“Collar the girl, Mr. Palmer, and don't let her get near your wife. She
means mischief.”
Before she could rise from her seat on the low thwart, Sépé was seized
by two of Palmer's people. Her dark, handsome face was distorted by
passion, but she was too exhausted to speak, and suffered herself to
be led away quietly. And then Jinaban, who lay stretched out on the
outrigger platform of the canoe, with his hands and feet lashed to a
stout pole of green wood, was lifted off.
A few hurried words passed between Palmer and the half-caste, and then
the former directed his men to carry the prisoner up to the house.
This was at once done, amidst the wildest excitement and clamour. The
lashings that bound him to the pole were loosened a little by Palmer's
directions, and then four men with loaded rifles were placed over him.
Then, calling a native to him, Palmer told him to take a conch-shell,
go from village to village, and summon all the people to the white man's
house quickly.
“Tell them to come and see Jinaban die,” he said sternly.
As soon as the prisoner had been disposed of for the time being, Palmer
and Porter went into the dining-room, where Letanë had prepared a
hurried breakfast for the half-caste.
“Where is Sépé?” he asked, as he sat down.
“Locked up in there,” said Palmer, pointing to one of the store-rooms.
“Poor devil! Don't be too rough on her. I had to lay a stick across her
back pretty often before she would help me to carry Jinaban down to the
canoe. And I had to threaten to shoot her coming across the lagoon. She
wouldn't paddle at first, and I think wanted to capsize the canoe and
escape, until she looked round and saw my pistol pointed at her. Then
she gave in. I wasn't goin' to let Mr. Jinaban drown after all my
trouble. But”--his mouth was stuffed with cold meat and yam as he
spoke--“I'm sorry I had to beat her. An' she's got the idea that your
missus will kill her when I tell you all about her.”
Washing down his breakfast with a copious drink of coffee, Porter lit
his pipe, and then, in as few words as possible, told his story. And as
he told it a loud, booming sound rang through the morning air, and the
hurrying tramp of naked feet and excited voices of the gathering people
every moment increased, and “Jinaban!” “Jinaban!” was called from house
to house.
*****
“As soon as the girl an' me got to the island,” he said, “she told me to
wait in the canoe. 'All right,' I said, and thinking it would be a good
thing to do, I told her to take the revolver and box of cartridges with
her, just to show them to Jinaban in proof of the story of the fight I
had with you; I thought that if she told him I was armed he might smell
a rat and shoot me from the scrub. An' I quite made up my mind to collar
him alive if I could. The night was very dark, but the girl knew her way
about pretty well, an', leaving me in the canoe, she ran along the beach
and entered the _puka_ scrub. About an hour went by, an' I was beginning
to feel anxious, when she came back. 'Come on,' she said, 'Jinaban will
talk with you.' I got out of the canoe and walked with her along
the beach till we came to what looked like a tunnel in the thick
undergrowth. 'Let me go first,' she said, stooping down, and telling me
to hold on to her grass girdle, she led the way till we came out into an
open spot, and there was Jinaban's house, and Jinaban sitting inside it,
before a fire of coconut shells, handling your revolver and looking
very pleased. He shook hands with me and, I could see at once, believed
everything that Sépé had told him. Then we had a long talk and arranged
matters nicely. I was to stay with him until the first dark, rainy
night. Then we were to come over and hide ourselves in your boat-shed to
wait until you opened your door the first thing in the morning. We were
both to fire together, and bring you down easy. Then Sépé was to settle
her account with your wife while Jinaban rallied the Ijeet people, in
case the Ailap natives wanted to fight. After that he and I were to
divide all the plunder in the house and station between us, take two of
your whaleboats, and with some of his people make for some other island
in the Carolines as quick as possible. And Sépé was to be Mrs. Frank
Porter.
“Then, before he knew what was the matter with him, I hit him under the
ear, and laid him out stiff; and after choking the girl a bit to keep
her quiet, I tied him up safely.”
