章节正文
articles and of the major portion of the ammunition. There was no
tracing the truth in any of it, though it was without doubt that
the unidentified weapons and unfamiliarcartridges had come ashore
off visiting craft.
"Look at it," Sheldon said to Joan. "We've been sleeping over a
volcano. They ought to be whipped--"
"No whip me," Gogoomy cried out from below. "Father belong me big
fella chief. Me whip, too much trouble along you, close up, my
word."
"What name you fella Gogoomy!" Sheldon shouted. "I knock seven
bells out of you. Here, you Kwaque, put 'm irons along that fella
Gogoomy."
Kwaque, a strapping gang-boss, plucked Gogoomy from out of his
following, and, helped by the other gang-bosses; twisted his arms
behind him and snapped on the heavy handcuffs.
"Me finish along you, close up, you die altogether," Gogoomy, with
wrath-distorted face, threatened the boss-boy.
"Please, no whipping," Joan said in a low voice. "If whipping IS
necessary, send them to Tulagi and let the Government do it. Give
them their choice between a fine or an official whipping."
Sheldon nodded and stood up, facing the blacks.
"Manonmie!" he called.
Manonmie stood forth and waited.
"You fella boy bad fella too much," Sheldon charged. "You steal 'm
plenty. You steal 'm one fella towel, one fella cane-knife, two-
ten fella cartridge. My word, plenty bad fella steal 'm you. Me
cross along you too much. S'pose you like 'm, me take 'm one fella
pound along you in big book. S'pose you no like 'm me take 'm one
fella pound, then me send you fella along Tulagi catch 'm one
strong fella government whipping. Plenty New Georgia boys, plenty
Ysabel boys stop along jail along Tulagi. Them fella no like
Malaita boys little bit. My word, they give 'm you strong fella
whipping. What you say?"
"You take 'm one fella pound along me," was the answer.
And Manonmie, patently relieved, stepped back, while Sheldon
entered the fine in the plantation labour journal.
Boy after boy, he called the offenders out and gave them their
choice; and, boy by boy, each one elected to pay the fine imposed.
Some fines were as low as several shillings; while in the more
serious cases, such as thefts of guns and ammunition, the fines
were correspondingly heavy.
Gogoomy and his five tribesmen were fined three pounds each, and at
Gogoomy's guttural command they refused to pay.
"S'pose you go along Tulagi," Sheldon warned him, "you catch 'm
strong fella whipping and you stop along jail three fella year.
Mr. Burnett, he look 'm along Winchester, look 'm along cartridge,
look 'm along revolver, look 'm along black powder, look 'm along
dynamite--my word, he cross too much, he give you three fella year
along jail. S'pose you no like 'm pay three fella pound you stop
along jail. Savvee?"
Gogoomy wavered.
"It's true--that's what Burnett would give them," Sheldon said in
an aside to Joan.
"You take 'm three fella pound along me," Gogoomy muttered, at the
same time scowling his hatred at Sheldon, and transferring half the
scowl to Joan and Kwaque. "Me finish along you, you catch 'm big
fella trouble, my word. Father belong me big fella chief along
Port Adams."
"That will do," Sheldon warned him. "You shut mouth belong you."
"Me no fright," the son of a chief retorted, by his insolence
increasing his stature in the eyes of his fellows.
"Lock him up for to-night," Sheldon said to Kwaque. "Sun he come
up put 'm that fella and five fella belong him along grass-cutting.
Savvee?"
Kwaque grinned.
"Me savvee," he said. "Cut 'm grass, ngari-ngari {4} stop 'm along
grass. My word!"
"There will be trouble with Gogoomy yet," Sheldon said to Joan, as
the boss-boys marshalled their gangs and led them away to their
work. "Keep an eye on him. Be careful when you are riding alone
on the plantation. The loss of those Winchesters and all that
ammunition has hit him harder than your cuffing did. He is dead-
ripe for mischief."
CHAPTER XXII--GOGOOMY FINISHES ALONG KWAQUE ALTOGETHER
"I wonder what has become of Tudor. It's two months since he
disappeared into the bush, and not a word of him after he left
Binu."
