Carelessly picking up his rifle he strolled over to where his horse was standing, and placed the weapon on the ground. Then he came back, and, sitting on a rock in front of the convict, he leant his chin on his hand and looked him in the face.

"I'll tell you what I will do," he said quietly, "I shall take you to a place on the top of this bluff, make you a damper and a billy of tea, give you my blanket, and stay with you till daylight. Then I shall ride to Willeroo Station and return early the next morning with more provisions and some clothing and a razor—your beard is too long. And perhaps, too, I can get you a horse and saddle. Then, as soon as you are better, you can travel towards New South Wales. You speak English well, and New South Wales is the best place for you."

The Frenchman sprang to his feet, his face blanched to a deathly white, and his limbs trembled.

"Why do you—— who are you? Ah, my God—you know me!"

"Yes, I know you; sit down. You are Kellerman, but I will not betray you."

"You will not betray me?"

The anguished ring in his voice went to the overseer's heart, and rising he placed his hand on the convict's arm. "Sit down. I will give you a proof that I harbour no evil intentions to you." Then he walked away to where his Winchester lay, picked it up, and returning placed it in the convict's hands.

"In that rifle there are left twelve cartridges. I have thirty more in my saddle-pouch. They and the rifle are yours to defend yourself from the blacks on your way down the coast. If you use it against white men you will be a murderer."

Kellerman clutched the weapon convulsively for a moment, and his eyes flashed. Then he thought a moment.

"I promise you that I will not use it against a white man—even to save myself."

In less than an hour Monk had fixed the wounded man comfortably under the overhanging ledge of rock, boiled him some tea, and made him a damper, of which he ate ravenously. His wound troubled him but little, and as he lay on the overseer's blanket he talked freely of his past life. His earlier life had been spent in England and America. Then came the Franco-German war, and from America he had returned to France to take part in the struggle, and when the dark days of the Commune fell upon Paris, Kellerman was one of its warmest adherents, and paid the penalty with worse than death—he was sentenced to transportation for life. His only relatives were a brother and a sister, both of whom were little more than children when he was transported.

Monk listened with deep interest, and then bade him try and sleep. The Frenchman at once laid his head upon his pillow of leaves and was soon slumbering. At dawn Monk rose and saddled his horse; then, making some fresh tea, he was about to bid his companion goodbye till the following morning when Kellerman asked him if he had a pencil and paper with him.

The overseer pulled out an old pocket-book which he used when out mustering cattle to note down the brands of any strange cattle on Willeroo run.

"Before you go, my friend, I want you to write down something in that book," said the convict. "Do you know a little creek about fifteen miles from here?"

"Yes, I do; there is a lot of heavy timber on it, pretty fer up."

"Exactly. Now, there is gold in the headwaters of that creek, and it has not yet been prospected by anybody, except myself. And if I had had a dish with me I could have washed out ten, twenty, aye, thirty ounces a day. It is easy to get. I lived on the headwaters of that creek for six weeks. Then the water dried up, but still I got gold. But thirst drove me away, and knowing these native wells were here I made up my mind to come and camp on this hill till rain fell; and, but for you, I would now be being eaten in a blacks' camp. Now, write as I tell you. You must work that creek, my friend, and send me some share of all the gold you get. If I am dead you must seek out my brother and sister. No, no; to-morrow may never come; write now."

Then he gave Monk explicit directions as to the locality of a particularly rich "pocket," which the overseer wrote carefully down.

The sun had just risen when Monk, bidding the convict goodbye, turned to lead his horse down the hill. Suddenly he stopped, and, walking back, he carefully put out the fire.

"You need have no fear from blacks," he said, "but there is a detachment of native police at Willa Willa, thirty-five miles from here, inland. Possibly they may be out on patrol now, and if so, might come to the wells to water their horses. Therefore it is best to take precautions, though you are safe out of sight up here."

"Thanks, my good friend," said the Frenchman, with a sigh, as he laid his head upon his pillow again.

Once more filling his water-bag at the wells, the overseer mounted, and, pushing through the scrub, soon emerged upon the open beach, and struck into a canter. Suddenly he pulled up sharply—a number of horse tracks were visible on the hard, dark sand, just above water-mark, and leading round the back of the bluff. Turning his horse's head he followed cautiously.

"It must be Jackson and his black troopers," he muttered; "and, by heavens, they have gone through the back scrub to get to the top of the bluff!"

For some minutes he hesitated as to the best course to pursue, when suddenly he heard a voice from the summit above him, "Surrender in the Queen's name!" There was a moment's silence, then he heard a laugh.

"Peste! I could shoot you all if I cared to, Mr. Officer, but, being a fool, I will not break a promise to a friend." Then the sharp crack of a rifle rang out.

Spurring his horse through the scrub, Monk dashed over the rough ground and up the hill. In front of the cave were a sub-inspector of black police, a white sergeant, and eight black troopers. They were looking at Kellerman, who lay on the ground with a bullet through his heart—dead.

"Confound the fellow!" grumbled the sergeant; "if I'd ha' known he meant to play us a trick like that I'd ha' rushed in on him. I wonder how he managed it? I could only see his head."

"Leant on the muzzle and touched the trigger with his naked toe, you fool!" replied his superior officer, sharply.

*****

Twelve months afterward Monk left North Queensland a rich man, and went to Europe, and spent quite a time in France, prosecuting certain inquiries. When he returned to Australia he brought with him a French wife; and all that his Australian lady friends could discover about her was that her maiden name was Kellerman.



EMA, THE HALF-BLOOD



I.

For nearly ten miles on each side of old Jack Swain's trading station on Drummond's Island,{*} the beach trended away in a sweeping curve, unbroken in its monotony except where some dark specks on the bright yellow sand denoted the canoes of a little native village, carried down to the beach in readiness for the evening's flying-fish catching.

* One of the lately annexed Gilbert Group in the South Pacific.

Perhaps of all the thousands of islands that stud the bosom of the North Pacific, from the Paumotus to the Pelews, the Kingsmill and Gilbert Islands are the most uninviting and monotonous in appearance.

The long, endless lines of palms, stretching from one end of an island to the other, present no change or variation in their appearance till, as is often the case, the narrow belt of land on which they so luxuriously thrive becomes, perhaps, but fifty yards in width, and the thick matted undergrowth of creepers that prevail in the wider parts of the island gives place to a barren expanse of wind-swept sand, which yet, however, supports some scattered thousand-rooted palms against the sweeping gusts from the westward in the rainy season, and the steady strain of the southeast trades for the rest of the year.

In such spots as these, where the wild surf on the windward side of the island sometimes leaps over the short, black reef, shelving out abruptly from the shore, and sweeps through the scanty groves of palm and pandanus trees, and, in a frothy, roaring flood, pours across the narrow landbelt into the smooth waters of the lagoon, a permanent channel is made, dry at low water, but running with a swift current when the tide is at flood.

*****

Within an hour's walk from the old trader's house there were many such places, for although Drummond's Island—or Taputeauea, as its wild people call it—is full forty miles in length, it is for the most part so narrow that one can, in a few minutes, walk across from the ceaseless roar and tumult of the surf on the ocean reef to the smooth, sandy inner beach of the lagoon.

Unlike other islands of the group, Drummond's is not circular in its formation, but is merely a long, narrow palm-clad strip of sand, protected from the sea on its leeward side, not by land, but by a continuous sweep of reef, contracted to the shore at the northern end, and widening out to a distance of ten or more miles at its southern extremity. Within this reef the water is placid as a mill-pond.

The day had been very hot, and as the fierce yellow sun blazed westward into the tumbling blue of the sailless ocean, a girl came out from the thick undergrowth fringing the weather-bank of the island, and, walking quietly over the loose slabs of coral covering the shore, made her way towards a narrow channel through which the flowing tide was swiftly sweeping.

Just where the incoming swell of the foaming little breakers from the outer reef plashed up against the sides of the rocky channel, stood a huge coral boulder, and here the girl stopped, and clambering up its rough and jagged face sat down and began to roll a cigarette.

The name of the girl was Ema. She was the half-caste daughter of the old trader. She had come to bathe, but meant to wait awhile and see if some of the native girls from the nearest village, who might be passing along to her father's store, to buy goods or sell native produce, would join her. So, lighting her cigarette with a piece of burning coconut husk that she brought with, her, she spread the towel she carried upon the rock and waited, looking sometimes at the opposite side of the channel to where the path from the village led, and sometimes out to sea.

Somewhat short in stature, the old trader's daughter looked younger than she was, for she was about twenty—and twenty is an age in those tropic climes which puts a girl a long way out of girlhood.

No one would ever say that little Ema Swain was beautiful. She certainly was not. Her freckled face and large mouth "put her out of court," as Captain Peters would sometimes say to his mate. (Captain Peters frequently came to Drummond's, and he and Etna's father would get drunk on such occasions with uniform regularity.) But wait till you spoke to her, and then let her eyes meet yours, and you would forget all about the big mouth and the freckles; and when she smiled it was with such an innocent sweetness that made a man somehow turn away with a feeling in his heart that no coarse passion had ever ruffled her gentle bosom.

