Wallenstein smiled and shook his head, and then it was that his perverse
imp suggested what was to be his last joke on a native. The similarity of
the two bottles was the real suggestion. He laid his pistol parts on the table
and mixed himself a long drink. Standing as he did between Koho and the
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table, he interchanged the two bottles, drained his glass, made as if to
search for something, and left the room. From outside he heard the
surprised splutter and cough; but when he returned the old chief sat as
before. The liniment in the bottle, however, was lower, and it still
oscillated.
Koho stood up, clapped his hands, and, when the house-boy answered,
signed that he desired his rifle. The boy fetched the weapon, and according
to custom preceded the visitor down the pathway. Not until outside the
gate did the boy turn the rifle over to its owner. Wallenstein, chuckling to
himself, watched the old chief limp along the beach in the direction of the
river.
A few minutes later, as he put his pistol together, Wallenstein heard the
distant report of a gun. For the instant he thought of Koho, then dismissed
the conjecture from his mind. Worth and Grief had taken shotguns with
them, and it was probably one of their shots at a pigeon. Wallenstein
lounged back in his chair, chuckled, twisted his yellow mustache, and
dozed. He was aroused by the excited voice of Worth, crying out:
“Ring the big fella bell! Ring plenty too much! Ring like hell!”
Wallenstein gained the veranda in time to see the manager jump his horse
over the low fence of the compound and dash down the beach after Grief,
who was riding madly ahead. A loud crackling and smoke rising through
the cocoanut trees told the story. The boat-houses and the barracks were
on fire. The big plantation bell was ringing wildly as the German Resident
ran down the beach, and he could see whaleboats hastily putting off from
the schooner.
Barracks and boat-houses, grass-thatched and like tinder, were wrapped in
flames. Grief emerged from the kitchen, carrying a naked black child by
the leg. Its head was missing.
“The cook’s in there,” he told Worth. “Her head’s gone, too. She was too
heavy, and I had to clear out.”
“It was my fault,” Wallenstein said. “Old Koho did it. But I let him take a
drink of Worth’s horse liniment.”
“I guess he’s headed for the bush,” Worth said, springing astride his horse
and starting. “Oliver is down there by the river. Hope he didn’t get him.”
The manager galloped away through the trees. A few minutes later, as the
charred wreck of the barracks crashed in, they heard him calling and
followed. On the edge of the river bank they came upon him. He still sat
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70
on his horse, very white-faced, and gazed at something on the ground. It
was the body of Oliver, the young assistant manager, though it was hard to
realize it, for the head was gone. The black labourers, breathless from their
run in from the fields, were now crowding around, and under Grief’s
direction they improvised a litter for the dead man.
Wallenstein was afflicted with paroxysms of true German sorrow and
contrition. The tears were frankly in his eyes by the time he ceased from
lamenting and began to swear. The wrath that flared up was as truly
German as the oaths, and when he tried to seize Worth’s shotgun a fleck of
foam had appeared on his lips.
“None of that,” Grief commanded sternly. “Straighten up, Wallenstein.
Don’t be a fool.”
“But are you going to let him escape?” the German cried wildly.
“He has escaped. The bush begins right here at the river. You can see
where he waded across. He’s in the wild-pig runs already. It would be like
the needle in the haystack, and if we followed him some of his young men
would get us. Besides, the runs are all man-trapped—you know, staked
pits, poisoned thorns, and the rest. McTavish and his bushmen are the only
fellows who can negotiate the runs, and three of his men were lost that
way the last time. Come on back to the house. You’ll hear the conches tonight,
and the war-drums, and all merry hell break loose. They won’t rush
us, but keep all the boys close up to the house, Mr. Worth. Come on!”
As they returned along the path they came upon a black who whimpered
and cried vociferously.
“Shut up mouth belong you!” Worth shouted. “What name you make ‘m
noise?”
“Him fella Koho finish along two fella bullamacow,” the black answered,
drawing a forefinger significantly across his throat.
“He’s knifed the cows,” Grief said. “That means no more milk for some
time for you, Worth. I’ll see about sending a couple up from Ugi.”
Wallenstein proved inconsolable, until Denby, coming ashore, confessed
to the dose of essence of mustard. Thereat the German Resident became
even cheerful, though he twisted his yellow mustache up more fiercely and
continued to curse the Solomons with oaths culled from four languages.
Next morning, visible from the masthead of the Wonder, the bush was
alive with signal-smokes. From promontory to promontory, and back
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71
through the solid jungle, the smoke-pillars curled and puffed and talked.
Remote villages on the higher peaks, beyond the farthest raids McTavish
had ever driven, joined in the troubled conversation. From across the river
persisted a bedlam of conches; while from everywhere, drifting for miles
along the quiet air, came the deep, booming reverberations of the great
war-drums—huge tree trunks, hollowed by fire and carved with tools of
stone and shell.
“You’re all right as long as you stay close,” Grief told his manager. “I’ve
got to get along to Guvutu. They won’t come out in the open and attack
you. Keep the work-gangs close. Stop the clearing till this blows over.
They’ll get any detached gangs you send out. And, whatever you do, don’t
be fooled into going into the bush after Koho. If you do, he’ll get you. All
you’ve got to do is wait for McTavish. I’ll send him up with a bunch of his
Malaita bushmen. He’s the only man who can go inside. Also, until he
comes, I’ll leave Denby with you. You don’t mind, do you, Mr. Denby? I’ll
send McTavish up with the Wanda, and you can go back on her and rejoin
the Wonder. Captain Ward can manage without you for a trip.”
“It was just what I was going to volunteer,” Denby answered. “I never
dreamed all this muss would be kicked up over a joke. You see, in a way I
consider myself responsible for it.”
“So am I responsible,” Wallenstein broke in.
“But I started it,” the supercargo urged.
“Maybe you did, but I carried it along.”
“And Koho finished it,” Grief said.
“At any rate, I, too, shall remain,” said the German.
“I thought you were coming to Guvutu with me,” Grief protested.
“I was. But this is my jurisdiction, partly, and I have made a fool of myself
in it completely. I shall remain and help get things straight again.”
V
At Guvutu, Grief sent full instructions to McTavish by a recruiting ketch
which was just starting for Malaita. Captain Ward sailed in the Wonder for
the Santa Cruz Islands; and Grief, borrowing a whaleboat and a crew of
black prisoners from the British Resident, crossed the channel to
Guadalcanar, to examine the grass lands back of Penduffryn.
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72
Three weeks later, with a free sheet and a lusty breeze, he threaded the
coral patches and surged up the smooth water to Guvutu anchorage. The
harbour was deserted, save for a small ketch which lay close in to the
shore reef. Grief recognized it as the Wanda. She had evidently just got in
by the Tulagi Passage, for her black crew was still at work furling the
sails. As he rounded alongside, McTavish himself extended a hand to help
him over the rail.
“What’s the matter?” Grief asked. “Haven’t you started yet?”
McTavish nodded. “And got back. Everything’s all right on board.”
“How’s New Gibbon?”
“All there, the last I saw of it, barrin’ a few inconsequential frills that a
good eye could make out lacking from the landscape.”
He was a cold flame of a man, small as Koho, and as dried up, with a
mahogany complexion and small, expressionless blue eyes that were more
like gimlet-points than the eyes of a Scotchman. Without fear, without
enthusiasm, impervious to disease and climate and sentiment, he was lean
and bitter and deadly as a snake. That his present sour look boded ill news,
Grief was well aware.
“Spit it out!” he said. “What’s happened?”
“‘Tis a thing severely to be condemned, a damned shame, this joking with