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But Palmer was not a man to be daunted by Jinaban's fierce looks and the bitter epithets he applied to his half-brothers, whom he accused of "stealing" the white man from him. He quietly announced his intention of standing to the agreement he had made with Jelik; and the next day that chief's people set about building a house for the trader.
But in some way Sépé had betrayed herself, and Letanë was now having a strict watch kept upon the girl by two or three of her women attendants whom she had sent to reside in Ijeet, as Jinaban's village was called. Ostensibly they had gone to visit some relatives there. Sépé, however, was always on her guard, and so far the spies had learnt nothing fresh.
An hour later Frank Porter, with an half-emptied bottle of liquor placed before him on the matted floor, was sitting in a house in Jinaban's village, surrounded by a number of young men and women.
"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."
In a very short time the half-caste learnt from Letanë that Sépé, who lived in Jinaban's village, was strongly suspected of receiving visits from the outlaw, and even of visiting the man himself; for on several occasions she had been absent from her mother's house for two or three days at a time.
Halfway across the lagoon he heard the sound of two shots, and by its sharp crack knew that one came from Jinaban's rifle the rifle he had given to the slaughtered Jelik.
For some minutes, however, after the trader had finished, he did not speak, and then at last said in his slow, methodical way "I will promise you that I'll get you Jinaban, dead or alive, before a week is out. And I don't want money. But I want you, please, to get some one of your natives here to come and tell me all they can about Jinaban's friends in the other village."
Twice had Palmer crossed over in the darkness of night, and, Winchester in hand, carefully sought for traces of Jinaban's hiding-place, but without success. The interior of the island was a dense thicket of scrub which seemed to defy penetration. On the last occasion Palmer had hidden among a mass of broken and vine-covered coral boulders which covered the eastern shore.
And as most of Jinaban's people were in secret sympathy with their outlawed chief, the girl's movements were never commented on by the inhabitants of her own village, for fear that the relatives of the murdered chiefs, Raô and Jelik, and other people of Ailap, would kill her.
At Porter's request the trader's wife gave him a description of Sépé's appearance, and also described the exact position of the house in which she lived with her mother. Then the half-caste unfolded his plan to Palmer and his wife. "And now," he said, "I must go. If I stay longer it may spoil our plans by making Jinaban's friend suspicious.
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