Seelee arrived, proud in his importance that the great
master of Berande should summon him in the night-time
for council, and firm in his refusal to step one inch
within the dread domain of the bushmen. As he
said, if his opinion had been asked when the gold-hunters
started, he would have foretold their disastrous end.
There was only one thing that happened to any one
who ventured into the bushmen’s territory, and
that was that he was eaten. And he would further
say, without being asked, that if Sheldon went up
into the bush he would be eaten too.
Sheldon sent for a gang-boss and told him to bring
ten of the biggest, best, and strongest Poonga-Poonga
men.
“Not salt-water boys,” Sheldon cautioned,
“but bush boys—leg belong him strong
fella leg. Boy no savvee musket, no good.
You bring ’m boy shoot musket strong fella.”
They were ten picked men that filed up on the veranda
and stood in the glare of the lanterns. Their
heavy, muscular legs advertised that they were bushmen.
Each claimed long experience in bush-fighting, most
of them showed scars of bullet or spear-thrust in
proof, and all were wild for a chance to break the
humdrum monotony of plantation labour by going on
a killing expedition. Killing was their natural
vocation, not wood-cutting; and while they would
not have ventured the Guadalcanar bush alone, with
a white man like Sheldon behind them, and a white Mary
such as they knew Joan to be, they could expect a
safe and delightful time. Besides, the great
master had told them that the eight gigantic Tahitians
were going along.
The Poonga-Poonga volunteers stood with glistening
eyes and grinning faces, naked save for their loin-cloths,
and barbarously ornamented. Each wore a flat,
turtle-shell ring suspended through his nose, and each
carried a clay pipe in an ear-hole or thrust inside
a beaded biceps armlet. A pair of magnificent
boar tusks graced the chest of one. On the chest
of another hung a huge disc of polished fossil clam-shell.
“Plenty strong fella fight,” Sheldon warned
them in conclusion.
They grinned and shifted delightedly.
“S’pose bushmen kai-kai along you?”
he queried.
“No fear,” answered their spokesman, one
Koogoo, a strapping, thick-lipped Ethiopian-looking
man. “S’pose Poonga-Poonga boy kai-kai
bush-boy?”
Sheldon shook his head, laughing, and dismissed them,
and went to overhaul the dunnage-room for a small
shelter tent for Joan’s use.
It was quite a formidable expedition that departed
from Berande at break of day next morning in a fleet
of canoes and dinghies. There were Joan and
Sheldon, with Binu Charley and Lalaperu, the eight
Tahitians, and the ten Poonga-Poonga men, each proud
in the possession of a bright and shining modern rifle.
In addition, there were two of the plantation boat’s-crews
of six men each. These, however, were to go no
farther than Carli, where water transportation ceased
and where they were to wait with the boats.
Boucher remained behind in charge of Berande.
