being mad, he got half a dozen more. And what did he get for it?”
“Seven years in Fiji,” snapped the mate.
“The government said he wasn’t justified in shooting after they’d taken to the
water,” the skipper explained.
“And that’s why they die of dysentery nowadays,” the mate added.
“Just fancy,” said Bertie, as he felt a longing for the cruise to be over.
Later on in the day he interviewed the black who had been pointed out to him
as a cannibal. This fellow’s name was Sumasai. He had spent three years on a
Queensland plantation. He had been to Samoa, and Fiji, and Sydney; and as a
SOUTH SEA TALES
64
boat’s crew had been on recruiting schooners through New Britain, New Ireland,
New Guinea, and the Admiralties. Also, he was a wag, and he had taken a line
on his skipper’s conduct. Yes, he had eaten many men. How many? He could not
remember the tally. Yes, white men, too; they were very good, unless they were
sick. He had once eaten a sick one.
“My word!” he cried, at the recollection. “Me sick plenty along him. ‘my belly
walk about too much.”
Bertie shuddered, and asked about heads. Yes, Sumasai had several hidden
ashore, in good condition, sun-dried, and smoke-cured. One was of the captain
of a schooner. It had long whiskers. He would sell it for two quid. Black
men’s heads he would sell for one quid. He had some pickaninny heads, in poor
condition, that he would let go for ten bob.
Five minutes afterward, Bertie found himself sitting on the companionway-slide
alongside a black with a horrible skin disease. He sheered off, and on inquiry
was told that it was leprosy. He hurried below and washed himself with
antiseptic soap. He took many antiseptic washes in the course of the day, for
every native on board was afflicted with malignant ulcers of one sort or
another.
As the Arla drew in to an anchorage in the midst of mangrove swamps, a double
row of barbed wire was stretched around above her rail. That looked like
business, and when Bertie saw the shore canoes alongside, armed with spears,
bows and arrows, and Sniders, he wished more earnestly than ever that the
cruise was over.
That evening the natives were slow in leaving the ship at sundown. A number of
them checked the mate when he ordered them ashore. “Never mind, I’ll fix
them,” said Captain Hansen, diving below.
When he cam back, he showed Bertie a stick of dynamite attached to a fish
hook. Now it happens that a paper-wrapped bottle of chlorodyne with a piece of
harmless fuse projecting can fool anybody. It fooled Bertie, and it fooled the
natives. When Captain Hansen lighted the fuse and hooked the fish hook into
the tail end of a native’s loin cloth, that native was smitten with so an
ardent a desire for the shore that he forgot to shed the loin cloth. He
started for’ard, the fuse sizzling and spluttering at his rear, the natives in
his path taking headers over the barbed wire at every jump. Bertie was
horror-stricken. So was Captain Hansen. He had forgotten his twenty-five
recruits, on each of which he had paid thirty shillings advance. They went
over the side along with the shore-dwelling folk and followed by him who
trailed the sizzling chlorodyne bottle.
Bertie did not see the bottle go off; but the mate opportunely discharging a
stick of real dynamite aft where it would harm nobody, Bertie would have sworn
in any admiralty court to a nigger blown to flinders. The flight of the
twenty-five recruits had actually cost the Arla forty pounds, and, since they
had taken to the bush, there was no hope of recovering them. The skipper and
his mate proceeded to drown their sorrow in cold tea.
The cold tea was in whiskey bottles, so Bertie did not know it was cold tea
SOUTH SEA TALES
65
they were mopping up. All he knew was that the two men got very drunk and
argued eloquently and at length as to whether the exploded nigger should be
reported as a case of dysentery or as an accidental drowning. When they snored
off to sleep, he was the only white man left, and he kept a perilous watch
till dawn, in fear of an attack from shore and an uprising of the crew.
Three more days the Arla spent on the coast, and three more nights the skipper
and the mate drank overfondly of cold tea, leaving Bertie to keep the watch.
