"And so it was all settled easily enough," Sheldon was saying. He was on the veranda1, drinking coffee. The whale-boat was being carried into its shed. "Boucher was a bit timid at first to carry off the situation with a strong hand, but he did very well once we got started. We made a play at holding a court, and Telepasse, the old scoundrel, accepted the findings. He's a Port Adams chief, a filthy2 beggar. We fined him ten times the value of the pigs, and made him move on with his mob. Oh, they're a sweet lot, I must say, at least sixty of them, in five big canoes, and out for trouble. They've got a dozen Sniders that ought to be confiscated3."
"Why didn't you?" Joan asked.
"And have a row on my hands with the Commissioner4? He's terribly touchy5 about his black wards6, as he calls them. Well, we started them along their way, though they went in on the beach to kai-kai several miles back. They ought to pass here some time to-day."
Two hours later the canoes arrived. No one saw them come. The house-boys were busy in the kitchen at their own breakfast. The plantation7 hands were similarly occupied in their quarters. Satan lay sound asleep on his back under the billiard table, in his sleep brushing at the flies that pestered8 him. Joan was rummaging9 in the store-room, and Sheldon was taking his siesta10 in a hammock on the veranda. He awoke gently. In some occult, subtle way a warning that all was not well had penetrated11 his sleep and aroused him. Without moving, he glanced down and saw the ground beneath covered with armed savages13. They were the same ones he had parted with that morning, though he noted14 an accession in numbers. There were men he had not seen before.
He slipped from the hammock and with deliberate slowness sauntered to the railing, where he yawned sleepily and looked down on them. It came to him curiously15 that it was his destiny ever to stand on this high place, looking down on unending hordes16 of black trouble that required control, bullying17, and cajolery. But while he glanced carelessly over them, he was keenly taking stock. The new men were all armed with modern rifles. Ah, he had thought so. There were fifteen of them, undoubtedly18 the Lunga runaways19. In addition, a dozen old Sniders were in the hands of the original crowd. The rest were armed with spears, clubs, bows and arrows, and long-handled tomahawks. Beyond, drawn20 up on the beach, he could see the big war-canoes, with high and fantastically carved bows and sterns, ornamented21 with scrolls22 and bands of white cowrie shells. These were the men who had killed his trader, Oscar, at Ugi.
"What name you walk about this place?" he demanded.
At the same time he stole a glance seaward to where the FlibbertyGibbet reflected herself in the glassy calm of the sea. Not a soul was visible under her awnings23, and he saw the whale-boat was missing from alongside. The Tahitians had evidently gone shooting fish up the Balesuna. He was all alone in his high place above this trouble, while his world slumbered24 peacefully under the breathless tropic noon.
Nobody replied, and he repeated his demand, more of mastery in his voice this time, and a hint of growing anger. The blacks moved uneasily, like a herd25 of cattle, at the sound of his voice. But not one spoke26. All eyes, however, were staring at him in certitude of expectancy27. Something was about to happen, and they were waiting for it, waiting with the unanimous, unstable28 mob-mind for the one of them who would make the first action that would precipitate29 all of them into a common action. Sheldon looked for this one, for such was the one to fear. Directly beneath him he caught sight of the muzzle30 of a rifle, barely projecting between two black bodies, that was slowly elevating toward him. It was held at the hip31 by a man in the second row.
"What name you?" Sheldon suddenly shouted, pointing directly at the man who held the gun, who startled and lowered the muzzle.
Sheldon still held the whip hand, and he intended to keep it.
"Clear out, all you fella boys," he ordered. "Clear out and walk along salt water. Savvee!"
"Me talk," spoke up a fat and filthy savage12 whose hairy chest was caked with the unwashed dirt of years.
"Oh, is that you, Telepasse?" the white man queried32 genially33. "You tell 'm boys clear out, and you stop and talk along me."
"Him good fella boy," was the reply. "Him stop along."
"Well, what do you want?" Sheldon asked, striving to hide under assumed carelessness the weakness of concession34.
"That fella boy belong along me." The old chief pointed35 out Gogoomy, whom Sheldon recognized.
