 This is the story of a man who never belonged anywhere, whose backyard is the world, whose ways of life are the dreams of escape for those who want action, but never find it. The man, John Steele, adventurer. Ever feel boxed in, trapped? That life's got you by the throat and you've got to chuck it, pull up roots and get away, grab the sky, put your foot on the open road or blow your top? Sure you have. We all have. And why don't you? Why don't you get away from it all? Afraid? Afraid to go? Let me tell you about one man who thought he wasn't. Wayne Bartholomew. You know his name. Know it or not, it's an even bet his name's changed something in your life. The clothes you wear, the car you drive, the house you live in or the furniture you bought to fill it. Wayne Bartholomew, rich, famous, successful. And all his success due to change, but they don't call it change. They call it design, modern design. And Wayne Bartholomew was great. He was king, fashion king at redesigning. John, wait for me. Ellen, Ellen Bartholomew, Wayne's wife. I'd like her once. Now she was yelling, waving to me across the city street, waiting for the red light to change. Wait! Mrs. Wayne. Mrs. You know my name. What's the matter, Ellen? Tonight, dinner. I want you to come. You're kidding. 730. Well, you know how Wayne feels about me. 730, I've got to run, John. Ellen, wait. I'm no big deal. I don't count to him. 730, John, please. You do to me. The crowd swallowed her up like it is to swallow anything, and all I saw was a white glove waving and fading like a little white flag. Then it was gone. And I forgot about her invitation, too. Wayne. I'd lived too long. He was no king to me. I walked till eight, and then I went back to my hotel. But Ellen hadn't forgotten. There were three little white telephone messages clipped to my door. They all said the same thing. Call. Virgin. Ellen. John, why didn't you come? Sorry. I'm in trouble. He knows all the answers. Ask him. Will you come? All those famous people you can run up. Please, John. I'm Joe Blow, who I pick on me. Please, John. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Sure. I'll come. Last will and testament. Wayne Bartholomew. To whom it may concern. What does it mean? It doesn't concern me. John, please. It's a good idea making a will. Everybody ought to make a will. What do you want from me? I told you I have no one else to turn to. Look, kid. I came because... Well, I never heard you cry before. Weren't you told... Once. Yeah. Way back when? Let it lay. Something's wrong with him. I always thought so, too. He's gone. Let me. Can I get you to understand that? So it looks. Go after him. Try the Turkish bath. You know he doesn't drink. I couldn't face the world if he doesn't come back. You'll survive. Not if he's left me. Tried? Don't ask me. You married him. That still bothers you? No. Well, why won't you help me? You're not the girl I knew. You're the girl married to him. You're jealous. Open up. Give me the travel money. He wasn't hard to find. A phone call to the airport. He was famous. When you're famous, you can't sneak. You can try, but people who aren't famous always catch it. You can't give them a slide by. Wayne Bartholomew? Oh, yes, the five o'clock clipper. Where? San Francisco. Transfer to the Gilbert Islands. I took the same plane ride. The Gilberts? He was easier to find there. Ocean Island, the administrative center for the whole Gilbert Group. A lot easier. He wasn't famous here. Nobody is. But he was white. His skin was white as the sands of the reef. Everybody else was brown. Golden brown, built like Greek gods. The women, golden goddesses with blue-black hair, white garlands of flowers in their hair and their eyes, gentle brown. I went right up to him. The coral rock and sand shaking under my feet from the smash of the surf. Right up to where he sat on the island tip. You got your nerve. Go back and tell her, tell the whole rotten world back there. Tell them all the... Tell them I'm dead. Not very original. Tell them, huh? Uh-huh. Sending you, she's got her nerve. Stinking rotten world. Good to you. Thanks. You're here. I'm through on no part of it. Now, take off. I'm happy here. A contract's a contract. I'm through, I tell you. I don't mean business. You married her. I don't keep it. I made her my will. I let her keep every cent money. I don't need it. I don't want it. I'm happy here. Are you going to get out of here? We don't have violence here. Who are... It's your family. Her Majesty's district