They knew he could be depended upon, while he was equally certain that if he
lived, he would report their drunken conduct to Captain Malu. Then the Arla
dropped anchor at Reminge Plantation, on Guadalcanar, and Bertie landed on the
beach with a sigh of relief and shook hands with the manager. ‘mr. Harriwell
was ready for him.
“Now you mustn’t be alarmed if some of our fellows seem downcast,” Mr.
Harriwell said, having drawn him aside in confidence. “There’s been talk of an
outbreak, and two or three suspicious signs I’m willing to admit, but
personally I think it’s all poppycock.”
“How–how many blacks have you on the plantation?” Bertie asked, with a
sinking heart.
“We’re working four hundred just now,” replied Mr. Harriwell, cheerfully; but
the three of us, with you, of course, and the skipper and mate of the Arla,
can handle them all right.”
Bertie turned to meet one McTavish, the storekeeper, who scarcely acknowledged
the introduction, such was his eagerness to present his resignation.
“It being that I’m a married man, Mr. Harriwell, I can’t very well afford to
remain on longer. Trouble is working up, as plain as the nose on your face.
The niggers are going to break out, and there’ll be another Hohono horror
here.”
“What’s a Hohono horror?” Bertie asked, after the storekeeper had been
persuaded to remain until the end of the month.
“Oh, he means Hohono Plantation, on Ysabel,” said the manager. “The niggers
killed the five white men ashore, captured the schooner, killed the captain
and mate, and escaped in a body to Malaita. But I always said they were
careless on Hohono. They won’t catch us napping here. Come along, Mr.
Arkwright, and see our view from the veranda.”
Bertie was too busy wondering how he could get away to Tulagi to the
Commissioner’s house, to see much of the view. He was still wondering, when a
rifle exploded very near to him, behind his back. At the same moment his arm
was nearly dislocated, so eagerly did Mr. Harriwell drag him indoors.
“I say, old man, that was a close shave,” said the manager, pawing him over to
see if he had been hit. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am. But it was broad
daylight, and I never dreamed.”
Bertie was beginning to turn pale.
SOUTH SEA TALES
66
“They got the other manager that way,” McTavish vouchsafed. “And a dashed fine
chap he was. Blew his brains out all over the veranda. You noticed that dark
stain there between the steps and the door?”
Bertie was ripe for the cocktail which Mr. Harriwell pitched in and compounded
for him; but before he could drink it, a man in riding trousers and puttees
entered.
“What’s the matter now?” the manager asked, after one look at the newcomer’s
face. “Is the river up again?”
“River be blowed–it’s the niggers. Stepped out of the cane grass, not a dozen
feet away, and whopped at me. It was a Snider, and he shot from the hip. Now
what I want to know is where’d he get that Snider?–Oh, I beg pardon. Glad to
know you, Mr. Arkwright.”
“Mr. Brown is my assistant,” explained Mr. Harriwell. “And now let’s have that
drink.”
“But where’d he get that Snider?” Mr. Brown insisted. “I always objected to
keeping those guns on the premises.”
“They’re still there,” Mr. Harriwell said, with a show of heat.
Mr. Brown smiled incredulously.
“Come along and see,” said the manager.
Bertie joined the procession into the office, where Mr. Harriwell pointed
triumphantly at a big packing case in a dusty corner.
“Well, then where did the beggar get that Snider?” harped Mr. Brown.
But just then McTavish lifted the packing case. The manager started, then tore
off the lid. The case was empty. They gazed at one another in horrified
silence. Harriwell drooped wearily.
Then McVeigh cursed.
“What I contended all along–the house-boys are not to be trusted.”
“It does look serious,” Harriwell admitted, “but we’ll come through it all
right. What the sanguinary niggers need is a shaking up. Will you gentlemen
please bring your rifles to dinner, and will you, Mr. Brown, kindly prepare
forty or fifty sticks of dynamite. ‘make the fuses good and short. We’ll give
them a lesson. And now, gentlemen, dinner is served.”
One thing that Bertie detested was rice and curry, so it happened that he