And her eyes. Ah! so different from those of most Polynesian half-blooded girls. Theirs, indeed, in most cases, are beautiful eyes; but there is ever in them a bold and daring challenge to a man they like that gives the pall of monotony to the brightness of a glance.

Nearly every white man who had ever seen Ema and heard the magical tones of her voice, or her sweet innocent laugh, was fascinated when she turned upon him those soft orbs that, beneath the long dark lashes, looked like diamonds floating in fluid crystal.

I said "nearly every white man," for sometimes men came to Jack Swain's house whose talk and manner, and unmistakable looks at her, made the girl's slight figure quiver and tremble with fear, and she would hide herself away in another room lest her father and brother might guess the terror that filled her tender bosom. For white-headed Jack was a passionate old fellow, and would have quickly invited any one who tried to harm the girl "to come outside"; Jim, her black-haired, morose and silent brother, would have driven a knife between the offender's ribs.

But the girl's merry, loving disposition would never let her tell her brother nor her father how she dreaded these visits of some of the rough traders from the other islands of the group to the house. Besides that, neither of them noticed Ema; for Jim always got as drunk as his father on such occasions of island harmony and foregathering of kindred spirits.

*****

So for the past ten years the girl had grown up amongst these savage surroundings—a fierce, turbulent, native race, delighting in deeds of bloodshed, and only tolerating the presence of her father among them because of his fair dealing and indomitable courage. In those far back, olden days, when the low sandy islands of the Equatorial Pacific were almost unknown (save to the few wandering white men who had cast their lives among their wild and ferocious inhabitants, and the crews of the American whaling fleet), no one but such a man as he would have dared to dwell alone among the intractable and warlike people of Drummond's Island.

But old Swain had lived for nearly forty years among the islands of the South Seas, roaming from one end of the Pacific to the other, and his bold nature was not one to be daunted. There was money to be made in those times in the oil trade; yet sometimes, when he lay upon his couch smoking his pipe, some vague idea would flit through his mind of going back to the world again and ending his days in civilisation.

But with the coming morning such thoughts would vanish. How could he, a man of sixty, he thought, give up the life he had led for forty years, and take to the ways of white men in some great city? And then there were Jim and Ema. Why, they would be worse off than he, poor things. Neither of them could read or write; no more could he—but then he knew something of the ways of white people, and they didn't. What would they do if he took them to the States, and he died there? No! it wouldn't do. They would all stay together. Jim would look after Em if he died. Yes, Jim would. He was a good boy, and very fond of Em. A good boy! Yes, of course he was, although he was a bit excitable when he came across any grog. He hadn't always been like that, though. Perhaps he learnt it aboard that man-o'-war.

And then the old trader, as he lay back on his rough couch, watching the curling smoke wreaths from his pipe ascend to the thatched roof, recalled to memory one day six years before, when the American cruiser Saginaw had anchored off the village of Utiroa, where Swain then lived, and a group of the officers from the war-ship had stood talking to him on the beach.

Beside him were his son and daughter; the boy staring curiously, but not rudely, at the uniformed officers, the girl, timid and shrinking, holding her father's hand.

"How old is your son?" the commander of the cruiser had asked him kindly; "and why don't you let him see something of the world? Such a fine young lad as he ought not to waste his life down here among these God-forsaken lagoons." And before the trader could frame a reply the boy had stepped out and answered for himself.

"I wan' to go away, sir. I has been two or three voyages in a whaler, sir, but I would like to go in a man-o'-war."

The grey-bearded captain laughed good-naturedly, but the kindly light in his eyes deepened as the girl, with an alarmed look, took her brother by the hand and sought to draw him back.

"Well, we'll talk about it presently, my lad. I don't think this little sister of yours would thank me for taking you away."

And, half an hour afterwards, as the rest of the officers strolled about the native village, the captain and old Jack did talk the matter over, and the end of it was that the stalwart young half-caste was entered on the ship's books, and at sunset Ema and her father saw the cruiser spread her canvas, and then sail away to the westward.

In five years or so Jim would be free to return home again, unless he preferred to remain in the service altogether.

*****

Three years passed, and then, one day, a Hawaiian trading schooner swept round the north end of the island, her white sails bellying out to the lusty trades. A boat was lowered and pulled ashore, and the first man that jumped out of her on to the beach was Jim Swain.

Half-way between his father's house and the beach the old man met him.

"Well, I be darned! Why, Jim, what hez brought you back?"

"Got tired of it, dad," he answered, in his quiet way, but without meeting his father's eye. And then he added, "The fac' is, dad, I bolted from the Saginaw at Valparaiso. Now, don' ask me no more 'bout it."

"Right you are, my boy," said the trader, placidly; "but you'll have to get out o' the way if another cruiser comes along. But that isn't likely to happen for many a year. Come along and see Em. She'll jes' go dancin' mad when she sees you."

*****

For the next twelve months the father and daughter lived at Utiroa, and Jim voyaged to and fro among the islands of the group, returning every few months, and again sailing away on a fresh cruise; but never once had the old man asked him any further questions as to his reasons for deserting from the Saginaw. But Em, gentle-hearted Em, knew.

One bright morning there came in sight a lofty-sparred ship, with snow-white canvas, sailing at a distance of two miles from the shore along the reef, from the south end of the island, and Ema Swain rousing her brother from his mid-day slumber, with terror in her eyes, pointed seaward.

Taking his father's glass from the bracket on the wall in the sitting-room, the half-caste walked out of the house to a spot where he could obtain a clear view of the ship. For a minute or so he gazed steadily, then lowered the glass.

"A man-o'-war, Em, right enough; but I don' think she's an American. I'll wait a bit until she gets closer."

"No, no, Jim! What you run such risk for? You go, Jim." And then, in her trembling fear, their mother's tongue came to her aid, and the agitated girl dragged him back into the house, imploring him in the native language to yield to her wishes.

In another two hours they were sailing down the lagoon in the old trader's whaleboat towards a place of safety, for Utiroa was, they knew, the only spot where a man-of-war would anchor.

But long before they reached the village for which they were bound they saw the great ship slowly change her course and bear away to the westward, and leave the low, sandy island astern.

A long, steady look at her told the sailor eye of Jim Swain that he had nothing to fear, even had she kept on and anchored at Utiroa.

"All right, Em," he said, with a low laugh, "we had no need to be scared; she's a Britisher. That's the Tagus. I see her 'bout a year ago at Samoa." And then he hauled the boat to the wind and beat back to his father's place.

And so time went by, and the haunting fear of discovery that for the first year or so after his return to the island had so often made the young half-caste start up in his sleep with a wild alarm in his heart when the cry of "Te Kaibuke!"{*} resounded from village to village, slowly died away.

* "A ship!"



II.

Nearly an hour had passed since the girl had left her father's house, and now, as the sun dipped into the ocean, the flowing tide swept through the narrow channel in little waves of seething foam, and Ema, with one last look at the path on the opposite side, descended to the beach, and throwing off her loose bodice of blue print and her short skirt, tied around her waist a native waist-girdle of yellow grass, and stepped into the cold waters of the channel.

For some few minutes she laved herself, singing softly the while to herself as is customary with many Polynesian native women when bathing, when suddenly, through the humming drone of the beating surf on the windward reef, she heard the sound or voices.

"Ah!" she said to herself, "now I will wait and startle these girls from Tabeaue as they come along." And so she sank low down in the water, so that only her dark head showed above the surface.

But amid the sound of native voices she heard the unfamiliar tones of white men, and in an instant she sprang to the shore, and, seizing her clothes, fled to the shelter of the boulder.

In a minute she had dressed herself, and was peering out through the fast-gathering darkness at a group of figures she could just discern on the opposite side of the channel. They had halted, and the girl could hear the natives in the party discussing means as to getting the white men across, for the water was now deep, and the current was swirling through the narrow pass with great velocity.

There were in the party some eight or ten natives and nearly as many white men; and these latter, the girl could see, were in uniform, and carried arms; for presently one of them, who stood a little apart from the others, struck a light and lit a cheroot, and she caught the gleam of musket-barrels in the hands of those who were grouped in the rear.

Wondering how it came about that armed white men were searching through the island at such an hour, the girl was about to call out to the natives—some of whom she recognised—not to attempt the passage without a canoe, when she heard the sound of oars, and looking across the darkening waters of the lagoon she saw a boat, filled with men, pulling rapidly along in the direction of Utiroa.

When just abreast of the passage they ceased rowing, and a figure stood in the stern, and hailed the shore party.

"Are you there, Mr. Fenton?"

"Yes," answered the man who had struck the light. "Come in here, Adams, and take us across. There is a channel here, and though I guess it is not very deep, the current is running like a mill-race."

Still crouching behind the coral boulder the girl saw the boat row in to the shore, a little distance further down, so as to escape the swirling eddies of the passage.

As the man-o'-war cutter—for such was the boat—touched the rocks, a lantern was held up, and by its light the girl saw a short, stout man step out on to the beach and walk up to the officer in charge of the shore party.

"Ah, Adams, is that you? Well, this is a devil of a place. We have crossed at least half a dozen of these cursed gutters, and thought to have crossed this one too, without trouble, but the tide is coming in fast. However, it's the last one—at least so this infernal hang-dog looking native guide tells me. So the sooner we get across in the cutter and get this man-hunting business over the better I'll like it."