officer. Pick him up. I didn't see you. Come up. If you please. Off the sand. Him. Huh? Oh, yes. Yeah. Sure. You'll take the next airplane. Peace must be preserved. No. And that's my final word. Good day. Come on. Come on. Wow. Didn't hit you that hard. Come on. You heard what the man said. All right, let's go. Hey, wait up. Hey, Mr. Chumley. Let him go. Oh, hands off. Let him go, I said. They got jails out here. I don't want you to don't need your commander to slip the likes of you. Yeah, the likes of you. Just me. You all are. You're all alike. Griblin' and grablin' day in day out you. Ellen, grab on tight. Get a hold. Pull yourself at the ladder. Boy, here we go. What for? Is that like? Well, you tell me. Sure. What could you ever tell me? For the last time. Gonna come? You heard the guy. He's Her Majesty's big cheese. This isn't home. No, I'm not gonna come. What's the matter, Wayne? You run out of design? You're simple, Simon. You can't challenge me. Can't, huh? The matter of fact, I did. I ran out years ago and you only... I didn't know it. The big design. Wouldn't you know what I'm talking about? Whale your head. Maybe. Life. Oh, my. What's so funny? The big design. Come on and you cut it out. If I didn't know you, oh, brother, and you're gonna find that all out here. Go away. The beginning and the end. The meaning of the universe. What's it all about, huh? Here. Out here. Hold it. Now, look, you're pushing me too far. Hold it, I said. The cheese is coming back. Huh? But a couple of native consulates. Come on. We, uh... Come on, we better get going. I'm not going. Come on, make sense. Their juggers have us cracking coconuts. Not me. Wayne, are you out of your mind? Not me. They say you come back here. Stay away from that native boat. The name of the law, you will stop. You'll hear stoppers in this minute. Wayne, turn around. Come on. Turn it around. That's not your property. Turn back the boat. Come back here, I say. The father. Wayne. You've got to possibly know how to handle native canoeing. Come back for that thing. The father, you understand me? The tide rising. Wayne. The father, tiger shark. All right. Beginning of danger and a piece of the unknown. There's much of these when, in a moment, we hear more in the story of John Steele. Tiger shark. I saw them, too. Great striped tiger sharks, 18 feet long, sliding and swooping. They're fins cutting water all around the bobbing canoe. Hundreds of sharks, powerful tails whipping water. They're dorsals, sniping by so fast. They cut spring to water out of the face of the ocean and plunge spray. A dozen feet into the sky. Tiger sharks, the worst man killers in the ocean. And now they were starting to play games with Wayne's canoe. Devil's games, under and up, slicing under the canoe and rearing up, rearing the canoe half out of the water. I turned my head away. I couldn't look at his face across the water. His face was like shining white cardboard, a fight against the boiling blue ocean. I couldn't look at him. Troubled up in panic in the careening canoe. I couldn't look and I couldn't do a thing. It'd be suicide to put a footer, a paddle into the sea. I looked up. Chumley and his native constables were running an outrigger down into the serp. Kono mauri. Thou shalt be blessed, the native prayer. They shoved the canoe in. They were going to try. I started to run down the beach. So was I. Said tight. Keep your head. Get your arm. Keep your hands inside. Inside, I said. Roll. Roll. Back paddle. Back, I say. Steady. Don't stand. Sit, Wayne. Sit. We're coming in a long time. Back for. Back stroke. Now, on the rig. Wheel. Paddles in. Hold. Hold to collide. Make fast heels. Yeah. Lack. Lack. Lack. Quickly. Lack his quat. We can't hold this way. Another second. Another second. My leg. Slash. We're lashed together. As well. Now hold tight. Here we go. Both canoes. We're going to ride the surf all the way in. Watch. Watch out. We're going over. It's a bill. Look out. Come out of it. Collar, you know. Sharp as a razor. Yeah. And the surf road is up on the beach. Kuma. Lackai. Kuma never made it. Oh. I saw him go under. Round. The Baba. I saw him throw up his hand sort of half shoot up out of the water. Yes. They'll do that to you when they hit. Kuma was my number one constable. Best in the island territory. He was also my friend. Sorry. I'm afraid it's not as simple as that. Law. You mean we're responsible under the law here. Wayne, I mean, or maybe me too. We rule here by example, Mr. Steele. I'm alone here in this