Джек Лондон
A Son Of The Sun
“I’m afraid I haven’t got down to the primitive diet yet,” he sighed, as he sat back. “The tinned goods on the Rattler, now I could make a hearty meal off of them, but this muck – ” He took a half-pound strip of broiled shark and flung it to the dog. “I suppose I’ll come to it if you don’t surrender pretty soon.”
Raoul laughed unpleasantly.
“I came to offer terms,” he said pointedly.
Grief shook his head.
“There aren’t any terms. I’ve got you where the hair is short, and I’m not going to let go.”
“You think you can hold me in this hole!” Raoul cried.
“You’ll never leave it alive, except in double irons.” Grief surveyed his guest with an air of consideration. “I’ve handled your kind before. We’ve pretty well cleaned it out of the South Seas. But you are a – how shall I say? – a sort of an anachronism. You’re a throwback, and we’ve got to get rid of you. Personally, I would advise you to go back to the schooner and blow your brains out. It is the only way to escape what you’ve got coming to you.”
The parley, so far as Raoul was concerned, proved fruitless, and he went back into his own lines convinced that the men on the Big Rock could hold out for years, though he would have been swiftly unconvinced could he have observed Tehaa and the Raiateans, the moment his back was turned and he was out of sight, crawling over the rocks and sucking and crunching the scraps his dog had left uneaten.
IX
“We hunger now, Brother,” Grief said, “but it is better than to hunger for many days to come. The Big Devil, after feasting and drinking good water with us in plenty, will not stay long in Fuatino. Even to-morrow may he try to leave. To-night you and I sleep over the top of the Rock, and Tehaa, who shoots well, will sleep with us if he can dare the Rock.”
Tehaa, alone among the Raiateans, was cragsman enough to venture the perilous way, and dawn found him in a rock-barricaded nook, a hundred yards to the right of Grief and Mauriri.
The first warning was the firing of rifles from the peninsula, where Brown and his two Raiateans signalled the retreat and followed the besiegers through the jungle to the beach. From the eyrie on the face of the rock Grief could see nothing for another hour, when the Rattler appeared, making for the passage. As before, the captive Fuatino men towed in the whaleboat. Mauriri, under direction of Grief, called down instructions to them as they passed slowly beneath. By Grief’s side lay several bundles of dynamite sticks, well-lashed together and with extremely short fuses.
The deck of the Rattler was populous. For’ard, rifle in hand, among the Raiatean sailors, stood a desperado whom Mauriri announced was Raoul’s brother. Aft, by the helmsman, stood another. Attached to him, tied waist to waist, with slack, was Mataara, the old Queen. On the other side of the helmsman, his arm in a sling, was Captain Glass. Amidships, as before, was Raoul, and with him, lashed waist to waist, was Naumoo.
“Good morning, Mister David Grief,” Raoul called up.
“And yet I warned you that only in double irons would you leave the island,” Grief murmured down with a sad inflection.
“You can’t kill all your people I have on board,” was the answer.
The schooner, moving slowly, jerk by jerk, as the men pulled in the whaleboat, was almost directly beneath. The rowers, without ceasing, slacked on their oars, and were immediately threatened with the rifle of the man who stood for’ard.
“Throw, Big Brother!” Naumoo called up in the Fuatino tongue. “I am filled with sorrow and am willed to die. His knife is ready with which to cut the rope, but I shall hold him tight. Be not afraid, Big Brother. Throw, and throw straight, and good-bye.”
Grief hesitated, then lowered the fire-stick which he had been blowing bright.
“Throw!” the Goat Man urged.
Still Grief hesitated.
“If they get to sea, Big Brother, Naumoo dies just the same. And there are all the others. What is her life against the many?”
“If you drop any dynamite, or fire a single shot, we’ll kill all on board,” Raoul cried up to them. “I’ve got you, David Grief. You can’t kill these people, and I can. Shut up, you!”
This last was addressed to Naumoo, who was calling up in her native tongue and whom Raoul seized by the neck with one hand to choke to silence. In turn, she locked both arms about him and looked up beseechingly to Grief.
