The Greatest Adventures Boxed Set: Jack London Edition. Jack London
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people, and I can. Shut up, you!”
This last was addressed to Naumoo, who was calling up in her native tongue and whom Raoul seized by the neck with one hand to choke to silence. In turn, she locked both arms about him and looked up beseechingly to Grief.
“Throw it, Mr. Grief, and be damned to them,” Captain Glass rumbled in his deep voice. “They’re bloody murderers, and the cabin’s full of them.”
The desperado who was fastened to the old Queen swung half about to menace Captain Glass with his rifle, when Tehaa, from his position farther along the Rock, pulled trigger on him. The rifle dropped from the man’s hand, and on his face was an expression of intense surprise as his legs crumpled under him and he sank down on deck, dragging the Queen with him.
“Port! Hard a port!” Grief cried.
Captain Glass and the Kanaka whirled the wheel over, and the bow of the Rattler headed in for the Rock. Amidships Raoul still struggled with Naumoo. His brother ran from for’ard to his aid, being missed by the fusillade of quick shots from Tehaa and the Goat Man. As Raoul’s brother placed the muzzle of his rifle to Naumoo’s side Grief touched the fire-stick to the match-head in the split end of the fuse. Even as with both hands he tossed the big bundle of dynamite, the rifle went off, and Naumoo’s fall to the deck was simultaneous with the fall of the dynamite. This time the fuse was short enough. The explosion occurred at the instant the deck was reached, and that portion of the Rattler, along with Raoul, his brother, and Naumoo, forever disappeared.
The schooner’s side was shattered, and she began immediately to settle. For’ard, every Raiatean sailor dived overboard. Captain Glass met the first man springing up the com-panionway from the cabin, with a kick full in the face, but was overborne and trampled on by the rush. Following the desperadoes came the Huahine women, and as they went overboard, the Rattler sank on an even keel close to the base of the Rock. Her cross-trees still stuck out when she reached bottom.
Looking down, Grief could see all that occurred beneath the surface. He saw Mataara, a fathom deep, unfasten herself from the dead pirate and swim upward. As her head emerged she saw Captain Glass, who could not swim, sinking several yards away. The Queen, old woman that she was, but an islander, turned over, swam down to him, and held him up as she struck out for the unsubmerged cross-trees.
Five heads, blond and brown, were mingled with the dark heads of Polynesia that dotted the surface. Grief, rifle in hand, watched for a chance to shoot. The Goat Man, after a minute, was successful, and they saw the body of one man sink sluggishly. But to the Raiatean sailors, big and brawny, half fish, was the vengeance given. Swimming swiftly, they singled out the blond heads and the brown. Those from above watched the four surviving desperadoes, clutched and locked, dragged far down beneath and drowned like curs.
In ten minutes everything was over. The Huahine women, laughing and giggling, were holding on to the sides of the whaleboat which had done the towing. The Raiatean sailors, waiting for orders, were about the cross-tree to which Captain Glass and Mataara clung.
“The poor old Rattler,” Captain Glass lamented.
“Nothing of the sort,” Grief answered. “In a week we’ll have her raised, new timbers amidships, and we’ll be on our way.” And to the Queen, “How is it with you, Sister?”
“Naumoo is gone, and Motauri, Brother, but Fuatino is ours again. The day is young. Word shall be sent to all my people in the high places with the goats. And to-night, once again, and as never before, we shall feast and rejoice in the Big House.”
“She’s been needing new timbers abaft the beam there for years,” quoth Captain Glass. “But the chronometers will be out of commission for the rest of the cruise.”
The Jokers of New Gibbon
I
“I’m almost afraid to take you in to New Gibbon,” David Grief said. “It wasn’t until you and the British gave me a free hand and let the place alone that any results were accomplished.”
Wallenstein, the German Resident Commissioner from Bougainville, poured himself a long Scotch and soda and smiled.
“We take off our hats to you, Mr. Grief,” he said in perfectly good English. “What you have done on the devil island is a miracle. And we shall continue not to interfere. It is a devil island, and old Koho is the big chief devil of them all. We never could bring him to terms. He is a liar, and he is no fool. He is a black Napoleon, a head-hunting, man-eating Talleyrand. I remember six years ago, when I landed there in the British cruiser. The niggers cleared out for the bush, of course, but we found several who couldn’t get away. One was his latest wife. She had been hung up by one arm in the sun for two days and nights. We cut her down, but she died just the same. And staked out in the fresh running water, up to their necks, were three more women. All their bones were broken and their joints crushed. The process is supposed to make them tender for the eating. They were still alive. Their vitality was remarkable. One woman, the oldest, lingered nearly ten days. Well, that was a sample of Koho’s diet. No wonder he’s a wild beast. How you ever pacified him is our everlasting puzzlement.”
“I wouldn’t call him exactly pacified,” Grief answered. “Though he comes in once in a while and eats out of the hand.”
“That’s more than we accomplished with our cruisers. Neither the German nor the English ever laid eyes on him. You were the first.”
“No; McTavish was the first,” Grief disclaimed.
“Ah, yes, I remember him—the little, dried-up Scotchman.” Wallenstein sipped his whiskey. “He’s called the Trouble-mender, isn’t he?”
Grief nodded.
“And they say the screw you pay him is bigger than mine or the British Resident’s?”
“I’m afraid it is,” Grief admitted. “You see, and no offence, he’s really worth it. He spends his time wherever the trouble is. He is a wizard. He’s the one who got me my lodgment on New Gibbon. He’s down on Malaita now, starting a plantation for me.”
“The first?”
“There’s not even a trading station on all Malaita. The recruiters still use covering boats and carry the old barbed wire above their rails. There’s the plantation now. We’ll be in in half an hour.” He handed the binoculars to his guest. “Those are the boat-sheds to the left of the bungalow. Beyond are the barracks. And to the right are the copra-sheds. We dry quite a bit already. Old Koho’s getting civilized enough to make his people bring in the nuts. There’s the mouth of the stream where you found the three women softening.”
The Wonder, wing-and-wing, was headed directly in for the anchorage. She rose and fell lazily over a glassy swell flawed here and there by catspaws from astern. It was the tail-end of the monsoon season, and the air was heavy and sticky with tropic moisture, the sky a florid, leaden muss of formless clouds. The rugged land was swathed with cloud-banks and squall wreaths, through which headlands and interior peaks thrust darkly. On one promontory a slant of sunshine blazed torridly, on another, scarcely a mile away, a squall was bursting in furious downpour of driving rain.
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