whole territory. One district officer for many, many thousands of natives. We rule successfully and we don't carry guns. Yeah, I noticed that. These are gentle people. They were not always gentle. There's a belief here, Mr. Steele, that when a man dies, his spirit will live in eternal damnation unless at least one limb of his body can be recovered for proper burial. Oh. For man cause another's death, he must be the one to recover the body, at least a part or suffer the consequences. I get you. Do you? The consequences, Mr. Steele. Well, shall we say a tabada which eats a man will always return to the exact same spot to attempt a repeat? Now wake up, you chum. I'll go see if the beach road is clear. Now wake. Huh? I heard him. Paradise, huh? Come on. Where do you think you're going? We gotta find them. You heard him. It's not safe. I'll find them if I have to look in every hut. They'll be laying for us. To bobber the sharks. They'll toss us to the sharks. To bobber is what I mean. Wayne! Don't go near those trees! Steele, where is he? I looked for you, but didn't stop him. I distinctly ordered you two to remain back there. Now where is he? In there. You understand how serious this all is. He went in under the trees. Voluntarily? Huh? Did they charge you? No. Uh, yeah, I am. Voluntarily, I guess. I wonder. Coming out here, I wonder about both of you. I might understand you permitted him. You didn't try to stop him. What'll I do to Wayne? Well, that all depends on him. The death ritual is all important to them. Whoever's responsible for a death must provide the body. Or substitute himself the same type of death. Why'd you ask me if I stopped him? Purely for the record. I should never be able to remain as Queen's district officer if I attempted to interfere with the important native customs. I have no intention of going in to stop them. Uh-huh. Come along. We're almost probably inside a shock. I don't imagine you'll ever see your chum Wayne again. Come along, aye? No. We're still occupied with Wayne. I imagine I can sneak you off the island. Frank, no. Don't be a fool. I didn't know. But I thought, gentle people. I didn't think they'd do anything. We stayed away from him. You didn't stop him. I wanted him to be a little scared. But I didn't know. I didn't know they'd feed a man to tiger sharks. I'm going in. I'm going in after. Suspense and action. One leads to the other. The result we'll hear in a moment with the climax of another adventure with John Steele. I didn't know. Maybe it was my head. Maybe I'd really been stunned. Mixed up, still stunned from the working over the waves gave us. Maybe it was the moonlight on the sandy beaches. The salt and velvet moonlight that turned the sand fight in the endless ocean all around the silver. Maybe it was the way I felt about Wayne and Ellen. Maybe it was all of them put together. But now I had to find him. Go into the thick cocoa brush into the heart of the island. He was in there somewhere. And he didn't know the ritual. The ancient native ritual about the dead. I had to go in, find Wayne. Bush, thick, heavy, dark, heavy with smell, stew. Great big red hibiscus flowers and frangipani stirring gently all around. And I felt the flowers stir more. And I heard a footfall. Strong warm hands gripped me from all sides. Something cold and sharp tricked the back of my neck. I began to march. The spear point at the back of my neck steered me through the blackness of the bush. Steered me to a clearing under the palms where penciled in streaks of silver moonlight stabbed down to the leaves like some kind of heavenly spotlights. Then I saw a fire. A dozen fires in the middle of the clearing. I saw him, Wayne, squatting in among the fires. Squatting in the center of a circle of golden brown men sitting around on little green mats of woven palm fronds. They were watching him. They didn't look at me. They kept their eyes on something he had in his hands. The spear of my neck pushed me close. He had the spear too, Wayne. He had the spear over his knees, a ten foot spear. And he was arming it from the hilt to tip with razor sharp teeth, sharp teeth. Wayne. Look up. Look up, huh? It's me. You're gonna try, huh? Here again. Whose idea is this? Yours or them? Scram that doesn't concern you. To whom it may concern, huh? Doesn't concern you. Maybe it does. That's all, sure. If all the guy died. They say that. That's gotta be buried correctly. Oh. Then you know. Yeah, yeah. I know. Why didn't you run for it? Well, you didn't know when you