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Updated: May 26, 2025
At a sign from Worth, he took the rifle from the visitor's hand and carried it inside the bungalow. "Koho," Grief said, introducing the German Resident, "this big fella marster belong Bougainville my word, big fella marster too much." Koho, remembering the visits of the various German cruisers, smiled with a light of unpleasant reminiscence in his eyes.
"I think he's going to faint," Grief said, bending over the victim. "Captain Ward, give him a drink, please. You'd better take one yourself, Worth; you're shaking like a leaf." "And I think I'll take one," said Wallenstein, wiping the sweat from his face. His eye caught the shadow of Koho on the floor and followed it up to the old chief himself. "Hello! who's this?" "Hello, Koho!"
Grief emerged from the kitchen, carrying a naked black child by the leg. Its head was missing. "The cook's in there," he told Worth. "Her head's gone, too. She was too heavy, and I had to clear out." "It was my fault," Wallenstein said. "Old Koho did it. But I let him take a drink of Worth's horse liniment." "I guess he's headed for the bush," Worth said, springing astride his horse and starting.
Worth pleaded with his assistants to hang on, and hung on himself, twisting the tooth till it crackled and then attempting a straightaway pull. Nor did any of them notice the little black man who limped up the steps and stood looking on. Koho was a conservative. His fathers before him had worn no clothes, and neither did he, not even a gee-string.
The liniment in the bottle, however, was lower, and it still oscillated. Koho stood up, clapped his hands, and, when the house-boy answered, signed that he desired his rifle. The boy fetched the weapon, and according to custom preceded the visitor down the pathway. Not until outside the gate did the boy turn the rifle over to its owner.
He would sit in the sun for hours, occasionally drooling, in mournful contemplation of the great orgy which had been his when the German plantation was cleaned out. Denby was sympathetic. He sought out the old chief's symptoms and offered him dyspeptic tablets from the medicine chest, pills, and a varied assortment of harmless tabloids and capsules. But Koho steadfastly declined.
As he made believe to draw the cork and drink of the contents, in the mirror on the for'ard bulkhead he glimpsed Koho, twisted half around, intently watching him. Denby smacked his lips and cleared his throat appreciatively as he replaced the bottle. Neglecting to relock the medicine closet, he returned to his chair, and, after a decent interval, went on deck.
After that he had gone on his way to mend trouble on the atoll of Tasman, where a plague of black measles had broken out and been ascribed to Grief's plantation by the devil-devil doctors. Once, a year later, he had been called back again to straighten up New Gibbon; and Koho, after paying a forced fine of two hundred thousand cocoanuts, decided it was cheaper to keep the peace and sell the nuts.
Its windward coast was iron-bound, without anchorages or inlets, and it was inhabited by scores of warring tribes at least it had been, until Koho had arisen, like a Kamehameha, and, by force of arms and considerable statecraft, firmly welded the greater portion of the tribes into a confederation.
David Grief pulled himself together with a jerk, for he found himself gazing fascinated at the heads of the three men he had left at New Gibbon. The yellow mustache of Wallenstein had lost its fierce curl and drooped and wilted on the upper lip. "I don't know how it happened," the Scotchman's voice went on drearily. "But I surmise they went into the bush after the old devil." "And where is Koho?"
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