The Red One | Page 2

face eloquent with fear, his back burdened with specimen cases, in his hands Bassett's
butterfly net and naturalist's shot-gun, as he quavered, in Beche-de-mer English: "Me
fella too much fright along bush. Bad fella boy, too much stop'm along bush."
Bassett smiled sadly at the recollection. The little New Hanover boy had been frightened,
but had proved faithful, following him without hesitancy into the bush in the quest after
the source of the wonderful sound. No fire-hollowed tree-trunk, that, throbbing war
through the jungle depths, had been Bassett's conclusion. Erroneous had been his next
conclusion, namely, that the source or cause could not be more distant than an hour's
walk, and that he would easily be back by mid-afternoon to be picked up by the Nari's
whale-boat.
"That big fella noise no good, all the same devil-devil," Sagawa had adjudged. And
Sagawa had been right. Had he not had his head hacked off within the day? Bassett
shuddered. Without doubt Sagawa had been eaten as well by the "bad fella boys too
much" that stopped along the bush. He could see him, as he had last seen him, stripped of
the shot-gun and all the naturalist's gear of his master, lying on the narrow trail where he
had been decapitated barely the moment before. Yes, within a minute the thing had
happened. Within a minute, looking back, Bassett had seen him trudging patiently along
under his burdens. Then Bassett's own trouble had come upon him. He looked at the
cruelly healed stumps of the first and second fingers of his left hand, then rubbed them
softly into the indentation in the back of his skull. Quick as had been the flash of the long
handled tomahawk, he had been quick enough to duck away his head and partially to
deflect the stroke with his up-flung hand. Two fingers and a hasty scalp-wound had been
the price he paid for his life. With one barrel of his ten- gauge shot-gun he had blown the
life out of the bushman who had so nearly got him; with the other barrel he had peppered
the bushmen bending over Sagawa, and had the pleasure of knowing that the major
portion of the charge had gone into the one who leaped away with Sagawa's head.
Everything had occurred in a flash. Only himself, the slain bushman, and what remained
of Sagawa, were in the narrow, wild-pig run of a path. From the dark jungle on either side
came no rustle of movement or sound of life. And he had suffered distinct and dreadful
shock. For the first time in his life he had killed a human being, and he knew nausea as he
contemplated the mess of his handiwork.
Then had begun the chase. He retreated up the pig-run before his hunters, who were
between him and the beach. How many there were, he could not guess. There might have
been one, or a hundred, for aught he saw of them. That some of them took to the trees and
travelled along through the jungle roof he was certain; but at the most he never glimpsed
more than an occasional flitting of shadows. No bow-strings twanged that he could hear;

but every little while, whence discharged he knew not, tiny arrows whispered past him or
struck tree-boles and fluttered to the ground beside him. They were bone-tipped and
feather shafted, and the feathers, torn from the breasts of humming-birds, iridesced like
jewels.
Once--and now, after the long lapse of time, he chuckled gleefully at the recollection--he
had detected a shadow above him that came to instant rest as he turned his gaze upward.
He could make out nothing, but, deciding to chance it, had fired at it a heavy charge of
number five shot. Squalling like an infuriated cat, the shadow crashed down through
tree-ferns and orchids and thudded upon the earth at his feet, and, still squalling its rage
and pain, had sunk its human teeth into the ankle of his stout tramping boot. He, on the
other hand, was not idle, and with his free foot had done what reduced the squalling to
silence. So inured to savagery has Bassett since become, that he chuckled again with the
glee of the recollection.
What a night had followed! Small wonder that he had accumulated such a virulence and
variety of fevers, he thought, as he recalled that sleepless night of torment, when the
throb of his wounds was as nothing compared with the myriad stings of the mosquitoes.
There had been no escaping them, and he had not dared to light a fire. They had literally
pumped his body full of poison, so that, with the coming of day, eyes swollen almost shut,
he had stumbled blindly on, not caring much when his head should