"Then you'd better take my men along," she advised. "They're good shots, and they're not afraid of anything--except Utami, and he's afraid of ghosts."The big bell was rung, and fifty black boys carried the whale-boat down to the water. The regular boat's-crew manned her, and Matauare and three other Tahitians, belted with cartridges and armed with rifles, sat in the stern-sheets where Sheldon stood at the steering-oar.
"My, I wish I could go with you," Joan said wistfully, as the boat shoved off.
Sheldon shook his head.
"I'm as good as a man," she urged.
"You really are needed here," he replied.
"There's that Lunga crowd; they might reach the coast right here, and with both of us absent rush the plantation. Good-bye. We'll get back in the morning some time. It's only twelve miles."When Joan started to return to the house, she was compelled to pass among the boat-carriers, who lingered on the beach to chatter in queer, ape-like fashion about the events of the night. They made way for her, but there came to her, as she was in the midst of them, a feeling of her own helplessness. There were so many of them. What was to prevent them from dragging her down if they so willed? Then she remembered that one cry of hers would fetch Noa Noah and her remaining sailors, each one of whom was worth a dozen blacks in a struggle. As she opened the gate, one of the boys stepped up to her. In the darkness she could not make him out.
"What name?" she asked sharply. "What name belong you?""Me Aroa," he said.
She remembered him as one of the two sick boys she had nursed at the hospital. The other one had died.
"Me take 'm plenty fella medicine too much," Aroa was saying.
"Well, and you all right now," she answered.
"Me want 'm tobacco, plenty fella tobacco; me want 'm calico; me want 'm porpoise teeth; me want 'm one fella belt."She looked at him humorously, expecting to see a smile, or at least a grin, on his face. Instead, his face was expressionless. Save for a narrow breech-clout, a pair of ear-plugs, and about his kinky hair a chaplet of white cowrie-shells, he was naked. His body was fresh-oiled and shiny, and his eyes glistened in the starlight like some wild animal's. The rest of the boys had crowded up at his back in a solid wall. Some one of them giggled, but the remainder regarded her in morose and intense silence.
"Well?" she said. "What for you want plenty fella things?""Me take 'm medicine," quoth Aroa. "You pay me."And this was a sample of their gratitude, she thought. It looked as if Sheldon had been right after all. Aroa waited stolidly. Aleaping fish splashed far out on the water. A tiny wavelet murmured sleepily on the beach. The shadow of a flying-fox drifted by in velvet silence overhead. A light air fanned coolly on her cheek; it was the land-breeze beginning to blow.
"You go along quarters," she said, starting to turn on her heel to enter the gate.
"You pay me," said the boy.
"Aroa, you all the same one big fool. I no pay you. Now you go."But the black was unmoved. She felt that he was regarding her almost insolently as he repeated:
"I take 'm medicine. You pay me. You pay me now."Then it was that she lost her temper and cuffed his ears so soundly as to drive him back among his fellows. But they did not break up.
Another boy stepped forward.
"You pay me," he said.
His eyes had the querulous, troubled look such as she had noticed in monkeys; but while he was patently uncomfortable under her scrutiny, his thick lips were drawn firmly in an effort at sullen determination.
"What for?" she asked.
"Me Gogoomy," he said. "Bawo brother belong me."Bawo, she remembered, was the sick boy who had died.
"Go on," she commanded.
"Bawo take 'm medicine. Bawo finish. Bawo my brother. You pay me. Father belong me one big fella chief along Port Adams. You pay me."Joan laughed.
"Gogoomy, you just the same as Aroa, one big fool. My word, who pay me for medicine?"She dismissed the matter by passing through the gate and closing it. But Gogoomy pressed up against it and said impudently:
"Father belong me one big fella chief. You no bang 'm head belong me. My word, you fright too much.""Me fright?" she demanded, while anger tingled all through her.
"Too much fright bang 'm head belong me," Gogoomy said proudly.
And then she reached for him across the gate and got him. It was a sweeping, broad-handed slap, so heavy that he staggered sideways and nearly fell. He sprang for the gate as if to force it open, while the crowd surged forward against the fence. Joan thought rapidly. Her revolver was hanging on the wall of her grass house.
Yet one cry would bring her sailors, and she knew she was safe. So she did not cry for help. Instead, she whistled for Satan, at the same time calling him by name. She knew he was shut up in the living room, but the blacks did not wait to see. They fled with wild yells through the darkness, followed reluctantly by Gogoomy;while she entered the bungalow, laughing at first, but finally vexed to the verge of tears by what had taken place. She had sat up a whole night with the boy who had died, and yet his brother demanded to be paid for his life.
"Ugh! the ungrateful beast!" she muttered, while she debated whether or not she would confess the incident to Sheldon.