"Aye, aye, sir!" answered the man he had addressed as Adams. "It won't take us much longer, I guess. Not a canoe has passed us going down the coast, so we are pretty sure to catch him at home."

"That is what this truculent scoundrel says," and the officer nodded in the direction of a native who had seated himself on the ground only a few yards distant from the rock behind which the girl was hidden. "He tells me that young Swain came home about a week ago from Maiana"—another island of the group—"and the old man induced him to stay at home and help him rig a new boat he has just built."

"We'll catch him, sir," answered Adams, confidently.

Clutching the side of the rough boulder in an agony of terror, the girl saw the two men turn away, and, followed by the rest of the shore party, natives and all, walk down to the boat. Then, standing upright, she watched them get in and the cutter shove off.

That they were in search of her brother she was now only too certain, and dreading that the boat would land the shore party again on her side of the channel and she be discovered and prevented from giving the alarm, she sprang over the loose slabs of coral that strewed the shore between the water and the coconut palms, and fled along the night-enshrouded path towards her father's house.

Ere she had gained the level ground the clattering sound made by the displaced coral stones reached the ears of those in the boat, which was instantly headed for shore, and the officer, with eight or ten bluejackets, leapt out and, led by the native guides, followed in swift pursuit.



III.

Within the trader's house the father and son sat smoking in silence, waiting for the girl's return. A coconut-oil lamp, placed in the centre of a table, showed that the evening meal was in readiness.

"Em's a powerful long time, Jim," said the old man, rising from his seat, and, going to the door, he looked through the serried vista of the palm trunks which showed white and ghostly in the darkness.

"Aye," said Jim, "she is. I'll give her a call."

Just beside the doorway lay a huge conch shell, such as is used by the people of the Equatorial islands either as a summons to assemble or a call to one person only, and the stalwart young half-caste, taking it up, placed the perforated end to his lips and blew a loud, booming note.

A wild clamour of alarm answered the call, and a swarm of noddies and terns, roosting in countless thousands among a thicket of pandanus palms near by, slid from their perches, and with frightened croak and flapping wing whirled and circled around the trader's house, then vanished in the darkness ere the echoes of the conch had died away.

"That'll bring her, Jim," said the old man, turning to the lamp and pricking up the wick with his knife.

Silent Jim nodded.

"Yes, she's comin' now. I can hear her runnin'."

They heard her footsteps over the dead palm branches which strewed the path, and in a few seconds more, with a gasping sob of terror, the girl sprang into the room and almost fell at her brother's feet as she clasped her arms around his neck.

"Ha!" and old Swain, seizing a loaded musket from a number that stood in a corner of the room, stepped to the door. "Jus' what I thought would happen one of these days. Some o' them flash native bucks from the south end has been frightenin' o' her. Quick, Em, who was it?"

For a moment or so the exhausted girl strove to speak in vain, but at last she found her voice.

"No, father, no. But Jim, Jim, it is you they want! Come, Jim, quick, quick! They very close now."

"What in thunder are you talkin' 'bout, Em? An' who wants Jim?" And then, turning to his son, he asked, "Have you been a-thumpin' any o' those south-end natives lately, Jim?"

"No, no," said the girl, rising to her feet, and endeavouring to speak calmly; "you don' know, father. But Jim must go, an' you an' me mus' stay here. Quick, quick, for God's sake, dear, go out at the back an' cross to the windwar' side. Plenty place there for you to hide, Jim, for two or tree day."

A savage light came into the half-caste's eyes, as with an abrupt yet tender gesture he placed his huge brown hand on his sister's curly head; then, without a word, he seized a musket and cutlass, and with a farewell wave of his hand to the wondering old man, opened the door at the back of the house and disappeared among the pandanus thicket.

Leaning his musket against the wall, the old man poured some water into a cup and, putting his arm round the trembling figure of the girl, placed it to her lips.

"Here, take a drink, Em, an' then tell me what all this here means. What's the boy been a doin', an' who's after him?"

With shaking fingers the girl raised the cup to her lips and drank; then, with terror-filled eyes, she placed her hand upon his knee.

"Listen."

"Thar's nothin' outside, Em. What in the worl' has scared ye so, gal?"

"Don' you ask now, father. I carn' tell you now. Jes' you listen; don' you hear people a comin'? Don' you hear people a talkin'?" she answered.

For half a minute they waited and listened, but no sound broke upon the stillness of the island night save the ceaseless hum of the surf, and the quick panting breaths of the girl.

"'Taint nothing, Em, on'y the surf a poundin' on the reef."

"P'raps they're all a comin' in the boat. Dad, there's a lot o' man-o'-war men comin' for Jim. I was bathin', and I heerd 'em talkin'. They'll kill him, dad, if they gets him. Niban, that native that Jim gave a beatin' to onst, was showin' 'em the way here—an' I runned and runned——"

A half-stifled shriek escaped her as she sprang to her feet.

There was a sudden rush of booted feet and the clank of steel. Then a voice rang out—

"Keep your men close up to the back of the house, Adams."

Forcing his trembling daughter down upon her seat, the trader, placing his pipe in his mouth, lit it, and advanced to the open door, to meet, face to face, an officer in the uniform of the American navy.

"Stand back, sir!" and the officer pointed a pistol at the trader's breast; but as the light of the lamp fell upon the old man's wrinkled features and snow-white hair, he lowered his weapon to his side.

"What might your business be, sir, and why are you and your men a-comin' inter my house at night time, an' pointin' a pistol at me?"

Then, still eyeing the officer, he stepped backward, and placed his arm protectingly around his daughter's shoulder.

"Stay outside till I call you, Williams," said the officer, turning to a leading seaman, who, with drawn cutlass, had followed him inside.

Then he came into the room.

"Who else have you here with you?" he began, when he stopped suddenly in his speech, and raised his cap. "This girl is your daughter, I suppose?"

"My daughter, sir. But what is your business, I ask again? What may you want here, anyway?"

The angry light in the old man's eyes, and the sharp tone of his voice, called the officer to his duty.

"I am sorry to be here, Mr. Swain; but be good enough to ask your daughter to leave us alone for a minute or two. My business is such that I can tell it better to you alone."

At a sign from her father the girl rose from her seat and reluctantly walked into her room. The officer watched her retreating figure disappear, then he turned sharply round on his heel.

"I am a lieutenant on the United States ship Adirondack and my business is to arrest a man named James Swain, a deserter from the Saginaw and a murderer as well."

Even in the dim light of the rude lamp the officer saw the rugged bronze of the old trader's face pale to a deathly whiteness, and he leant one hand upon the table to steady himself.

"That's a kinder surprise to me, sir. An' I doesn't believe it, nohow. A deserter my boy Jim might be; but I won't allow he's murdered any one. Maybe you mean he killed a man in a fair fight?"

"I cannot talk this over with you, old man. My orders are to arrest James Swain. He is here, I know; and although it is a painful duty for me to fulfil, you must stand aside and let that duty be done."

"You can look for him, sir; but I can tell you that you won't diskiver him here."

"We shall see about that." And the officer, walking to the door, called out, "Come in, Williams, and search the place. Use no violence, but if the man we want, or any other person in the house, resists, make short work of it."

With a dozen men at his heels, Williams entered the house, and the officer, taking his stand at the back door, leant against it, pistol in hand.

There were but three rooms in the trader's house—the sitting-room, which was also used as a sleeping room by the old man and his son; the trade room, or store; and Ema Swain's bedroom. The first two were at once entered and searched, and in a few minutes Williams, the boatswain's mate, reported that the man they sought for was not there.

"There is but one more room, sir," said old Swain, quietly, from his seat at the table. "Ema, come out, and let these men look in your room." And he glanced defiantly at the officer.

Calmly and quietly she walked into the front room, and, sitting down beside her father, looked on. But although she was outwardly so calm, the girl's heart was beating nigh to bursting, for she had overheard Williams tell one of the bluejackets that some of Adams' men had, long before the main body approached, formed a complete line of guards on both sides of the house, extending from the inner lagoon beach right across the island, which, at this place, was not a quarter of a mile in width. And the girl knew that at the unguarded open ends on either side there was no chance of concealment, for there the coast rose steep-to from the sea, and was bare of verdure.

Presently the boatswain, with two or three bluejackets, re-entered the room.

"There's no place in the girl's room, sir, where a man could hide. He must have cleared out, sir, long before we reached her. I guess that that noise we heard crossing the channel was made by him. I think he's just doubled on us and made down for the south end of the island."

Pressing her father's hand warningly, the girl fixed her dark, dreamy eyes on the officer and spoke.

"Yes, that true. My brother he ran away long time before boat come up. Some one been tell him that 'Merican man-o'-war anchor down at south end. So he run away."

The officer, with an exclamation of disgust, put his pistol back in his belt.

"That lying scoundrel of a native has just fooled us nicely, Williams. Sound a call for Adams and his men to come back, and let us get back to the cutter. We'll have to begin the search again to-morrow."