started into the trees. Still could have tried after you found out. All right, full. If you're game, wait for our chance. You got that spear. Our chance of making a break with you. All right, full. Mind all of a line. Maybe. Maybe I shouldn't have come out here, huh? I didn't say that. Back of the time to worry about that. Why I didn't say it? They get me a choice. Either they throw me in alive or I go kill the shark. Doesn't make much sense to them. Not 7,000 miles away in New York. There's life. Mm-hmm. In a paradise. No pearly gates. Yeah, I see. Shark's teeth. Anyway, thanks. Oh, what? They're not giving me and I told you so. Those shark teeth. Why did you attach them to the spear? Do what they say. Oh. Figures? Shark kills shark. Which way, boys? I'm ready. Which way to the beach? Nothing to say. We can still try and make a run for it. Well, you're good. They're not guarding you too close. They're watching the water. Waiting for the riptide. For Baba. Well, what do you say? I'm game. We can at least try a run for it. I thought for the rubber mic. You know what you're up against. Come on. Maybe we can still make it through the pond. Make it where? The other side. Sir. Across the lagoon side. Then where? Yeah. Yeah, water again. Feel shark. Shark's all around. Yeah, right now. Shark will do anything in your back. You'll never make it away from this, dude. No. Father and father into the rising tide. The riptide's going wave after wave all around the high up on the beach. He held the spear high. The ten foot spear edge with shark's feet. And I saw them knifing in. In out of the endless blue ocean. Baba. The sharks were racing in for the kill. The natives were pointing to a sandbar that was slowly disappearing under the new tide. I recognize that bar now. The tricky sandbar that had caught the bottoms of our canoes and turned us over. They kept pointing and I saw why. One shark then was knifing straight at the bar. Straight at Wayne. Sharks always come back. Come back at the same hour to the same spot where they once made the kill. They wanted Wayne to stand on the sandbar. He ran through the tide and got onto the bar. I saw the shark put around in a tight little circle. He flipped his tail in glory and Wayne raised his spear. He raised his full height above his head. I saw the shark's feet along his edge. It glistened in the sun. And I saw the shark in the water open his jaws and roll the lunge. And I caught a glimpse of its white teeth too. Stella, how can I bandage you? You're knocking this mud pack off. What? Shoulder. Same? Shoulder again. You got him. Well, I remember. Uh-huh. I got him, huh? Right in the mouth. Only way you could get him. He measures 18 feet. 18 of mine. I stepped him off on the beach. How's yours? That hurts. You got knocked off your feet. Time we all got to you. Coral, cut you up again. Crazy, isn't it? You get hurt in the same place twice? Uh-huh. They cut it open. Cut open to Baba. Von Kuma. That's how come they're making happy, happy talk. Crazy. Now they can bury him properly. Had to see you look. Mudden leaves have to do with you get out of here. Just plain crazy. Them? Me. Oh. Yeah, maybe. I knew him. Yeah, I thought I knew the answers to that guy. Got killed economy. I had to go to him. There's people. Sure. I didn't know when I went. I didn't think it was going to lead to this. All I knew was one thing. It was my fault. Something made me go into the trees. My fault. My responsibility. Yeah, I guess that's it. Responsibility. The big design. Maybe. Maybe you're right. Responsibility. Or everybody. You can't go back. No. Naked skin. We can't go back to that. You ought to know that. Especially you. No. We can't go back. Not where we've never been. We're 10,000 years ahead of the South Sea Islanders. They're Stone Age. That's so beautiful. You see their bodies. You see their women. 10,000 years. We've got only one way to go. Front. They're standing still. 10,000 years between us. Savages. Beautiful, gentle people. With savages. Or you can't go back. Like your shoulder. It'll never heal here. It'll get worse. A week after your back, it'll be as good as new. Life. That's how it is. Think about it. I have. Put them into your designs. Robert Louis Stevenson. A whole lot of our kind of guys came out here. They thought they could lick it. Lick them. Well? Yeah. Give me a hand. Sure. Are you shaky? Paradox. Well, I've had the experience. At least now I know. Yeah. Some of the kind always has to know. Paradox. Isn't it? Not on earth.