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But Mills did not believe him. He and Menalee had always been good friends, and he seemed to think it impossible that they would kill him. He hesitated, and the hesitation cost him his life, for next moment a bullet laid him low. Meanwhile McCoy ran to warn Christian.
At last the strength of Talaloo seemed to give way, but still he retained a vice-like grasp of his antagonist's right wrist. "Won't you help me?" gasped Talaloo, turning an appealing glance on his wife. "No," cried Menalee, "but she will help me to kill Talaloo." The hardened woman picked up the pistol, and going towards her husband struck him on the head.
"I've heard of such a thing bein' done at Otaheite by one of the women. She knows how to get the poison from some sort of plant, I believe, and I'm pretty sure that Menalee will help us." The plan thus suggested was finally adopted. One of the women made three puddings, two of which were good, the third was poisoned.
"There; oh! ha-a! not so hard," groaned the unfortunate man, as his friend laved the water on his lacerated back. In a few minutes the salt was washed out of the wounds, and Nehow began to feel easier. "Where is Menalee?" he asked, abruptly, as he sat down under the deep shadow of a banyan-tree. "In his master's hut, I suppose," answered Timoa.
But McCoy, being the stronger man, twisted himself suddenly round, grasped Menalee by the waist with both hands, and flung him headlong into a neighbouring pig-sty. He then turned and ran back to his garden to warn Mills. "Run for it, Mills," he cried; "run and take to the bush. All the black scoundrels have united to murder us." He set the example by at once disappearing in the thick bush.
The bait took. McCoy ran up to his house. As soon as he reached the door there was a volley from within, but McCoy remained untouched. Seeing this, and, no doubt, supposing that he must be badly wounded, Menalee, who had followed him, seized him from behind.
Menalee quickly finished with his knife what the murderess had begun. For a few minutes the three stood looking at the murdered man in silence, when they returned to the settlement and told what they had done. But the assassin's work was not yet over. Another of the natives, named Ohoo, had fled to the woods, threatening vengeance against the white men.
Sometimes the other native men, Tetaheite and Menalee, joined Nehow and Timoa in working in Young's garden, and afterwards went with them into the bush, where they planned the attack which was afterwards made. At last the lowering cloud was fully charged, and the thunderbolt fell. The planting time came round at Pitcairn, and all was busy activity in the little settlement at Bounty Bay.
Let it suffice to add, briefly, that after retiring from a fruitless search for the white men in the bush, Menalee quarrelled with Timoa and shot him. This roused the anger of the other two against Menalee, who fled to the bush and tried to make friends with McCoy and Quintal.
After the others had done eating, he proposed that they should all go a little farther up into the bushes, where, he said, he had left his own wife among some breadfruit trees. Talaloo agreeing to this, they rose and walked away. The footpath being narrow, they were obliged to go in single file. Menalee walked behind Talaloo.
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