Only a muffled swear-word told the way of his going as the lid went down.
Bones, who was the head of that Organization, and pocketed the bribes, gave his holiest smile, his half-humorous-looking face betraying no sign of the intense excitement of the moment when the new-comer had disappeared from life’s wildest drama beneath the lid of that huge barrel.
As the door opened, a giant of a fellow stood framed by the opening. It appeared that he was a half-caste official from the Suva police force. When he had told Bones that a canoe had been found on the beach, and that they had received information that a fugitive from the N.S.W. mail steamer had landed at Suva, Bones simulated a terrible passion.
“What the b—— h—— yer come ’ere for? What’s that to do with me?”
“Keep yer wig on,” said the official, standing just behind the first man, who by this time had given Bones a significant wink. It required very little thought to enable one to discern that Bones was well in with those officials. And one’s suspicions would have soon been confirmed had one seen the official in question sit down on the emergency barrel, and grin from ear to ear as a muffled sneeze came from beneath the lid!
In a few moments the friendly man-hunters had passed away, happy enough with their bribe—bribery being the staple trade of that establishment.
Next day a shot was heard in the forest. When the Organization members rushed out beneath the palms, they only discovered the quivering body of yesterday’s arrival—the new-comer had blown the top of his head off! They hid the body beneath the scrub. Next day they buried him on the quiet, miles away, near the old-time sugar plantations.
Bones and three or four others were the chief mourners. No coffin, simply a bit of old tarpaulin tied tightly at the feet and again round the neck, the canvas so short that the poor fugitive’s hair stuck out in a pathetic bunch. It was like burying a man at sea as they dropped him down into that hastily-dug hollow. O’Hara crossed himself. Bones said something that sounded kind. As for the girl, she wept bitterly, trembling like a leaf as she knelt by the grave-side. It made me wonder if I dreamed that sight—a grave in a South Sea forest, that silent, canvas-wrapt figure, and that innocent-looking girl with a world of sorrow, utter misery on her face. She wasn’t his daughter; there was something too passionately poetical in the things she said as she knelt there, caring not at all for the men who stared down at her with a misty look in their eyes.
Two days after that, she had sufficiently recovered so that she could venture to travel. The kindness of Bones and the shady characters was something that revealed in an indisputable manner that a woman’s presence and sorrow have more religious influence on sinful hearts than all the Psalms.
No one knew the exact way of that girl’s going. But the favoured theory was that Bones and the Organization members had made a collection and so paid her fare in the next steamer that was bound for London.