It"s not loaded now, you know."
"A gun is always loaded."
"But this one isn"t."
"Turn it away just the same."
Captain Malu"s voice was flat and metallic and low, but his eyes never left the muzzle until the line of it was drawn past him and away from him.
"I"ll bet a fiver it isn"t loaded," Bertie proposed warmly.
The other shook his head.
"Then I"ll show you."
Bertie started to put the muzzle to his own temple with the evident intention of pulling the trigger.
"Just a second," Captain Malu said quietly, reaching out his hand.
"Let me look at it."
He pointed it seaward and pulled the trigger. A heavy explosion followed, instantaneous with the sharp click of the mechanism that flipped a hot and smoking cartridge sidewise along the deck. Bertie"s jaw dropped in amazement.
"I slipped the barrel back once, didn"t I?" he explained. "It was silly of me, I must say."
He giggled flabbily, and sat down in a steamer chair. The blood had ebbed from his face, exposing dark circles under his eyes. His hands were trembling and unable to guide the shaking cigarette to his lips.
The world was too much with him, and he saw himself with dripping brains p.r.o.ne upon the deck.
"Really," he said, ". . . really."
"It"s a pretty weapon," said Captain Malu, returning the automatic to him.
The Commissioner was on board the _Makembo_, returning from Sydney, and by his permission a stop was made at Ugi to land a missionary. And at Ugi lay the ketch _Arla_, Captain Hansen, skipper. Now the _Arla_ was one of many vessels owned by Captain Malu, and it was at his suggestion and by his invitation that Bertie went aboard the _Arla_ as guest for a four-days" recruiting cruise on the coast of Malaita. Thereafter the _Arla_ would drop him at Reminge Plantation (also owned by Captain Malu), where Bertie could remain for a week, and then be sent over to Tulgal, the seat of government, where he would become the Commissioner"s guest. Captain Malu was responsible for two other suggestions, which given, he disappears from this narrative. One was to Captain Hansen, the other to Mr. Harriwell, manager of Reminge Plantation. Both suggestions were similar in tenor, namely, to give Mr. Bertram Arkwright an insight into the rawness and redness of life in the Solomons. Also, it is whispered that Captain Malu mentioned that a case of Scotch would be coincidental with any particularly gorgeous insight Mr. Arkwright might receive.
"Yes, Svartz always was too pig-headed. You see, he took four of his boat"s crew to Tulagi to be flogged--officially, you know--then started back with them in the whale-boat. It was pretty squally, and the boat capsized just outside. Swartz was the only one drowned. Of course it was an accident."
"Was it? Really?" Bertie asked, only half-interested, staring hard at the black man at the wheel.
Ugi had dropped astern, and the _Arla_ was sliding along through a summer sea toward the wooded ranges of Malaita. The helmsman who so attracted Bertie"s eyes sported a tenpenny nail, stuck skewerwise through his nose. About his neck was string of pants b.u.t.tons. Thrust through holes in his ears were a can-opener, the broken handle of a tooth-brush, a clay pipe, the bra.s.s wheel of an alarm clock, and several Winchester rifle cartridges. On his chest, suspended from around his neck hung the half of a china plate. Some forty similarly apparelled blacks lay about the deck, fifteen of which were boat"s crew, the remainder being fresh labor recruits.
"Of course it was an accident," spoke up the _Arla"s_ mate, Jacobs, a slender, dark-eyed man who looked more a professor than a sailor.
"Johnny Bedlip nearly had the same kind of accident. He was bringing back several from a flogging, when they capsized him. But he knew how to swim as well as they, and two of them were drowned. He used a boat-stretcher and a revolver. Of course it was an accident."
"Quite common, them accidents," remarked the skipper. "You see that man at the wheel, Mr. Arkwright? He"s a man-eater. Six months ago, he and the rest of the boat"s crew drowned the then captain of the _Arla_.
They did it on deck, sir, right aft there by the mizzen-traveller."
"The deck was in a shocking state," said the mate.
"Do I understanad--?" Bertie began.
"Yes, just that," said Captain Hansen. "It was accidental drowning."
"But on deck--?"
"Just so. I don"t mind telling you, in confidence, of course, that they used an axe."
"This present crew of yours?"
Captain Hansen nodded.
"The other skipper always was too careless," explained the mate. "He but just turned his back, when they let him have it."
"We haven"t any show down here," was the skipper"s complaint. "The government protects a n.i.g.g.e.r against a white every time. You can"t shoot first. You"ve got to give the n.i.g.g.e.r first shot, or else the government calls it murder and you go to Fiji. That"s why there"s so many drowning accidents."
Dinner was called, and Bertie and the skipper went below, leaving the mate to watch on deck.
"Keep an eye out for that black devil, Auiki," was the skipper"s parting caution. "I haven"t liked his looks for several days."
"Right O," said the mate.
Dinner was part way along, and the skipper was in the middle of his story of the cutting out of the _Scottish Chiefs_.
"Yes," he was saying, "she was the finest vessel on the coast. But when she missed stays, and before ever she hit the reef, the canoes started for her. There were five white men, a crew of twenty Santa Cruz boys and Samoans, and only the super-cargo escaped. Besides, there were sixty recruits. They were all kai-kai"d. Kaikai?--oh, I beg your pardon. I mean they were eaten. Then there was the _James Edwards_, a dandy-rigged--"
But at that moment there was a sharp oath from the mate on deck and a chorus of savage cries. A revolver went off three times, and then was heard a loud splash. Captain Hansen had sprung up the companionway on the instant, and Bertie"s eyes had been fascinated by a glimpse of him drawing his revolver as he sprung. Bertie went up more circ.u.mspectly, hesitating before he put his head above the companionway slide. But nothing happened. The mate was shaking with excitement, his revolver in his hand. Once he startled, and half-jumped around, as if danger threatened his back.
"One of the natives fell overboard," he was saying, in a queer tense voice. "He couldn"t swim."
"Who was it?" the skipper demanded.
"Auiki," was the answer.
"But I say, you know, I heard shots," Bertie said, in trembling eagerness, for he scented adventure, and adventure that was happily over with.
The mate whirled upon him, snarling:
"It"s a d.a.m.ned lie. There ain"t been a shot fired. The n.i.g.g.e.r fell overboard."
Captain Hansen regarded Bertie with unblinking, lack-l.u.s.tre eyes.
"I--I thought--" Bertie was beginning.
"Shots? Did you hear any shots, Mr. Jacobs?"
"Not a shot," replied Mr. Jacobs.
The skipper looked at his guest triumphantly, and said: