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noise?"
"Him fella Koho finish along two fella bullamacow," the black answered,
drawing a forefinger significantly across his throat.
"He's knifed the cows," Grief said. "That means no more milk for some
time for you, Worth. I'll see about sending a couple up from Ugi."
Wallenstein proved inconsolable, until Denby, coming ashore, confessed
to the dose of essence of mustard. Thereat the German Resident became
even cheerful, though he twisted his yellow mustache up more fiercely and
continued to curse the Solomons with oaths culled from four languages.
Next morning, visible from the masthead of the Wonder, the bush was
alive with signal-smokes. From promontory to promontory, and back
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71
through the solid jungle, the smoke-pillars curled and puffed and talked.
Remote villages on the higher peaks, beyond the farthest raids McTavish
had ever driven, joined in the troubled conversation. From across the river
persisted a bedlam of conches; while from everywhere, drifting for miles
along the quiet air, came the deep, booming reverberations of the great
war-drums huge tree trunks, hollowed by fire and carved with tools of
stone and shell.
"You're all right as long as you stay close," Grief told his manager. "I've
got to get along to Guvutu. They won't come out in the open and attack
you. Keep the work-gangs close. Stop the clearing till this blows over.
They'll get any detached gangs you send out. And, whatever you do, don't
be fooled into going into the bush after Koho. If you do, he'll get you. All
you've got to do is wait for McTavish. I'll send him up with a bunch of his
Malaita bushmen. He's the only man who can go inside. Also, until he
comes, I'll leave Denby with you. You don't mind, do you, Mr. Denby? I'll
send McTavish up with the Wanda, and you can go back on her and rejoin
the Wonder. Captain Ward can manage without you for a trip."
"It was just what I was going to volunteer," Denby answered. "I never
dreamed all this muss would be kicked up over a joke. You see, in a way I
consider myself responsible for it."
"So am I responsible," Wallenstein broke in.
"But I started it," the supercargo urged.
"Maybe you did, but I carried it along."
"And Koho finished it," Grief said.
"At any rate, I, too, shall remain," said the German.
"I thought you were coming to Guvutu with me," Grief protested.
"I was. But this is my jurisdiction, partly, and I have made a fool of myself
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in it completely. I shall remain and help get things straight again."
V
At Guvutu, Grief sent full instructions to McTavish by a recruiting ketch
which was just starting for Malaita. Captain Ward sailed in the Wonder for
the Santa Cruz Islands; and Grief, borrowing a whaleboat and a crew of
black prisoners from the British Resident, crossed the channel to
Guadalcanar, to examine the grass lands back of Penduffryn.
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Three weeks later, with a free sheet and a lusty breeze, he threaded the
coral patches and surged up the smooth water to Guvutu anchorage. The
harbour was deserted, save for a small ketch which lay close in to the
shore reef. Grief recognized it as the Wanda. She had evidently just got in
by the Tulagi Passage, for her black crew was still at work furling the
sails. As he rounded alongside, McTavish himself extended a hand to help
him over the rail.
"What's the matter?" Grief asked. "Haven't you started yet?"
McTavish nodded. "And got back. Everything's all right on board."
"How's New Gibbon?"
"All there, the last I saw of it, barrin' a few inconsequential frills that a
good eye could make out lacking from the landscape."
He was a cold flame of a man, small as Koho, and as dried up, with a
mahogany complexion and small, expressionless blue eyes that were more
like gimlet-points than the eyes of a Scotchman. Without fear, without
enthusiasm, impervious to disease and climate and sentiment, he was lean
and bitter and deadly as a snake. That his present sour look boded ill news,
Grief was well aware.
"Spit it out!" he said. "What's happened?"
"'Tis a thing severely to be condemned, a damned shame, this joking with
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heathen niggers," was the reply. "Also, 'tis very expensive. Come below,
Mr. Grief. You'll be better for the information with a long glass in your
hand. After you."
"How did you settle things?" his employer demanded as soon as they were
seated in the cabin.
The little Scotchman shook his head. "There was nothing to settle. It all
depends how you look at it. The other way would be to say it was settled,
entirely settled, mind you, before I got there."
"But the plantation, man? The plantation?"
"No plantation. All the years of our work have gone for naught.'Tis back
where we started, where the missionaries started, where the Germans
started and where they finished. Not a stone stands on another at the
landing pier. The houses are black ashes. Every tree is hacked down, and
the wild pigs are rooting out the yams and sweet potatoes. Those boys
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73
from New Georgia, a fine bunch they were, five score of them, and they
cost you a pretty penny. Not one is left to tell the tale."
He paused and began fumbling in a large locker under the companion-
steps.
"But Worth? And Denby? And Wallenstein?"
"That's what I'm telling you. Take a look."
McTavish dragged out a sack made of rice matting and emptied its
contents on the floor. David Grief pulled himself together with a jerk, for
he found himself gazing fascinated at the heads of the three men he had
left at New Gibbon. The yellow mustache of Wallenstein had lost its fierce
curl and drooped and wilted on the upper lip.
"I don't know how it happened," the Scotchman's voice went on drearily.
"But I surmise they went into the bush after the old devil."
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"And where is Koho?" Grief asked.
"Back in the bush and drunk as a lord. That's how I was able to recover the
heads. He was too drunk to stand. They lugged him on their backs out of
the village when I rushed it. And if you'll relieve me of the heads, I'll be
well obliged." He paused and sighed. "I suppose they'll have regular
funerals over them and put them in the ground. But in my way of thinking
they'd make excellent curios. Any respectable museum would pay a
hundred quid apiece. Better have another drink. You're looking a bit
pale There, put that down you, and if you'll take my advice, Mr. Grief, I
would say, set your face sternly against any joking with the niggers. It
always makes trouble, and it is a very expensive divertissement."
A Little Account With Swithin Hall
(First published in The Saturday Evening Post, v. 184, September 2, 1911:
12-14, 40-41)
I
With a last long scrutiny at the unbroken circle of the sea, David Grief
swung out of the cross-trees and slowly and dejectedly descended the
ratlines to the deck.
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"Leu-Leu Atoll is sunk, Mr. Snow," he said to the anxious-faced young
mate. "If there is anything in navigation, the atoll is surely under the sea,
for we've sailed clear over it twice or the spot where it ought to be. It's
either that or the chronometer's gone wrong, or I've forgotten my
navigation."
"It must be the chronometer, sir," the mate reassured his owner. "You
know I made separate sights and worked them up, and that they agreed
with yours."
"Yes," Grief muttered, nodding glumly, "and where your Summer lines
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