Chapter XI--The Port Adams Crowd

by Jack London

　　"And so it was all settled easily enough," Sheldon was saying. Hewas on the veranda, drinking coffee. The whale-boat was beingcarried into its shed. "Boucher was a bit timid at first to carryoff the situation with a strong hand, but he did very well once wegot started. We made a play at holding a court, and Telepasse, theold scoundrel, accepted the findings. He's a Port Adams chief, afilthy beggar. We fined him ten times the value of the pigs, andmade him move on with his mob. Oh, they're a sweet lot, I mustsay, at least sixty of them, in five big canoes, and out fortrouble. They've got a dozen Sniders that ought to beconfiscated."

　　"Why didn't you?" Joan asked.

　　"And have a row on my hands with the Commissioner? He's terriblytouchy about his black wards, as he calls them. Well, we startedthem along their way, though they went in on the beach to kai-kaiseveral miles back. They ought to pass here some time to-day."

　　Two hours later the canoes arrived. No one saw them come. Thehouse-boys were busy in the kitchen at their own breakfast. Theplantation hands were similarly occupied in their quarters. Satanlay sound asleep on his back under the billiard table, in his sleepbrushing at the flies that pestered him. Joan was rummaging in thestore-room, and Sheldon was taking his siesta in a hammock on theveranda. He awoke gently. In some occult, subtle way a warningthat all was not well had penetrated his sleep and aroused him.Without moving, he glanced down and saw the ground beneath coveredwith armed savages. They were the same ones he had parted withthat morning, though he noted an accession in numbers. There weremen he had not seen before.

　　He slipped from the hammock and with deliberate slowness saunteredto the railing, where he yawned sleepily and looked down on them.It came to him curiously that it was his destiny ever to stand onthis high place, looking down on unending hordes of black troublethat required control, bullying, and cajolery. But while heglanced carelessly over them, he was keenly taking stock. The newmen were all armed with modern rifles. Ah, he had thought so.There were fifteen of them, undoubtedly the Lunga runaways. Inaddition, a dozen old Sniders were in the hands of the originalcrowd. The rest were armed with spears, clubs, bows and arrows,and long-handled tomahawks. Beyond, drawn up on the beach, hecould see the big war-canoes, with high and fantastically carvedbows and sterns, ornamented with scrolls and bands of white cowrieshells. These were the men who had killed his trader, Oscar, atUgi.

　　"What name you walk about this place?" he demanded.

　　At the same time he stole a glance seaward to where the Flibberty-Gibbet reflected herself in the glassy calm of the sea. Not a soulwas visible under her awnings, and he saw the whale-boat wasmissing from alongside. The Tahitians had evidently gone shootingfish up the Balesuna. He was all alone in his high place abovethis trouble, while his world slumbered peacefully under thebreathless tropic noon.

　　Nobody replied, and he repeated his demand, more of mastery in hisvoice this time, and a hint of growing anger. The blacks moveduneasily, like a herd of cattle, at the sound of his voice. Butnot one spoke. All eyes, however, were staring at him in certitudeof expectancy. Something was about to happen, and they werewaiting for it, waiting with the unanimous, unstable mob-mind forthe one of them who would make the first action that wouldprecipitate all of them into a common action. Sheldon looked forthis one, for such was the one to fear. Directly beneath him hecaught sight of the muzzle of a rifle, barely projecting betweentwo black bodies, that was slowly elevating toward him. It washeld at the hip by a man in the second row.

　　"What name you?" Sheldon suddenly shouted, pointing directly at theman who held the gun, who startled and lowered the muzzle.

　　Sheldon still held the whip hand, and he intended to keep it.

　　"Clear out, all you fella boys," he ordered. "Clear out and walkalong salt water. Savvee!"

　　"Me talk," spoke up a fat and filthy savage whose hairy chest wascaked with the unwashed dirt of years.

　　"Oh, is that you, Telepasse?" the white man queried genially. "Youtell 'm boys clear out, and you stop and talk along me."

