On their way up from the beach to the club-house Mr Lechworthy asked if Mr Mast had been long on the island.
“Four years.”
“And never a holiday?”
“No,” said Mast, who every moment felt more like a real missionary, “no, I have needed no holiday.”
“Rather lonely, I should think,” said Hilda.
“Well, one has one’s work. There are other white men on the island too—traders and planters. You may possibly see some of them up at the mission-house.”
Lechworthy began on the subject of his book—his projected work on the missions of the South Seas. A native girl ran up with a necklace of flowers for Hilda. Mast began to talk more easily and fluently, falling into the part that had been assigned to him. He described King Smith, that prodigy among natives, with accuracy and with some humour. He was sketching the French Mission for his guests as they entered, with exclamations of delight, the beautiful garden of the Exiles’ Club. Somewhere at the back of his head Mast was wondering why King Smith had not appeared. The arrival of a schooner constituted a great event. What could he be doing?
Just at present the King sat in his office, deep in thought. Another event had happened which made the schooner’s arrival of comparatively little importance in his eyes. It was the first sign that his power might not hold back the native outbreak, and it had come before he expected it. In the early morning, while it was still dark, the King as he lay awake had heard a scream—brief, agonised. It seemed to be fairly near—a hundred yards or so away. He had lighted a lantern and searched the scrub at the back of the stores. There he had found the dead body of a white man with a native knife sticking in his throat. The white man was Duncombe, and no complaint against him had ever reached the King’s ears. It was a private revenge, and might not end there.
The King decided and acted quickly. Already the body was buried out of sight, covered with quicklime in a shallow grave. Hundreds of the natives were in a state of angry ferment, held back by the King with difficulty; if they saw that the first step had already been taken, it would be impossible to hold them back at all. The King himself had been the grave-digger and had kept his own counsel. Duncombe would be missed at the Exiles’ Club that day. On the morrow his friends would be anxiously searching for him. Meanwhile, the King would have found out the assassin and would have used the strange gift with which the natives credited him. He would talk to the man seriously in the melodious native tongue, and say that he wished for his death. No other step would be necessary. The man would go back to his hut, refuse food, remain obstinately silent, and presently draw a cloth over his face and die. In what way the death was caused the King could not have told you, though once before he had used this gift. Modern science may choose between an explanation by hypnotic suggestion, or a blunt denial of a fact which has been credibly witnessed and reported.
In a few days the strange disappearance of Duncombe would be forgotten. The King felt sure that for a while at any rate no further provocation would come from the white men. The natives would quiet down again, and their King would be free to follow the line of his own ambitions.