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The boss supercargo, however, who had drawn up the agreement, refused to do so, on the grounds that I had a boat already, and I was too weak and too racked with the damnable pains of fever to make more than a brief protest against what was certainly a very mean trick. But I had now sold her to the natives, and old Kaibuka was not a man to be trifled with.
For this reason i.e., the many sanguinary encounters which took place on the little island it was given its ominous name. One day Kaibuka was sent to command a party of ten men who formed the garrison and who were keeping a keen watch for a raid was again expected when a small, square-rigged vessel was seen heading for the island.
Putting down my pipe on the mat beside me, I told old Kaibnka that I desired to talk to them. There was a dead silence at once. "Kaibuka," I said, "hath the dead white man been taken to his wife?" He looked stolidly at me for an instant, and then answered with an air of intense surprise. "Dead white man! What dead white man, Simi? I know of none. We saw no dead white man!"
They were all armed, and at first were cautious about advancing up the beach to Kaibuka and his men, but seeing that the latter possessed no firearms, they came on, and Kaibuka, throwing down his club and spear, walked down and shook hands with them in a very friendly manner, and was at once addressed by one of them in the Gilbert Island tongue, though he could not speak it very well.
If they cannot give me one hundred dollars I will take no less but because they and I are good friends, I will give it to them freely, for it will be of no further use to me." "They will buy the boat," she said confidently, and lighting her cigarette, she went out. A quarter of an hour later she returned, accompanied by old Kaibuka and another head man.
He and some other white men two of whom were now living at Makin Island had once stolen a ship when they were prisoners in Van Diemen's Land, had killed five or six soldiers and some of the crew, and sailed away with her to Fiji; and they had got much plunder from her. "What is to be got from this ship?" asked Kaibuka, who had heard this particular story from some traders and knew it to be true.
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