But Peter Jones was none of your stand-up-at-the-altar-and-repent-boys, being a white man by training, if not by blood, and after he had sobered up, what if his wife didn't smuggle him in a knife, and what if he didn't dig his way out! Yes, sir, that's what Peter Jones did--dug through the gravel floor and tunneled out, rising from the grave, so to speak, to the general uproar and hullabaloo of the entire settlement. Then--no one stopping him--he armed himself with an old Springfield rifle and an ax and a crowbar, and the cry went up he was going to murder the pastor, with the children running along in front and the women screaming.
But Peter wasn't gunning for any missionary, which even in Raka-hanga might have had a nasty comeback--the natives being mild but not cowards, and beginning to buzz like hornets and reach for their shark-tooth spears. No, what Peter was inflamed against was the coral jail, which he set at most ferocious with crowbar and ax until it was nothing but a heap of rubbish. Then he shot holes through the galvanized roofing, and burned it in a blazing fire along of the iron-studded door and window framing. By this time the missionary was trying to raise the multitude against Peter, but they were none too fond of the coral jail themselves and did nothing but hoot and shout like a pack of boys at a circus, which indeed it was and enough to make you split your sides laughing. After that Peter was let alone and nobody dared cross him, no matter what he did.
But this is all by the way to give you an idea of what Raka-hanga was like, and make the rest of the yarn the easier to understand. I shall always feel sorry all my life that Stanley and I were off fishing on the windward side of the island and thereby missed Clemm's arrival in the lagoon, which was well over before we got there, with the stern of a ten-oared boat heading for a man-of-war, and Clemm himself standing kind of helpless on the beach in the midst of all his chests and boxes and bedding.
He made a splendid appearance in his white clothes and shirt and pipe-clayed shoes and pith-helmet, being a short, thick-set man with gray hair and a commanding look. When we came running up he spoke to us very grand, though genial, saying: "Gentlemen, I am the new Resident Deputy Commissioner, and I call on you to assist me raise the flag and annex this island in the name of her Royal and Imperial Majesty, Queen Victoria!"