Chapter VIII--Local Colour

by Jack London

　　At sunset a small ketch fanned in to anchorage, and a little laterthe skipper came ashore. He was a soft-spoken, gentle-voiced youngfellow of twenty, but he won Joan's admiration in advance whenSheldon told her that he ran the ketch all alone with a black crewfrom Malaita. And Romance lured and beckoned before Joan's eyeswhen she learned he was Christian Young, a Norfolk Islander, but adirect descendant of John Young, one of the original Bountymutineers. The blended Tahitian and English blood showed in hissoft eyes and tawny skin; but the English hardness seemed to havedisappeared. Yet the hardness was there, and it was what enabledhim to run his ketch single-handed and to wring a livelihood out ofthe fighting Solomons.

　　Joan's unexpected presence embarrassed him, until she herself puthim at his ease by a frank, comradely manner that offendedSheldon's sense of the fitness of things feminine. News from theworld Young had not, but he was filled with news of the Solomons.Fifteen boys had stolen rifles and run away into the bush fromLunga plantation, which was farther east on the Guadalcanar coast.And from the bush they had sent word that they were coming back towipe out the three white men in charge, while two of the threewhite men, in turn, were hunting them through the bush. There wasa strong possibility, Young volunteered, that if they were notcaught they might circle around and tap the coast at Berande inorder to steal or capture a whale-boat.

　　"I forgot to tell you that your trader at Ugi has been murdered,"he said to Sheldon. "Five big canoes came down from Port Adams.They landed in the night-time, and caught Oscar asleep. What theydidn't steal they burned. The Flibberty-Gibbet got the news atMboli Pass, and ran down to Ugi. I was at Mboli when the newscame."

　　"I think I'll have to abandon Ugi," Sheldon remarked.

　　"It's the second trader you've lost there in a year," Youngconcurred. "To make it safe there ought to be two white men atleast. Those Malaita canoes are always raiding down that way, andyou know what that Port Adams lot is. I've got a dog for you.Tommy Jones sent it up from Neal Island. He said he'd promised itto you. It's a first-class nigger-chaser. Hadn't been on boardtwo minutes when he had my whole boat's-crew in the rigging. Tommycalls him Satan."

　　"I've wondered several times why you had no dogs here," Joan said.

　　"The trouble is to keep them. They're always eaten by thecrocodiles."

　　"Jack Hanley was killed at Marovo Lagoon two months ago," Youngannounced in his mild voice. "The news just came down on theApostle."

　　"Where is Marovo Lagoon?" Joan asked.

　　"New Georgia, a couple of hundred miles to the westward," Sheldonanswered. "Bougainville lies just beyond."

　　"His own house-boys did it," Young went on; "but they were put upto it by the Marovo natives. His Santa Cruz boat's-crew escaped inthe whale-boat to Choiseul, and Mather, in the Lily, sailed over toMarovo. He burned a village, and got Hanley's head back. He foundit in one of the houses, where the niggers had it drying. Andthat's all the news I've got, except that there's a lot of new Lee-Enfields loose on the eastern end of Ysabel. Nobody knows how thenatives got them. The government ought to investigate. And--ohyes, a war vessel's in the group, the Cambrian. She burned threevillages at Bina--on account of the Minota, you know--and shelledthe bush. Then she went to Sio to straighten out things there."

　　The conversation became general, and just before Young left to goon board Joan asked, -

　　"How can you manage all alone, Mr. Young?"

　　His large, almost girlish eyes rested on her for a moment before hereplied, and then it was in the softest and gentlest of voices.

　　"Oh, I get along pretty well with them. Of course, there is a bitof trouble once in a while, but that must be expected. You mustnever let them think you are afraid. I've been afraid plenty oftimes, but they never knew it."

　　"You would think he wouldn't strike a mosquito that was bitinghim," Sheldon said when Young had gone on board. "All the NorfolkIslanders that have descended from the Bounty crowd are that way.But look at Young. Only three years ago, when he first got theMinerva, he was lying in Suu, on Malaita. There are a lot ofreturned Queenslanders there--a rough crowd. They planned to gethis head. The son of their chief, old One-Eyed Billy, hadrecruited on Lunga and died of dysentery. That meant that a whiteman's head was owing to Suu--any white man, it didn't matter who solong as they got the head. And Young was only a lad, and they madesure to get his easily. They decoyed his whale-boat ashore with apromise of recruits, and killed all hands. At the same instant,the Suu gang that was on board the Minerva jumped Young. He wasjust preparing a dynamite stick for fish, and he lighted it andtossed it in amongst them. One can't get him to talk about it, butthe fuse was short, the survivors leaped overboard, while heslipped his anchor and got away. They've got one hundred fathomsof shell money on his head now, which is worth one hundred poundssterling. Yet he goes into Suu regularly. He was there a shorttime ago, returning thirty boys from Cape Marsh--that's the FulcrumBrothers' plantation."

　　"At any rate, his news to-night has given me a better insight intothe life down here," Joan said. "And it is colourful life, to saythe least. The Solomons ought to be printed red on the charts--andyellow, too, for the diseases."