The boatswain's mate had just stepped outside and placed his whistle to his lips, when the thundering report of a heavy musket-shot echoed through the air. Then silence for a few seconds, followed by the sharper sounds of the rifles of the American bluejackets.

Before any one could stay her Ema Swain darted through the guard of blue-jackets at the door, and disappeared in the direction of the sound of firing; and almost immediately afterwards the officer and his party followed.

But ere Lieutenant Fenton and his men had advanced more than a hundred yards or so into the gloomy shadows of the palm-grove, he called a halt, as the sound of voices came through the gloom.

"Is that you, Adams?" he called.

"Yes, sir," answered a voice from a little distance; "we've got him; he ran right into us; but before we could catch him he shot the native guide through the body."

In a few minutes Adams's party joined that of the officer, and then in silence, with their prisoner in their midst, they marched back to the trader's house.

"Bring the prisoner inside, Adams," said Lieutenant Fenton, briefly.

With hands handcuffed behind his back and a seaman on each side, Jim Swain was marched inside his father's house. A bullet had ploughed through his left cheek, and he was bleeding profusely.

"Stand aside, old man," and the officer held up a warning hand to old Jack. "It is folly for you to attempt to interfere."

And then a blue-jacket, almost as old as the trader himself, placed himself between father and son.

Taking a paper from his pocket the officer read it to himself, glancing every now and then at the prisoner.

"He's the man, sure enough," he muttered. "Poor devil!" Then turning to the man Adams, he asked—"Are you absolutely certain that this is the man, Adams?"

"Certain, sir. That is the man who murdered the boatswain of the Saginaw. I took particular notice of him when I served in her, because of his colour and size, and his sulky temper."

"Jim," broke in the old man's voice, quaveringly, "you haven't murdered any one, hev' you?"

The half-caste raised his dark, lowering face and looked at his father, and for a moment or so he breathed heavily.

"Yes, dad. I killed th' man. We had a muss in Valparaiso, an' I knifed him."

Old Swain covered his face with his hands and sank into a seat, and then Lieutenant Fenton walked over to him and placed a kindly hand on his shoulder. Then he withdrew it quickly.

"I have a hard duty, Swain, and the sooner it is over the better. I am ordered to arrest your son, James Swain, for the crime of murder and for deserting from his ship. He will be taken to San Francisco. Whatever you wish to say to him, do so now. In another ten minutes we must be on our way to the ship, and there will be no further opportunity for you to see him."

"Aye, aye, sir," said the old man, huskily, and rising he walked slowly over to his manacled son, and put his trembling hand on his arm.

"You will excuse me, sir, if I talk to him in the native lingo."

Fenton nodded, motioned to the seamen who stood beside the prisoner to move away, and then walked to the further end of the room.

"Jim," said the old trader, quickly, speaking in the native language, "what's to be done? I have only got to send a native along the beach with the shell{*} and we shall have you away from these people in no time."

{*} The conch shell.

"No, no, father, even if every one of them was killed it would do no good. An' they would never let me be taken away from them alive. It is no use, father, to try that. But"—and here he bent his head forward—"if I could free my hands I would make a dash—and be shot. I swear I shall never be hanged. Father, where is Em? I would like to see her before I go."

"She runned away, boy," said the old man, brokenly, and speaking in English; "runned away, jes' as soon as she heerd the firin'. She went to look for you, Jim. Heaven help the gal, Jim, when she comes back an' finds you gone."

For a little while longer they talked, and then Lieutenant Fenton came toward them, and Adams, at a sign from his superior, took the old trader by the arm, and with rough kindness forced him away from his son.

Suddenly, however, he dashed the seaman aside and sprang toward his son, but, strong and active as he was, he was no match for a man like Adams, who threw his arms around him and held him in a vice-like grip.

"That will do, mister," said old Jack, quietly. "I reckon I give in. Th' boy has got to go—an' thet's all about it, an' I ain't agoin' to try an' stop you from takin' him."

And then as the blue-jackets closed around him, Jim Swain turned.

"Goodbye, dad, and say goodbye to Em for me."

"Poor old man!" said Fenton to himself, as the party marched along the narrow, sandy track. "Hang me, if I wouldn't be pleased to see the fellow escape."

*****

The four men who were left in charge of the boat had sprung to their arms the moment they heard the sound of the firing, and for some time they scanned the dark outline of the shore with intense anxiety.

"I guess it's all right," said one of them at last. "I only heard three or four shots. Hullo! here they come along the beach. Shove in."

Tramp, tramp, along the hard sand the landing party marched, and a seaman in the boat, picking up a lantern, held it up to guide them.

Two hundred yards behind was Ema Swain, striving hard to catch up with them and see her brother for the last time in this world, she thought.



IV.

"Lift him in carefully," said Lieutenant Fenton, as the boat's bows touched the beach; "he seems pretty weak."

"Thank you, sir!" and the prisoner turned his dark eyes upon the officer. "I am nearly dropping. I got a hard hit in the chest with a musket butt from one of your men, sir."

A couple of men lifted him in, and then as soon as the rest of his people had taken their places the lieutenant followed.

"Push off, Gates."

As the heavy boat slid out from the shore into the still waters of the lagoon, the lieutenant glanced down at the manacled figure of his prisoner.

"Let him sit up, Adams, and take the irons off. He can't lie there like a trussed fowl; and see if one of you can't stop that bleeding."

Adams bent down, and unlocking the handcuffs lifted him up.

Then, quick as thought, Jim Swain, dashing him aside, sprang overboard and dived towards the shore.

"Quick! Show a light," said the officer, standing up in the stern, pistol in hand, waiting for the man to rise.

A long narrow streak of light showed his figure not ten feet away from the beach. In another minute he would touch the shore.

"Stop!" cried the officer. "Swim another yard and you are a dead man."

But the half-caste kept steadily on. Again Fenton's warning cry rang out, then he slowly raised his pistol and fired.

The shot told, for as the half-caste rose to his feet he staggered. And then he sped up the steep beach towards the thick scrub beyond.

As he panted along with the blood streaming from a bullet wound in his side, his sister's hand seized him by the arm.

"Jim, Jim!" she gasped, "only a little more, and we———"

And then half a dozen muskets flashed, and the two figures went down together and lay motionless on the bloodied sand.

Fenton jumped ashore and looked at them. "Both dead," he said, pityingly, to old Swain, who with a number of natives now stood beside him.

"Aye, sir," said the trader, brokenly, "both. An' now let me be with my dead."

*****

But neither Ema nor Jim Swain died, though both were sorely wounded; and a month later they with their father sailed away to Samoa.



LEASSE

There were only a score or so of houses in Leasse village—curious saddle-backed structures, with steeply pitched roofs of gray and yellow thatch, rising to a sharp point fore and aft; and in all the twenty not more than one hundred natives—men, women, and children—dwelt. At the back of the village the dense mountain forest began, and all day long one might hear the booming notes of the gray wood-pigeons and the shrill cries of the green and golden parrakeets as they fed upon the rich purple berries of the masa'oi and the inflorescence of the coco-palms. In front, and between two jutting headlands of coral rock, with sides a-green with climbing masses of tupa vine, lay a curving beach of creamy sand; westward the sea, pale green a mile from the shore, and deeply blue beyond the clamouring reef, whose misty spume for ever rose and fell the livelong day, and showed ghostly white at night.

It was at night time that young Denison, ex-supercargo of the wrecked brig Leonora first saw the place and took a huge liking to it. And the memories of the seven happy months he spent there remains with him still, though he has grown grizzled and respectable now and goes trading no more.

A white moon stood high in a cloudless sky when he bade farewell to the good-natured ruffian with whom, until two months previously, he had had the distinction of serving as supercargo. The village wherein Captain Bully Hayes and his motley rum-drinking crew had established themselves was six miles from Leasse, on the shores of the Utwe Harbour, at the bottom of which lay the once shapely Leonora, with her broken fore-topmast just showing above the water. For reasons that need not here be mentioned, Denison and the captain had quarrelled, and so the former was deeply touched and said goodbye with a husky throat when the burly skipper placed one of his two remaining bottles of gin in his hand and said he was a "damned young fool to take things up so hotly." So, without a further word, he swallowed the lump in his throat and stepped out quickly, fearing that some of the crew (none of whom knew of his going) might meet him ere he gained the beach and mingle their tears—for they all loved him well—with the precious bottle of gin.

For nearly an hour he walked along the sandy shore of a narrow and winding strip of low-lying land, separated from the high and wooded mainland by a slumbering lagoon, deep in parts but shallow at the south end where it joined the barrier reef. Here Denison crossed, for the tide had ebbed, and, gaining the shelving beach on the other side, he saw before him Mout Leasse village, standing out clearly in the blazing moonlight against the black edge of the mountain forest, which, higher up, was wrapped in fleecy mist. It was near to dawn, but, being tired and sleepy, the ex-supercargo lay down on the soft warm sand, away from the falling dew of the pendulous palm leaves, and slept till it came.

An hour after daylight he was in the village and being hugged and embraced by the inhabitants in general and Kusis, the headman, and his wife and daughter in particular. I have already mentioned that Denison was very young then; he would not permit such a thing now.

