章节正文
There was a primitive aristocraticness about him that his fellows
lacked. The lines of his figure were more rounded than theirs, the
skin smooth, well oiled, and free from disease. On his chest,
suspended from a single string of porpoise-teeth around his throat,
hung a big crescent carved out of opalescent pearl-shell. A row of
pure white cowrie shells banded his brow. From his hair drooped a
long, lone feather. Above the swelling calf of one leg he wore, as
a garter, a single string of white beads. The effect was dandyish
in the extreme. A narrow gee-string completed his costume.
Another man she saw, old and shrivelled, with puckered forehead and
a puckered face that trembled and worked with animal passion as in
the past she had noticed the faces of monkeys tremble and work.
"Gogoomy," she said sharply, "you no cut 'm grass, my word, I bang
'm head belong you."
His expression became a trifle more disdainful, but he did not
answer. Instead, he stole a glance to right and left to mark how
his fellows were closing about her. At the same moment he casually
slipped his foot forward through the grass for a matter of several
inches.
Joan was keenly aware of the desperateness of the situation. The
only way out was through. She lifted her riding-whip
threateningly, and at the same moment drove in both spurs with her
heels, rushing the startled horse straight at Gogoomy. It all
happened in an instant. Every cane-knife was lifted, and every boy
save Gogoomy leaped for her. He swerved aside to avoid the horse,
at the same time swinging his cane-knife in a slicing blow that
would have cut her in twain. She leaned forward under the flying
steel, which cut through her riding-skirt, through the edge of the
saddle, through the saddle cloth, and even slightly into the horse
itself. Her right hand, still raised, came down, the thin whip
whishing through the air. She saw the white, cooked mark of the
weal clear across the sullen, handsome face, and still what was
practically in the same instant she saw the man with the puckered
face, overridden, go down before her, and she heard his snarling
and grimacing chatter-for all the world like an angry monkey. Then
she was free and away, heading the horse at top speed for the
house.
Out of her sea-training she was able to appreciate Sheldon's
executiveness when she burst in on him with her news. Springing
from the steamer-chair in which he had been lounging while waiting
for breakfast, he clapped his hands for the house-boys; and, while
listening to her, he was buckling on his cartridge-belt and running
the mechanism of his automatic pistol.
"Ornfiri," he snapped out his orders, "you fella ring big fella
bell strong fella plenty. You finish 'm bell, you put 'm saddle on
horse. Viaburi, you go quick house belong Seelee he stop, tell 'm
plenty black fella run away--ten fella two fella black fella boy."
He scribbled a note and handed it to Lalaperu. "Lalaperu, you go
quick house belong white fella Marster Boucher."
"That will head them back from the coast on both sides," he
explained to Joan. "And old Seelee will turn his whole village
loose on their track as well."
In response to the summons of the big bell, Joan's Tahitians were
the first to arrive, by their glistening bodies and panting chests
showing that they had run all the way. Some of the farthest-placed
gangs would be nearly an hour in arriving.
Sheldon proceeded to arm Joan's sailors and deal out ammunition and
handcuffs. Adamu Adam, with loaded rifle, he placed on guard over
the whale-boats. Noa Noah, aided by Matapuu, were instructed to
take charge of the working-gangs as fast as they came in, to keep
them amused, and to guard against their being stampeded into making
a break themselves. The five other Tahitians were to follow Joan
and Sheldon on foot.
"I'm glad we unearthed that arsenal the other day," Sheldon
remarked as they rode out of the compound gate.
A hundred yards away they encountered one of the clearing gangs
coming in. It was Kwaque's gang, but Sheldon looked in vain for
him.
"What name that fella Kwaque he no stop along you?" he demanded.
A babel of excited voices attempted an answer.
"Shut 'm mouth belong you altogether," Sheldon commanded.
He spoke roughly, living up to the role of the white man who must
always be strong and dominant.
"Here, you fella Babatani, you talk 'm mouth belong you."
Babatani stepped forward in all the pride of one singled out from
among his fellows.
"Gogoomy he finish along Kwaque altogether," was Babatani's
explanation. "He take 'm head b'long him run like hell."