"White Mary belong you too much no good," Telepasse went on. "Bang 'm head belong Gogoomy. Gogoomy all the same chief. Bimeby me finish, Gogoomy big fella chief. White Mary bang 'm head. No good. You pay me plenty tobacco, plenty powder, plenty calico."
"You old scoundrel," was Sheldon's comment. An hour before, he had been chuckling36 over Joan's recital37 of the episode, and here, an hour later, was Telepasse himself come to collect damages.
"Gogoomy," Sheldon ordered, "what name you walk about here? You get along quarters plenty quick."
"Me stop," was the defiant38 answer.
"White Mary b'long you bang 'm head," old Telepasse began again. "My word, plenty big fella trouble you no pay."
"You talk along boys," Sheldon said, with increasing irritation39. "You tell 'm get to hell along beach. Then I talk with you."
Sheldon felt a slight vibration40 of the veranda, and knew that Joan had come out and was standing41 by his side. But he did not dare glance at her. There were too many rifles down below there, and rifles had a way of going off from the hip.
Again the veranda vibrated with her moving weight, and he knew that Joan had gone into the house. A minute later she was back beside him. He had never seen her smoke, and it struck him as peculiar42 that she should be smoking now. Then he guessed the reason. With a quick glance, he noted the hand at her side, and in it the familiar, paper-wrapped dynamite43. He noted, also, the end of fuse, split properly, into which had been inserted the head of a wax match.
"Telepasse, you old reprobate44, tell 'm boys clear out along beach. My word, I no gammon along you."
"Me no gammon," said the chief. "Me want 'm pay white Mary bang 'm head b'long Gogoomy."
"I'll come down there and bang 'm head b'long you," Sheldon replied, leaning toward the railing as if about to leap over.
An angry murmur45 arose, and the blacks surged restlessly. The muzzles46 of many guns were rising from the hips47. Joan was pressing the lighted end of the cigarette to the fuse. A Snider went off with the roar of a bomb-gun, and Sheldon heard a pane48 of windowglass crash behind him. At the same moment Joan flung the dynamite, the fuse hissing49 and spluttering, into the thick of the blacks. They scattered50 back in too great haste to do any more shooting. Satan, aroused by the one shot, was snarling51 and panting to be let out. Joan heard, and ran to let him out; and thereat the tragedy was averted52, and the comedy began.
Rifles and spears were dropped or flung aside in a wild scramble53 for the protection of the cocoanut palms. Satan multiplied himself. Never had he been free to tear and rend54 such a quantity of black flesh before, and he bit and snapped and rushed the flying legs till the last pair were above his head. All were treed except Telepasse, who was too old and fat, and he lay prone55 and without movement where he had fallen; while Satan, with too great a heart to worry an enemy that did not move, dashed frantically56 from tree to tree, barking and springing at those who clung on lowest down.
"I fancy you need a lesson or two in inserting fuses," Sheldon remarked dryly.
Joan's eyes were scornful.
"There was no detonator on it," she said. "Besides, the detonator is not yet manufactured that will explode that charge. It's only a bottle of chlorodyne."
She put her fingers into her mouth, and Sheldon winced57 as he saw her blow, like a boy, a sharp, imperious whistle--the call she always used for her sailors, and that always made him wince58.
"They're gone up the Balesuna, shooting fish," he explained. "But there comes Oleson with his boat's-crew. He's an old war-horse when he gets started. See him banging the boys. They don't pull fast enough for him."
"And now what's to be done?" she asked. "You've treed your game, but you can't keep it treed."
"No; but I can teach them a lesson."
Sheldon walked over to the big bell.
"It is all right," he replied to her gesture of protest. "My boys are practically all bushmen, while these chaps are salt-water men, and there's no love lost between them. You watch the fun."
He rang a general call, and by the time the two hundred labourers trooped into the compound Satan was once more penned in the livingroom, complaining to high heaven at his abominable59 treatment. The plantation hands were dancing war-dances around the base of every tree and filling the air with abuse and vituperation of their hereditary60 enemies. The skipper of the Flibberty-Gibbet arrived in the thick of it, in the first throes of oncoming fever, staggering as he walked, and shivering so severely61 that he could scarcely hold the rifle he carried. His face was ghastly blue, his teeth clicked and chattered62, and the violent sunshine through which he walked could not warm him.
