The Lost Heir. Henty George Alfred
better of it; and if they didn't I would settle them too."
"It is all very well talking like that, Sim. How could I sail the brig without hands? If I only kept three of them I should be very short-handed, and if I ever did manage to get to port they would lay a complaint against me for shooting the others. It is all very well for you to talk; you have lived here long enough to know that one can only get the very worst class of fellows to sail with one in craft like this and for this sort of trade. It pays well if one gets back safely, but what with the risk of being cast ashore or being killed by the natives, who are savage enough in some of the islands, it stands to reason that a man who can get a berth in any other sort of craft won't sail with us. But it is just the sort of life to suit chaps like these; it means easy work, plenty of loafing about, and if things turn out well a good lump of money at the end of the voyage. However, they ought to have had enough of it this job; the rum is nearly gone, and if you will come off to-morrow I will let you have what remains, though if they are sober I doubt if they will let you take it away."
"We will risk that," the third man said. "We are not nice about using our pistols, if you are. I was saying to Simcoe here, things are going a lot too far. Enough mischief has been done already, and I am by no means sure that when you have gone they won't make it hot for us. We are very comfortable here, and we are not doing badly, and I don't care about being turned out of it."
"The pearl fishing is turning out well?" Atkins asked quietly.
"It might be worse and it might be better. Anyhow, we are content to remain here for a bit.
"I don't like it, Jack," he said, as the skipper, having in vain tried to rouse the two drunken men, rowed himself off to the brig. "My woman told me this morning that there had been a big talk among the natives, and that though they did not tell her anything, she thought that they had made up their minds to wipe the whites out altogether. They said that if we hadn't been here, the brig would not have come; which is like enough, for Atkins only put in because he was an old chum of ours, and thought that we should have got copra enough to make it worth his while to come round. Well, if the niggers only wiped out the crew, and burned the ship, I should say nothing against it, as long as they let Atkins alone. He has stood by me in more than one rough-and-tumble business, and I am bound to stand by him. But there aint no discrimination among the niggers. Besides, I am not saying but that he has been pretty rough with them himself.
"It makes all the difference whether you settle down and go in for making a pile, or if you only stop to water and take in fruit; we agreed as to that when we landed here. When we stopped here before and found them friendly and pleasant, and we says to each other, 'If we can but get on smooth with them and set them fishing for us we might make a good thing out of it.' You see, we had bought some oysters one of them brought up after a dive, and had found two or three pearls in them.
"Well, we have been here nine months, and I don't say I am not getting tired of it; but it is worth stopping for. You know we reckoned last week that the pearls we have got ought to be worth two or three thousand pounds, and we agreed that we would stay here till we have two bags the size of the one we have got; but unless Atkins gets those fellows off, I doubt if we shan't have to go before that. There is no reasoning with these niggers; if they had any sense they would see that we can't help these things."
"Perhaps what the women tell us is untrue," the other suggested.
"Don't you think that," Simcoe said; "these black women are always true to their white men when they are decently treated. Besides, none of the natives have been near us to-day. That, of course, might be because they are afraid of these chaps; but from this shanty we can see the canoes, and not one has gone out to-day. Who is to blame them, when one of their chiefs was shot yesterday without a shadow of excuse? I don't say that I think so much of a nigger's life one way or another; and having been in some stiff fights together, as you know, I have always taken my share. But I am dead against shooting without some reason; it spoils trade, and makes it unsafe even to land for water. I have half a mind, Bill, to go on board and ask Atkins to take us away with him; we could mighty soon settle matters with the crew, and if there was a fight and we had to shoot them all, we could take the brig into port well enough."
"No, no," said Bill, "it has not come to that yet. Don't let us give up a good thing until we are sure that the game is up."
"Well, just as you like; I am ready to run the risk if you are. It would be hard, if the worst came to the worst, if we couldn't fight our way down to our canoe, and once on board that we could laugh at them; for as we have proved over and over again, they have not one that can touch her."
"Well, I will be off to my hut; the sun is just setting and my supper will be ready for me." He strolled off to his shanty, which lay back some distance in the wood. Simcoe entered the hut, where a native woman was cooking.
"Nothing fresh, I suppose?" he asked in her language.
She shook her head. "None of our people have been near us to-day."
"Well, Polly," – for so her white master had christened her, her native appellation being too long for ordinary conversation, – "it is a bad business, and I am sorry for it; but when these fellows have sailed away it will soon come all right again."
"Polly hopes so," she said. "Polly very much afraid."
"Well, you had better go to-morrow and see them, and tell them, as I have told them already, we are very sorry for the goings on of these people, but it is not our fault. You have no fear that they will hurt you, have you? Because if so, don't you go."
"They no hurt Polly now," she said; "they know that if I do not come back you be on guard."
"Well, I don't think there is any danger at present, but it is as well to be ready. Do you take down to the canoe three or four dozen cocoanuts and four or five big bunches of plantains, and you may as well take three or four gourds of water. If we have to take to the boat, will you go with me or stay here?"
"Polly will go with her master," the woman said; "if she stay here they will kill her."
"I am glad enough for you to go with me, Polly," he said. "You have been a good little woman, and I don't know how I should get on without you now; though why they should kill you I don't know, seeing that your head chief gave you to me himself."
"Kill everything belonging to white man," she said quietly; and the man knew in his heart that it would probably be so. She put his supper on the table and then made several journeys backwards and forwards to the canoe, which lay afloat in a little cove a couple of hundred yards away. When she had done she stood at the table and ate the remains of the supper.
An hour later the man was sitting on the bench outside smoking his pipe, when he heard the sound of heavy footsteps among the trees. He knew this was no native tread.
"What is it, Bill?" he asked, as the man came up.
"Well, I came to tell you that there is a big row going on among the natives. I can hear their tom-tom things beating furiously, and occasionally they set up a tremendous yell. I tell you I don't like it, Simcoe; I don't like it a bit. I sent my woman to see what it was all about, but though she had been away three hours, she hadn't come back when I started out to talk it over with you."
"There has been a biggish row going on on board the brig too," the other said. "I have heard Atkins storming, and a good deal of shouting among the men. I suppose you have got your pearls all right in your belt? Things begin to have an awkward look, and we may have to bolt at short notice."
"You trust me for that, Simcoe; I have had them on me ever since the brig came in. I had no fear of the natives stealing them out of my hut, but if one of those fellows were to drop in and see them he would think nothing of knifing the woman and carrying them off."
"I see you have brought your gun with you."
"Yes, and my pistols too. I suppose you are loaded, and ready to catch up at a moment's notice?"
"Yes; my girl has been carrying down cocoanuts and plantains to the canoe, so, if we have to make a bolt, we can hold on comfortably enough until we get to the next island, which is not above three days' sail, and lies dead to leeward, as the wind is at present. Still, Bill, I hope it is not coming to that. I think it is likely enough they may attack