Palmer set his teeth, but said nothing. Then the half-caste, having
finished his pipe, rose.
“What are we going to do with him--hang him, or what?” he inquired,
coolly.
“Stand him out there on the beach and let one of the Ailap people shoot
him.”
*****
Jinaban was led forth from Palmer's house into the village square,
and bound with his back to a coconut palm. On three sides of him were
assembled nearly every man, woman, and child on Las Matelotas Lagoon.
Not a sign of fear was visible in his dark, bearded face; only a look
of implacable hatred settled upon it when Palmer, followed by the
half-caste seaman and a servant boy, walked slowly down his verandah
steps and stood in full view of the assemblage. He was unarmed, but the
boy carried his rifle.
Raising his hand to command silence, the murmuring buzz of voices was
instantly hushed, and the trader spoke. There, said he, was the cruel
murderer who had so ruthlessly slain more than a score of men, women,
and children--many of whom were of his own blood. Jinaban must die, and
they must kill him. He himself, although he had good cause to slay him,
would not. Let one of those whose kith and kin had been slain by this
cruel man now take a just vengeance.
A young man stepped out from among the crowd, and Palmer, taking the
rifle from the boy who held it, placed it in his hand. He was the
brother of the girl whom Jinaban had shot through the legs and left to
die of starvation and thirst.
Slowly the young native raised the rifle to his shoulder, glanced along
the barrel, then grounded it on the sand.
“I cannot do it,” he said, handing the weapon back. Jinaban heard and
laughed.
“Just what I thought would happen,” muttered Palmer to Porter. “We
must hurry things along, even if we have to do it ourselves,” and then,
raising his voice, he called out--
“Ten silver dollars to the man who will shoot Jinaban.”
No one moved, and a low murmur passed from lip to lip among the crowded
natives. A minute passed.
“Oh, cowards!” said Palmer scornfully. “Twenty dollars!”
“Double it,” said the half-caste in a low voice; “and be quick. I can
see some of Jinaban's people looking ugly.”
“Forty dollars, then, and ten tins of biscuit to him who will kill this
dog. See, he mocks at us all.”
A short, square-built man--a connection by marriage of the murderer's
brother, Rao--sprang into the open, snatched the rifle from Palmer's
hand, and levelled it at Jinaban. But as his eye met those of the
dreaded outlaw his hand shook. He lowered the weapon, and turned to the
white man.
“Parma,” he said, giving back the rifle to Porter, “I cannot do it; for
his eye hath killed my heart.”
“Ha!” laughed Jinaban, and the group of Ijeet men swayed to and fro, and
a savage light came into Palmer's eyes. He looked at Porter, who at
that moment raised the rifle and fired, and a man who was approaching
Jinaban, knife in hand, to cut his bonds, spun round and fell upon the
sand with a broken back. In a moment the crowd of Ijeet men drew off.
“Back, back,” cried the half-caste, fiercely, springing towards them and
menacing them with the butt of his empty rifle, and then hurling it from
him he leaped back and picked up something that stood leaning up against
the wall of Palmer's boat-shed. It was a carpenter's broad-axe--a
fearful looking weapon, with a stout handle and a blade fourteen inches
across.
“Look,” he cried. “This man must die. And all the men of Ailap are
cowards, else would this murderer and devil now be dead, and his blood
running out upon the sand. But, as for me who fear him not--see!”
He took two steps forward to Jinaban and swung the axe. It clove through
the murderer's shaggy head and sank deep down into his chest.
*****
Two days later Sépé, who had made her peace with Palmer's wife, met the
sailor as he was walking down to the beach to bathe.
“Wilt thou keep thy promise and marry me?” she asked.
“No,” answered the half-caste, pushing her aside roughly; “marriage with
thee or any other woman is not to my mind. But go to the white man and
he will give thee the forty dollars and ten tins of biscuit instead.
Something thou dost deserve, but it shall not be me.”