HE Germans were coming ashore; two boat-loads of them.
The half dozen Portuguese were excitedly firing at the blacks, a party of whom, scenting trouble, began it. They defiantly ran away and refused orders. They had learned that Hurricane Williams was on the island.
So potent was his name that even cannibals who had never seen a white man knew of him. Stories filter and spread through the islands' bush. The blacks probably thought he had come to set them loose, and a party impatiently precipitated their freedom by loosening themselves. Others joined. The blacks were in rebellion.
The Portuguese were excited. Blood-hounds had been set on the natives. One had been killed—one dog, I mean. Several natives were shot. Stones and clubs and tools had driven the other dogs back.
The blacks, with yells of triumph, were bearing the dead dog off for a feast. No doubt they would have much preferred to have a Portuguese.
A third boat, loaded, was leaving the Friedrich.
The white men from off the Sally Martin slouched dispiritedly down on the landing. They had not been given arms. They were not given arms.
Hawkins was with Malua and the Samoans, who, grouped under the trees, were at a strategic point between the landing and the walled garden.
There was a disturbing uneasiness within me, and no hope. Williams, I told myself, did not have a chance. Numbers were against him. The sea was closed to him. Dakaru was too small an island to hide out on successfully. And men he couldn't trust were all about him.
The blacks, now amuck, might chant his praise in their feast-dance; and they might also try to use him for the feast. Possibly not; but all that afternoon my heart sagged, and I thought thoughts that made me sorry for things it was too late to mend. And I made vows, more or less feelingly designed to tempt the Lord to spare me. He did so. But the Lord is all-wise, and He knew anyhow that I could never keep my vows.
“I seen Carp Taylor talkin' to 'em—” Hawkins motioned toward the Portuguese, who, bunched together, now shot rapidly at the blacks far out of range and now turned to watch the oncoming boats.
“I seen him pointin' up there, too.” He indicated the house from which Williams and I had just come.
“1 yelled at 'im:
“'What you doin', you old ? Hirin' 'em to shoot us in the back, you old ?”
And regarding Carp Taylor Hawkins confided with me. ”All I got 'o say is I hope somethin' happens 'at gives him a good excuse for gettin' hurt, bad.”
Williams had conveyed to Hawkins, to Malua, to all of them, that there would be more trouble than they wanted if any of them quarreled or shot before he thought there was need of it.
Carp Taylor and Davenant were down near the landing. Williams started down.
I still tagged along, trying to tell him what I had learned in Grahame's room and breaking the story up, perhaps incoherently. But he listened, though he did not seem to. There had been so much else to tell that I do not believe I got in all my evidence against Carp Taylor.
Williams went toward the landing. By the time he could get there the Germans would be almost within rifle-shot, for he went out of his way to pass the Portuguese.
They stopped firing. They stopped looking at Germans, too, as he came near.
He went up to the mean fellow, apparently the overseer, that had met me when I came ashore.
Without warning, without explanation, Williams said: “Drop those guns.”
Five faces stared at him in sullen stupidity. The overseer sneered and jerked up the muzzle of his rifle threateningly—though perhaps defensively.
He started to say something with oaths in it, and Williams killed him. With his left hand Williams caught the barrel of the rifle. With the blow of his right hand a knife flashed. That was all, except that he wheeled, the gun club-like in one hand and the knife, its sheen reddened, in the other.
“Drop them!” he said, not loudly but with sudden tense fury, meaning it—meaning multifold times more than his words: and showing what he meant by the glare of his eyes, the strange poise of his body that appeared to be leaning against an invisible leash.
The rifles fell.
“Go over there—any place;” he made a short impatient gesture.
Five men shuffled off, their faces almost between their shoulders, staring in dull fear—as such stupid fellows might stare at the devil who cast them away, not thinking they were worth the coal it would take to make them squirm; perhaps aware that if they were melted down they would have no souls.