Chapter 8 - Page 2

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

"His own house-boys did it," Young went on; "but they were put up
to it by the Marovo natives. His Santa Cruz boat's-crew escaped in
the whale-boat to Choiseul, and Mather, in the Lily, sailed over to
Marovo. He burned a village, and got Hanley's head back. He found
it in one of the houses, where the niggers had it drying. And
that'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 the
natives got them. The government ought to investigate. And--oh
yes, a war vessel's in the group, the Cambrian. She burned three
villages at Bina--on account of the Minota, you know--and shelled
the bush. Then she went to Sio to straighten out things there."

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

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

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

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

"You would think he wouldn't strike a mosquito that was biting
him," Sheldon said when Young had gone on board. "All the Norfolk
Islanders that have descended from the Bounty crowd are that way.
But look at Young. Only three years ago, when he first got the
Minerva, he was lying in Suu, on Malaita. There are a lot of
returned Queenslanders there--a rough crowd. They planned to get
his head. The son of their chief, old One-Eyed Billy, had
recruited on Lunga and died of dysentery. That meant that a white
man's head was owing to Suu--any white man, it didn't matter who so
long as they got the head. And Young was only a lad, and they made
sure to get his easily. They decoyed his whale-boat ashore with a
promise of recruits, and killed all hands. At the same instant,
the Suu gang that was on board the Minerva jumped Young. He was
just preparing a dynamite stick for fish, and he lighted it and
tossed it in amongst them. One can't get him to talk about it, but
the fuse was short, the survivors leaped overboard, while he
slipped his anchor and got away. They've got one hundred fathoms
of shell money on his head now, which is worth one hundred pounds
sterling. Yet he goes into Suu regularly. He was there a short
time ago, returning thirty boys from Cape Marsh--that's the Fulcrum
Brothers' plantation."

"At any rate, his news to-night has given me a better insight