Still, although three-and-twenty years have passed since then, Denison often wishes he could live those seven months in Leasse over again, and let this, his latter-day respectability, go hang; because to men like him respectability means tradesmen's bills, and a deranged liver, and a feeling that he will die on a bed with his boots off, and be pawed about by shabby ghouls smelling of gin. There, it is true, he had no boots to die in had his time come suddenly, but he did not feel the loss of them except when he went hunting wild pigs with Kusis in the mountains. And though he had no boots, he was well off in more important things—to wit, ten pounds of negro-head tobacco, lots of fishing-tackle, a Winchester rifle and plenty of ammunition, a shirt and trousers of dungaree, heaps to eat and drink, and the light heart of a boy. What more could a young fool wish for—in the North-west Pacific. But I want to tell something of how Denison lived in a place where every prospect pleased, and where (from a theological point of view) only man was vile.

*****

At daylight he would awaken, and, lying on his bed of mats upon the cane-work floor, listen to the song of the surf on the barrier reef a mile away. If it sounded quick and clear it meant no fishing in the blue water beyond, for the surf would be heavy and the current strong; if it but gently murmured, he and Kusis and a dozen other brown-skinned men (Denison was as brown as any of them) would eat a hurried meal of fish and baked taro, and then carry their red-painted canoes down to the water, and, paddling out through the passage in the reef, fish for bonito with thick rods of pua wood and baitless hooks of irridescent pearl shell.

Then, as the sun came out hot and strong and the trade wind flecked the ocean swell with white, they would head back for shining Leasse beach, on which the women and girls awaited their return, some with baskets in their hands to carry home the fish, and some with gourds of water which, as the fishermen bent their bodies low, they poured upon them to wash away the stains of salty spray.

An hour of rest has passed, and then a fat-faced, smiling girl (Denison dreams of her sometimes, even now) comes to the house to make a bowl of kava for the white man and Kusis before they go hunting the wild pig in the mountain forest. There is no ceremony about this kava-drinking as there is in conventional Samoa; fat-faced Sipi simply sits cross-legged upon the matted floor and pounds the green root with a rounded piece of jade upon a hollowed stone.

The kava is drunk, and then Kusis takes off his cumbrous girdle of grass and replaces it by a narrow band of closely-woven banana fibre, stained black and yellow (there be fashions in these parts of the world) and reaches down his pig-spear from the cross-beams overhead, while Tulpe, his wife, ties cinnet sandals upon the white man's feet. Then, good man and true, Kusis takes his pipe from his mouth and gives his wife a draw ere he goes, and the two men step outside upon the hot, gravelly path, Denison carrying his Winchester and Kusis leading two sad-faced mongrel dogs. As they pass along the village street other men join them, some carrying spears and some heavy muskets, and also leading more sad-faced dogs. Black-haired, oval-faced women and girls come to the doors of the houses and look indolently at the hunters, but they neither speak nor smile, for it is not the nature of the Strong's Islanders to speak when there is no necessity for words. Once, fifty years ago, when they were numbered by thousands, and their villages but a mile apart along the coast, it was different; now they are a broken and fast-vanishing race.

As the hunters, walking in single file, disappear into the deep jungle shades, the women and girls resume their daily tasks. Some, who squat upon the floor, with thighs and knees together and feet turned outward and backward, face curious little looms and weave girdles from the shining fibre of the banana stalk; others, who sit cross-legged, plait mats or hats of pandanus leaf for their men folk; while outside, in the cook-sheds, the younger children make ready the earthen ovens of red-hot stones to cook the sunset meal. Scarcely a word is spoken, though sometimes the women sing softly together as they weave and stitch.

And so another hour has gone, and the coco-palms along the shore begin to throw long lines of shadows across the sloping beach. Then far off a musket-shot sounds, and the women cease their work and listen for the yelping of the hunters' dogs as they rush at their wounded prey, battling fiercely for his life upon the thick carpet of forest leaves.

By and by the huntsmen come back, their brown skins dripping with sweat and their naked legs stained with the bright red clay of the sodden mountain-paths. Two of them carry slung on a pole a gaunt, razorbacked boar, with hideous yellow tusks curving backward from his long and blood-stained snout.

Again the patient women come forth with gourds of water; they pour it over the heads and bodies of the men, who dry their skins with shreds of white beaten bark; two sturdy boys light wisps of dry coconut leaves and pass the flames over the body of the boar in lieu of scalding, and the melancholy dogs sit around in a circle on their haunches and indulge in false hopes. Presently, one by one, the men follow Denison and Kusis into the latter's house and sit down to smoke and talk, while Sipi the Fat pounds more kava for them to drink. Then mats are unrolled and every one lies down; and as they sleep the sun touches the sea-rim, swarms of snowy gulls and sooty terns fly shoreward with lazily flapping wing to roost, a gleam of torchlight shows here and there along the village paths, and the island night has come.



THE TROUBLE WITH JINABAN

Palmer, one of Tom de Wolf's traders on the Matelotas

Lagoon in the Western Carolines, was standing at his door, smoking his pipe and wondering what was best to be done. Behind him, in the big sitting-room, were his wife and some other native women, conversing in low tones and looking shudderingly at a basket made of green coconut leaves which stood in the centre of the matted floor.

Presently the trader turned and motioned one of the women to come to him.

"Take it away and bury it," he said, "'tis an ill thing for my wife to see."

The woman, whose eyes were red with weeping, stooped and lifted the basket; and then a young native lad, nude to the waist, stepped quickly over to the place where it had lain and sprinkled a handful of white sand over a broad patch of red which stained the mat.

Palmer, still smoking thoughtfully, watched the rest of the women follow her who carried the basket away into the grove of breadfruit-trees, and then sat down upon a bench outside his door.

The sun was blazing hot, and on the broad, glassy expanse of the slumbering atoll a dim, misty haze, like the last vanishing vapours of a sea fog in some cold northern clime, hovered low down upon the water; for early in the day the trade wind had died away in faint, warm gusts, and left the island and the still lagoon to swelter under the fierce rays of an all but equatorial sun. Five miles away, on the western side of the reef-encircled lagoon, a long, low and densely-wooded islet stood out, its white, dazzling line of beach and verdant palms seeming to quiver and sway to and fro in the blinding glare of the bright sunlight. Beyond lay the wide sweep of the blue Pacific, whose gentle undulations scarce seemed to have strength enough to rise and lave the weed-clad face of the barrier reef which, for thirty miles, stretched east and west in an unbroken, sweeping curve.

In Ailap village, where the trader lived, a strange unusual silence brooded over all; and though under the cool shades of the groves of breadfruit and orange-trees groups of brown-skinned people were sitting together, they only spoke in whispered tones, and looked every now and again at the figure of the white man standing at his door.

And as the people sat together in silence, Palmer, with his bearded chin resting on the palm of one hand, gazed steadily before him, seeming oblivious of their presence, for he was thinking deeply, and wondering what had best be done to rid the island of Jinaban.

Presently a young man, dressed like a seaman and wearing a wide-rimmed hat of pandanus leaf, came along the path that led from the village to the trader's house. He stopped for a moment at the gate as if in doubt whether to open it or not; and then catching sight of Palmer's figure he pushed it open quickly and walked towards him, and the trader, roused by the sound of approaching footsteps, raised his head and looked in some surprise at the new-comer, who was an utter stranger to him.

"Good morning," said the man to Palmer, and the moment he had spoken and lifted his hat, the trader saw that he was not a white man, for his dark complexion, wavy black hair and deep-set eyes proclaimed him to be of mixed blood. Nearly six feet in height, he yet walked and moved with that particularly easy and graceful manner so noticeable among the native races of Polynesia, and Palmer was quick to see from his stature and appearance generally that he was not a Caroline Island half-caste. And he noticed as well that the stranger had a firm, square-set jaw and a fearful raw-looking slash across his face that extended from ear to chin.

"Good morning," he answered. "Do you want to see me?"

"Yes," answered the man, in a slow, hesitating sort of manner. "I was the second mate of that schooner "—and he waved his hand with a backward sweep toward the lagoon, where a large white-painted vessel was being towed down to the passage by her boats, to anchor and wait for the land-breeze at night—"but last night I had a row with the skipper. He called me a half-bred Maori nigger, an' so——"

"And so you had a fight?"

"Yes, sir, we had a fight. But he couldn't stand up to me for more than a couple of rounds; an' sang out for the mate an' carpenter to come and help him, an' the three of 'em went for me: They got me down at last, and then the mate gave me a slash across the face with his knife. So, as I didn't want to get killed, I jumped overboard and swam ashore. I've been hiding in the village since."

Palmer looked steadily into the man's immovable face, and then said—

"You want a stitch or two put in that cut. Come inside and I'll do it for you. Your skipper was here at daylight this morning looking for you. He told me quite a different story; said that you gave him 'lip' and then struck him."

The half-caste laughed quietly. "He lied, sir. He's a regular bully, and he and the mate knock the men about something terrible. But he made a mistake when he started on me and called me a nigger. And if he tries to bring me aboard of that floating hell again I'll kill him, as sure as my name is Frank Porter."

The trader's face lightened up. "Are you Frank Porter, the man who saved the Marion Renny from being cut-off in the Solomon Islands?"

