[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]

82 WITH NATIVES IN THE WESTERN PACIFIC

board the cutter they feared all sorts of revenge from
Belni’s relatives,—for instance, that they might cause a
storm and wreck the cutter. We laughed at them,
but they would not be cheered up, and, after all,
Macao’s horrible dread that his old father was surely
being eaten up by this time in the village was not
quite groundless. We were not in the brightest of
humours ourselves, as this event had considerably
lessened our chances of recruiting at Big Nambas;
the chief made us responsible for Bourbaki’s death,
and asked an indemnity which we could hardly pay,
except with the tusked pigs we demanded here.

We could not stay longer in Tesbel Bay, as our
boys were too much frightened, and the natives might
turn against us at any moment. We could hardly get
the boys to go ashore for water and firewood, for fear
of an ambush. In the evening we fetched Belni out
of the hold. He was still doleful and ready to cry,
but seemed unconscious of any fault; he had killed a
man, but that was rather an honourable act than a
crime, and he only seemed to regret that it had turned
out so unsatisfactorily. He did not seem to have
much appetite, but swallowed his yam mechanically
in great lumps. The boys shunned him visibly, all
but Macao, who squatted down close before him, and
gave him food with wild hatred in his eyes, and
muttering awful threats. Icy-cold, cruel, with com-
pressed lips and poisonous looks like a serpent’s, he
hissed his curses and tortured Belni, who excused
himself clumsily and shyly, playing with the yarn and
looking from one dark corner to the other, like a boy