S’pose musket he no stop along you, my word, that fella bushman he
chop ‘m off head belong you. He kai-kai you altogether.'”
But the patience of the bushmen had exceeded that of the white men.
The weeks had gone by, and no overt acts had been attempted. The
bushmen swarmed in the camp in increasing numbers, and they were
always making presents of yams and taro, of pig and fowl, and of
wild fruits and vegetables. Whenever the gold-hunters moved their
camp, the bushmen volunteered to carry the luggage. And the white
men waxed ever more careless. They grew weary prospecting, and at
the same time carrying their rifles and the heavy cartridge-belts,
and the practice began of leaving their weapons behind them in
camp.
“I tell ‘m plenty fella white marster look sharp eye belong him.
And plenty fella white marster make ‘m big laugh along me, say Binu
Charley allee same pickaninny–my word, they speak along me allee
same pickaninny.”
Came the morning when Binu Charley noticed that the women and
children had disappeared. Tudor, at the time, was lying in a
stupor with fever in a late camp five miles away, the main camp
having moved on those five miles in order to prospect an outcrop of
likely quartz. Binu Charley was midway between the two camps when
the absence of the women and children struck him as suspicious.
“My word,” he said, “me t’ink like hell. Him black Mary, him
pickaninny, walk about long way big bit. What name? Me savvee too
much trouble close up. Me fright like hell. Me run. My word, me
run.”
Tudor, quite unconscious, was slung across his shoulder, and
carried a mile down the trail. Here, hiding new trail, Binu
Charley had carried him for a quarter of a mile into the heart of
the deepest jungle, and hidden him in a big banyan tree. Returning
to try to save the rifles and personal outfit, Binu Charley had
seen a party of bushmen trotting down the trail, and had hidden in
the bush. Here, and from the direction of the main camp, he had
heard two rifle shots. And that was all. He had never seen the
white men again, nor had he ventured near their old camp. He had
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gone back to Tudor, and hidden with him for a week, living on wild
fruits and the few pigeons and cockatoos he had been able to shoot
with bow and arrow. Then he had journeyed down to Berande to bring
the news. Tudor, he said, was very sick, lying unconscious for
days at a time, and, when in his right mind, too weak to help
himself.
“What name you no kill ‘m that big fella marster?” Joan demanded.
“He have ‘m good fella musket, plenty calico, plenty tobacco,
plenty knife-fee, and two fella pickaninny musket shoot quick,
bang-bang-bang–just like that.”
The black smiled cunningly.
“Me savvee too much. S’pose me kill ‘m big fella marster, bimeby
plenty white fella marster walk about Binu cross like hell. ‘What
name this fellow musket?’ those plenty fella white marster talk ‘m
along me. My word, Binu Charley finish altogether. S’pose me kill
‘m him, no good along me. Plenty white fella marster cross along
me. S’pose me no kill ‘m him, bimeby he give me plenty tobacco,
plenty calico, plenty everything too much.”
“There is only the one thing to do,” Sheldon said to Joan.
She drummed with her hand and waited, while Binu Charley gazed
wearily at her with unblinking eyes.
“I’ll start the first thing in the morning,” Sheldon said.
“We’ll start,” she corrected. “I can get twice as much out of my
Tahitians as you can, and, besides, one white should never be alone
under such circumstances.”
He shrugged his shoulders in token, not of consent, but of
surrender, knowing the uselessness of attempting to argue the
question with her, and consoling himself with the reflection that
heaven alone knew what adventures she was liable to engage in if
left alone on Berande for a week. He clapped his hands, and for
the next quarter of an hour the house-boys were kept busy carrying
messages to the barracks. A man was sent to Balesuna village to
command old Seelee’s immediate presence. A boat’s-crew was started
in a whale-boat with word for Boucher to come down. Ammunition was
issued to the Tahitians, and the storeroom overhauled for a few
days’ tinned provisions. Viaburi turned yellow when told that he
was to accompany the expedition, and, to everybody’s surprise,
Lalaperu volunteered to take his place.