Joan Lackland was sitting astride her horse by the bank of the
Balesuna where the sweet corn had been planted, and Sheldon, who
had come across from the house on foot, was leaning against her
horse's shoulder.
"Yes, it is along time for no news to have trickled down," he
answered, watching her keenly from under his hat-brim and wondering
as to the measure of her anxiety for the adventurous gold-hunter;
"but Tudor will come out all right. He did a thing at the start
that I wouldn't have given him or any other man credit for--
persuaded Binu Charley to go along with him. I'll wager no other
Binu nigger has ever gone so far into the bush unless to be kai-
kai'd. As for Tudor--"
"Look! look!" Joan cried in a low voice, pointing across the
narrow stream to a slack eddy where a huge crocodile drifted like a
log awash. "My! I wish I had my rifle."
The crocodile, leaving scarcely a ripple behind, sank down and
disappeared.
"A Binu man was in early this morning--for medicine," Sheldon
remarked. "It may have been that very brute that was responsible.
A dozen of the Binu women were out, and the foremost one stepped
right on a big crocodile. It was by the edge of the water, and he
tumbled her over and got her by the leg. All the other women got
hold of her and pulled. And in the tug of war she lost her leg,
below the knee, he said. I gave him a stock of antiseptics.
She'll pull through, I fancy."
"Ugh--the filthy beasts," Joan gulped shudderingly. "I hate them!
I hate them!"
"And yet you go diving among sharks," Sheldon chided.
"They're only fish-sharks. And as long as there are plenty of fish
there is no danger. It is only when they're famished that they're
liable to take a bite."
Sheldon shuddered inwardly at the swift vision that arose of the
dainty flesh of her in a shark's many-toothed maw.
"I wish you wouldn't, just the same," he said slowly. "You
acknowledge there is a risk."
"But that's half the fun of it," she cried.
A trite platitude about his not caring to lose her was on his lips,
but he refrained from uttering it. Another conclusion he had
arrived at was that she was not to be nagged. Continual, or even
occasional, reminders of his feeling for her would constitute a
tactical error of no mean dimensions.
"Some for the book of verse, some for the simple life, and some for
the shark's belly," he laughed grimly, then added: "Just the same,
I wish I could swim as well as you. Maybe it would beget
confidence such as you have."
"Do you know, I think it would be nice to be married to a man such
as you seem to be becoming," she remarked, with one of her abrupt
changes that always astounded him. "I should think you could be
trained into a very good husband--you know, not one of the
domineering kind, but one who considered his wife was just as much
an individual as himself and just as much a free agent. Really,
you know, I think you are improving."
She laughed and rode away, leaving him greatly cast down. If he
had thought there had been one bit of coyness in her words, one
feminine flutter, one womanly attempt at deliberate lure and
encouragement, he would have been elated. But he knew absolutely
that it was the boy, and not the woman, who had so daringly spoken.
Joan rode on among the avenues of young cocoanut-palms, saw a
hornbill, followed it in its erratic flights to the high forest on
the edge of the plantation, heard the cooing of wild pigeons and
located them in the deeper woods, followed the fresh trail of a
wild pig for a distance, circled back, and took the narrow path for
the bungalow that ran through twenty acres of uncleared cane. The
grass was waist-high and higher, and as she rode along she
remembered that Gogoomy was one of a gang of boys that had been
detailed to the grass-cutting. She came to where they had been at
work, but saw no signs of them. Her unshod horse made no sound on
the soft, sandy footing, and a little further on she heard voices
proceeding from out of the grass. She reined in and listened. It
was Gogoomy talking, and as she listened she gripped her bridle-
rein tightly and a wave of anger passed over her.
"Dog he stop 'm along house, night-time he walk about," Gogoomy was
saying, perforce in beche-de-mer English, because he was talking to
others beside his own tribesmen. "You fella boy catch 'm one fella
pig, put 'm kai-kai belong him along big fella fish-hook. S'pose
dog he walk about catch 'm kai-kai, you fella boy catch 'm dog
allee same one shark. Dog he finish close up. Big fella marster
sleep along big fella house. White Mary sleep along pickaninny
house. One fella Adamu he stop along outside pickaninny house.