"Yes," answered the half-caste, "I am the man."

Palmer extended his hand. "You're welcome to my house, Frank Porter. And there's no fear of the captain coming ashore again to look for you. Now come inside, and let me dress that ugly slash for you."

"Thank you, Mr. Palmer. But I did not come to you for that. I came to see if you can give me a berth of some sort on your station. I'm a pretty handy man at almost anything."

The trader thought a moment; then he looked up quickly. "I cannot give you anything to do on the station—there is nothing to do. But I will give you five hundred dollars and a home in my house if you will help me to do one thing."

"What is that?"

"Put a bullet into a man here who has murdered thirty people within ten years. I cannot do it alone, I have tried and failed, and these people cannot help me. Come inside, and I'll tell you all about it."

The half-caste followed Palmer into his sitting-room, and the trader, getting needles and silk thread from his wife, stitched up the wound in the man's face. Then he gave him a glass of whiskey, and as they smoked their pipes, told him the story of Jinaban, the Outlaw.

*****

Two years before, when Palmer first landed on the white beach of Matelotas Lagoon to settle down as a trader for turtle-shell, Jinaban was one of the three chiefs who ruled over the cluster of palm-clad islets—the two others were his half-brothers, Jelik and Rao. All three had met the white man as soon as he landed, and he and they had exchanged gifts and vows of friendship after the manner of the people of Las Matelotas.

But Jinaban, who was a man of violent temper, was bitterly aggrieved when Palmer decided to build his house and trading station in the village ruled over by his half-brother Jelik. He had long been anxious to secure a white trader for his own village, and bitter words passed between Jelik and Rao and himself. Palmer stood by and said nothing. He had taken an instinctive dislike to Jinaban, whose reputation as a man of a cruel and sanguinary nature had been known to him long before he had come to settle in the Carolines. But Palmer was not a man to be daunted by Jinaban's fierce looks and the bitter epithets he applied to his half-brothers, whom he accused of "stealing" the white man from him. He quietly announced his intention of standing to the agreement he had made with Jelik; and the next day that chief's people set about building a house for the trader. In a month the house was finished, and Palmer, who meant to try the lagoon for pearl shell, and thought that his stay on the island would be a long one, announced his intention of taking a wife, and asked Jelik for a young girl named Letane. She was about seventeen, and her gentle, amiable disposition had attracted him from the first day he landed on the island. Calling the girl to him, Jelik questioned her as to her inclinations, and she at once, in the most innocent and charming manner, expressed her liking for the white man, but said that her uncle Jinaban, who had gained some idea of her feelings towards Palmer, had threatened to kill her if she dared to marry him; for he (Jinaban) had determined that the people of Ailap—Jelik's village—should not monopolise him altogether, and that a wife should be chosen from his (Jinaban's) village.

Jelik's face instantly become grave. He knew the rancour of Jinaban's feelings towards him, and dreaded to incur his further hatred, and soon acquainted Palmer with his fears. The trader laughed at them, and said that he would be dictated to by no man as regarded his choice of a wife, and, drawing the smiling Letane to him, told the chief to make all haste with the wedding feast. The news of this soon reached Jinaban, who soon after made his appearance at Palmer's house accompanied by many old men of his clan and a young and beautiful girl named Sepe. Trembling with suppressed rage and excitement, he addressed the trader with all the eloquence he could command. He was, he said (and with truth), the greatest of the three brothers in rank and influence, but had yielded to the white man's desire to live in Ailap under the protection of his brother Jelik; but neither he (Jinaban) nor his people would put up with the additional insult of the trader espousing an Ailap girl. And then, pointing to the girl who accompanied him—a handsome creature about eighteen or twenty years of age—he earnestly besought Palmer to make her his wife. Before the trader could frame a reply Letane, accompanied by a number of her young girl friends, walked into the room, and, sitting down beside him, put her hand on his shoulder, and, though her slender form trembled, gave her uncle and the girl Sepe a look of bold defiance.

Palmer rose to his feet, and placed his hand on the head of the girl, who rose with him. "It cannot be, Jinaban. This girl Letane, who is of thine own kin, shall be my wife. But let not ill-blood come of it between thee and me or between thee and her; for I desire to live in friendship with thee."

Without a word Jinaban sprang to his feet, and, with a glance of bitter hatred at the trader and the girl who stood beside him, he walked out of the house, accompanied by his old men and the rejected Sepe, who, as she turned away, looked scornfully at her rival and spat on the ground.

In a few weeks the marriage took place, and Palmer made the customary presents to his wife's relatives. To Jinaban—who refused to attend the feasting and dancing that accompanied the ceremony—he sent a new fishing-net one hundred fathoms in length, a very valuable and much-esteemed gift, for the cost of such an article was considerable. To Jelik, his wife's guardian, he gave a magazine rifle and five hundred cartridges, and to Rao, the other brother, presents of cloth, tobacco, and hatchets.

That night, whilst Palmer slept with his bride, Jinaban came to the house of his brother Jelik. His black eyes gleamed red with anger.

"What right hast thou, my younger brother, to take from the white man that which I coveted most? Am not I the greater chief, and thy master? Give me that gun."

Jelik sprang to his feet. "Nay, why shouldst thou covet my one gift from the white man? Is not the net he gave thee worth twenty such guns as the one he hath given me?"

Jinaban leapt at his brother's throat, and for a minute or two they struggled fiercely; then Jelik fell with a groan, for Jinaban stabbed him in the throat twice. Then seizing the rifle and two bags of cartridges he sallied out into the village. Behind him, panting with rage, ran his murdered brother's wife, a young woman of twenty years of age. She carried an infant in her arms, and was running swiftly, clutching in her right hand a short dagger.

"Stand, thou coward, Jinaban!" she called, setting the child down in the path—"stand, thou coward, for though thou hast slain my husband thou shalt not rob me of that which was his—give me back the gun."

Jinaban laughed fiercely, and his white teeth flashed from his black-bearded lips; he slipped some cartridges into the rifle. He waited till the woman was within ten yards of him, then raised the weapon and shot her dead. And now, his tiger nature aroused to the full, he sprang into the middle of the village square of Ailap, and began firing at every person he saw, sparing neither age nor sex. His second brother, Rao, a courageous young man, seizing the only weapon available—a seaman's cutlass—rushed forth from his house and, calling upon Jinaban to lay down his weapon, advanced towards him. Pretending to consent—for a cartridge had jammed and the rifle would not work—Jinaban held out the butt to Rao in token of surrender; then the moment Rao grasped it, he sprang at his throat and bore him to the ground, and, tearing the cutlass from his hand, he plunged it through and through the prostrate man's body. Then, with a savage threat against the whole of the murdered men's families, he turned and fled towards the beach. Dragging a light canoe down into the water, he sprang into it, and pushed off just as Palmer appeared on the scene, and, raising his revolver, fired six shots at the escaping murderer. None of the shots, however, took effect, and Jinaban, with an oath of vengeance against the white man, paddled swiftly away and reached the low, densely wooded and uninhabited island on the western side of the lagoon.

This for two years had now been his lair. Paddling over at dead of night from time to time, he would stalk, rifle in hand, through the village, and, entering any house he pleased, demand food and tobacco. And such was the terror of his name and his chiefly prestige that no one dared refuse. Sometimes, moved by the lust for slaughter, he would command that the food he demanded should be carried before him and placed in his canoe. Then he would shoot the unfortunate bearer dead on the beach. Against his half-brother's families he manifested the most deadly hatred; and on one occasion, meeting a girl, a slave of Rao's widow, on a little islet some miles away from Ailap, he shot the poor child through her legs, breaking them both, and left her to perish of starvation. Palmer well knew that he was willingly supplied with food by the people of his own village, although they asserted their innocence of aiding him in any way, and expressed the utmost fear and horror of the outlaw. That his death would be a relief to them as well as to the people of Ailap was certainly true, but Palmer and his wife Letane were well aware that none of Jinaban's own people would ever raise hand against him; and, indeed, the Ailap people, though they now had the strongest feelings of friendship for the white man, were so smitten with terror at the constantly recurring bloody deeds perpetrated by Jinaban, that they were too terrified to accompany the trader over to the outlaw's island and track him to his lair. Twice had Palmer crossed over in the darkness of night, and, Winchester in hand, carefully sought for traces of Jinaban's hiding-place, but without success. The interior of the island was a dense thicket of scrub which seemed to defy penetration. On the last occasion Palmer had hidden among a mass of broken and vine-covered coral boulders which covered the eastern shore. Here for a whole night and the following day he remained, keeping a keen watch upon the line of beach in the hope that he would see Jinaban carrying his canoe down to the water to make one of his murderous descents upon the Ailap village. His own canoe he had carefully concealed among the scrub, and as he had landed on a very dark night upon a ledge of rocks that stretched from the water's edge to the thicket, and carried the canoe up, he was sure that no trace of his landing would be visible to Jinaban. At dark on the following evening he gave up his quest and paddled slowly over to the village, sick at heart with fear for his wife Letane, for the outlaw had made a threat that she should soon fall a victim to his implacable hatred.