In brief words, and with paucity of imagination, he described the
murder, and Sheldon and Joan rode on. In the grass, where Joan had
been attacked, they found the little shrivelled man, still
chattering and grimacing, whom Joan had ridden down. The mare had
plunged on his ankle, completely crushing it, and a hundred yards'
crawl had convinced him of the futility of escape. To the last
clearing-gang, from the farthest edge of the plantation, was given
the task of carrying him in to the house.
A mile farther on, where the runaways' trail led straight toward
the bush, they encountered the body of Kwaque. The head had been
hacked off and was missing, and Sheldon took it on faith that the
body was Kwaque's. He had evidently put up a fight, for a bloody
trail led away from the body.
Once they were well into the thick bush the horses had to be
abandoned. Papehara was left in charge of them, while Joan and
Sheldon and the remaining Tahitians pushed ahead on foot. The way
led down through a swampy hollow, which was overflowed by the
Berande River on occasion, and where the red trail of the murderers
was crossed by a crocodile's trail. They had apparently caught the
creature asleep in the sun and desisted long enough from their
flight to hack him to pieces. Here the wounded man had sat down
and waited until they were ready to go on.
An hour later, following along a wild-pig trail, Sheldon suddenly
halted. The bloody tracks had ceased. The Tahitians cast out in
the bush on either side, and a cry from Utami apprised them of a
find. Joan waited till Sheldon came back.
"It's Mauko," he said. "Kwaque did for him, and he crawled in
there and died. That's two accounted for. There are ten more.
Don't you think you've got enough of it?"
She nodded.
"It isn't nice," she said. "I'll go back and wait for you with the
horses."
"But you can't go alone. Take two of the men."
"Then I'll go on," she said. "It would be foolish to weaken the
pursuit, and I am certainly not tired."
The trail bent to the right as though the runaways had changed
their mind and headed for the Balesuna. But the trail still
continued to bend to the right till it promised to make a loop, and
the point of intersection seemed to be the edge of the plantation
where the horses had been left. Crossing one of the quiet jungle
spaces, where naught moved but a velvety, twelve-inch butterfly,
they heard the sound of shots.
"Eight," Joan counted. "It was only one gun. It must be
Papehara."
They hurried on, but when they reached the spot they were in doubt.
The two horses stood quietly tethered, and Papehara, squatted on
his hams, was having a peaceful smoke. Advancing toward him,
Sheldon tripped on a body that lay in the grass, and as he saved
himself from falling his eyes lighted on a second. Joan recognized
this one. It was Cosse, one of Gogoomy's tribesmen, the one who
had promised to catch at sunset the pig that was to have baited the
hook for Satan.
"No luck, Missie," was Papehara's greeting, accompanied by a
disconsolate shake of the head. "Catch only two boy. I have good
shot at Gogoomy, only I miss."
"But you killed them," Joan chided. "You must catch them alive."
The Tahitian smiled.
"How?" he queried. "I am have a smoke. I think about Tahiti, and
breadfruit, and jolly good time at Bora Bora. Quick, just like
that, ten boy he run out of bush for me. Each boy have long knife.
Gogoomy have long knife one hand, and Kwaque's head in other hand.
I no stop to catch 'm alive. I shoot like hell. How you catch 'm
alive, ten boy, ten long knife, and Kwaque's head?"
The scattered paths of the different boys, where they broke back
after the disastrous attempt to rush the Tahitian, soon led
together. They traced it to the Berande, which the runaways had
crossed with the clear intention of burying themselves in the huge
mangrove swamp that lay beyond.
"There is no use our going any farther," Sheldon said. "Seelee
will turn out his village and hunt them out of that. They'll never
get past him. All we can do is to guard the coast and keep them
from breaking back on the plantation and running amuck. Ah, I
thought so."
Against the jungle gloom of the farther shore, coming from down
stream, a small canoe glided. So silently did it move that it was
more like an apparition. Three naked blacks dipped with noiseless
paddles. Long-hafted, slender, bone-barbed throwing-spears lay
along the gunwale of the canoe, while a quiverful of arrows hung on
each man's back. The eyes of the man-hunters missed nothing. They
had seen Sheldon and Joan first, but they gave no sign. Where
Gogoomy and his followers had emerged from the river, the canoe
abruptly stopped, then turned and disappeared into the deeper
mangrove gloom. A second and a third canoe came around the bend
from below, glided ghostlike to the crossing of the runaways, and
vanished in the mangroves.