　　"Him good fella boy," was the reply. "Him stop along."

　　"Well, what do you want?" Sheldon asked, striving to hide underassumed carelessness the weakness of concession.

　　"That fella boy belong along me." The old chief pointed outGogoomy, whom Sheldon recognized.

　　"White Mary belong you too much no good," Telepasse went on. "Bang'm head belong Gogoomy. Gogoomy all the same chief. Bimeby mefinish, Gogoomy big fella chief. White Mary bang 'm head. Nogood. You pay me plenty tobacco, plenty powder, plenty calico."

　　"You old scoundrel," was Sheldon's comment. An hour before, he hadbeen chuckling over Joan's recital of the episode, and here, anhour later, was Telepasse himself come to collect damages.

　　"Gogoomy," Sheldon ordered, "what name you walk about here? Youget along quarters plenty quick."

　　"Me stop," was the defiant answer.

　　"White Mary b'long you bang 'm head," old Telepasse began again."My word, plenty big fella trouble you no pay."

　　"You talk along boys," Sheldon said, with increasing irritation."You tell 'm get to hell along beach. Then I talk with you."

　　Sheldon felt a slight vibration of the veranda, and knew that Joanhad come out and was standing by his side. But he did not dareglance at her. There were too many rifles down below there, andrifles had a way of going off from the hip.

　　Again the veranda vibrated with her moving weight, and he knew thatJoan had gone into the house. A minute later she was back besidehim. He had never seen her smoke, and it struck him as peculiarthat she should be smoking now. Then he guessed the reason. Witha quick glance, he noted the hand at her side, and in it thefamiliar, paper-wrapped dynamite. He noted, also, the end of fuse,split properly, into which had been inserted the head of a waxmatch.

　　"Telepasse, you old reprobate, tell 'm boys clear out along beach.My word, I no gammon along you."

　　"Me no gammon," said the chief. "Me want 'm pay white Mary bang 'mhead b'long Gogoomy."

　　"I'll come down there and bang 'm head b'long you," Sheldonreplied, leaning toward the railing as if about to leap over.

　　An angry murmur arose, and the blacks surged restlessly. Themuzzles of many guns were rising from the hips. Joan was pressingthe lighted end of the cigarette to the fuse. A Snider went offwith the roar of a bomb-gun, and Sheldon heard a pane of window-glass crash behind him. At the same moment Joan flung thedynamite, the fuse hissing and spluttering, into the thick of theblacks. They scattered back in too great haste to do any moreshooting. Satan, aroused by the one shot, was snarling and pantingto be let out. Joan heard, and ran to let him out; and thereat thetragedy was averted, and the comedy began.

　　Rifles and spears were dropped or flung aside in a wild scramblefor the protection of the cocoanut palms. Satan multipliedhimself. Never had he been free to tear and rend such a quantityof black flesh before, and he bit and snapped and rushed the flyinglegs till the last pair were above his head. All were treed exceptTelepasse, who was too old and fat, and he lay prone and withoutmovement where he had fallen; while Satan, with too great a heartto worry an enemy that did not move, dashed frantically from treeto tree, barking and springing at those who clung on lowest down.

　　"I fancy you need a lesson or two in inserting fuses," Sheldonremarked dryly.

　　Joan's eyes were scornful.

　　"There was no detonator on it," she said. "Besides, the detonatoris not yet manufactured that will explode that charge. It's only abottle of chlorodyne."

　　She put her fingers into her mouth, and Sheldon winced as he sawher blow, like a boy, a sharp, imperious whistle--the call shealways used for her sailors, and that always made him wince.

　　"They're gone up the Balesuna, shooting fish," he explained. "Butthere comes Oleson with his boat's-crew. He's an old war-horsewhen he gets started. See him banging the boys. They don't pullfast enough for him."

　　"And now what's to be done?" she asked. "You've treed your game,but you can't keep it treed."

　　"No; but I can teach them a lesson."

　　Sheldon walked over to the big bell.

