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Old Dibs made no bones about giving her the keys, while I took it on myself to tell Iosefo the enemy had arrived, and he'd better move about the village warning everybody of the fack.
I suppose he felt a kind of protection in him Iosefo being the nearest thing to an official in the island and he made himself very solid in that quarter, giving to the church lavish and going there every Sunday.
Tom said I could easily stand off my house being searched for a few hours, even if it was a man-of-war that come, telling them they might do it to-morrow. Then Tom said we'd have to take Iosefo, the native pastor, into it part way, making him preach from the pulpit and order the people to deny all knowledge of Old Dibs if they were asked questions about him by strangers.
Anybody that gave away Old Dibs was to have his house burned in this world and his soul in the next; and Iosefo laid it on thick about our all loving him, and what a friend he has proved himself to the island; and when he reached the point where he announced that Old Dibs had contributed fifty dollars toward the fund for the new church, you could feel a rustle go through the whole congregation, and a general gasp of satisfaction.
Natives are never so helpful and willing as when you're egging them on to do something they shouldn't, and he fell in with the preaching idea, and wanted to start right away. But they finally decided it had better be a monthly affair, so the natives shouldn't lose track of it, and Iosefo commenced the first Sunday.
Even Iosefo, sitting on the trunk in the bedroom, became one of them things that ran into habit; and in some ways it was a good idea, too, for it brought custom to the store, what with the deacons coming over to talk about church affairs, and the Committee on Ways and Means meeting there regular.
Tom wouldn't have him inside, for fear the natives might chance on the treasure themselves, and we put a neat fence around the place, with a priming and two coats of white paint, and a natty gate to go in by with brass hinges. The whole settlement turned out, Iosefo outdoing himself, and the king butting in with an address, and everything shipshape and Bristol fashion, as sailors say.
And I guess it was Old Dibs's face that needed watching, it was beaming and happy, specially when they shook hands on it, and we all three walked along abreast, like a father and his two sons on the way to the bar. Tom didn't let grass grow under his feet, and he went at it all with a rush, beginning first of all with Iosefo, the Kanaka pastor.
Smith," I said, "you needn't have troubled to ask me that; any friend of yours is welcome, I am sure, and I never saw no harm in Iosefo, even if he is a missionary." I thought he meant to have the fellow in to talk with him or play checkers, to while away the time that hung so heavy on his hands. But it wasn't this at all except for a halfway pretense at the beginning.
But Old Dibs took it more cheerful, and minded a good deal less about its being wasted; and as the months run on, he seemed to think he was out of the woods, and perked up wonderful. Not that he wasn't careful, of course, or that Iosefo let down on the preaching; for nobody could be sure what day or what minute the pinch mightn't come.
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