Chapter II

“Taleka is an outlier of the New Hebrides, a long run from ’Frisco, but we never bothered about time in those days. We never bothered about anything much. We hadn’t been out a week when I said one night to Slane, ‘Buck,’ said I, ‘s’pose one of those crackers took it into its head to go off, being screwed too tight?’ ‘If it did,’ said Buck, ‘the whole two thousand would go bang and the cartridges would follow soot; if one of them crackers fructified before its time next minute you’d be sitting on a cloud playing a harp, or helping stoke Gehenna, don’t make any mistake about that.’ We left it so. We never bothered about anything those days as long as the grub was up to time and not spoiled in the cooking.

“We touched at Honolulu and had a look round and then we let out, passing Howland and the Ellices, raising Taleka forty-five days out from ’Frisco.

“It’s a big brute of a high island and away to s’uth’ard of it you can see Mauriri, another big island forty-five or fifty miles away.

“There’s no reef round Taleka, but there are reefs enough to north and west and a big line of rock to s’uth’ard that doesn’t show in calm weather, only now and again when the swell gets too steep and then you’ll see an acre of foam show up all at once. Rotten coast, all but the east side, where a bay runs in between the cliffs and you get a beach of hard sand.

“We dropped anchor in twenty-five fathoms close to the beach. There were canoes on the beach, but not a sign of a native; the cliffs ran up to the sky either side, with the trees growing smaller and smaller, and out from near the top of the cliff to starboard a waterfall came dancing down like the tail of a white horse and that was all; there was no wind scarcely ever there and the water between the cliffs was like a black lake. I tell you that place was enough to give you the jim-jams, more especial when you knew that you were being watched all the time by hundreds of black devils ready to do you in.

“We fired a gun and the echoes blazed out like a big battle going on and then fizzled off among the hills where you’d think chaps were pot-shotting each other. Then the silence went on just as if it hadn’t been broken, and Slane, who’d got a pretty short temper when he was crossed, spat into the harbour and swore at Sru.

“Then he ordered up a case of guns and a box of ammunition, and he and me and Taute rowed ashore with them, beaching the boat and dumping the guns and ammunition on the sand.

“We took the guns out of the case and laid them out side by side same as if they’d been in a shop window, then we opened the ammunition box and exposed the cartridges.

“It was a sight no murder-loving Kanaka could stand and presently out from a valley a bit up beyond the anchorage comes a chap with the biggest belly I’ve ever seen on one man. He had slits in his ears and a tobacco pipe stuck through one of the slits, nothing on him but a gee string and eyes that looked like gimlet holes into hell. I never did see such a chap before or since. It was Sru himself, and he was followed by half a hundred of his tribe, every man armed with an old Snider or a spear, or sometimes both.

“I saw Taute shivering as he looked at Sru, then he bucked up and took heart, seeing that Sru wasn’t armed and was coming for guns, not fighting.

“Then the palaver began, the Kanakas squatting before the gun cases and Slane showing them the Winchesters whilst Taute did the talking. Scudder had been there all right the year before and had measured up Sru and his wants and his paying capacity to a T. He had the gold, brass-yellow Australian sovereigns and British sovereigns got from God knows where, but sovereigns right enough with Victoria’s head on them, for he showed us a fistful, and it was only a question of whether Sru would pay six thousand dollars for our cargo. He wanted to make it four, then he gave in, and we put back in the boat to have the stuff broken out of the hold.

“Knowing the sort of chap Sru was we ought to have made him bring the money on board before a single case was landed, but we were young to the trade and too straight to think another chap crooked, so we didn’t. We let the canoes come alongside and there we hung watching naked Kanakas all shiny with sweat handing overboard the boxes, six guns to a box, to say nothing of the cartridge cases.

“We put off with the last case and then we sat waiting on the beach for our money.

“The Kanakas with the last of the cases turned up into the valley, and when they were gone you couldn’t hear a sound in that place but the noise of the waterfall up among the trees and now and then the sea moving on the beach.

“The water came into that bay as I’ve never seen it come anywhere else. It would be a flat calm, and then, for no reason at all, it would heave up and sigh on the sand and fall quiet again like the bosom of a pious woman in a church.

“There we sat waiting for our money and watching the _Greyhound_ as she swung to her moorings with a Chink fishing over the rail.

“‘What do you think of Sru,’ says Buck at last.

“‘Well, I don’t think he’s a beauty,’ I says, and then talk fizzled out and there we sat waiting for our money and chucking stones in the water.

“I’ve told you there were canoes on the beach when we came in, but after the guns had been brought ashore the canoes had been taken round the bend of the bay, and as we sat there waiting for our money there was no one on that flat beach but our two selves and the Chink who’d helped us to row ashore, the boat was beached close to us and only waiting to be shoved off.