You fella boy finish 'm dog, finish 'm Adamu, finish 'm big fella
marster, finish 'm White Mary, finish 'em altogether. Plenty
musket he stop, plenty powder, plenty tomahawk, plenty knife-fee,
plenty porpoise teeth, plenty tobacco, plenty calico--my word, too
much plenty everything we take 'm along whale-boat, washee {5} like
hell, sun he come up we long way too much."
"Me catch 'm pig sun he go down," spoke up one whose thin falsetto
voice Joan recognized as belonging to Cosse, one of Gogoomy's
tribesmen.
"Me catch 'm dog," said another.
"And me catch 'm white fella Mary," Gogoomy cried triumphantly.
"Me catch 'm Kwaque he die along him damn quick."
This much Joan heard of the plan to murder, and then her rising
wrath proved too much for her discretion. She spurred her horse
into the grass, crying, -
"What name you fella boy, eh? What name?"
They arose, scrambling and scattering, and to her surprise she saw
there were a dozen of them. As she looked in their glowering faces
and noted the heavy, two-foot, hacking cane-knives in their hands,
she became suddenly aware of the rashness of her act. If only she
had had her revolver or a rifle, all would have been well. But she
had carelessly ventured out unarmed, and she followed the glance of
Gogoomy to her waist and saw the pleased flash in his eyes as he
perceived the absence of the dreadful man-killing revolver.
The first article in the Solomon Islands code for white men was
never to show fear before a native, and Joan tried to carry off the
situation in cavalier fashion.
"Too much talk along you fella boy," she said severely. "Too much
talk, too little work. Savvee?"
Gogoomy made no reply, but, apparently shifting weight, he slid one
foot forward. The other boys, spread fan-wise about her, were also
sliding forward, the cruel cane-knives in their hands advertising
their intention.
"You cut 'm grass!" she commanded imperatively.
But Gogoomy slid his other foot forward. She measured the distance
with her eye. It would be impossible to whirl her horse around and
get away. She would be chopped down from behind.
And in that tense moment the faces of all of them were imprinted on
her mind in an unforgettable picture--one of them, an old man, with
torn and distended ear-lobes that fell to his chest; another, with
the broad flattened nose of Africa, and with withered eyes so
buried under frowning brows that nothing but the sickly, yellowish-
looking whites could be seen; a third, thick-lipped and bearded
with kinky whiskers; and Gogoomy--she had never realized before how
handsome Gogoomy was in his mutinous and obstinate wild-animal way.
tracing the truth in any of it, though it was without doubt that
the unidentified weapons and unfamiliarcartridges had come ashore
off visiting craft.
"Look at it," Sheldon said to Joan. "We've been sleeping over a
volcano. They ought to be whipped--"
"No whip me," Gogoomy cried out from below. "Father belong me big
fella chief. Me whip, too much trouble along you, close up, my
word."
"What name you fella Gogoomy!" Sheldon shouted. "I knock seven
bells out of you. Here, you Kwaque, put 'm irons along that fella
Gogoomy."
Kwaque, a strapping gang-boss, plucked Gogoomy from out of his
following, and, helped by the other gang-bosses; twisted his arms
behind him and snapped on the heavy handcuffs.
"Me finish along you, close up, you die altogether," Gogoomy, with
wrath-distorted face, threatened the boss-boy.
"Please, no whipping," Joan said in a low voice. "If whipping IS
necessary, send them to Tulagi and let the Government do it. Give
them their choice between a fine or an official whipping."
Sheldon nodded and stood up, facing the blacks.
"Manonmie!" he called.
Manonmie stood forth and waited.
"You fella boy bad fella too much," Sheldon charged. "You steal 'm
plenty. You steal 'm one fella towel, one fella cane-knife, two-
ten fella cartridge. My word, plenty bad fella steal 'm you. Me
cross along you too much. S'pose you like 'm, me take 'm one fella
pound along you in big book. S'pose you no like 'm me take 'm one
fella pound, then me send you fella along Tulagi catch 'm one
strong fella government whipping. Plenty New Georgia boys, plenty
Ysabel boys stop along jail along Tulagi. Them fella no like
Malaita boys little bit. My word, they give 'm you strong fella
whipping. What you say?"
"You take 'm one fella pound along me," was the answer.
