________________________________________________
_ "I wonder what has become of Tudor. It's two months since he
disappeared into the bush, and not a word of him after he left
Binu."
Joan Lackland was sitting astride her horse by the bank of the
Balesuna where the sweet corn had been planted, and Sheldon, who
had come across from the house on foot, was leaning against her
horse's shoulder.
"Yes, it is along time for no news to have trickled down," he
answered, watching her keenly from under his hat-brim and wondering
as to the measure of her anxiety for the adventurous gold-hunter;
"but Tudor will come out all right. He did a thing at the start
that I wouldn't have given him or any other man credit for--
persuaded Binu Charley to go along with him. I'll wager no other
Binu nigger has ever gone so far into the bush unless to be kai-
kai'd. As for Tudor--"
"Look! look!" Joan cried in a low voice, pointing across the
narrow stream to a slack eddy where a huge crocodile drifted like a
log awash. "My! I wish I had my rifle."
The crocodile, leaving scarcely a ripple behind, sank down and
disappeared.
"A Binu man was in early this morning--for medicine," Sheldon
remarked. "It may have been that very brute that was responsible.
A dozen of the Binu women were out, and the foremost one stepped
right on a big crocodile. It was by the edge of the water, and he
tumbled her over and got her by the leg. All the other women got
hold of her and pulled. And in the tug of war she lost her leg,
below the knee, he said. I gave him a stock of antiseptics.
She'll pull through, I fancy."
"Ugh--the filthy beasts," Joan gulped shudderingly. "I hate them!
I hate them!"
"And yet you go diving among sharks," Sheldon chided.
"They're only fish-sharks. And as long as there are plenty of fish
there is no danger. It is only when they're famished that they're
liable to take a bite."
Sheldon shuddered inwardly at the swift vision that arose of the
dainty flesh of her in a shark's many-toothed maw.
"I wish you wouldn't, just the same," he said slowly. "You
acknowledge there is a risk."
"But that's half the fun of it," she cried.
A trite platitude about his not caring to lose her was on his lips,
but he refrained from uttering it. Another conclusion he had
arrived at was that she was not to be nagged. Continual, or even
occasional, reminders of his feeling for her would constitute a
tactical error of no mean dimensions.
"Some for the book of verse, some for the simple life, and some for
the shark's belly," he laughed grimly, then added: "Just the same,
I wish I could swim as well as you. Maybe it would beget
confidence such as you have."
"Do you know, I think it would be nice to be married to a man such
as you seem to be becoming," she remarked, with one of her abrupt
changes that always astounded him. "I should think you could be
trained into a very good husband--you know, not one of the
domineering kind, but one who considered his wife was just as much
an individual as himself and just as much a free agent. Really,
you know, I think you are improving."
She laughed and rode away, leaving him greatly cast down. If he
had thought there had been one bit of coyness in her words, one
feminine flutter, one womanly attempt at deliberate lure and
encouragement, he would have been elated. But he knew absolutely
that it was the boy, and not the woman, who had so daringly spoken.
Joan rode on among the avenues of young cocoanut-palms, saw a
hornbill, followed it in its erratic flights to the high forest on
the edge of the plantation, heard the cooing of wild pigeons and
located them in the deeper woods, followed the fresh trail of a
wild pig for a distance, circled back, and took the narrow path for
the bungalow that ran through twenty acres of uncleared cane. The
grass was waist-high and higher, and as she rode along she
remembered that Gogoomy was one of a gang of boys that had been
detailed to the grass-cutting. She came to where they had been at
work, but saw no signs of them. Her unshod horse made no sound on
the soft, sandy footing, and a little further on she heard voices
proceeding from out of the grass. She reined in and listened. It
was Gogoomy talking, and as she listened she gripped her bridle-
rein tightly and a wave of anger passed over her.
