“Yes, and even from him I have learned something. But the best man of all of them is Dr Soames Pryce. He is very able and he is different from the others. When I was ill with an island fever he came to see me and he gave me medicines, and very soon I was well again. But when I would have paid him he told me to go to the devil. I think it was because he has sometimes drunk whisky with me, but not so often as I should like, for I think he knows very much, and he is the only one whose word I altogether believe.”
So far Mr Lechworthy had expressed no opinion; he was rather miserly with expression until he had well weighed his subject. But he had already formed his opinions. Firstly, the King was simple and sincere. He spoke plainly and without hypocrisy. He had not shirked the fact that his father was not really converted to Christianity, or that he himself had been a boon companion of these blackguards at the Exiles’ Club. He had never emphasised the point that he wanted nothing for himself and everything for his people; he had treated this attitude as a matter of course, and, had not dwelt upon it. Secondly, the project of Faloo for the people of Faloo, with their independence supported by Great Britain, appealed to him greatly. We had done enough grabbing for unworthy ends. We had become a byword in that respect. It was a great thing to save a race; it was an idea which might arouse an enthusiasm, and that in its turn might become useful in practical politics. The missionary question presented to his mind the only difficulty at present. However, he would hear the whole story.
The next chapter of that story dealt with Smith’s start as a trader. It went back to the time of Sir John Sweetling’s arrival at Faloo; two other white men had followed him there within the year. He narrated his dealings with Sir John and with the syndicate which was subsequently formed. The financial control of the business was practically shifted to a distant island, where there was a bank with a cast-iron method and a Commissioner who could enforce agreements. The King, young and inexperienced, had signed the instructions to the bank and had signed the iniquitous agreements. He had put the noose on his own neck.
But one hold on his partners he retained, or the noose would have been drawn tight long before. They lived at Faloo, and there was probably no other part of the globe where they could have lived with the same safety and comfort. They were in consequence largely dependent on the King of Faloo; he alone could control the natives. Consequently, concessions were made to him on points where he had insisted. The dangerous but remunerative contraband trade had been a case in point; he had refused to allow any native of Faloo to buy liquor; he had even safeguarded the native servants employed at the Exiles’ Club. After one week—in which the King had left the club without any native servants at all—its members learned wisdom.
In the actual conduct of the business he had not had to complain of much interference. He was free to settle all the details of it and to do all the work of it. It was called his business—not their business. But his partners’ veto came in from time to time, and gradually he had realised that he was held back. Trade was not to be extended. The reef was not to be opened up. He was never to be rich enough to buy out his own partners and to be independent of them. Here and there he could tempt one of the investors by an appeal to his cupidity—Bassett had been such a man. But the more important interest, represented by Sir John, had stuck always to the same policy—to keep a control over King Smith, and to prevent Faloo from developing a trade of sufficient importance to attract outside attention. For instance, the amount of copra that might be exported was not regulated by what could be produced and sold, but by a decision of the King’s partners; and they had no wish to bring the great soap-making firms down on Faloo.
And then the idea had come to him that he might be able to split up the white men, create differences among them, and perhaps form a party of his own. It was with this view that he had persuaded some of them to support his candidature for membership of the Exiles’ Club, and had lent money to some of the remittance men and had refused it to others. “And perhaps I might have done something with that, but in the meanwhile, without intending it, the white men have split up my own people. There is now a certain number of natives who are acting without any order from me, and even against my order. They have no hostility towards me, and they act secretly because they are all afraid of me. Their aim is to kill all the white men on the island. They killed one last night—I buried him early this morning. I will tell you how that has come about.” And the King narrated, with more detail than need be given here, the trouble about the native women.
“I have only kept my people in hand up to this point by promising them that a day should come when not one white man would be left on the island if only they would be patient. If they used violence, then my plans would be spoiled—they would be punished—the men-of-war would come—the whole island would fall into the white man’s hands. And, Mr Lechworthy, even if you had not come I should have kept my word, for when a man wants only one thing, and wants it very badly, he must get it in the end. But I no longer have the whole of my people in hand. There must be some—I think they are few—who have not enough patience. I cannot blame them in my heart, although as soon as I find them I shall kill them. I cannot, I say, blame them in my heart, for there are wrongs which drive a man mad, and these are just the wrongs of which the white men have been guilty. That then is the position here—a section of my people is in secret rebellion against me, and it is to the Exiles’ Club that I owe this. And look—I have but to give one brief order, and in an hour the club would be burned to the ground and every white man in it would be murdered. There are times when I have been tempted. But I always knew that it was not so that I should make the Faloo of my dreams—not in that way that I should gain the friendship and the help—the indispensable help—of Great Britain.”
He paused a moment, drank from the long glass before him, and lighted another cigarette.
“There is the story, Mr Lechworthy. I have worked for a good thing, but it is as I said: I have used a bad implement and it has hurt my hand, and perhaps I must burn the wound with a little gunpowder before it will be whole again. You can save us all, if you will. You are a politician and a friend of politicians of high Cabinet rank. You own a newspaper. You can arouse public feeling, and you can direct it. You know how these things are managed. Perhaps to-morrow you will decide. To-night I cannot remain much longer for I have to fetch this man Bassett—if he is still there.”
“If he is still there?”