“I says to Buck, ‘Say, Buck,’ I says, ‘suppose old Johnny Sru takes it into his woolly head to stick to the dollars as well as the guns, what are you going to do then?’

“‘Don’t be supposing things,’ says Buck. ‘Sru’s no beauty, maybe, but he’s a gentleman. All savages are gentlemen if you treat them square.’

“‘Where did you get that dope from?’ I asks him.

“‘Oh,’ he says, ‘I don’t know,’ he says, ‘one place or another, but mainly from books.’

“‘Well,’ I says, ‘I’m not much given to book reading, but I hope you’re right, anyway.’

“No sooner were the words out of my mouth than the Chink by the boat gives a yell. I looked up and saw a big rock skipping down hill to meet us. It wasn’t as big as a church, but it seemed to me, looking up, there was many a Methodist chapel smaller; shows you how the eyes magnify things when a chap’s frightened, for it wasn’t more than ten ton all told judging by its size when it hit the target.

“It missed us by six foot and hit the Chink. We couldn’t get him out from under it seeing he was flattened as flat as a sheet of paper and we hadn’t more than got the boat pushed off when down came another and hit the place where we’d been sitting waiting for our money and talking of all savages being gentlemen if you treated them square.

“The chaps above have got the range, but they weren’t wasting ammunition, for as soon as we lit the firing ceased.

“I never did see a chap in a bigger temper than Buck. He went white, and when an Irishman goes white, look out for what’s coming.

“We got aboard and got the boat in, and then we took our seats on the hatch combing and had Taute along for a council of war.

“Taute had chummed up with Sru’s men and a couple of the Marys whilst the unloading was going on, and he’d found out that Sru wanted the guns for an attack on Mauriri, the big island to the s’uth’ard.

“Tiaki was the chief man on Mauriri, and he and Sru had been at it for years, the two islands hitting each other whenever they could, sinking fishing canoes and so on, but never a big battle. They were too evenly matched and knew it. But those Winchesters would make all the difference, so Taute said and we didn’t doubt him.

“Buck, when he’d sucked this in, sits biting his nails. The sun had set by now and the stars were thick overhead and it came to the question of getting out against the breeze and tide or sticking till the morning when the land wind would give us a lift. Taute gave it as his opinion we’d be safe enough for the night. Sru didn’t want our ship, and the Kanakas had got it into their thick heads that when a ship was raided and the crew murdered in those parts, somehow or another, a British cruiser would turn up maybe months later and make trouble, which was the truth. So we let the anchor lie in the mud and we sat down to supper that night as calm as if we weren’t sitting on a hive of hornets that any minute might let out with their stings.

“Middle of supper, Buck hits the table a welt with his fist.

“‘I’ve got the blighter,’ says he.

“‘Who?’ says I.

“‘Sru,’ says he. ‘I’ve got him by the short hairs and if I don’t make him squeal, my name’s not Buck Slane.’

“I didn’t see his meaning, and said so, telling him straight out that we’d better take our gruel and let Sru alone, that we’d been fools to let him have the stuff without the cash brought on to the beach and that we’d only get broken heads by trying to fight him.

“‘I ain’t going to fight him,’ says Buck.

“‘Who is, then?’ says I.

“‘Tiaki,’ says Buck.

“‘That chap over at Mauriri?’ I questions.

“‘The same,’ says him.

“‘But look here,’ I says, ‘how in the nation are you going to ginger him up to fight Sru seeing that he’s been holding off for years and seeing that Sru has got those Winchesters? What would he fight him with?’

“‘Fish crackers,’ says Buck.

“That hit me on the head like an apple. I’d got the durned things so connected with fish in my mind that I’d clean forgot to think that they could be used against humans, more especial by Kanakas used to throwing spears and things all their lives. Then Buck opens up his plan which was simple enough. It would take Tiaki’s men eight or ten hours paddling in their canoes to reach Taleka. If they started at four o’clock in the afternoon they’d make the island by two next morning, then, crawling up that valley they could fall on Sru’s village and bomb it to pieces before daybreak. Bloodthirsty, wasn’t it? But Buck was out for blood, the Irish was raised in him and he didn’t care a cent what happened or what he paid so long as Sru got his gruel.

“‘But look here,’ I said, ‘it’s all very well talking, but Winchesters are Winchesters. Do you propose to start Tiaki on this stunt and not tell him what he’s up against?’

“‘Oh, Lord, no,’ says Buck. ‘Hope I’m a gentleman—besides, that’s what will make him fight. When he knows Sru has got the arms to attack him, he’ll do the attacking first, unless he’s a fool.’

“‘All right,’ says I, and we left it at that.