"Dog he stop 'm along house, night-time he walk about," Gogoomy was
saying, perforce in beche-de-mer English, because he was talking to
others beside his own tribesmen. "You fella boy catch 'm one fella
pig, put 'm kai-kai belong him along big fella fish-hook. S'pose
dog he walk about catch 'm kai-kai, you fella boy catch 'm dog
allee same one shark. Dog he finish close up. Big fella marster
sleep along big fella house. White Mary sleep along pickaninny
house. One fella Adamu he stop along outside pickaninny house.
You fella boy finish 'm dog, finish 'm Adamu, finish 'm big fella
marster, finish 'm White Mary, finish 'em altogether. Plenty
musket he stop, plenty powder, plenty tomahawk, plenty knife-fee,
plenty porpoise teeth, plenty tobacco, plenty calico--my word, too
much plenty everything we take 'm along whale-boat, washee {5} like
hell, sun he come up we long way too much."
"Me catch 'm pig sun he go down," spoke up one whose thin falsetto
voice Joan recognized as belonging to Cosse, one of Gogoomy's
tribesmen.
"Me catch 'm dog," said another.
"And me catch 'm white fella Mary," Gogoomy cried triumphantly.
"Me catch 'm Kwaque he die along him damn quick."
This much Joan heard of the plan to murder, and then her rising
wrath proved too much for her discretion. She spurred her horse
into the grass, crying, -
"What name you fella boy, eh? What name?"
They arose, scrambling and scattering, and to her surprise she saw
there were a dozen of them. As she looked in their glowering faces
and noted the heavy, two-foot, hacking cane-knives in their hands,
she became suddenly aware of the rashness of her act. If only she
had had her revolver or a rifle, all would have been well. But she
had carelessly ventured out unarmed, and she followed the glance of
Gogoomy to her waist and saw the pleased flash in his eyes as he
perceived the absence of the dreadful man-killing revolver.
The first article in the Solomon Islands code for white men was
never to show fear before a native, and Joan tried to carry off the
situation in cavalier fashion.
"Too much talk along you fella boy," she said severely. "Too much
talk, too little work. Savvee?"
Gogoomy made no reply, but, apparently shifting weight, he slid one
foot forward. The other boys, spread fan-wise about her, were also
sliding forward, the cruel cane-knives in their hands advertising
their intention.
"You cut 'm grass!" she commanded imperatively.
But Gogoomy slid his other foot forward. She measured the distance
with her eye. It would be impossible to whirl her horse around and
get away. She would be chopped down from behind.
And in that tense moment the faces of all of them were imprinted on
her mind in an unforgettable picture--one of them, an old man, with
torn and distended ear-lobes that fell to his chest; another, with
the broad flattened nose of Africa, and with withered eyes so
buried under frowning brows that nothing but the sickly, yellowish-
looking whites could be seen; a third, thick-lipped and bearded
with kinky whiskers; and Gogoomy--she had never realized before how
handsome Gogoomy was in his mutinous and obstinate wild-animal way.
There was a primitive aristocraticness about him that his fellows
lacked. The lines of his figure were more rounded than theirs, the
skin smooth, well oiled, and free from disease. On his chest,
suspended from a single string of porpoise-teeth around his throat,
hung a big crescent carved out of opalescent pearl-shell. A row of
pure white cowrie shells banded his brow. From his hair drooped a
long, lone feather. Above the swelling calf of one leg he wore, as
a garter, a single string of white beads. The effect was dandyish
in the extreme. A narrow gee-string completed his costume.
Another man she saw, old and shrivelled, with puckered forehead and
a puckered face that trembled and worked with animal passion as in
the past she had noticed the faces of monkeys tremble and work.
"Gogoomy," she said sharply, "you no cut 'm grass, my word, I bang
'm head belong you."
His expression became a trifle more disdainful, but he did not
answer. Instead, he stole a glance to right and left to mark how
his fellows were closing about her. At the same moment he casually
slipped his foot forward through the grass for a matter of several
inches.