　　"It is all right," he replied to her gesture of protest. "My boysare practically all bushmen, while these chaps are salt-water men,and there's no love lost between them. You watch the fun."

　　He rang a general call, and by the time the two hundred labourerstrooped into the compound Satan was once more penned in the living-room, complaining to high heaven at his abominable treatment. Theplantation hands were dancing war-dances around the base of everytree and filling the air with abuse and vituperation of theirhereditary enemies. The skipper of the Flibberty-Gibbet arrived inthe thick of it, in the first throes of oncoming fever, staggeringas he walked, and shivering so severely that he could scarcely holdthe rifle he carried. His face was ghastly blue, his teeth clickedand chattered, and the violent sunshine through which he walkedcould not warm him.

　　"I'll s-s-sit down, and k-k-keep a guard on 'em," he chattered."D-d-dash it all, I always g-get f-fever when there's anyexcitement. W-w-wh-what are you going to do?"

　　"Gather up the guns first of all."

　　Under Sheldon's direction the house-boys and gang-bosses collectedthe scattered arms and piled them in a heap on the veranda. Themodern rifles, stolen from Lunga, Sheldon set aside; the Sniders hesmashed into fragments; the pile of spears, clubs, and tomahawks hepresented to Joan.

　　"A really unique addition to your collection," he smiled; "pickedup right on the battlefield."

　　Down on the beach he built a bonfire out of the contents of thecanoes, his blacks smashing, breaking, and looting everything theylaid hands on. The canoes themselves, splintered and broken,filled with sand and coral-boulders, were towed out to ten fathomsof water and sunk.

　　"Ten fathoms will be deep enough for them to work in," Sheldonsaid, as they walked back to the compound.

　　Here a Saturnalia had broken loose. The war-songs and dances weremore unrestrained, and, from abuse, the plantation blacks hadturned to pelting their helpless foes with pieces of wood, handfulsof pebbles, and chunks of coral-rock. And the seventy-five lustycannibals clung stoically to their tree-perches, enduring the rainof missiles and snarling down promises of vengeance.

　　"There'll be wars for forty years on Malaita on account of this,"Sheldon laughed. "But I always fancy old Telepasse will neveragain attempt to rush a plantation."

　　"Eh, you old scoundrel," he added, turning to the old chief, whosat gibbering in impotent rage at the foot of the steps. "Now headbelong you bang 'm too. Come on, Miss Lackland, bang 'm just once.It will be the crowning indignity."

　　"Ugh, he's too dirty. I'd rather give him a bath. Here, you,Adamu Adam, give this devil-devil a wash. Soap and water! Fillthat wash-tub. Ornfiri, run and fetch 'm scrub-brush."

　　The Tahitians, back from their fishing and grinning at the bedlamof the compound, entered into the joke.

　　"Tambo! Tambo!" shrieked the cannibals from the trees, appalled atso awful a desecration, as they saw their chief tumbled into thetub and the sacred dirt rubbed and soused from his body.

　　Joan, who had gone into the bungalow, tossed down a strip of whitecalico, in which old Telepasse was promptly wrapped, and he stoodforth, resplendent and purified, withal he still spat and strangledfrom the soap-suds with which Noa Noah had gargled his throat.

　　The house-boys were directed to fetch handcuffs, and, one by one,the Lunga runaways were haled down out of their trees and madefast. Sheldon ironed them in pairs, and ran a steel chain throughthe links of the irons. Gogoomy was given a lecture for hismutinous conduct and locked up for the afternoon. Then Sheldonrewarded the plantation hands with an afternoon's holiday, and,when they had withdrawn from the compound, permitted the Port Adamsmen to descend from the trees. And all afternoon he and Joanloafed in the cool of the veranda and watched them diving down andemptying their sunken canoes of the sand and rocks. It wastwilight when they embarked and paddled away with a few brokenpaddles. A breeze had sprung up, and the Flibberty-Gibbet hadalready sailed for Lunga to return the runaways.