Seelee arrived, proud in his importance that the great master of
Berande should summon him in the night-time for council, and firm
in his refusal to step one inch within the dread domain of the
bushmen. As he said, if his opinion had been asked when the gold-
hunters started, he would have foretold their disastrous end.
There was only one thing that happened to any one who ventured into
the bushmen’s territory, and that was that he was eaten. And he
would further say, without being asked, that if Sheldon went up
into the bush he would be eaten too.
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Sheldon sent for a gang-boss and told him to bring ten of the
biggest, best, and strongest Poonga-Poonga men.
“Not salt-water boys,” Sheldon cautioned, “but bush boys–leg
belong him strong fella leg. Boy no savvee musket, no good. You
bring ‘m boy shoot musket strong fella.”
They were ten picked men that filed up on the veranda and stood in
the glare of the lanterns. Their heavy, muscular legs advertised
that they were bushmen. Each claimed long experience in bush-
fighting, most of them showed scars of bullet or spear-thrust in
proof, and all were wild for a chance to break the humdrum monotony
of plantation labour by going on a killing expedition. Killing was
their natural vocation, not wood-cutting; and while they would not
have ventured the Guadalcanar bush alone, with a white man like
Sheldon behind them, and a white Mary such as they knew Joan to be,
they could expect a safe and delightful time. Besides, the great
master had told them that the eight gigantic Tahitians were going
along.
The Poonga-Poonga volunteers stood with glistening eyes and
grinning faces, naked save for their loin-cloths, and barbarously
ornamented. Each wore a flat, turtle-shell ring suspended through
his nose, and each carried a clay pipe in an ear-hole or thrust
inside a beaded biceps armlet. A pair of magnificent boar tusks
graced the chest of one. On the chest of another hung a huge disc
of polished fossil clam-shell.
“Plenty strong fella fight,” Sheldon warned them in conclusion.
They grinned and shifted delightedly.
“S’pose bushmen kai-kai along you?” he queried.
“No fear,” answered their spokesman, one Koogoo, a strapping,
thick-lipped Ethiopian-looking man. “S’pose Poonga-Poonga boy kai-
kai bush-boy?”
Sheldon shook his head, laughing, and dismissed them, and went to
overhaul the dunnage-room for a small shelter tent for Joan’s use.
CHAPTER XXIV–IN THE BUSH
It was quite a formidable expedition that departed from Berande at
break of day next morning in a fleet of canoes and dinghies. There
were Joan and Sheldon, with Binu Charley and Lalaperu, the eight
Tahitians, and the ten Poonga-Poonga men, each proud in the
possession of a bright and shining modern rifle. In addition,
there were two of the plantation boat’s-crews of six men each.
These, however, were to go no farther than Carli, where water
transportation ceased and where they were to wait with the boats.
Boucher remained behind in charge of Berande.
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By eleven in the morning the expedition arrived at Binu, a cluster
of twenty houses on the river bank. And from here thirty odd Binu
men accompanied them, armed with spears and arrows, chattering and
grimacing with delight at the warlike array. The long quiet
stretches of river gave way to swifter water, and progress was
slower and more dogged. The Balesuna grew shallow as well, and
oftener were the loaded boats bumped along and half-lifted over the
bottom. In places timber-falls blocked the passage of the narrow
stream, and the boats and canoes were portaged around. Night
brought them to Carli, and they had the satisfaction of knowing
that they had accomplished in one day what had required two days
for Tudor’s expedition.
Here at Carli, next morning, half-way through the grass-lands, the
boat’s-crews were left, and with them the horde of Binu men, the
boldest of which held on for a bare mile and then ran scampering
back. Binu Charley, however, was at the fore, and led the way
onward into the rolling foot-hills, following the trail made by
Tudor and his men weeks before. That night they camped well into
the hills and deep in the tropic jungle. The third day found them
on the run-ways of the bushmen–narrow paths that compelled single
file and that turned and twisted with endless convolutions through
the dense undergrowth. For the most part it was a silent forest,