Joan was keenly aware of the desperateness of the situation. The
only way out was through. She lifted her riding-whip
threateningly, and at the same moment drove in both spurs with her
heels, rushing the startled horse straight at Gogoomy. It all
happened in an instant. Every cane-knife was lifted, and every boy
save Gogoomy leaped for her. He swerved aside to avoid the horse,
at the same time swinging his cane-knife in a slicing blow that
would have cut her in twain. She leaned forward under the flying
steel, which cut through her riding-skirt, through the edge of the
saddle, through the saddle cloth, and even slightly into the horse
itself. Her right hand, still raised, came down, the thin whip
whishing through the air. She saw the white, cooked mark of the
weal clear across the sullen, handsome face, and still what was
practically in the same instant she saw the man with the puckered
face, overridden, go down before her, and she heard his snarling
and grimacing chatter-for all the world like an angry monkey. Then
she was free and away, heading the horse at top speed for the
house.
Out of her sea-training she was able to appreciate Sheldon's
executiveness when she burst in on him with her news. Springing
from the steamer-chair in which he had been lounging while waiting
for breakfast, he clapped his hands for the house-boys; and, while
listening to her, he was buckling on his cartridge-belt and running
the mechanism of his automatic pistol.
"Ornfiri," he snapped out his orders, "you fella ring big fella
bell strong fella plenty. You finish 'm bell, you put 'm saddle on
horse. Viaburi, you go quick house belong Seelee he stop, tell 'm
plenty black fella run away--ten fella two fella black fella boy."
He scribbled a note and handed it to Lalaperu. "Lalaperu, you go
quick house belong white fella Marster Boucher."
"That will head them back from the coast on both sides," he
explained to Joan. "And old Seelee will turn his whole village
loose on their track as well."
In response to the summons of the big bell, Joan's Tahitians were
the first to arrive, by their glistening bodies and panting chests
showing that they had run all the way. Some of the farthest-placed
gangs would be nearly an hour in arriving.
Sheldon proceeded to arm Joan's sailors and deal out ammunition and
handcuffs. Adamu Adam, with loaded rifle, he placed on guard over
the whale-boats. Noa Noah, aided by Matapuu, were instructed to
take charge of the working-gangs as fast as they came in, to keep
them amused, and to guard against their being stampeded into making
a break themselves. The five other Tahitians were to follow Joan
and Sheldon on foot.
"I'm glad we unearthed that arsenal the other day," Sheldon
remarked as they rode out of the compound gate.
A hundred yards away they encountered one of the clearing gangs
coming in. It was Kwaque's gang, but Sheldon looked in vain for
him.
"What name that fella Kwaque he no stop along you?" he demanded.
A babel of excited voices attempted an answer.
"Shut 'm mouth belong you altogether," Sheldon commanded.
He spoke roughly, living up to the role of the white man who must
always be strong and dominant.
"Here, you fella Babatani, you talk 'm mouth belong you."
Babatani stepped forward in all the pride of one singled out from
among his fellows.
"Gogoomy he finish along Kwaque altogether," was Babatani's
explanation. "He take 'm head b'long him run like hell."
In brief words, and with paucity of imagination, he described the
murder, and Sheldon and Joan rode on. In the grass, where Joan had
been attacked, they found the little shrivelled man, still
chattering and grimacing, whom Joan had ridden down. The mare had
plunged on his ankle, completely crushing it, and a hundred yards'
crawl had convinced him of the futility of escape. To the last
clearing-gang, from the farthest edge of the plantation, was given
the task of carrying him in to the house.
A mile farther on, where the runaways' trail led straight toward
the bush, they encountered the body of Kwaque. The head had been
hacked off and was missing, and Sheldon took it on faith that the
body was Kwaque's. He had evidently put up a fight, for a bloody
trail led away from the body.