　　"The Solomons are not always like this," Sheldon answered. "Ofcourse, Berande is the worst plantation, and everything it gets isthe worst. I doubt if ever there was a worse run of sickness thanwe were just getting over when you arrived. Just as luck wouldhave it, the Jessie caught the contagion as well. Berande has beenvery unfortunate. All the old-timers shake their heads at it.They say it has what you Americans call a hoodoo on it."

　　"Berande will succeed," Joan said stoutly. "I like to laugh atsuperstition. You'll pull through and come out the big end of thehorn. The ill luck can't last for ever. I am afraid, though, theSolomons is not a white man's climate."

　　"It will be, though. Give us fifty years, and when all the bush iscleared off back to the mountains, fever will be stamped out;everything will be far healthier. There will be cities and townshere, for there's an immense amount of good land going to waste."

　　"But it will never become a white man's climate, in spite of allthat," Joan reiterated. "The white man will always be unable toperform the manual labour."

　　"That is true."

　　"It will mean slavery," she dashed on.

　　"Yes, like all the tropics. The black, the brown, and the yellowwill have to do the work, managed by the white men. The blacklabour is too wasteful, however, and in time Chinese or Indiancoolies will be imported. The planters are already considering thematter. I, for one, am heartily sick of black labour."

　　"Then the blacks will die off?"

　　Sheldon shrugged his shoulders, and retorted, -

　　"Yes, like the North American Indian, who was a far nobler typethan the Melanesian. The world is only so large, you know, and itis filling up--"

　　"And the unfit must perish?"

　　"Precisely so. The unfit must perish."

　　In the morning Joan was roused by a great row and hullabaloo. Herfirst act was to reach for her revolver, but when she heard NoaNoah, who was on guard, laughing outside, she knew there was nodanger, and went out to see the fun. Captain Young had landedSatan at the moment when the bridge-building gang had started alongthe beach. Satan was big and black, short-haired and muscular, andweighed fully seventy pounds. He did not love the blacks. TommyJones had trained him well, tying him up daily for several hoursand telling off one or two black boys at a time to tease him. SoSatan had it in for the whole black race, and the second after helanded on the beach the bridge-building gang was stampeding overthe compound fence and swarming up the cocoanut palms.

　　"Good morning," Sheldon called from the veranda. "And what do youthink of the nigger-chaser?"

　　"I'm thinking we have a task before us to train him in to thehouse-boys," she called back.

　　"And to your Tahitians, too. Look out, Noah! Run for it!"

　　Satan, having satisfied himself that the tree-perches wereunassailable, was charging straight for the big Tahitian.

　　But Noah stood his ground, though somewhat irresolutely, and Satan,to every one's surprise, danced and frisked about him with laughingeyes and wagging tail.

　　"Now, that is what I might call a proper dog," was Joan's comment."He is at least wiser than you, Mr. Sheldon. He didn't require anyteaching to recognize the difference between a Tahitian and a blackboy. What do you think, Noah? Why don't he bite you? He savveeyou Tahitian eh?"

　　Noa Noah shook his head and grinned.

　　"He no savvee me Tahitian," he explained. "He savvee me wear pantsall the same white man."

　　"You'll have to give him a course in 'Sartor Resartus,'" Sheldonlaughed, as he came down and began to make friends with Satan.

　　It chanced just then that Adamu Adam and Matauare, two of Joan'ssailors, entered the compound from the far side-gate. They hadbeen down to the Balesuna making an alligator trap, and, instead oftrousers, were clad in lava-lavas that flapped gracefully abouttheir stalwart limbs. Satan saw them, and advertised his find bybreaking away from Sheldon's hands and charging.

　　"No got pants," Noah announced with a grin that broadened as AdamuAdam took to flight.

　　He climbed up the platform that supported the galvanized iron tankswhich held the water collected from the roof. Foiled here, Satanturned and charged back on Matauare.

　　"Run, Matauare! Run!" Joan called.

　　But he held his ground and waited the dog.

　　"He is the Fearless One--that is what his name means," Joanexplained to Sheldon.

　　The Tahitian watched Satan coolly, and when that sanguine-mouthedcreature lifted into the air in the final leap, the man's hand shotout. It was a fair grip on the lower jaw, and Satan described ahalf circle and was flung to the rear, turning over in the air andfalling heavily on his back. Three times he leaped, and threetimes that grip on his jaw flung him to defeat. Then he contentedhimself with trotting at Matauare's heels, eyeing him and sniffinghim suspiciously.

　　"It's all right, Satan; it's all right," Sheldon assured him."That good fella belong along me."

　　But Satan dogged the Tahitian's movements for a full hour before hemade up his mind that the man was an appurtenance of the place.Then he turned his attention to the three house-boys, corneringOrnfiri in the kitchen and rushing him against the hot stove,stripping the lava-lava from Lalaperu when that excited youthclimbed a veranda-post, and following Viaburi on top the billiard-table, where the battle raged until Joan managed a rescue.