Halfway across the lagoon he heard the sound of two shots, and by its sharp crack knew that one came from Jinaban's rifle—the rifle he had given to the slaughtered Jelik. Urging his canoe along the surface of the quiet water, Palmer soon reached the beach of Ailap village, and was horrified to learn that the man he had sought had just left after shooting a lad of fifteen—a cousin of Letane—whom he had surprised while fishing in the lagoon. Cutting off the boy's head, Jinaban had boldly stalked through the village till he reached Palmer's house, through the open window of which he had thrown his gory trophy, and then made his escape.

The trader's wife, who at the time was sleeping in the big room of the house, surrounded by half a dozen natives armed with muskets, at once sprang up, and, seizing a rifle, started in pursuit, for she feared that Jinaban had learnt of Palmer's absence, and would wait for and shoot him as he crossed the lagoon. She managed to reach the beach in time to see the escaping murderer paddling along in his canoe close in shore. Kneeling down, she took careful aim and fired. A mocking laugh answered the shot.

*****

That was the story that Palmer told the half-caste Maori, who listened to him attentively throughout.

For some minutes, however, after the trader had finished, he did not speak, and then at last said in his slow, methodical way—

"I will promise you that I'll get you Jinaban, dead or alive, before a week is out. And I don't want money. But I want you, please, to get some one of your natives here to come and tell me all they can about Jinaban's friends in the other village."

Palmer called to his wife. She came in, heavy-eyed and pale-faced, for the youth whose head she and her women had just buried was much attached to her, and her husband as well. At that moment the lad's relatives were searching the lagoon in the hope of finding the body, into which it had doubtless been thrown by the ruthless hand of Jinaban; and Letane had just returned alone to the house.

In a very short time the half-caste learnt from Letane that Sepe, who lived in Jinaban's village, was strongly suspected of receiving visits from the outlaw, and even of visiting the man himself; for on several occasions she had been absent from her mother's house for two or three days at a time. And as most of Jinaban's people were in secret sympathy with their outlawed chief, the girl's movements were never commented on by the inhabitants of her own village, for fear that the relatives of the murdered chiefs, Rao and Jelik, and other people of Ailap, would kill her. But in some way Sepe had betrayed herself, and Letane was now having a strict watch kept upon the girl by two or three of her women attendants whom she had sent to reside in Ijeet, as Jinaban's village was called. Ostensibly they had gone to visit some relatives there. Sepe, however, was always on her guard, and so far the spies had learnt nothing fresh.

At Porter's request the trader's wife gave him a description of Sepe's appearance, and also described the exact position of the house in which she lived with her mother. Then the half-caste unfolded his plan to Palmer and his wife.

"And now," he said, "I must go. If I stay longer it may spoil our plans by making Jinaban's friend suspicious. Give me the bottle of gin, and I'll carry it so that every one can see it as I walk through the village. And you must get all your men out of the way by the time I come back. They might shoot me, but the women will be too frightened."

Palmer went to his trade room and returned with a large bottle of Hollands, which he gave to Porter, together with a box of revolver cartridges; these the half-caste carefully concealed in the bosom of his singlet. Then, shaking hands with the trader and his wife, he walked out of the house, down the steps, and along the path to the village.

"Parma," said Letane to her husband, as they watched the seaman disappear among the coco-palms, "dost think this man will be true to us in this thing?"

"Aye," replied the trader, "sure am I of his good faith; for he it was who four years ago, single-handed, fought two hundred of the wild man-eaters of the Solomon Islands, when they captured the ship in which he sailed, and slew every man on board but himself. Twenty-and-three of those devils of kai tagata (cannibals) did he kill with his Winchester rifle from the fore-top of the ship, although he was slashed in the thigh with a deep knife wound, and was faint from loss of blood. And then when the rest had fled in their canoes he came down and steered the ship away from the land and sailed her in safety to a place called Rubiana where white men dwell."

"Ah-h-h!" and Letane's dark eyes opened wide in admiration.

*****

An hour later Frank Porter, with an half-emptied bottle of liquor placed before him on the matted floor, was sitting in a house in Jinaban's village, surrounded by a number of young men and women.

"Come," he said, with drunken hilarity, and speaking in the Ponape dialect, which is understood by the people of Las Matelotas, "come, drink with me;" and pouring out some of the liquor he offered it with swaying hand to the man nearest him; "drink, I tell thee, for when this bottle is empty then shall I make the white man give me more."

"Bah!" said a tall, dark-skinned girl, whose head was encircled with a wreath of red and yellow flowers, and who stood with her rounded arms folded across her bare bosom, "thou dost but boast. How canst thou make Parma give thee liquor, if, as thou sayest, thou hast no money? Is he a child to be frightened by loud words—which are but born in the belly of that" and she laughed and pointed contemptuously at the bottle beside him.

The half-caste looked at her with drunken gravity.

"Who art thou, saucy fool?" he asked, "to so talk to me? Think ye that I fear any white man? See!" and staggering to his feet he came over to where she stood, "seest thou this bloodied cut across my face, which was given me by a white man, when I fought with, three but last night?"

The girl laughed mockingly. "How know I but that last night thou wert as drunk as thou art now, and fell on the ship's deck and so cut thy face, and now would make us think that——"

"Nay, Sepe," broke in a lad who sat near, "'tis true, for I was on the ship and saw this man fight with three others. He does not lie."

"Lie!" and the half-caste, drawing his knife from its sheath, flashed it before the assembled natives; "nay, no liar am I, neither a boaster; and by the gods of my mother's land I shall make this Parma give me more grog to drink before the night comes, else shall this knife eat into his heart. Come ye all, and see."

And in another minute, followed by the girl Sepe and a dozen or more men and women, he sallied out into the road, knife in hand, lurching up against a palm-tree every now and then, and steadying himself with a drunken oath.

*****

Sitting or standing about Palmer's house were some scores of native women, who waited for him to awaken from his afternoon's sleep and open his store so that they might sell him the pearl-shell that the menfolk had that day taken from the lagoon. But the white man seemed to sleep long to-day, and when the people saw Letane, his wife, coming from her evening bathe, they were glad, for they knew she would open her husband's store and buy from them whatever they had to sell. But suddenly, as she walked slowly along the shaded path, a man sprang out upon her and seized her by the wrist. It was the half-caste sailor.

"Back!" he shouted warningly to the women, as they rushed towards him, "back, I say, else do I plunge my knife into this woman's heart." And then, releasing his hold of Letane's wrist, he swiftly clasped her round the waist, and swung her over his shoulder with an exulting laugh. "Tell ye the white man that his wife shall now be mine, for her beauty hath eaten away my heart," and he ran swiftly away with his struggling burden, who seemed too terrified even to call for assistance.

And then as the loud cries of alarm of the women sounded through the village, Palmer sprang out from his house, pistol in hand, and darted in pursuit. The half-caste, with a backward glance over his shoulder, saw him coming.

Dropping the woman, who seemed to have swooned, for she lay motionless upon the path, Porter awaited the white man, knife in hand, and laughed fiercely as Palmer, raising his pistol, fired at him thrice. In another instant they were struggling fiercely together, and a cry of terror broke from the watching women when they saw the trader fall as if stabbed or stunned, and the half-caste, leaping upon him, tear the pistol from his hand, and, with an exultant cry, wave it triumphantly in the air. Then he fled swiftly through the palm grove towards Ijeet.

When Palmer opened his eyes, Letane and a number of terrified women were bending over him, all but Letane herself imagining he had been stabbed.

"Nay," he said, putting his hand to his head, "I was but stunned. Help me into my house."

That night the whole population of Ailap came to his house and urged him to lead them to Ijeet and slay the coward sailor who had sought to take his life and steal from him his wife.

"Wait," he answered grimly, "wait, I pray thee, O my friends, and then shalt thou see that which shall gladden thy hearts and mine. And let none of ye raise his hand against the half-caste till I so bid him."

They wondered at this; but went away contented. Parma was a wise man, they thought, and knew what was best.

When the house was in darkness, and the trader and his wife lay on their couch of mats with their sleeping child between them, Palmer laughed to himself.

"Why dost thou laugh, Parma?" And Letane turned her big eyes upon his face.

"Because this man Porter is both wise and brave; and in two days or less we shall sleep in peace, for Jinaban shall be dead."

*****

Back from the clustering houses of Ijeet village the man who was "wise and brave" was sitting upon the bole of a fallen coco-palm with his arms clasped round the waist of the star-eyed Sepe, who listened to him half in fear, half in admiration.

"Nay," she said presently, in answer to something he had said, "no love have I for Jinaban; 'tis hate alone that hath led me to aid him, for he hath sworn to me that I shall yet see Letane lie dead before me. And for that do I steal forth at night and take him food."

"Dost thou then love Parma?"

"As much as thou lovest his wife," the girl answered quickly, striking him petulantly on his knee.

The half-caste laughed. "Those were but the words of a man drunken with liquor. What care I for her? Thee alone do I love, for thy eyes have eaten up my heart. And see, when thou hast taken me to Jinaban, and he and I have killed this Parma, thou shalt run this knife of mine into the throat of Letane. And our wedding feast shall wipe out the shame which she hath put upon thee."

The girl's eyes gleamed. "Are these true words or lies?"