And Manonmie, patently relieved, stepped back, while Sheldon
entered the fine in the plantation labour journal.
Boy after boy, he called the offenders out and gave them their
choice; and, boy by boy, each one elected to pay the fine imposed.
Some fines were as low as several shillings; while in the more
serious cases, such as thefts of guns and ammunition, the fines
were correspondingly heavy.
Gogoomy and his five tribesmen were fined three pounds each, and at
Gogoomy's guttural command they refused to pay.
"S'pose you go along Tulagi," Sheldon warned him, "you catch 'm
strong fella whipping and you stop along jail three fella year.
Mr. Burnett, he look 'm along Winchester, look 'm along cartridge,
look 'm along revolver, look 'm along black powder, look 'm along
dynamite--my word, he cross too much, he give you three fella year
along jail. S'pose you no like 'm pay three fella pound you stop
along jail. Savvee?"
Gogoomy wavered.
"It's true--that's what Burnett would give them," Sheldon said in
an aside to Joan.
"You take 'm three fella pound along me," Gogoomy muttered, at the
same time scowling his hatred at Sheldon, and transferring half the
scowl to Joan and Kwaque. "Me finish along you, you catch 'm big
fella trouble, my word. Father belong me big fella chief along
Port Adams."
"That will do," Sheldon warned him. "You shut mouth belong you."
"Me no fright," the son of a chief retorted, by his insolence
increasing his stature in the eyes of his fellows.
"Lock him up for to-night," Sheldon said to Kwaque. "Sun he come
up put 'm that fella and five fella belong him along grass-cutting.
Savvee?"
Kwaque grinned.
"Me savvee," he said. "Cut 'm grass, ngari-ngari {4} stop 'm along
grass. My word!"
"There will be trouble with Gogoomy yet," Sheldon said to Joan, as
the boss-boys marshalled their gangs and led them away to their
work. "Keep an eye on him. Be careful when you are riding alone
on the plantation. The loss of those Winchesters and all that
ammunition has hit him harder than your cuffing did. He is dead-
ripe for mischief."
CHAPTER XXII--GOGOOMY FINISHES ALONG KWAQUE ALTOGETHER
"I wonder what has become of Tudor. It's two months since he
disappeared into the bush, and not a word of him after he left
Binu."
Joan Lackland was sitting astride her horse by the bank of the
Balesuna where the sweet corn had been planted, and Sheldon, who
had come across from the house on foot, was leaning against her
horse's shoulder.
"Yes, it is along time for no news to have trickled down," he
answered, watching her keenly from under his hat-brim and wondering
as to the measure of her anxiety for the adventurous gold-hunter;
"but Tudor will come out all right. He did a thing at the start
that I wouldn't have given him or any other man credit for--
persuaded Binu Charley to go along with him. I'll wager no other
Binu nigger has ever gone so far into the bush unless to be kai-
kai'd. As for Tudor--"
"Look! look!" Joan cried in a low voice, pointing across the
narrow stream to a slack eddy where a huge crocodile drifted like a
log awash. "My! I wish I had my rifle."
The crocodile, leaving scarcely a ripple behind, sank down and
disappeared.
"A Binu man was in early this morning--for medicine," Sheldon
remarked. "It may have been that very brute that was responsible.
A dozen of the Binu women were out, and the foremost one stepped
right on a big crocodile. It was by the edge of the water, and he
tumbled her over and got her by the leg. All the other women got
hold of her and pulled. And in the tug of war she lost her leg,
below the knee, he said. I gave him a stock of antiseptics.
She'll pull through, I fancy."
"Ugh--the filthy beasts," Joan gulped shudderingly. "I hate them!
I hate them!"
"And yet you go diving among sharks," Sheldon chided.
"They're only fish-sharks. And as long as there are plenty of fish
there is no danger. It is only when they're famished that they're
liable to take a bite."
Sheldon shuddered inwardly at the swift vision that arose of the
dainty flesh of her in a shark's many-toothed maw.
"I wish you wouldn't, just the same," he said slowly. "You
acknowledge there is a risk."
"But that's half the fun of it," she cried.
A trite platitude about his not caring to lose her was on his lips,
but he refrained from uttering it. Another conclusion he had
arrived at was that she was not to be nagged. Continual, or even
occasional, reminders of his feeling for her would constitute a
tactical error of no mean dimensions.