"I'll s-s-sit down, and k-k-keep a guard on 'em," he chattered. "D-d-dash it all, I always g-get f-fever when there's any excitement. W-w-wh-what are you going to do?"
"Gather up the guns first of all."
Under Sheldon's direction the house-boys and gang-bosses collected the scattered arms and piled them in a heap on the veranda. The modern rifles, stolen from Lunga, Sheldon set aside; the Sniders he smashed into fragments; the pile of spears, clubs, and tomahawks he presented to Joan.
"A really unique addition to your collection," he smiled; "picked up right on the battlefield."
Down on the beach he built a bonfire out of the contents of the canoes, his blacks smashing, breaking, and looting everything they laid hands on. The canoes themselves, splintered and broken, filled with sand and coral-boulders, were towed out to ten fathoms63 of water and sunk.
"Ten fathoms will be deep enough for them to work in," Sheldon said, as they walked back to the compound.
Here a Saturnalia had broken loose. The war-songs and dances were more unrestrained, and, from abuse, the plantation blacks had turned to pelting64 their helpless foes65 with pieces of wood, handfuls of pebbles66, and chunks67 of coral-rock. And the seventy-five lusty cannibals clung stoically to their tree-perches, enduring the rain of missiles and snarling down promises of vengeance68.
"There'll be wars for forty years on Malaita on account of this," Sheldon laughed. "But I always fancy old Telepasse will never again attempt to rush a plantation."
"Eh, you old scoundrel," he added, turning to the old chief, who sat gibbering in impotent rage at the foot of the steps. "Now head belong you bang 'm too. Come on, Miss Lackland, bang 'm just once. It will be the crowning indignity69."
"Ugh, he's too dirty. I'd rather give him a bath. Here, you, Adamu Adam, give this devil-devil a wash. Soap and water! Fill that wash-tub. Ornfiri, run and fetch 'm scrub-brush."
The Tahitians, back from their fishing and grinning at the bedlam70 of the compound, entered into the joke.
"Tambo! Tambo!" shrieked71 the cannibals from the trees, appalled72 at so awful a desecration73, as they saw their chief tumbled into the tub and the sacred dirt rubbed and soused from his body.
Joan, who had gone into the bungalow74, tossed down a strip of white calico, in which old Telepasse was promptly75 wrapped, and he stood forth76, resplendent and purified, withal he still spat77 and strangled from the soap-suds with which Noa Noah had gargled his throat.
The house-boys were directed to fetch handcuffs, and, one by one, the Lunga runaways were haled down out of their trees and made fast. Sheldon ironed them in pairs, and ran a steel chain through the links of the irons. Gogoomy was given a lecture for his mutinous78 conduct and locked up for the afternoon. Then Sheldon rewarded the plantation hands with an afternoon's holiday, and, when they had withdrawn79 from the compound, permitted the Port Adams men to descend80 from the trees. And all afternoon he and Joan loafed in the cool of the veranda and watched them diving down and emptying their sunken canoes of the sand and rocks. It was twilight81 when they embarked82 and paddled away with a few broken paddles. A breeze had sprung up, and the Flibberty-Gibbet had already sailed for Lunga to return the runaways.
