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Updated: May 12, 2025
"Is it not enough?" was the retort. "Then you are not glad to have your head cut off?" Ah Cho looked at him in abrupt perplexity, and said "Why, I am going back to Atimaono to work on the plantation for Schemmer. Are you not taking me to Atimaono?" Cruchot stroked his long moustaches reflectively. "Well, well," he said finally, with a flick of the whip at the off mule, "so you don't know?"
Yes, the white men were strange and wonderful, and they were devils. Look at Schemmer. Ah Cho wondered why the judgment was so long in forming. Not a man on trial had laid hand on Chung Ga. Ah San alone had killed him. Ah San had done it, bending Chung Ga's head back with one hand by a grip of his queue, and with the other hand, from behind, reaching over and driving the knife into his body.
It was true he had been present at it, and Schemmer, the overseer on the plantation, had rushed into the barracks immediately afterward and caught him there, along with four or five others; but what of that? Chung Ga had been stabbed only twice. It stood to reason that five or six men could not inflict two stab wounds. At the most, if a man had struck but once, only two men could have done it.
The sergeant looked at him hastily and saw the mistake. "Schemmer!" he called, imperatively. "Come here." The German grunted, but remained bent over his task till the chunk of iron was lashed to his satisfaction. "Is your Chinago ready?" he demanded. "Look at him," was the answer. "Is he the Chinago?" Schemmer was surprised.
Then he spoke: "Is Schemmer going to cut off my head?" Cruchot grinned as he nodded. "It is a mistake," said Ah Cho, gravely. "I am not the Chinago that is to have his head cut off. I am Ah Cho. The honourable judge has determined that I am to stop twenty years in New Caledonia." The gendarme laughed. It was a good joke, this funny Chinago trying to cheat the guillotine.
"Beautiful!" exclaimed the sergeant, pausing in the act of lighting a cigarette. "Beautiful, my friend." Schemmer was pleased at the praise. "Come on, Ah Chow," he said, in the Tahitian tongue. "But I am not Ah Chow " Ah Cho began. "Shut up!" was the answer. "If you open your mouth again, I'll break your head." The overseer threatened him with a clenched fist, and he remained silent.
Schemmer and the rest were doing this thing without malice. It was to them merely a piece of work that had to be done, just as clearing the jungle, ditching the water, and planting cotton were pieces of work that had to be done. Schemmer jerked the cord, and Ah Cho forgot "The Tract of the Quiet Way." The knife shot down with a thud, making a clean slice of the tree.
Schemmer moved the banana trunk forward under the knife, which he had hoisted to the top of the derrick. Ah Cho tried to remember maxims from "The Tract of the Quiet Way." "Live in concord," came to him; but it was not applicable. He was not going to live. He was about to die. No, that would not do. "Forgive malice" yes, but there was no malice to forgive.
They were all alike the officers and sailors on the ship, the French officials, the several white men on the plantation, including Schemmer. Their minds all moved in mysterious ways there was no getting at. They grew angry without apparent cause, and their anger was always dangerous. They were like wild beasts at such times.
"Know what?" Ah Cho was beginning to feel a vague alarm. "Won't Schemmer let me work for him any more?" "Not after to-day." Cruchot laughed heartily. It was a good joke. "You see, you won't be able to work after to-day. A man with his head off can't work, eh?" He poked the Chinago in the ribs, and chuckled. Ah Cho maintained silence while the mules trotted a hot mile.
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