"Some for the book of verse, some for the simple life, and some for
the shark's belly," he laughed grimly, then added: "Just the same,
I wish I could swim as well as you. Maybe it would beget
confidence such as you have."
"Do you know, I think it would be nice to be married to a man such
as you seem to be becoming," she remarked, with one of her abrupt
changes that always astounded him. "I should think you could be
trained into a very good husband--you know, not one of the
domineering kind, but one who considered his wife was just as much
an individual as himself and just as much a free agent. Really,
you know, I think you are improving."
She laughed and rode away, leaving him greatly cast down. If he
had thought there had been one bit of coyness in her words, one
feminine flutter, one womanly attempt at deliberate lure and
encouragement, he would have been elated. But he knew absolutely
that it was the boy, and not the woman, who had so daringly spoken.
Joan rode on among the avenues of young cocoanut-palms, saw a
hornbill, followed it in its erratic flights to the high forest on
the edge of the plantation, heard the cooing of wild pigeons and
located them in the deeper woods, followed the fresh trail of a
wild pig for a distance, circled back, and took the narrow path for
the bungalow that ran through twenty acres of uncleared cane. The
grass was waist-high and higher, and as she rode along she
remembered that Gogoomy was one of a gang of boys that had been
detailed to the grass-cutting. She came to where they had been at
work, but saw no signs of them. Her unshod horse made no sound on
the soft, sandy footing, and a little further on she heard voices
proceeding from out of the grass. She reined in and listened. It
was Gogoomy talking, and as she listened she gripped her bridle-
rein tightly and a wave of anger passed over her.
"Dog he stop 'm along house, night-time he walk about," Gogoomy was
saying, perforce in beche-de-mer English, because he was talking to
others beside his own tribesmen. "You fella boy catch 'm one fella
pig, put 'm kai-kai belong him along big fella fish-hook. S'pose
dog he walk about catch 'm kai-kai, you fella boy catch 'm dog
allee same one shark. Dog he finish close up. Big fella marster
sleep along big fella house. White Mary sleep along pickaninny
house. One fella Adamu he stop along outside pickaninny house.
You fella boy finish 'm dog, finish 'm Adamu, finish 'm big fella
marster, finish 'm White Mary, finish 'em altogether. Plenty
musket he stop, plenty powder, plenty tomahawk, plenty knife-fee,
plenty porpoise teeth, plenty tobacco, plenty calico--my word, too
much plenty everything we take 'm along whale-boat, washee {5} like
hell, sun he come up we long way too much."
"Me catch 'm pig sun he go down," spoke up one whose thin falsetto
voice Joan recognized as belonging to Cosse, one of Gogoomy's
tribesmen.
"Me catch 'm dog," said another.
"And me catch 'm white fella Mary," Gogoomy cried triumphantly.
"Me catch 'm Kwaque he die along him damn quick."
This much Joan heard of the plan to murder, and then her rising
wrath proved too much for her discretion. She spurred her horse
into the grass, crying, -
"What name you fella boy, eh? What name?"
They arose, scrambling and scattering, and to her surprise she saw
there were a dozen of them. As she looked in their glowering faces
and noted the heavy, two-foot, hacking cane-knives in their hands,
she became suddenly aware of the rashness of her act. If only she
had had her revolver or a rifle, all would have been well. But she
had carelessly ventured out unarmed, and she followed the glance of
Gogoomy to her waist and saw the pleased flash in his eyes as he
perceived the absence of the dreadful man-killing revolver.
The first article in the Solomon Islands code for white men was
never to show fear before a native, and Joan tried to carry off the
situation in cavalier fashion.
"Too much talk along you fella boy," she said severely. "Too much
talk, too little work. Savvee?"
Gogoomy made no reply, but, apparently shifting weight, he slid one
foot forward. The other boys, spread fan-wise about her, were also
sliding forward, the cruel cane-knives in their hands advertising
their intention.
"You cut 'm grass!" she commanded imperatively.
But Gogoomy slid his other foot forward. She measured the distance
with her eye. It would be impossible to whirl her horse around and
get away. She would be chopped down from behind.