"I hope there won't be any more killing," Joan said, as they turned
their horses homeward.
"I don't think so," Sheldon assured her. "My understanding with
old Seelee is that he is paid only for live boys; so he is very
careful."
CHAPTER XXIII--A MESSAGE FROM THE BUSH
Never had runaways from Berande been more zealously hunted. The
deeds of Gogoomy and his fellows had been a bad example for the one
hundred and fifty new recruits. Murder had been planned, a gang-
boss had been killed, and the murderers had broken their contracts
by fleeing to the bush. Sheldon saw how imperative it was to teach
his new-caught cannibals that bad examples were disastrous things
to pattern after, and he urged Seelee on night and day, while with
the Tahitians he practically lived in the bush, leaving Joan in
charge of the plantation. To the north Boucher did good work,
twice turning the fugitives back when they attempted to gain the
coast.
One by one the boys were captured. In the first man-drive through
the mangrove swamp Seelee caught two. Circling around to the
north, a third was wounded in the thigh by Boucher, and this one,
dragging behind in the chase, was later gathered in by Seelee's
hunters. The three captives, heavily ironed, were exposed each day
in the compound, as good examples of what happened to bad examples,
all for the edification of the seven score and ten half-wild
Poonga-Poonga men. Then the Minerva, running past for Tulagi, was
signalled to send a boat, and the three prisoners were carried away
to prison to await trial.
Five were still at large, but escape was impossible. They could
not get down to the coast, nor dared they venture too far inland
for fear of the wild bushmen. Then one of the five came in
voluntarily and gave himself up, and Sheldon learned that Gogoomy
and two others were all that were at large. There should have been
a fourth, but according to the man who had given himself up, the
fourth man had been killed and eaten. It had been fear of a
similar fate that had driven him in. He was a Malu man, from
north-western Malaita, as likewise had been the one that was eaten.
Gogoomy's two other companions were from Port Adams. As for
himself, the black declared his preference for government trial and
lacked. The lines of his figure were more rounded than theirs, the
skin smooth, well oiled, and free from disease. On his chest,
suspended from a single string of porpoise-teeth around his throat,
hung a big crescent carved out of opalescent pearl-shell. A row of
pure white cowrie shells banded his brow. From his hair drooped a
long, lone feather. Above the swelling calf of one leg he wore, as
a garter, a single string of white beads. The effect was dandyish
in the extreme. A narrow gee-string completed his costume.
Another man she saw, old and shrivelled, with puckered forehead and
a puckered face that trembled and worked with animal passion as in
the past she had noticed the faces of monkeys tremble and work.
"Gogoomy," she said sharply, "you no cut 'm grass, my word, I bang
'm head belong you."
His expression became a trifle more disdainful, but he did not
answer. Instead, he stole a glance to right and left to mark how
his fellows were closing about her. At the same moment he casually
slipped his foot forward through the grass for a matter of several
inches.
Joan was keenly aware of the desperateness of the situation. The
only way out was through. She lifted her riding-whip
threateningly, and at the same moment drove in both spurs with her
heels, rushing the startled horse straight at Gogoomy. It all
happened in an instant. Every cane-knife was lifted, and every boy
save Gogoomy leaped for her. He swerved aside to avoid the horse,
at the same time swinging his cane-knife in a slicing blow that
would have cut her in twain. She leaned forward under the flying
steel, which cut through her riding-skirt, through the edge of the
saddle, through the saddle cloth, and even slightly into the horse
itself. Her right hand, still raised, came down, the thin whip
whishing through the air. She saw the white, cooked mark of the
weal clear across the sullen, handsome face, and still what was
practically in the same instant she saw the man with the puckered
face, overridden, go down before her, and she heard his snarling
and grimacing chatter-for all the world like an angry monkey. Then
she was free and away, heading the horse at top speed for the
house.
Out of her sea-training she was able to appreciate Sheldon's
executiveness when she burst in on him with her news. Springing
from the steamer-chair in which he had been lounging while waiting
for breakfast, he clapped his hands for the house-boys; and, while
listening to her, he was buckling on his cartridge-belt and running
the mechanism of his automatic pistol.