Once they were well into the thick bush the horses had to be
abandoned. Papehara was left in charge of them, while Joan and
Sheldon and the remaining Tahitians pushed ahead on foot. The way
led down through a swampy hollow, which was overflowed by the
Berande River on occasion, and where the red trail of the murderers
was crossed by a crocodile's trail. They had apparently caught the
creature asleep in the sun and desisted long enough from their
flight to hack him to pieces. Here the wounded man had sat down
and waited until they were ready to go on.
An hour later, following along a wild-pig trail, Sheldon suddenly
halted. The bloody tracks had ceased. The Tahitians cast out in
the bush on either side, and a cry from Utami apprised them of a
find. Joan waited till Sheldon came back.
"It's Mauko," he said. "Kwaque did for him, and he crawled in
there and died. That's two accounted for. There are ten more.
Don't you think you've got enough of it?"
She nodded.
"It isn't nice," she said. "I'll go back and wait for you with the
horses."
"But you can't go alone. Take two of the men."
"Then I'll go on," she said. "It would be foolish to weaken the
pursuit, and I am certainly not tired."
The trail bent to the right as though the runaways had changed
their mind and headed for the Balesuna. But the trail still
continued to bend to the right till it promised to make a loop, and
the point of intersection seemed to be the edge of the plantation
where the horses had been left. Crossing one of the quiet jungle
spaces, where naught moved but a velvety, twelve-inch butterfly,
they heard the sound of shots.
"Eight," Joan counted. "It was only one gun. It must be
Papehara."
They hurried on, but when they reached the spot they were in doubt.
The two horses stood quietly tethered, and Papehara, squatted on
his hams, was having a peaceful smoke. Advancing toward him,
Sheldon tripped on a body that lay in the grass, and as he saved
himself from falling his eyes lighted on a second. Joan recognized
this one. It was Cosse, one of Gogoomy's tribesmen, the one who
had promised to catch at sunset the pig that was to have baited the
hook for Satan.
"No luck, Missie," was Papehara's greeting, accompanied by a
disconsolate shake of the head. "Catch only two boy. I have good
shot at Gogoomy, only I miss."
"But you killed them," Joan chided. "You must catch them alive."
The Tahitian smiled.
"How?" he queried. "I am have a smoke. I think about Tahiti, and
breadfruit, and jolly good time at Bora Bora. Quick, just like
that, ten boy he run out of bush for me. Each boy have long knife.
Gogoomy have long knife one hand, and Kwaque's head in other hand.
I no stop to catch 'm alive. I shoot like hell. How you catch 'm
alive, ten boy, ten long knife, and Kwaque's head?"
The scattered paths of the different boys, where they broke back
after the disastrous attempt to rush the Tahitian, soon led
together. They traced it to the Berande, which the runaways had
crossed with the clear intention of burying themselves in the huge
mangrove swamp that lay beyond.
"There is no use our going any farther," Sheldon said. "Seelee
will turn out his village and hunt them out of that. They'll never
get past him. All we can do is to guard the coast and keep them
from breaking back on the plantation and running amuck. Ah, I
thought so."
Against the jungle gloom of the farther shore, coming from down
stream, a small canoe glided. So silently did it move that it was
more like an apparition. Three naked blacks dipped with noiseless
paddles. Long-hafted, slender, bone-barbed throwing-spears lay
along the gunwale of the canoe, while a quiverful of arrows hung on
each man's back. The eyes of the man-hunters missed nothing. They
had seen Sheldon and Joan first, but they gave no sign. Where
Gogoomy and his followers had emerged from the river, the canoe
abruptly stopped, then turned and disappeared into the deeper
mangrove gloom. A second and a third canoe came around the bend
from below, glided ghostlike to the crossing of the runaways, and
vanished in the mangroves.
"I hope there won't be any more killing," Joan said, as they turned
their horses homeward.
"I don't think so," Sheldon assured her. "My understanding with
old Seelee is that he is paid only for live boys; so he is very
careful." _
Read next: CHAPTER XXIII - A MESSAGE FROM THE BUSH
Read previous: CHAPTER XXI - CONTRABAND
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