The talking-man giggled like a school-girl caught consuming surreptitious chocolates.
"Eatum jus' little-fellow bit," he allowed, with a bad-child chuckle. The other men took up the laugh, and the village resounded with a roar like the bellowing of a herd of bulls.
Vaiti, seeing her advantage, stepped out into the square and began to talk, marching to and fro in Tannese fashion as she spoke. The sun cast dancing spangles on her many-coloured beads as she moved, and threw back darts of fire from her heavy bandolier. One arm emphasised her remarks with sweeping gesture; in the other the tall rifle pounded the earth with its stock, marking the points of her discourse. The fat, stolid mission native watched her with staring eyes and open mouth, and the chiefs gloomed at her under sullen savage brows, evidently impressed, but restive.
The sum of her discourse was that they and their women would do well to come down with her to the schooner, recruit at once, and fly to a land of safety where men-of-war never came, where Tanna people reclined all day under the shade of banyan and banana, picked a little cane for their employers occasionally, lived upon tinned meat and sugared tea, and eventually returned loaded with riches in the shape of rifles, cartridges, cotton, and knives. There was a good deal more of the same highly-coloured stuff. This was old business to the people of the Sybil.
The talking-man, also strutting backwards and forwards, Tanna fashion, in a kind of continual country dance with the glittering vision from the ship, answered now and then. It was very well to talk about recruiting, and perhaps some of them might go if they got lots of tinned salmon and "bisketti" to eat before they went on board, and promise of rifles to be paid the tribe when the bargain was complete. But they did not believe that the new ship was not a little man-of war, and until she was gone they would not go down to the coast—no, not even to bathe, although they had all decided to have a bath soon, for the weather was hot and their skins were like the bark of trees, and it was now about ten moons since they had had their last bath.
At this Vaiti's eyes lit up, for she suddenly saw a plan, a plan which might give her a score of recruits, drive the objectionable yacht out of Sulphur Bay, and pay off every rankling insult inflicted by the Alcyone and her people. But the savages were watching her, so she veiled her eyes with her long lashes, and replied carelessly:
"All that very good. To-morrow, small-fellow man-of-war he go 'way; then you coming longa schooner. To-day, what name [why?] you no go wash big water 'long place one-fellow-fire stop? Very good place that. Suppose you going, I come up from schooner, bring plenty-plenty tucker. Plenty-plenty bulimacow [beef], bisketti, tucker belong white man, cost ten rifle. All the Tannaman he eat; by'n-by he stop lie down, he break, so much he eat."
This tempting picture had its effect, backed up by a few presents of beads and cartridges. The Tannamen agreed that the plain below the burning mountain, where a wide, stagnant lake spread out its dull expanse, would do for a bathing place, short of the impossible shore, and they chuckled with joyous anticipation of the feast. They also agreed, rather doubtfully, to embark as soon as the "man-of-war" was gone; and it seemed evident that a fair number would at least come down and negotiate on board the schooner after which—well, the Sybil's smart heels would do the rest.
CHAPTER XVIII
A CANNIBAL PARTY