Chapter 11

CHAPTER XI--THE PORT ADAMS CROWD

"And so it was all settled easily enough," Sheldon was saying. He
was on the veranda, drinking coffee. The whale-boat was being
carried into its shed. "Boucher was a bit timid at first to carry
off the situation with a strong hand, but he did very well once we
got started. We made a play at holding a court, and Telepasse, the
old scoundrel, accepted the findings. He's a Port Adams chief, a
filthy beggar. We fined him ten times the value of the pigs, and
made him move on with his mob. Oh, they're a sweet lot, I must
say, at least sixty of them, in five big canoes, and out for
trouble. They've got a dozen Sniders that ought to be
confiscated."

"Why didn't you?" Joan asked.

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

Two hours later the canoes arrived. No one saw them come. The
house-boys were busy in the kitchen at their own breakfast. The
plantation hands were similarly occupied in their quarters. Satan
lay sound asleep on his back under the billiard table, in his sleep
brushing at the flies that pestered him. Joan was rummaging in the
store-room, and Sheldon was taking his siesta in a hammock on the
veranda. He awoke gently. In some occult, subtle way a warning
that all was not well had penetrated his sleep and aroused him.
Without moving, he glanced down and saw the ground beneath covered
with armed savages. They were the same ones he had parted with
that morning, though he noted an accession in numbers. There were
men he had not seen before.

He slipped from the hammock and with deliberate slowness sauntered
to the railing, where he yawned sleepily and looked down on them.
It came to him curiously that it was his destiny ever to stand on
this high place, looking down on unending hordes of black trouble
that required control, bullying, and cajolery. But while he
glanced carelessly over them, he was keenly taking stock. The new
men were all armed with modern rifles. Ah, he had thought so.
There were fifteen of them, undoubtedly the Lunga runaways. In
addition, a dozen old Sniders were in the hands of the original
crowd. The rest were armed with spears, clubs, bows and arrows,
and long-handled tomahawks. Beyond, drawn up on the beach, he
could see the big war-canoes, with high and fantastically carved
bows and sterns, ornamented with scrolls and bands of white cowrie
shells. These were the men who had killed his trader, Oscar, at
Ugi.

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

At the same time he