"Ornfiri," he snapped out his orders, "you fella ring big fella
bell strong fella plenty. You finish 'm bell, you put 'm saddle on
horse. Viaburi, you go quick house belong Seelee he stop, tell 'm
plenty black fella run away--ten fella two fella black fella boy."
He scribbled a note and handed it to Lalaperu. "Lalaperu, you go
quick house belong white fella Marster Boucher."
"That will head them back from the coast on both sides," he
explained to Joan. "And old Seelee will turn his whole village
loose on their track as well."
In response to the summons of the big bell, Joan's Tahitians were
the first to arrive, by their glistening bodies and panting chests
showing that they had run all the way. Some of the farthest-placed
gangs would be nearly an hour in arriving.
Sheldon proceeded to arm Joan's sailors and deal out ammunition and
handcuffs. Adamu Adam, with loaded rifle, he placed on guard over
the whale-boats. Noa Noah, aided by Matapuu, were instructed to
take charge of the working-gangs as fast as they came in, to keep
them amused, and to guard against their being stampeded into making
a break themselves. The five other Tahitians were to follow Joan
and Sheldon on foot.
"I'm glad we unearthed that arsenal the other day," Sheldon
remarked as they rode out of the compound gate.
A hundred yards away they encountered one of the clearing gangs
coming in. It was Kwaque's gang, but Sheldon looked in vain for
him.
"What name that fella Kwaque he no stop along you?" he demanded.
A babel of excited voices attempted an answer.
"Shut 'm mouth belong you altogether," Sheldon commanded.
He spoke roughly, living up to the role of the white man who must
always be strong and dominant.
"Here, you fella Babatani, you talk 'm mouth belong you."
Babatani stepped forward in all the pride of one singled out from
among his fellows.
"Gogoomy he finish along Kwaque altogether," was Babatani's
explanation. "He take 'm head b'long him run like hell."
In brief words, and with paucity of imagination, he described the
murder, and Sheldon and Joan rode on. In the grass, where Joan had
been attacked, they found the little shrivelled man, still
chattering and grimacing, whom Joan had ridden down. The mare had
plunged on his ankle, completely crushing it, and a hundred yards'
crawl had convinced him of the futility of escape. To the last
clearing-gang, from the farthest edge of the plantation, was given
the task of carrying him in to the house.
A mile farther on, where the runaways' trail led straight toward
the bush, they encountered the body of Kwaque. The head had been
hacked off and was missing, and Sheldon took it on faith that the
body was Kwaque's. He had evidently put up a fight, for a bloody
trail led away from the body.
Once they were well into the thick bush the horses had to be
abandoned. Papehara was left in charge of them, while Joan and
Sheldon and the remaining Tahitians pushed ahead on foot. The way
led down through a swampy hollow, which was overflowed by the
Berande River on occasion, and where the red trail of the murderers
was crossed by a crocodile's trail. They had apparently caught the
creature asleep in the sun and desisted long enough from their
flight to hack him to pieces. Here the wounded man had sat down
and waited until they were ready to go on.
An hour later, following along a wild-pig trail, Sheldon suddenly
halted. The bloody tracks had ceased. The Tahitians cast out in
the bush on either side, and a cry from Utami apprised them of a
find. Joan waited till Sheldon came back.
"It's Mauko," he said. "Kwaque did for him, and he crawled in
there and died. That's two accounted for. There are ten more.
Don't you think you've got enough of it?"
She nodded.
"It isn't nice," she said. "I'll go back and wait for you with the
horses."
"But you can't go alone. Take two of the men."
"Then I'll go on," she said. "It would be foolish to weaken the
pursuit, and I am certainly not tired."
The trail bent to the right as though the runaways had changed
their mind and headed for the Balesuna. But the trail still
continued to bend to the right till it promised to make a loop, and
the point of intersection seemed to be the edge of the plantation
where the horses had been left. Crossing one of the quiet jungle
spaces, where naught moved but a velvety, twelve-inch butterfly,
they heard the sound of shots.
"Eight," Joan counted. "It was only one gun. It must be
Papehara."
They hurried on, but when they reached the spot they were in doubt.