And in that tense moment the faces of all of them were imprinted on
her mind in an unforgettable picture--one of them, an old man, with
torn and distended ear-lobes that fell to his chest; another, with
the broad flattened nose of Africa, and with withered eyes so
buried under frowning brows that nothing but the sickly, yellowish-
looking whites could be seen; a third, thick-lipped and bearded
with kinky whiskers; and Gogoomy--she had never realized before how
handsome Gogoomy was in his mutinous and obstinate wild-animal way.
- portion [´pɔ:ʃən]
n.嫁妆；命运 vt.分配 (初中英语单词) - sleeping [´sli:piŋ] n.&a.睡着(的) (初中英语单词)
- hatred [´heitrid] n.憎恨，敌意 (初中英语单词)
- keenly [´ki:nli] ad.敏锐地；强烈地 (初中英语单词)
- measure [´meʒə] n.量度；范围 vt.测量 (初中英语单词)
- anxiety [æŋ´zaiəti] n.挂念；渴望；焦虑的事 (初中英语单词)
- stream [stri:m] n.河 vi.流出；飘扬 (初中英语单词)
- vision [´viʒən] n.视觉；想象力；幻影 (初中英语单词)
- conclusion [kən´klu:ʒən] n.结束；结论；推论 (初中英语单词)
- constitute [´kɔnstitju:t] vt.组成；构成；指定 (初中英语单词)
- flutter [´flʌtə] vi.飘扬；摆 n.拍动 (初中英语单词)
- altogether [,ɔ:ltə´geðə] ad.完全；总而言之 (初中英语单词)
- tobacco [tə´bækəu] n.烟草(叶)；卷烟 (初中英语单词)
- absence [´æbsəns] n.不在，缺席；缺乏 (初中英语单词)
- dreadful [´dredful] a.可怕的；讨厌的 (初中英语单词)
- georgia [´dʒɔ:dʒjə] n.乔治亚 (高中英语单词)
- plantation [plæn´teiʃən] n.种植园；栽植；移民 (高中英语单词)
- ripple [´ripəl] n.涟漪 v.(使)起涟漪 (高中英语单词)
- foremost [´fɔ:məust] a.最重要的；最先的 (高中英语单词)
- continual [kən´tinjuəl] a.不断的，频繁的 (高中英语单词)
- grimly [´grimli] ad.严厉地；坚强地 (高中英语单词)
- deliberate [di´libəreit] a.慎重的；故意的 (高中英语单词)
- tightly [´taitli] ad.紧，紧密地 (高中英语单词)
- carelessly [´kɛəlisli] ad.粗心地；疏忽地 (高中英语单词)
- solomon [´sɔləmən] n.所罗门 (高中英语单词)
- severely [si´viəli] ad.剧烈地；严格地 (高中英语单词)
- apparently [ə´pærəntli] ad.显然，表面上地 (高中英语单词)
- ammunition [,æmju´niʃən] n.军火，弹药 (英语四级单词)
- revolver [ri´vɔlvə] n.左轮手枪；旋转者 (英语四级单词)
- stature [´stætʃə] n.身高；身材 (英语四级单词)
- adventurous [əd´ventʃərəs] a.冒险的；惊险的 (英语四级单词)
- filthy [´filθi] a.污秽的，肮脏的 (英语四级单词)
- bungalow [´bʌŋgələu] n.(有凉台的)平房 (英语四级单词)
- discretion [di´skreʃən] n.谨慎；判断(力) (英语四级单词)
- cavalier [,kævə´liə] n.骑士；勋章获得者 (英语四级单词)
- sickly [´sikli] a.多病的；病态的 (英语四级单词)
- obstinate [´ɔbstinit] a.顽固的；(病)难治的 (英语四级单词)
- unfamiliar [ʌnfə´miljə] a.不熟悉的；生疏的 (英语六级单词)
- cartridge [´kɑ:tridʒ] n.弹药筒；子弹 (英语六级单词)
- crocodile [´krɔkədail] n.鳄鱼；假慈悲的人 (英语六级单词)
- inwardly [´inwədli] ad.内向；独自地 (英语六级单词)
- footing [´futiŋ] n.立脚点；基础；地位 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
京公网安备 11011202003401号