“Throw it, Mr. Grief, and be damned to them,” Captain Glass rumbled in his deep voice. “They’re bloody murderers, and the cabin’s full of them.”
The desperado who was fastened to the old Queen swung half about to menace Captain Glass with his rifle, when Tehaa, from his position farther along the Rock, pulled trigger on him. The rifle dropped from the man’s hand, and on his face was an expression of intense surprise as his legs crumpled under him and he sank down on deck, dragging the Queen with him.
“Port! Hard a port!” Grief cried.
Captain Glass and the Kanaka whirled the wheel over, and the bow of the Rattler headed in for the Rock. Amidships Raoul still struggled with Naumoo. His brother ran from for’ard to his aid, being missed by the fusillade of quick shots from Tehaa and the Goat Man. As Raoul’s brother placed the muzzle of his rifle to Naumoo’s side Grief touched the fire-stick to the match-head in the split end of the fuse. Even as with both hands he tossed the big bundle of dynamite, the rifle went off, and Naumoo’s fall to the deck was simultaneous with the fall of the dynamite. This time the fuse was short enough. The explosion occurred at the instant the deck was reached, and that portion of the Rattler, along with Raoul, his brother, and Naumoo, forever disappeared.
The schooner’s side was shattered, and she began immediately to settle. For’ard, every Raiatean sailor dived overboard. Captain Glass met the first man springing up the com-panionway from the cabin, with a kick full in the face, but was overborne and trampled on by the rush. Following the desperadoes came the Huahine women, and as they went overboard, the Rattler sank on an even keel close to the base of the Rock. Her cross-trees still stuck out when she reached bottom.
Looking down, Grief could see all that occurred beneath the surface. He saw Mataara, a fathom deep, unfasten herself from the dead pirate and swim upward. As her head emerged she saw Captain Glass, who could not swim, sinking several yards away. The Queen, old woman that she was, but an islander, turned over, swam down to him, and held him up as she struck out for the unsubmerged cross-trees.
Five heads, blond and brown, were mingled with the dark heads of Polynesia that dotted the surface. Grief, rifle in hand, watched for a chance to shoot. The Goat Man, after a minute, was successful, and they saw the body of one man sink sluggishly. But to the Raiatean sailors, big and brawny, half fish, was the vengeance given. Swimming swiftly, they singled out the blond heads and the brown. Those from above watched the four surviving desperadoes, clutched and locked, dragged far down beneath and drowned like curs.
In ten minutes everything was over. The Huahine women, laughing and giggling, were holding on to the sides of the whaleboat which had done the towing. The Raiatean sailors, waiting for orders, were about the cross-tree to which Captain Glass and Mataara clung.
“The poor old Rattler,” Captain Glass lamented.
“Nothing of the sort,” Grief answered. “In a week we’ll have her raised, new timbers amidships, and we’ll be on our way.” And to the Queen, “How is it with you, Sister?”
“Naumoo is gone, and Motauri, Brother, but Fuatino is ours again. The day is young. Word shall be sent to all my people in the high places with the goats. And to-night, once again, and as never before, we shall feast and rejoice in the Big House.”
“She’s been needing new timbers abaft the beam there for years,” quoth Captain Glass. “But the chronometers will be out of commission for the rest of the cruise.”
Chapter Four – THE JOKERS OF NEW GIBBON
I
“I’m almost afraid to take you in to New Gibbon,” David Grief said. “It wasn’t until you and the British gave me a free hand and let the place alone that any results were accomplished.”
Wallenstein, the German Resident Commissioner from Bougainville, poured himself a long Scotch and soda and smiled.
