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We made a play at holding a court, and Telepasse, the old scoundrel, accepted the findings. He's a Port Adams chief, a filthy beggar. We fined him ten times the value of the pigs, and made him move on with his mob. Oh, they're a sweet lot, I must say, at least sixty of them, in five big canoes, and out for trouble. They've got a dozen Sniders that ought to be confiscated." "Why didn't you?"
With a quick glance, he noted the hand at her side, and in it the familiar, paper-wrapped dynamite. He noted, also, the end of fuse, split properly, into which had been inserted the head of a wax match. "Telepasse, you old reprobate, tell 'm boys clear out along beach. My word, I no gammon along you." "Me no gammon," said the chief. "Me want 'm pay white Mary bang 'm head b'long Gogoomy."
No good. You pay me plenty tobacco, plenty powder, plenty calico." "You old scoundrel," was Sheldon's comment. An hour before, he had been chuckling over Joan's recital of the episode, and here, an hour later, was Telepasse himself come to collect damages. "Gogoomy," Sheldon ordered, "what name you walk about here? You get along quarters plenty quick." "Me stop," was the defiant answer.
"Clear out, all you fella boys," he ordered. "Clear out and walk along salt water. Savvee!" "Me talk," spoke up a fat and filthy savage whose hairy chest was caked with the unwashed dirt of years. "Oh, is that you, Telepasse?" the white man queried genially. "You tell 'm boys clear out, and you stop and talk along me." "Him good fella boy," was the reply. "Him stop along."
"There'll be wars for forty years on Malaita on account of this," Sheldon laughed. "But I always fancy old Telepasse will never again attempt to rush a plantation." "Eh, you old scoundrel," he added, turning to the old chief, who sat gibbering in impotent rage at the foot of the steps. "Now head belong you bang 'm too. Come on, Miss Lackland, bang 'm just once. It will be the crowning indignity."
"White Mary b'long you bang 'm head," old Telepasse began again. "My word, plenty big fella trouble you no pay." "You talk along boys," Sheldon said, with increasing irritation. "You tell 'm get to hell along beach. Then I talk with you." Sheldon felt a slight vibration of the veranda, and knew that Joan had come out and was standing by his side. But he did not dare glance at her.
All were treed except Telepasse, who was too old and fat, and he lay prone and without movement where he had fallen; while Satan, with too great a heart to worry an enemy that did not move, dashed frantically from tree to tree, barking and springing at those who clung on lowest down. "I fancy you need a lesson or two in inserting fuses," Sheldon remarked dryly. Joan's eyes were scornful.
Joan, who had gone into the bungalow, tossed down a strip of white calico, in which old Telepasse was promptly wrapped, and he stood forth, resplendent and purified, withal he still spat and strangled from the soap-suds with which Noa Noah had gargled his throat. The house-boys were directed to fetch handcuffs, and, one by one, the Lunga runaways were haled down out of their trees and made fast.
He shook his head reproachfully, while the laughter died down in his throat to long-drawn chuckles. "He was older than Telepasse and dirtier," she assured Sheldon, "and I am sure much wickeder. But this isn't work. Let us get through with these lists." She turned to the waiting black on the steps, "Ogu, you finish along big marster belong white man, you go Not-Not.
"Well, what do you want?" Sheldon asked, striving to hide under assumed carelessness the weakness of concession. "That fella boy belong along me." The old chief pointed out Gogoomy, whom Sheldon recognized. "White Mary belong you too much no good," Telepasse went on. "Bang 'm head belong Gogoomy. Gogoomy all the same chief. Bimeby me finish, Gogoomy big fella chief. White Mary bang 'm head.
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