I asked what they were going to do next, and they said, "Get aboard and bathe it with ammoniar"; and I said, "No, I meant about Runyon Rufe"; and Mr. Phelps he give me a wicked look, and said that they'd lay him by the legs before long, together with a few white trading gentlemen, maybe, to keep him company; and I said, "Oh, dear, I hope that isn't any insinuation against present company!" and he said, "the present company might put the cap on if it fitted them"; and I said "if he couldn't keep a civil tongue in his head he had better get off my front stoop"; and he said "he wouldn't demean himself by bandying words with a beach-comber," and went off sucking his hand, with the others crowding around him, and asking him how it felt now.
I suspicioned there had been a leak somewheres, and was surer than ever when Tom came around with his eye bunged up where Nettleship had hit him. And it certainly looked black that they made no appearance of moving, raising an awning over the quarter-deck, and bringing up tables and swinging hammocks like it was for a week. The pastor had told Tom that one of the children had reckonized Old Dibs's photograph, and clapped his hands before he could be stopped, crying out, "Ona! Ona!" the name Old Dibs went by among the Kanakas.
We put in a pretty anxious day, for they began a systematic prowl all over the island, obviously dividing out the territory and doing it simultaneous. That night they set a watch on my house and Tom's, the news coming in from Iosefo, who had spies out watching them. It was regular wheels within wheels, and I couldn't but wonder how poor Old Dibs was faring up his tree, waiting and waiting for us to come!
The next day they prowled harder than ever, this time the crew joining in, mate, cook, cabin boy, and four hands. Like was natural, they made me and Tom's first--the crew, I mean--and we both had the same happy thought, square-face. The mate went off with only three drinks in him, taking the cabin boy with two, but the rest of them sucked it in by the bucket, and the fartherest any of them got away was a hundred yards, and him with a bottle in his hand. They were a pretty ugly crowd by nightfall, refusing to go back to the ship when ordered, and roaring and yelling about the settlement to all hours. The afterguard still kept tab on me and Tom, however, and so yet another night passed without our daring to make our date with Old Dibs. But in the morning they lost all patience, rounding up the crew with handspikes, and all going off to the schooner with half of them in irons. Phelps and Nettleship helped to get up anchor themselves, and toward nine o'clock we had the blessed sight of their heels, beating out of the lagoon against a stiff trade.