“We take off our hats to you, Mr. Grief,” he said in perfectly good English. “What you have done on the devil island is a miracle. And we shall continue not to interfere. It is a devil island, and old Koho is the big chief devil of them all. We never could bring him to terms. He is a liar, and he is no fool. He is a black Napoleon, a head-hunting, man-eating Talleyrand. I remember six years ago, when I landed there in the British cruiser. The niggers cleared out for the bush, of course, but we found several who couldn’t get away. One was his latest wife. She had been hung up by one arm in the sun for two days and nights. We cut her down, but she died just the same. And staked out in the fresh running water, up to their necks, were three more women. All their bones were broken and their joints crushed. The process is supposed to make them tender for the eating. They were still alive. Their vitality was remarkable. One woman, the oldest, lingered nearly ten days. Well, that was a sample of Koho’s diet. No wonder he’s a wild beast. How you ever pacified him is our everlasting puzzlement.”
“I wouldn’t call him exactly pacified,” Grief answered. “Though he comes in once in a while and eats out of the hand.”
“That’s more than we accomplished with our cruisers. Neither the German nor the English ever laid eyes on him. You were the first.”
“No; McTavish was the first,” Grief disclaimed.
“Ah, yes, I remember him – the little, dried-up Scotchman.” Wallenstein sipped his whiskey. “He’s called the Trouble-mender, isn’t he?”
Grief nodded.
“And they say the screw you pay him is bigger than mine or the British Resident’s?”
“I’m afraid it is,” Grief admitted. “You see, and no offence, he’s really worth it. He spends his time wherever the trouble is. He is a wizard. He’s the one who got me my lodgment on New Gibbon. He’s down on Malaita now, starting a plantation for me.”
“The first?”
“There’s not even a trading station on all Malaita. The recruiters still use covering boats and carry the old barbed wire above their rails. There’s the plantation now. We’ll be in in half an hour.” He handed the binoculars to his guest. “Those are the boat-sheds to the left of the bungalow. Beyond are the barracks. And to the right are the copra-sheds. We dry quite a bit already. Old Koho’s getting civilized enough to make his people bring in the nuts. There’s the mouth of the stream where you found the three women softening.”
The Wonder, wing-and-wing, was headed directly in for the anchorage. She rose and fell lazily over a glassy swell flawed here and there by catspaws from astern. It was the tail-end of the monsoon season, and the air was heavy and sticky with tropic moisture, the sky a florid, leaden muss of formless clouds. The rugged land was swathed with cloud-banks and squall wreaths, through which headlands and interior peaks thrust darkly. On one promontory a slant of sunshine blazed torridly, on another, scarcely a mile away, a squall was bursting in furious downpour of driving rain.
This was the dank, fat, savage island of New Gibbon, lying fifty miles to leeward of Choiseul. Geographically, it belonged to the Solomon Group. Politically, the dividing line of German and British influence cut it in half, hence the joint control by the two Resident Commissioners. In the case of New Gibbon, this control existed only on paper in the colonial offices of the two countries. There was no real control at all, and never had been. The bêche de mer fishermen of the old days had passed it by. The sandalwood traders, after stern experiences, had given it up. The blackbirders had never succeeded in recruiting one labourer on the island, and, after the schooner Dorset had been cut off with all hands, they left the place severely alone. Later, a German company had attempted a cocoanut plantation, which was abandoned after several managers and a number of contract labourers had lost their heads. German cruisers and British cruisers had failed to get the savage blacks to listen to reason. Four times the missionary societies had essayed the peaceful conquest of the island, and four times, between sickness and massacre, they had been driven away, More cruisers, more pacifications, had followed, and followed fruitlessly. The cannibals had always retreated into the bush and laughed at the screaming shells. When the warships left it was an easy matter to rebuild the burned grass houses and set up the ovens in the old-fashioned way.
New Gibbon was a large island, fully one hundred and fifty miles long and half as broad.
Its windward coast was iron-bound, without anchorages or inlets, and it was inhabited by scores of warring tribes – at least it had been, until Koho had arisen, like a Kamehameha, and, by force of arms and considerable statecraft, firmly welded the greater portion of the tribes into a confederation. His policy of permitting no intercourse with white men had been eminently right, so far as survival of his own people was concerned; and after the visit of the last cruiser he had had his own way until David Grief and McTavish the Trouble-mender landed on the deserted beach where once had stood the German bungalow and barracks and the various English mission-houses.
