Arla’s whale boat had been bushwhacked at Su’u and had lost three men; of how
the skipper discovered the cook stewing human flesh on the galley fire–flesh
purchased by the boat’s crew ashore in Fui; of how an accidental discharge of
dynamite, while signaling, had killed another boat’s crew; of night attacks;
ports fled from between the dawns; attacks by bushmen in mangrove swamps and
by fleets of salt-water men in the larger passages. One item that occurred
with monotonous frequency was death by dysentery. He noticed with alarm that
two white men had so died–guests, like himself, on the Arla.
“I say, you know,” Bertie said next day to Captain Hansen. “I’ve been glancing
through your log.”
The skipper displayed quick vexation that the log had been left lying about.
“And all that dysentery, you know, that’s all rot, just like the accidental
drownings,” Bertie continued. “What does dysentery really stand for?”
The skipper openly admired his guest’s acumen, stiffened himself to make
indignant denial, then gracefully surrendered.
“You see, it’s like this, Mr. Arkwright. These islands have got a bad enough
name as it is. It’s getting harder every day to sign on white men. Suppose a
man is killed. The company has to pay through the nose for another man to take
the job. But if the man merely dies of sickness, it’s all right. The new chums
don’t mind disease. What they draw the line at is being murdered. I thought
the skipper of the Arla had died of dysentery when I took his billet. Then it
was too late. I’d signed the contract.”
“Besides,” said Mr. Jacobs, “there’s altogether too many accidental drownings
anyway. It don’t look right. It’s the fault of the government. A white man
hasn’t a chance to defend himself from the niggers.”
“Yes, look at the Princess and that Yankee mate,” the skipper took up the
tale. “She carried five white men besides a government agent. The captain, the
agent, and the supercargo were ashore in the two boats. They were killed to
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165
the last man. The mate and boson, with about fifteen of the crew–Samoans and
Tongans–were on board. A crowd of niggers came off from shore. First thing
the mate knew, the boson and the crew were killed in the first rush. The mate
grabbed three cartridge belts and two Winchesters and skinned up to the
cross-trees. He was the sole survivor, and you can’t blame him for being mad.
He pumped one rifle till it got so hot he couldn’t hold it, then he pumped the
other. The deck was black with niggers. He cleaned them out. He dropped them
as they went over the rail, and he dropped them as fast as they picked up
their paddles. Then they jumped into the water and started to swim for it, and
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
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
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166
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
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
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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