And thats why they die of dysentery nowadays, the mate added.
Just fancy, said Bertie, as he felt a longing for the cruise to be over.
Later on in the day he interviewed the black who had been pointed out to him as a cannibal. This fellows name was Sumasai. He had spent three years on a Queensland[114] plantation. He had been to Samoa, and Fiji, and Sydney; and as a boats crew had been on recruiting schooners through New Britain, New Ireland[115], New Guinea[116], and the Admiralties[117]. Also, he was a wag, and he had taken a line on his skippers conduct. Yes, he had eaten many men. How many? He could not remember the tally. Yes, white men, too; they were very good, unless they were sick. He had once eaten a sick one.
My word! he cried, at the recollection. Me sick plenty along him. My belly walk about too much.
Bertie shuddered, and asked about heads. Yes, SumasaI had several hidden ashore, in good condition, sun-dried, and smoke-cured. One was of the captain of a schooner. It had long whiskers. He would sell it for two quid. Black mens heads he would sell for one quid. He had some pickaninny heads, in poor condition that he would let go for ten bob.
Five minutes afterward, Bertie found himself sitting on the companionway-slide alongside a black with a horrible skin disease. He sheered off, and on inquiry was told that it was leprosy. He hurried below and washed himself with antiseptic soap. He took many antiseptic washes in the course of the day, for every native on board was afflicted with malignant ulcers of one sort or another.
As the Arla drew in to an anchorage in the midst of mangrove swamps, a double row of barbed wire was stretched around above her rail. That looked like business, and when Bertie saw the shore canoes alongside, armed with spears, bows and arrows, and Sniders, he wished more earnestly than ever that the cruise was over.
That evening the natives were slow in leaving the ship at sundown. A number of them checked the mate when he ordered them ashore. Never mind, Ill fix them, said Captain Hansen, diving below.
When he came back, he showed Bertie a stick of dynamite attached to a fish hook. Now it happens that a paper-wrapped bottle of chlorodyne with a piece of harmless fuse projecting can fool anybody. It fooled Bertie, and it fooled the natives. When Captain Hansen lighted the fuse and hooked the fish hook into the tail end of a natives loin cloth, that native was smitten with so an ardent a desire for the shore that he forgot to shed the loin cloth. He started forard, the fuse sizzling and spluttering at his rear, the natives in his path taking headers over the barbed wire at every jump. Bertie was horror-stricken. So was Captain Hansen. He had forgotten his twenty-five recruits, on each of which he had paid thirty shillings advance. They went over the side along with the shore-dwelling folk and followed by him who trailed the sizzling chlorodyne bottle.
Bertie did not see the bottle go off; but the mate opportunely discharging a stick of real dynamite aft where it would harm nobody, Bertie would have sworn in any admiralty court to a nigger blown to flinders. The flight of the twenty-five recruits had actually cost the Arla forty pounds, and, since they had taken to the bush, there was no hope of recovering them. The skipper and his mate proceeded to drown their sorrow in cold tea.
The cold tea was in whiskey bottles, so Bertie did not know it was cold tea they were mopping up. All he knew was that the two men got very drunk and argued eloquently and at length as to whether the exploded nigger should be reported as a case of dysentery or as an accidental drowning. When they snored off to sleep, he was the only white man left, and he kept a perilous watch till dawn, in fear of an attack from shore and an uprising of the crew.
Three more days the Arla spent on the coast, and three more nights the skipper and the mate drank overfondly of cold tea, leaving Bertie to keep the watch. They knew he could be depended upon, while he was equally certain that if he lived, he would report their drunken conduct to Captain Malu. Then the Arla dropped anchor at Reminge Plantation, on Guadalcanal[118], and Bertie landed on the beach with a sigh of relief and shook hands with the manager. Mr. Harriwell was ready for him.
Now you mustnt be alarmed if some of our fellows seem downcast, Mr. Harriwell said, having drawn him aside in confidence. Theres been talk of an outbreak, and two or three suspicious signs Im willing to admit, but personally I think its all poppycock.
How how many blacks have you on the plantation? Bertie asked, with a sinking heart.
Were working four hundred just now, replied Mr. Harriwell, cheerfully; but the three of us, with you, of course, and the skipper and mate of the Arla, can handle them all right.
Bertie turned to meet one McTavish, the storekeeper, who scarcely acknowledged the introduction, such was his eagerness to present his resignation.
It being that Im a married man, Mr. Harriwell, I cant very well afford to remain on longer. Trouble is working up, as plain as the nose on your face. The niggers are going to break out, and therell be another Hohono horror here.