Followed wars, false peaces, and more wars. The weazened little Scotchman could make trouble as well as mend it, and, not content with holding the beach, he imported bushmen from Malaita and invaded the wild-pig runs of the interior jungle. He burned villages until Koho wearied of rebuilding them, and when he captured Koho’s eldest son he compelled a conference with the old chief. It was then that McTavish laid down the rate of head-exchange. For each head of his own people he promised to take ten of Koho’s. After Koho had learned that the Scotchman was a man of his word, the first true peace was made. In the meantime McTavish had built the bungalow and barracks, cleared the jungle-land along the beach, and laid out the plantation. After that he had gone on his way to mend trouble on the atoll of Tasman, where a plague of black measles had broken out and been ascribed to Grief’s plantation by the devil-devil doctors. Once, a year later, he had been called back again to straighten up New Gibbon; and Koho, after paying a forced fine of two hundred thousand cocoanuts, decided it was cheaper to keep the peace and sell the nuts. Also, the fires of his youth had burned down. He was getting old and limped of one leg where a Lee-Enfield bullet had perforated the calf.
II
“I knew a chap in Hawaii,” Grief said, “superintendent of a sugar plantation, who used a hammer and a ten-penny nail.”
They were sitting on the broad bungalow veranda, and watching Worth, the manager of New Gibbon, doctoring the sick squad. They were New Georgia boys, a dozen of them, and the one with the aching tooth had been put back to the last. Worth had just failed in his first attempt. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with one hand and waved the forceps with the other.
“And broke more than one jaw,” he asserted grimly.
Grief shook his head. Wallenstein smiled and elevated his brows.
“He said not, at any rate,” Grief qualified. “He assured me, furthermore, that he always succeeded on the first trial.”
“I saw it done when I was second mate on a lime-juicer,” Captain Ward spoke up. “The old man used a caulking mallet and a steel marlin-spike. He took the tooth out with the first stroke, too, clean as a whistle.”
“Me for the forceps,” Worth muttered grimly, inserting his own pair in the mouth of the black. As he pulled, the man groaned and rose in the air. “Lend a hand, somebody, and hold him down,” the manager appealed.
Grief and Wallenstein, on either side, gripped the black and held him. And he, in turn, struggled against them and clenched his teeth on the forceps. The group swayed back and forth. Such exertion, in the stagnant heat, brought the sweat out on all of them. The black sweated, too, but his was the sweat of excruciating pain. The chair on which he sat was overturned. Captain Ward paused in the act of pouring himself a drink, and called encouragement. Worth pleaded with his assistants to hang on, and hung on himself, twisting the tooth till it crackled and then attempting a straightaway pull.
Nor did any of them notice the little black man who limped up the steps and stood looking on. Koho was a conservative. His fathers before him had worn no clothes, and neither did he, not even a gee-string. The many empty perforations in nose and lips and ears told of decorative passions long since dead. The holes on both ear-lobes had been torn out, but their size was attested by the strips of withered flesh that hung down and swept his shoulders. He cared now only for utility, and in one of the half dozen minor holes in his right ear he carried a short clay pipe. Around his waist was buckled a cheap trade-belt, and between the imitation leather and the naked skin was thrust the naked blade of a long knife. Suspended from the belt was his bamboo betel-nut and lime box. In his hand was a short-barrelled, large-bore Snider rifle. He was indescribably filthy, and here and there marred by scars, the worst being the one left by the Lee-Enfield bullet, which had withered the calf to half the size of its mate. His shrunken mouth showed that few teeth were left to serve him. Face and body were shrunken and withered, but his black, bead-like eyes, small and close together, were very bright, withal they were restless and querulous, and more like a monkey’s than a man’s.
He looked on, grinning like a shrewd little ape. His joy in the torment of the patient was natural, for the world he lived in was a world of pain. He had endured his share of it, and inflicted far more than his share on others. When the tooth parted from its locked hold in the jaw and the forceps raked across the other teeth and out of the mouth with a nerve-rasping sound, old Koho’s eyes fairly sparkled, and he looked with glee at the poor black, collapsed on the veranda floor and groaning terribly as he held his head in both his hands.
