now I'll have to get a new block. Viaburi! Here you fella, catch one fella block along store-room.» «I'll wager you can't do it eight out of eight . . . anything you wish,» she challenged. «No fear of my taking it on,» was his answer. «Who taught you to shoot?» «Oh, my father, at first, and then Von, and his cowboys. He was a shot-Dad, I mean, though Von was splendid, too.» 1, 2, 3 |
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