The two horses stood quietly tethered, and Papehara, squatted on
his hams, was having a peaceful smoke. Advancing toward him,
Sheldon tripped on a body that lay in the grass, and as he saved
himself from falling his eyes lighted on a second. Joan recognized
this one. It was Cosse, one of Gogoomy's tribesmen, the one who
had promised to catch at sunset the pig that was to have baited the
hook for Satan.
"No luck, Missie," was Papehara's greeting, accompanied by a
disconsolate shake of the head. "Catch only two boy. I have good
shot at Gogoomy, only I miss."
"But you killed them," Joan chided. "You must catch them alive."
The Tahitian smiled.
"How?" he queried. "I am have a smoke. I think about Tahiti, and
breadfruit, and jolly good time at Bora Bora. Quick, just like
that, ten boy he run out of bush for me. Each boy have long knife.
Gogoomy have long knife one hand, and Kwaque's head in other hand.
I no stop to catch 'm alive. I shoot like hell. How you catch 'm
alive, ten boy, ten long knife, and Kwaque's head?"
The scattered paths of the different boys, where they broke back
after the disastrous attempt to rush the Tahitian, soon led
together. They traced it to the Berande, which the runaways had
crossed with the clear intention of burying themselves in the huge
mangrove swamp that lay beyond.
"There is no use our going any farther," Sheldon said. "Seelee
will turn out his village and hunt them out of that. They'll never
get past him. All we can do is to guard the coast and keep them
from breaking back on the plantation and running amuck. Ah, I
thought so."
Against the jungle gloom of the farther shore, coming from down
stream, a small canoe glided. So silently did it move that it was
more like an apparition. Three naked blacks dipped with noiseless
paddles. Long-hafted, slender, bone-barbed throwing-spears lay
along the gunwale of the canoe, while a quiverful of arrows hung on
each man's back. The eyes of the man-hunters missed nothing. They
had seen Sheldon and Joan first, but they gave no sign. Where
Gogoomy and his followers had emerged from the river, the canoe
abruptly stopped, then turned and disappeared into the deeper
mangrove gloom. A second and a third canoe came around the bend
from below, glided ghostlike to the crossing of the runaways, and
vanished in the mangroves.
"I hope there won't be any more killing," Joan said, as they turned
their horses homeward.
"I don't think so," Sheldon assured her. "My understanding with
old Seelee is that he is paid only for live boys; so he is very
careful."
CHAPTER XXIII--A MESSAGE FROM THE BUSH
Never had runaways from Berande been more zealously hunted. The
deeds of Gogoomy and his fellows had been a bad example for the one
hundred and fifty new recruits. Murder had been planned, a gang-
boss had been killed, and the murderers had broken their contracts
by fleeing to the bush. Sheldon saw how imperative it was to teach
his new-caught cannibals that bad examples were disastrous things
to pattern after, and he urged Seelee on night and day, while with
the Tahitians he practically lived in the bush, leaving Joan in
charge of the plantation. To the north Boucher did good work,
twice turning the fugitives back when they attempted to gain the
coast.
One by one the boys were captured. In the first man-drive through
the mangrove swamp Seelee caught two. Circling around to the
north, a third was wounded in the thigh by Boucher, and this one,
dragging behind in the chase, was later gathered in by Seelee's
hunters. The three captives, heavily ironed, were exposed each day
in the compound, as good examples of what happened to bad examples,
all for the edification of the seven score and ten half-wild
Poonga-Poonga men. Then the Minerva, running past for Tulagi, was
signalled to send a boat, and the three prisoners were carried away
to prison to await trial.
Five were still at large, but escape was impossible. They could
not get down to the coast, nor dared they venture too far inland
for fear of the wild bushmen. Then one of the five came in
voluntarily and gave himself up, and Sheldon learned that Gogoomy
and two others were all that were at large. There should have been
a fourth, but according to the man who had given himself up, the
fourth man had been killed and eaten. It had been fear of a
similar fate that had driven him in. He was a Malu man, from
north-western Malaita, as likewise had been the one that was eaten.
