Adventure | Page 7

occasion,
single-handed, had made himself lord and master of Balesuna village as
well. Seelee did not like to remember that episode. It had occurred in
the course of learning the nature of white men and of learning to
abominate them. He had once been guilty of sheltering three runaways
from Berande. They had given him all they possessed in return for the
shelter and for promised aid in getting away to Malaita. This had given
him a glimpse of a profitable future, in which his village would serve as
the one depot on the underground railway between Berande and
Malaita.
Unfortunately, he was ignorant of the ways of white men. This
particular white man educated him by arriving at his grass house in the
gray of dawn. In the first moment he had felt amused. He was so
perfectly safe in the midst of his village. But the next moment, and
before he could cry out, a pair of handcuffs on the white man's
knuckles had landed on his mouth, knocking the cry of alarm back
down his throat. Also, the white man's other fist had caught him under

the ear and left him without further interest in what was happening.
When he came to, he found himself in the white man's whale-boat on
the way to Berande. At Berande he had been treated as one of no
consequence, with handcuffs on hands and feet, to say nothing of
chains. When his tribe had returned the three runaways, he was given
his freedom. And finally, the terrible white man had fined him and
Balesuna village ten thousand cocoanuts. After that he had sheltered no
more runaway Malaita men. Instead, he had gone into the business of
catching them. It was safer. Besides, he was paid one case of tobacco
per head. But if he ever got a chance at that white man, if he ever
caught him sick or stood at his back when he stumbled and fell on a
bush- trail--well, there would be a head that would fetch a price in
Malaita.
Sheldon was pleased with what Seelee told him. The seventh man of
the last batch of runaways had been caught and was even then at the
gate. He was brought in, heavy-featured and defiant, his arms bound
with cocoanut sennit, the dry blood still on his body from the struggle
with his captors.
"Me savvee you good fella, Seelee," Sheldon said, as the chief gulped
down a quarter-tumbler of raw trade-gin. "Fella boy belong me you
catch short time little bit. This fella boy strong fella too much. I give
you fella one case tobacco--my word, one case tobacco. Then, you
good fella along me, I give you three fathom calico, one fella knife big
fella too much."
The tobacco and trade goods were brought from the store-room by two
house-boys and turned over to the chief of Balesuna village, who
accepted the additional reward with a non-committal grunt and went
away down the path to his canoes. Under Sheldon's directions the
house-boys handcuffed the prisoner, by hands and feet, around one of
the pile supports of the house. At eleven o'clock, when the labourers
came in from the field, Sheldon had them assembled in the compound
before the veranda. Every able man was there, including those who
were helping about the hospital. Even the women and the several
pickaninnies of the plantation were lined up with the rest, two deep--a

horde of naked savages a trifle under two hundred strong. In addition to
their ornaments of bead and shell and bone, their pierced ears and
nostrils were burdened with safety-pins, wire nails, metal hair-pins,
rusty iron handles of cooking utensils, and the patent keys for opening
corned beef tins. Some wore penknives clasped on their kinky locks for
safety. On the chest of one a china door-knob was suspended, on the
chest of another the brass wheel of an alarm clock.
Facing them, clinging to the railing of the veranda for support, stood
the sick white man. Any one of them could have knocked him over
with the blow of a little finger. Despite his firearms, the gang could
have rushed him and delivered that blow, when his head and the
plantation would have been theirs. Hatred and murder and lust for
revenge they possessed to overflowing. But one thing they lacked, the
thing that he possessed, the flame of mastery that would not quench,
that burned fiercely as ever in the disease- wasted body, and that was
ever ready to flare forth and scorch and singe them with its ire.
"Narada! Billy!" Sheldon called sharply.
Two men slunk unwillingly forward and waited.
Sheldon gave the keys of the handcuffs to a house-boy, who went under
the house and loosed the prisoner.
"You fella Narada, you fella