"Right!" exclaimed Billy hotly. "What are you talking about? Those are
the principles of an Apache or a Hottentot."
"Or a cave-man," Pete added.
"Well, what are we under our skins but Hottentots and Apaches and
cave-men?" said Ralph. "Now, I leave it to you. Look facts in the face.
Use your common sense. Count out civilization and all its artificial
rules. Think of our situation on this island, if we don't capture these
women soon. We can't tell when they'll stop coming. We don't know what
the conditions of their life may be. The caprice may strike them
to-morrow to cut us out for good. Maybe their men will discover it - and
prevent them from coming. A lot of things may happen to keep them away.
What's to become of us in that case? We'll go mad, five men alone here.
It isn't as though we could tame them by any gentle methods. You can't
catch eagles by putting salt on their tails. In the first place, we
can't get close enough to them, because of their accursed wings, to
prove that we wouldn't harm them. They've sent us a challenge - it's a
magnificent one. They've thrown down the gage. And how have we
responded? I bet they think we're a precious lot of molly-coddles! I bet
they're laughing in their sleeves all the time. I'd hate to hear what
they say about us. But the point I'm trying to make is not that. It's
this: we can't afford to lose them. This place is a prison now. It will
be worse than that if this keeps up - it'll be a madhouse."
"Do you mean to tell me that you're advocating marriage by capture?"
Billy asked in an incredulous voice.
"I mean to tell you I'm arguing capture," Ralph said with emphasis.
"After that, you, can trust the marriage question to take care of
itself."
Argument broke out hydra-headed. They wrangled the whole evening. Theory
at first guided them. In the beginning, names like Plato, Nietzsche,
Schopenhauer preceded quotation; then, came Shaw, Havelock-Ellis,
Kraft-Ebing, Weininger. Sleep deadened their discussion temporarily but
it burst out at intervals all the next day. In fact, it seemed to
possess eternal vitality, eternal fascination. Leaving theory, they went
for parallels of their strange situation, to history, to the Scriptures,
to fiction, to drama, to poetry.
Honey ended every discussion with a philosophic, "Aside from the
question of brutality, this marriage by capture isn't a sporting
proposition. It's like jacking deer. I'm not for it. And, O Lord, what's
the use of chewing the rag so much about it? Wait a while. We'll get
them yet, I betchu!"