Gogoomy's two other companions were from Port Adams. As for
himself, the black declared his preference for government trial and
- primitive [´primitiv]
a.原始的 n.原始人 (初中英语单词) - feather [´feðə] n.羽毛 (初中英语单词)
- extreme [ik´stri:m] a.尽头的 n.极端 (初中英语单词)
- forehead [´fɔrid] n.额，前部 (初中英语单词)
- passion [´pæʃən] n.激情；激怒；恋爱 (初中英语单词)
- sharply [´ʃɑ:pli] ad.锋利地；剧烈地 (初中英语单词)
- trifle [´traifəl] n.琐事，小事；少量 (初中英语单词)
- keenly [´ki:nli] ad.敏锐地；强烈地 (初中英语单词)
- instant [´instənt] a.立即的 n.紧迫；瞬间 (初中英语单词)
- saddle [´sædl] n.鞍子 v.装鞍(于) (初中英语单词)
- slightly [´slaitli] ad.轻微地；细长的 (初中英语单词)
- monkey [´mʌŋki] n.猴子 v.乱弄；胡闹 (初中英语单词)
- appreciate [ə´pri:ʃieit] v.评价；珍惜；感激 (初中英语单词)
- charge [tʃɑ:dʒ] v.收费；冲锋 n.费用 (初中英语单词)
- compound [kəm´paund] n.&a.混合(的) v.合成 (初中英语单词)
- imagination [i,mædʒi´neiʃən] n.想象(力) (初中英语单词)
- missing [´misiŋ] a.缺掉的；失踪的 (初中英语单词)
- evidently [´evidəntli] ad.明显地 (初中英语单词)
- bloody [´blʌdi] a.(流)血的；血腥的 (初中英语单词)
- peaceful [´pi:sfəl] a.和平的；平静的 (初中英语单词)
- sunset [´sʌnset] n.日落；晚霞 (初中英语单词)
- intention [in´tenʃən] n.意图；打算；意义 (初中英语单词)
- running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- silently [´sailəntli] ad.寂静地；沉默地 (初中英语单词)
- slender [´slendə] a.细长的；微薄的 (初中英语单词)
- venture [´ventʃə] n.投机 v.冒险；敢于 (初中英语单词)
- driven [´driv(ə)n] drive 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- likewise [´laikwaiz] ad.同样地；也，又 (初中英语单词)
- theirs [ðeəz] pron.他们的 (高中英语单词)
- sullen [´sʌlən] a.不高兴的 (高中英语单词)
- automatic [,ɔ:tə´mætik] a.自动的 n.自动装置 (高中英语单词)
- response [ri´spɔns] n.回答；响应 (高中英语单词)
- roughly [´rʌfli] ad.粗糙地；毛糙地 (高中英语单词)
- plantation [plæn´teiʃən] n.种植园；栽植；移民 (高中英语单词)
- apparently [ə´pærəntli] ad.显然，表面上地 (高中英语单词)
- weaken [´wi:kən] v.(使)弱化；衰弱；稀薄 (高中英语单词)
- naught [nɔ:t] n.无；零 (高中英语单词)
- hurried [´hʌrid] a.仓促的，慌忙的 (高中英语单词)
- jungle [´dʒʌŋgəl] n.丛林；杂乱的东西 (高中英语单词)
- learned [´lə:nid] a.有学问的，博学的 (高中英语单词)
- preference [´prefərəns] n.优先选择；偏爱(物) (高中英语单词)
- crescent [´kresənt] n.月牙 a.新月形的 (英语四级单词)
- mechanism [´mekənizəm] n.机械装置；机制 (英语四级单词)
- ammunition [,æmju´niʃən] n.军火，弹药 (英语四级单词)
- clearing [´kliəriŋ] n.(森林中的)空旷地 (英语四级单词)
- ridden [´ridn] ride 的过去分词 (英语四级单词)
- farthest [´fɑ:ðist] ad.&a.最远(的) (英语四级单词)
- disastrous [di´zɑ:strəs] a.招致灾祸的；不幸的 (英语四级单词)
- imperative [im´perətiv] a.紧急的 n.命令式 (英语四级单词)
- garter [´gɑ:tə] n.吊袜带 (英语六级单词)
- arsenal [´ɑ:sənəl] n.兵工厂；军械库 (英语六级单词)
- apparition [,æpə´riʃən] n.(幽灵)出现；鬼；幻影 (英语六级单词)
- assured [ə´ʃuəd] a.确实的 n.被保险人 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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