“I think he’s going to faint,” Grief said, bending over the victim. “Captain Ward, give him a drink, please. You’d better take one yourself, Worth; you’re shaking like a leaf.”
“And I think I’ll take one,” said Wallenstein, wiping the sweat from his face. His eye caught the shadow of Koho on the floor and followed it up to the old chief himself. “Hello! who’s this?”
“Hello, Koho!” Grief said genially, though he knew better than to offer to shake hands.
It was one of Koho’s tambos, given him by the devil-devil doctors when he was born, that never was his flesh to come in contact with the flesh of a white man. Worth and Captain Ward, of the Wonder, greeted Koho, but Worth frowned at sight of the Snider, for it was one of his tambos that no visiting bushman should carry a weapon on the plantation. Rifles had a nasty way of going off at the hip under such circumstances. The manager clapped his hands, and a black house-boy, recruited from San Cristobal, came running. At a sign from Worth, he took the rifle from the visitor’s hand and carried it inside the bungalow.
“Koho,” Grief said, introducing the German Resident, “this big fella marster belong Bougainville – my word, big fella marster too much.”
Koho, remembering the visits of the various German cruisers, smiled with a light of unpleasant reminiscence in his eyes.
“Don’t shake hands with him, Wallenstein,” Grief warned. “Tambo, you know.” Then to Koho, “My word, you get ‘m too much fat stop along you. Bime by you marry along new fella Mary, eh?”
“Too old fella me,” Koho answered, with a weary shake of the head. “Me no like ‘m Mary. Me no like ‘m kai-kai (food). Close up me die along altogether.” He stole a significant glance at Worth, whose head was tilted back to a long glass. “Me like ‘m rum.”
Grief shook his head.
“Tambo along black fella.”
“He black fella no tambo,” Koho retorted, nodding toward the groaning labourer.
“He fella sick,” Grief explained.
“Me fella sick.”
“You fella big liar,” Grief laughed. “Rum tambo, all the time tambo. Now, Koho, we have big fella talk along this big fella mar-ster.”
And he and Wallenstein and the old chief sat down on the veranda to confer about affairs of state. Koho was complimented on the peace he had kept, and he, with many protestations of his aged decrepitude, swore peace again and everlasting. Then was discussed the matter of starting a German plantation twenty miles down the coast. The land, of course, was to be bought from Koho, and the price was arranged in terms of tobacco, knives, beads, pipes, hatchets, porpoise teeth and shell-money – in terms of everything except rum. While the talk went on, Koho, glancing through the window, could see Worth mixing medicines and placing bottles back in the medicine cupboard. Also, he saw the manager complete his labours by taking a drink of Scotch. Koho noted the bottle carefully. And, though he hung about for an hour after the conference was over, there was never a moment when some one or another was not in the room. When Grief and Worth sat down to a business talk, Koho gave it up.
“Me go along schooner,” he announced, then turned and limped out.
“How are the mighty fallen,” Grief laughed. “To think that used to be Koho, the fiercest red-handed murderer in the Solomons, who defied all his life two of the greatest world powers. And now he’s going aboard to try and cadge Denby for a drink.”
III
For the last time in his life the supercargo of the Wonder perpetrated a practical joke on a native. He was in the main cabin, checking off the list of goods being landed in the whaleboats, when Koho limped down the com-panionway and took a seat opposite him at the table.
“Close up me die along altogether,” was the burden of the old chief’s plaint. All the delights of the flesh had forsaken him. “Me no like ‘m Mary. Me no like ‘m kai-kai. Me too much sick fella. Me close up finish.” A long, sad pause, in which his face expressed unutterable concern for his stomach, which he patted gingerly and with an assumption of pain. “Belly belong me too much sick.” Another pause, which was an invitation to Denby to make suggestions. Then followed a long, weary, final sigh, and a “Me like ‘m rum.”
