The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-10-13
CHAPTER II.
SOMETHING IS DONE.


 TN the morning David Sheldon de
 cided that he was worse. That
 he was appreciably weaker there
 was no doubt, and there were other symptoms that were unfavorable He began his rounds looking fol trouble. He wanted trouble. In full health the strained situation would have been serious enough; but as ii was, himself growing helpless, some were getting more sullen and defiant and the appearance of the men the previous night on his veranda-one of the gravest of offences on Berande- was ominous. Sooner or later they would get him, if he did not get them first, if he did not once again scar on their dark souls the flaming mastery of the white man.
 He returned to the house disappoint- ed No opportunity had presented it. self of making an example of insolence or insubordination-s as had oc- cured on every other day since the sickness smote Berande The fact that none had offended was in itself sus- picious They were growing crafty. It was one man against two hundred, and he was horribly. afraid of his sickness overpowering him and leav- Ing him at their mercy. He saw vi- sions of the blacks taking charge of the plantation, footing the store, burn ing the buildings and escaping to Ma laita. Also one grewsome vision he caught of his own head, sun dried and smoke cured, ornamenting the canoe house of a cannibal village. Either the Jessie would have to arrive or he would have to do something. The bell had hardly rnng, sending the laborers into the fields, when Shel- don had visitor. Forty men, armed with spears, bows and arrows and war clubs, gathered outside the gate Nof the compound, but only one enter ed. They knew the law of Berande, as every native knew the law of every fwhite mans compound in all the thou sand miles of the far flung Solomons. The one man who came up the path Sheldon recognized as Seelee, the chief of Balesuna village. The savage did not mount the steps, but stood be- meath and talked to the white lord above.
 Seelee was more intelligent than the average of his kind. but his intelli- cence only emphasized the lowness of that kind. His eyes, close together and small, advertised cruelty and crafti- ness. A gee string and a cartridge belt. were all the clothes he wore.
 AS he talked. or listened, he made .rimaces like monkey. He said yes by dropping his eyelids and thrusting his chin forward He spoke with ..hadish arrogance strangely at vari- Ince with the subservient position he occupied beneath the veranda. He, with his many followers. was lord and master of Balesuna village. But the white man. withc,.t followers, was lord av master of Berande--ay, and himself lord and master of Balesuna village as well. Seelee did not like to remember that episode. 1t had oc- cured in h1e course of learning the nature of white men and of learning to abominate them. He had once been guilty of sheltering three runaways from Berande.
 Unfortunately, he was ignorant of the ways of white men. This particu- Ear white man educated him by arriv- ing at his grass house in the gray of lawn In the first moment he had felt amused He was so perfectly safe in the midst of bi3 village But the next moment. and before he could. cry out. a pair of handcuffs on the white mans knuckles had landed on his mouth, knocking the cry of alarm back down his throat Also, the white mans other nsJ had caught him under the ear and left him without further interest in what was happening. When he came to he found himself in the white mans whaleboat on the way to Berande. When his tribe had returned the three runaways. he was given his freedom. And finally. the terrible white man had fined him and Balesuna, village ten thousand cocoanuts. After that he had sheltered no more runaway Ma laita linen. Instead. he had gone into the business of, catching them. It was safer Besides, he was paid one case of tobacco per head. But if he ever got chance at that white man, if he ever caught him sick or stood at his back when he stumbled and fell on a bush trail-well, there would be head that would fetch price in Mala- ita-
 Sheldon was pleased with what See Lao told him. The seventh man of the