The scattered paths of the different boys, where they
broke back after the disastrous attempt to rush the
Tahitian, soon led together. They traced it
to the Berande, which the runaways had crossed with
the clear intention of burying themselves in the huge
mangrove swamp that lay beyond.
“There is no use our going any farther,”
Sheldon said. “Seelee will turn out his
village and hunt them out of that. They’ll
never get past him. All we can do is to guard
the coast and keep them from breaking back on the
plantation and running amuck. Ah, I thought so.”
Against the jungle gloom of the farther shore, coming
from down stream, a small canoe glided. So silently
did it move that it was more like an apparition.
Three naked blacks dipped with noiseless paddles.
Long-hafted, slender, bone-barbed throwing-spears lay
along the gunwale of the canoe, while a quiverful
of arrows hung on each man’s back. The
eyes of the man-hunters missed nothing. They
had seen Sheldon and Joan first, but they gave no
sign. Where Gogoomy and his followers had emerged
from the river, the canoe abruptly stopped, then turned
and disappeared into the deeper mangrove gloom.
A second and a third canoe came around the bend from
below, glided ghostlike to the crossing of the runaways,
and vanished in the mangroves.
“I hope there won’t be any more killing,”
Joan said, as they turned their horses homeward.
“I don’t think so,” Sheldon assured
her. “My understanding with old Seelee
is that he is paid only for live boys; so he is very
careful.”
Never had runaways from Berande been more zealously
hunted. The deeds of Gogoomy and his fellows
had been a bad example for the one hundred and fifty
new recruits. Murder had been planned, a gang-boss
had been killed, and the murderers had broken their
contracts by fleeing to the bush. Sheldon saw
how imperative it was to teach his new-caught cannibals
that bad examples were disastrous things to pattern
after, and he urged Seelee on night and day, while
with the Tahitians he practically lived in the bush,
leaving Joan in charge of the plantation. To
the north Boucher did good work, twice turning the
fugitives back when they attempted to gain the coast.
One by one the boys were captured. In the first
man-drive through the mangrove swamp Seelee caught
two. Circling around to the north, a third was
wounded in the thigh by Boucher, and this one, dragging
behind in the chase, was later gathered in by Seelee’s
hunters. The three captives, heavily ironed,
were exposed each day in the compound, as good examples
of what happened to bad examples, all for the edification
of the seven score and ten half-wild Poonga-Poonga
men. Then the Minerva, running past for
Tulagi, was signalled to send a boat, and the three
prisoners were carried away to prison to await trial.