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veranda
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| n.走廊；阳台 | |
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filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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confiscated
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| 没收，充公( confiscate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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commissioner
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| n.（政府厅、局、处等部门）专员，长官，委员 | |
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touchy
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| adj.易怒的；棘手的 | |
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wards
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| 区( ward的名词复数 )； 病房； 受监护的未成年者； 被人照顾或控制的状态 | |
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plantation
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| n.种植园，大农场 | |
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pestered
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| 使烦恼，纠缠( pester的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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rummaging
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| 翻找，搜寻( rummage的现在分词 )； 海关检查 | |
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siesta
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| n.午睡 | |
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penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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hordes
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| n.移动着的一大群( horde的名词复数 )；部落 | |
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bullying
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| v.恐吓，威逼( bully的现在分词 )；豪；跋扈 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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runaways
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| （轻而易举的）胜利( runaway的名词复数 ) | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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ornamented
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| adj.花式字体的v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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scrolls
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| n.（常用于录写正式文件的）纸卷( scroll的名词复数 )；卷轴；涡卷形（装饰）；卷形花纹v.（电脑屏幕上）从上到下移动（资料等），卷页( scroll的第三人称单数 )；（似卷轴般）卷起；（像展开卷轴般地）将文字显示于屏幕 | |
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awnings
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| 篷帐布 | |
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slumbered
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| 微睡，睡眠（slumber的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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expectancy
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| n.期望，预期，（根据概率统计求得）预期数额 | |
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unstable
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| adj.不稳定的，易变的 | |
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precipitate
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| adj.突如其来的；vt.使突然发生；n.沉淀物 | |
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muzzle
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| n.鼻口部；口套；枪(炮)口；vt.使缄默 | |
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hip
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| n.臀部，髋；屋脊 | |
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queried
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| v.质疑，对…表示疑问( query的过去式和过去分词 )；询问 | |
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genially
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| adv.亲切地，和蔼地；快活地 | |
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concession
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| n.让步，妥协；特许(权) | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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chuckling
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的现在分词 ) | |
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recital
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| n.朗诵，独奏会，独唱会 | |
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defiant
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| adj.无礼的，挑战的 | |
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irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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vibration
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| n.颤动，振动；摆动 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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dynamite
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| n./vt.(用)炸药(爆破) | |
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reprobate
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| n.无赖汉；堕落的人 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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muzzles
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| 枪口( muzzle的名词复数 )； （防止动物咬人的）口套； （四足动物的）鼻口部； （狗）等凸出的鼻子和口 | |
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hips
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| abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的 | |
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pane
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| n.窗格玻璃，长方块 | |
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hissing
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| n. 发嘶嘶声, 蔑视 动词hiss的现在分词形式 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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snarling
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| v.（指狗）吠，嗥叫， （人）咆哮( snarl的现在分词 )；咆哮着说，厉声地说 | |
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averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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scramble
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| v.爬行，攀爬，杂乱蔓延，碎片，片段，废料 | |
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rend
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| vt.把…撕开，割裂；把…揪下来，强行夺取 | |
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prone
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| adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的 | |
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frantically
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| ad.发狂地, 发疯地 | |
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winced
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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wince
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| n.畏缩，退避，（因痛苦，苦恼等)面部肌肉抽动；v.畏缩，退缩，退避 | |
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abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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hereditary
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| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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chattered
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| （人）喋喋不休( chatter的过去式 )； 唠叨； （牙齿）打战； （机器）震颤 | |
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fathoms
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| 英寻( fathom的名词复数 ) | |
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pelting
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| 微不足道的，无价值的，盛怒的 | |
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foes
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| 敌人，仇敌( foe的名词复数 ) | |
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pebbles
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| [复数]鹅卵石； 沙砾； 卵石，小圆石( pebble的名词复数 ) | |
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chunks
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| 厚厚的一块( chunk的名词复数 )； （某物）相当大的数量或部分 | |
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vengeance
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| n.报复，报仇，复仇 | |
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indignity
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| n.侮辱，伤害尊严，轻蔑 | |
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bedlam
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| n.混乱，骚乱；疯人院 | |
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shrieked
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| v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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appalled
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| v.使惊骇，使充满恐惧( appall的过去式和过去分词)adj.惊骇的；丧胆的 | |
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73
desecration
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| n. 亵渎神圣, 污辱 | |
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74
bungalow
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| n.平房，周围有阳台的木造小平房 | |
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75
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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76
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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77
spat
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| n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
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78
mutinous
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| adj.叛变的，反抗的；adv.反抗地，叛变地；n.反抗，叛变 | |
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79
withdrawn
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| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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80
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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81
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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82
embarked
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| 乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 )； 装载； 从事 | |
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