Denby laughed heartlessly. He had been cadged for drinks before by the old cannibal, and the sternest tambo Grief and McTavish had laid down was the one forbidding alcohol to the natives of New Gibbon.
The trouble was that Koho had acquired the taste. In his younger days he had learned the delights of drunkenness when he cut off the schooner Dorset, but unfortunately he had learned it along with all his tribesmen, and the supply had not held out long. Later, when he led his naked warriors down to the destruction of the German plantation, he was wiser, and he appropriated all the liquors for his sole use. The result had been a gorgeous mixed drunk, on a dozen different sorts of drink, ranging from beer doctored with quinine to absinthe and apricot brandy. The drunk had lasted for months, and it had left him with a thirst that would remain with him until he died. Predisposed toward alcohol, after the way of savages, all the chemistry of his flesh clamoured for it. This craving was to him expressed in terms of tingling and sensation, of maggots crawling warmly and deliciously in his brain, of good feeling, and well being, and high exultation. And in his barren old age, when women and feasting were a weariness, and when old hates had smouldered down, he desired more and more the revivifying fire that came liquid out of bottles – out of all sorts of bottles – for he remembered them well. He would sit in the sun for hours, occasionally drooling, in mournful contemplation of the great orgy which had been his when the German plantation was cleaned out.
Denby was sympathetic. He sought out the old chief’s symptoms and offered him dyspeptic tablets from the medicine chest, pills, and a varied assortment of harmless tabloids and capsules. But Koho steadfastly declined. Once, when he cut the Dorset off, he had bitten through a capsule of quinine; in addition, two of his warriors had partaken of a white powder and laid down and died very violently in a very short time. No; he did not believe in drugs. But the liquids from bottles, the cool-flaming youth-givers and warm-glowing dream-makers. No wonder the white men valued them so highly and refused to dispense them.
“Rum he good fella,” he repeated over and over, plaintively and with the weary patience of age.
And then Denby made his mistake and played his joke. Stepping around behind Koho, he unlocked the medicine closet and took out a four-ounce bottle labelled essence of mustard. As he made believe to draw the cork and drink of the contents, in the mirror on the for’ard bulkhead he glimpsed Koho, twisted half around, intently watching him. Denby smacked his lips and cleared his throat appreciatively as he replaced the bottle. Neglecting to relock the medicine closet, he returned to his chair, and, after a decent interval, went on deck. He stood beside the companionway and listened. After several moments the silence below was broken by a fearful, wheezing, propulsive, strangling cough. He smiled to himself and returned leisurely down the companionway. The bottle was back on the shelf where it belonged, and the old man sat in the same position. Denby marvelled at his iron control. Mouth and lips and tongue, and all sensitive membranes, were a blaze of fire. He gasped and nearly coughed several times, while involuntary tears brimmed in his eyes and ran down his cheeks. An ordinary man would have coughed and strangled for half an hour. But old Koho’s face was grimly composed. It dawned on him that a trick had been played, and into his eyes came an expression of hatred and malignancy so primitive, so abysmal, that it sent the chills up and down Denby’s spine. Koho arose proudly.
“Me go along,” he said. “You sing out one fella boat stop along me.”
IV
Having seen Grief and Worth start for a ride over the plantation, Wallenstein sat down in the big living-room and with gun-oil and old rags proceeded to take apart and clean his automatic pistol. On the table beside him stood the inevitable bottle of Scotch and numerous soda bottles. Another bottle, part full, chanced to stand there. It was also labelled Scotch, but its content was liniment which Worth had mixed for the horses and neglected to put away.
As Wallenstein worked, he glanced through the window and saw Koho coming up the compound path. He was limping very rapidly, but when he came along the veranda and entered the room his gait was slow and dignified. He sat down and watched the gun-cleaning, Though mouth and lips and tongue were afire, he gave no sign. At the end of five minutes he spoke.
“Rum he good fella. Me like ‘m rum.” 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 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 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 conches to-night, and the war-drums, “all merry hell will break loose. They won’t rush us, but keep all the boys close up to the house, Mr. Worth. Come on!”