"By my mother's bones, they be true words. Did not I flee to thy house and bring thee this pistol I wrenched from Parma's hand to show thee I am no boaster. And as for these three women of Ailap who spy upon thee—show me where they sleep and I will beat them with a heavy stick and drive them back to their mistress."

Sepe leant her head upon his shoulder and pressed his hand. "Nay, let them be; for now do I know thou lovest me. And to-night, when my mother sleeps, shall we take a canoe and go to Jinaban."

*****

At dawn next morning Palmer was aroused from his sleep by a loud knocking at the door, and the clamour of many voices.

"Awake, awake, Parma!" cried a man's voice; "awake, for the big sailor man who tried to kill thee yesterday is crossing the lagoon, and is paddling swiftly towards thy house. Quick, quick and shoot him ere he can land."

In an instant the trader and every one of his household sprang from their couches, the door was thrown open, and Palmer, looking across the lagoon, which was shining bright in the rays of the rising sun, saw about a quarter of a mile away, a canoe, which was being urged swiftly along by Frank Porter and a woman. She was heading directly for his house, and already Palmer's bodyguard were handling their muskets, and waiting for him to tell them to fire.

Taking his glass from its rack over the door he levelled it at the approaching canoe, and looked steadily for less than half a minute, and then he gave an exulting cry.

"Oh, my friends, this is a lucky day! Lay aside thy guns, and harm not the sailor; for in that canoe is Jinaban, bound hand and foot. And the fight that ye saw yesterday between this half-caste and me was but a cunning plan between us to get Jinaban into our hands; and no harm did he intend to my wife, for she too knew of our plan."

A murmur of joyful astonishment burst from the assembled natives, and in another moment they were running after Palmer down to the beach.

The instant the canoe touched the sand, Porter called out in English—

"Collar the girl, Mr. Palmer, and don't let her get near your wife. She means mischief."

Before she could rise from her seat on the low thwart, Sepe was seized by two of Palmer's people. Her dark, handsome face was distorted by passion, but she was too exhausted to speak, and suffered herself to be led away quietly. And then Jinaban, who lay stretched out on the outrigger platform of the canoe, with his hands and feet lashed to a stout pole of green wood, was lifted off.

A few hurried words passed between Palmer and the half-caste, and then the former directed his men to carry the prisoner up to the house. This was at once done, amidst the wildest excitement and clamour. The lashings that bound him to the pole were loosened a little by Palmer's directions, and then four men with loaded rifles were placed over him. Then, calling a native to him, Palmer told him to take a conch-shell, go from village to village, and summon all the people to the white man's house quickly.

"Tell them to come and see Jinaban die," he said sternly.

As soon as the prisoner had been disposed of for the time being, Palmer and Porter went into the dining-room, where Letane had prepared a hurried breakfast for the half-caste.

"Where is Sepe?" he asked, as he sat down.

"Locked up in there," said Palmer, pointing to one of the store-rooms.

"Poor devil! Don't be too rough on her. I had to lay a stick across her back pretty often before she would help me to carry Jinaban down to the canoe. And I had to threaten to shoot her coming across the lagoon. She wouldn't paddle at first, and I think wanted to capsize the canoe and escape, until she looked round and saw my pistol pointed at her. Then she gave in. I wasn't goin' to let Mr. Jinaban drown after all my trouble. But"—his mouth was stuffed with cold meat and yam as he spoke—"I'm sorry I had to beat her. An' she's got the idea that your missus will kill her when I tell you all about her."

Washing down his breakfast with a copious drink of coffee, Porter lit his pipe, and then, in as few words as possible, told his story. And as he told it a loud, booming sound rang through the morning air, and the hurrying tramp of naked feet and excited voices of the gathering people every moment increased, and "Jinaban!" "Jinaban!" was called from house to house.

*****

"As soon as the girl an' me got to the island," he said, "she told me to wait in the canoe. 'All right,' I said, and thinking it would be a good thing to do, I told her to take the revolver and box of cartridges with her, just to show them to Jinaban in proof of the story of the fight I had with you; I thought that if she told him I was armed he might smell a rat and shoot me from the scrub. An' I quite made up my mind to collar him alive if I could. The night was very dark, but the girl knew her way about pretty well, an', leaving me in the canoe, she ran along the beach and entered the puka scrub. About an hour went by, an' I was beginning to feel anxious, when she came back. 'Come on,' she said, 'Jinaban will talk with you.' I got out of the canoe and walked with her along the beach till we came to what looked like a tunnel in the thick undergrowth. 'Let me go first,' she said, stooping down, and telling me to hold on to her grass girdle, she led the way till we came out into an open spot, and there was Jinaban's house, and Jinaban sitting inside it, before a fire of coconut shells, handling your revolver and looking very pleased. He shook hands with me and, I could see at once, believed everything that Sepe had told him. Then we had a long talk and arranged matters nicely. I was to stay with him until the first dark, rainy night. Then we were to come over and hide ourselves in your boat-shed to wait until you opened your door the first thing in the morning. We were both to fire together, and bring you down easy. Then Sepe was to settle her account with your wife while Jinaban rallied the Ijeet people, in case the Ailap natives wanted to fight. After that he and I were to divide all the plunder in the house and station between us, take two of your whaleboats, and with some of his people make for some other island in the Carolines as quick as possible. And Sepe was to be Mrs. Frank Porter.

"Then, before he knew what was the matter with him, I hit him under the ear, and laid him out stiff; and after choking the girl a bit to keep her quiet, I tied him up safely."

Palmer set his teeth, but said nothing. Then the half-caste, having finished his pipe, rose.

"What are we going to do with him—hang him, or what?" he inquired, coolly.

"Stand him out there on the beach and let one of the Ailap people shoot him."

*****

Jinaban was led forth from Palmer's house into the village square, and bound with his back to a coconut palm. On three sides of him were assembled nearly every man, woman, and child on Las Matelotas Lagoon. Not a sign of fear was visible in his dark, bearded face; only a look of implacable hatred settled upon it when Palmer, followed by the half-caste seaman and a servant boy, walked slowly down his verandah steps and stood in full view of the assemblage. He was unarmed, but the boy carried his rifle.

Raising his hand to command silence, the murmuring buzz of voices was instantly hushed, and the trader spoke. There, said he, was the cruel murderer who had so ruthlessly slain more than a score of men, women, and children—many of whom were of his own blood. Jinaban must die, and they must kill him. He himself, although he had good cause to slay him, would not. Let one of those whose kith and kin had been slain by this cruel man now take a just vengeance.

A young man stepped out from among the crowd, and Palmer, taking the rifle from the boy who held it, placed it in his hand. He was the brother of the girl whom Jinaban had shot through the legs and left to die of starvation and thirst.

Slowly the young native raised the rifle to his shoulder, glanced along the barrel, then grounded it on the sand.

"I cannot do it," he said, handing the weapon back. Jinaban heard and laughed.

"Just what I thought would happen," muttered Palmer to Porter. "We must hurry things along, even if we have to do it ourselves," and then, raising his voice, he called out—

"Ten silver dollars to the man who will shoot Jinaban."

No one moved, and a low murmur passed from lip to lip among the crowded natives. A minute passed.

"Oh, cowards!" said Palmer scornfully. "Twenty dollars!"

"Double it," said the half-caste in a low voice; "and be quick. I can see some of Jinaban's people looking ugly."

"Forty dollars, then, and ten tins of biscuit to him who will kill this dog. See, he mocks at us all."

A short, square-built man—a connection by marriage of the murderer's brother, Rao—sprang into the open, snatched the rifle from Palmer's hand, and levelled it at Jinaban. But as his eye met those of the dreaded outlaw his hand shook. He lowered the weapon, and turned to the white man.

"Parma," he said, giving back the rifle to Porter, "I cannot do it; for his eye hath killed my heart."

"Ha!" laughed Jinaban, and the group of Ijeet men swayed to and fro, and a savage light came into Palmer's eyes. He looked at Porter, who at that moment raised the rifle and fired, and a man who was approaching Jinaban, knife in hand, to cut his bonds, spun round and fell upon the sand with a broken back. In a moment the crowd of Ijeet men drew off.

"Back, back," cried the half-caste, fiercely, springing towards them and menacing them with the butt of his empty rifle, and then hurling it from him he leaped back and picked up something that stood leaning up against the wall of Palmer's boat-shed. It was a carpenter's broad-axe—a fearful looking weapon, with a stout handle and a blade fourteen inches across.

"Look," he cried. "This man must die. And all the men of Ailap are cowards, else would this murderer and devil now be dead, and his blood running out upon the sand. But, as for me who fear him not—see!"

He took two steps forward to Jinaban and swung the axe. It clove through the murderer's shaggy head and sank deep down into his chest.

*****

Two days later Sepe, who had made her peace with Palmer's wife, met the sailor as he was walking down to the beach to bathe.

"Wilt thou keep thy promise and marry me?" she asked.

"No," answered the half-caste, pushing her aside roughly; "marriage with thee or any other woman is not to my mind. But go to the white man and he will give thee the forty dollars and ten tins of biscuit instead. Something thou dost deserve, but it shall not be me."

THE END