Jerry of the Islands

ow her out through the narrow entrance. Once, when the ketch, swerved by some vagrant current, came close to the break of the shore-surf, th

stroke. They knew what dire fate was certain if ever the sea-washed coral rock gripped the Arangi's keel. And they knew fear precisely of the same sort as that of the fear-struck girl below

ther belong my father, long time before he come boat's crew along this place. Big fella schooner brother belong my

of Su'u after all hands had been killed. Truly, the Solomons at this beginning of the twentieth

at, green-forested to its cloud-capped summit four thousand feet in the air. Even as he looked,

lenty boy stop 'm bush looko

smoke-signalling, the message was being conveyed from village to vill

igh noon, with Van Horn, ever-attended by Jerry, standing for'ard and conning, the Arangi headed into the wind to thread the passage between two palm-tufted islets. There was need for conning. Coral patches uprose e

he chain of islets lying off shore, opened out, Jerry began to smell the reef-villages. Canoes, many canoes, urged by paddles or sailed before the wind by the weight of the freshening South East trade on spread fronds of coconut palms, moved across the smooth surface of the lagoon. Jer

and mizzen, and dropped anchor in fifty feet of water so clear that every huge fluted clamshell was visible on the coral floor. The whaleboat was not necessary to put the Langa-La

ght. Borckman, with half the boat's crew, went about the ship's work. Van Horn, Jerry at his heels, careful that no one should get at his back, superintended the departure of the Langa-Langa returns and kept a

orn beckoned aboard Nau-hau, the biggest chief of the stronghold of Langa-Langa. Unlike most of the

d named him because of fancied Semitic resemblance blended with

was thrust the naked blade of a ten-inch ripping knife. His sole decoration was a white China soup-plate, perforated and strung on coconut sennit, suspended from about his neck so tha

ongue of Langa-Langa: "Slay here," and "Slay there"; "Thou shalt die," and "Thou shalt live." Because his father, a year abdicated, had chosen foolishly to interfere with his son's government, he had called two boys and had them twist a cord of coconut around his father's neck so that thereafter he never breathed

painted tawny desert may look royal. He was as splendid a brute-an adumbration of the splendid human conquerors and rulers, higher on the ladder of evolution, who have

he had seen slain and their heads removed on deck. The third, still fighting, had but the minute before fled below. Then the cutter, along with all her wealth of hoop-iron, tobacco, knives and calico, had gone up into the air and fallen back into the sea in scattered and fragmented nothingness. It had been dynamite-the MYSTERY. And he, who had been hurled uninjured through the air by a miracle of fortune, had divined that white men in th

o much?" Which was a true and correct charge that the boys which Van Horn h

hen added, diplomatically, dipping into a half-case of tobacco sawed across and profferi

aved aside the gift f

e lied. "What name one fella boy

skimmed its pages, impressed Nau-hau with the dynamite of the white man's superior powers which

e black chief before him, while the black chief himself speculated and studied the chance of getting behind him

sick belly belong him too much; bime by him fella Sati finish altogether," he tran

time," Nau-hau drove to the point.

tal arithmetic f

slation of sixty-two pounds of wages. "I pay advance father belong him one ten pounds

la pounds?" Nau-hau demanded, his tongue, but

held up

est along plantation two tens pounds and one fella pound. Belong

nds and six fella pounds?" N

e," the captain

tens pounds and

ession of the dynamite out of which white men seemed made, and felt his brain quicken to the visi

noe?" Van Horn asked, pointing to an old man i

long Sati," Na

the deck and of Nau-hau, and went below to get the money from his strong-box. Whe

ame bel

uavering response. "Him fe

irmation in the reverse Solomon way; whereupon Van Horn coun

tained for himself, returning to the old man the remaining six. It was no quarrel of Van Horn's. He ha

, had robbed Sati's father of Sati's labour before Van Horn's eyes. But Nau-hau was not above strutting. He declined a proffered present of tobacc

Horn, unperturbed, politely queried, in order

n grinned, but did

k about?" Van Horn challen

Nau-hau challenged back. "Maybe plen

he experienced the hair-pricking sensations in his sc

he called. "Man

descended into it first, superiorly,

ake 'm trouble, I shoot 'm hell outa you first thing. Next thing I shoot 'm hell outa Langa-Langa. All the time y

ing barelegged through a stronghold of three thousand souls, while his white mate, addicted to schnapps, held the deck of the tiny craft at anchor off shore, and while his black boat's crew, oars in

the butt of the automatic that lay along his groin, his eyes never too far from the unwilling Nau-hau beside him. For Nau-hau, in sullen volcanic rage, was ripe to erupt at the slightest opportunity. And

ch hunted, wretched creatures, survivors of village massacres, escapes from the wrath of chiefs and from the long-pig fate of the cooking-pot, did come, and did endure. They, who knew only the bush, learned the salt water and developed th

their coral reefs and sand-banks with coral-rock stolen from the mainland on dark nights. Fine masonry, without mortar or cutting chisel, they builded to withstand the oce

against the mainland by the lagoons that were to them their narrow seas. Coconut palms, banana trees, and lofty breadfruit trees gave food and sun-shelter. Their gardens

on her deep-sunk piles, so these wretched hunted blacks builded power until they became masters of the mainland, controlling t

apable of believing that he might swiftly die, knowing that he was building good future business in the matter of re

he beach a stunned and wondering royal black, who, more than ever before, was respectful of the dynamite-compounded whi